Airplane Boys in the Black Woods

A Reception Committee

"Holy Clover, that fellow would make his fortune in a dairy, all right," exclaimed Bob Caldwell glancing over the side of the plane the Flying Buddies had borrowed while the "Lark," their own splendid machine was undergoing much needed repairs at the shop of the British hangar in Belize.

"His fortune, how do you make that out?" Jim Austin demanded. "I'll bite, let's have the answer."

"He'd do the biting-that one tooth ought to be great to make holes in Swiss cheese!"

"If I didn't need both hands you would get a wallop that would leave you only one tooth, then you could start competition," Austin answered. "Well," he added as the plane came to a stop, "this sure looks as if you will find enough different kinds of vegetation, old Horticulturer, may your tribe increase."

"Sure does," replied Bob with an eager light in his eyes as they went from one great tree or vine to another. "Wonder who dropped that one-toother down in this place." The one-toother was a tall, emaciated, dark-skinned individual whose age, judging by the wrinkles on his body and face, was in the neighborhood of two hundred. His lips were thick, eyes sunken so deep in his head that they looked like burnt holes in a blanket, his huge mouth was wide open and from the upper jaw was the lone tooth. His only garment was an irregular bit of tiger skin suspended from a narrow woven grass belt which looked as if it might once have been decorated with a long fringe but only a few of the strands of its ancient grandeur remained. It was impossible to tell, either by his features or color if the man was a native Indian or one of white blood who had been tanned and re-tanned through the long years spent in the tropical climate. He stood perfectly still facing the plane but the boys were not sure if he was staring at them or not.

"Suppose he's alive?" Jim whispered.

"He looks as if he'd been there as long as the trees," said Bob, then he raised his voice. "You're looking hearty," he called. At that the queer creature of the forest gave a slight shudder which went from the top of his bald head to the soles of his bare feet, one bony arm was raised a few inches from the side of his body, and almost instantly he disappeared. "Exit, the gentlemen from where!"

"Where in the name of Mark Antony did he go?" exclaimed Austin in amazement.

"Reckon we came, he saw, and fled," supplemented Bob. "Let's have a look about. Perhaps we'll have the pleasure of seeing him again, but we don't want to get too far from the plane, Old Timer, and we'd better watch our step. We are two little lads far, far from the home corrals and my guess is that that lad wasn't impressed with our looks."

"Too bad," lamented Bob.

"Yes, reckon you wanted to study that vegetable," Jim grinned.

"He didn't look like any variety of life I've ever run across."

The Sky Buddies climbed out of the cock-pit carefully surveying their surroundings and listening intently for a sound of the vanished ancient, but if he had never been near the spot it could not have been more quiet; not even the buzz of an insect disturbed the silence. From the air the boys had soared above a dense forest and it was only by chance that Caldwell had noticed the small clear space and suggested that they land and see what it was like. The clearing was less than an acre of hard soil with a ridge of sharp rocks which protruded like saw-teeth diagonally across. It looked as if sharp-edged slabs of stone had been dropped when the soil was less packed; or it might, hundreds of years before, been the top-most edge of a wall so arranged as an added protection against animals or tribes that might attempt to scale it. As the ages had passed accumulated vegetation, falling or shifting rocks, and sands blown from distant miles have filled in the space leaving only this trace of what it once was.

Beyond the clear spot, which was highest in the middle, sloping somewhat like a dome, was the forest. Great trees whose ancient trunks were hundred of years old, grew straight and high. The majority of them, as far as the Buddies could see, had almost no low branches, but their massive limbs started more than half way up the boles, and each one overlapped with his neighbor so thick that the intense sun could not penetrate the foliage. Beneath were smaller growths, many with long tangled roots twisted in grotesque shapes as they clung like giant arms to the rocks and disappeared in the soil. Huge vines with stems as large as a good-sized sapling, clung tenaciously as they climbed upward, and many of them were in bloom which gave the place the look of a particularly beautiful bower.

A few feet from where the boys were standing was a basin, into which a spring of clear water trickled from the crevice of a rock. That too had the appearance of great age for the opening through which the water had found its way, was worn in a smooth, deep groove. The basin itself was about three feet across in the widest place, and nearly as deep where the spring fell into it. From the lower edge it ran off in a tiny stream, winding about until it disappeared into the forest.

"If we hadn't seen that oldest inhabitant I'd believe that ours are the first human feet to hit this place. Say, it's kind of spooky, isn't it!" Bob exclaimed softly.

"It does look as if it has been waiting for a million years," Jim admitted. His eyes were searching the dome-like surface of the place upon which they were standing.

"Wonder where the old boy took himself. He might be Enoch. Looks old enough. Perhaps he just dropped down from heaven to have a look at the world; maybe wanted to see if it's changed much."

"Go on, he'd wear wings instead of a piece of tiger skin," Jim answered. "What do you expect to learn around here, Buddy? You never can get into the forest, not far, anyway, and you ought to be able to see the same sort of growths where it's less isolated."

"Surely, expect I could, but me hearty, the Elephant's Child has nothing on me for curiosity, and now I'm here-"

"All right, Old Timer, I'm with you to any reasonable extent, but you remember how said Child got his nose pulled. Careful where you put yours," Jim remarked.

"I'll keep him in mind," Bob chuckled.

"Have a look at this," Jim's hand waved to designate the clearing. "Suppose it could be the top of some temple that's been buried by earthquakes?"

"Might," Bob agreed thoughtfully and examined the place more closely, but they kept close to the machine. "Reckon we'd better watch closely; that chap may come back with some more angels."

"He might. Lucky we took Bradshaw's helicopter instead of one of the other machines."

"Yes, even at that I'd rather have the 'Lark'."

"Why not wait until she is fixed up then come back in her?" Jim suggested. There was something awe-inspiring about the whole scene and he felt that they would be safer with their own plane, which had numerous extra instruments, greater speed, and was infinitely more easy to pilot than the Canadian Mounty's machine.

"Aw Buddy, we want to get home sometime! I say, we started out, expecting to be gone not more than a couple of weeks and look how long we've been hanging around down here. I'd give a tooth right now to fork a real bronc and have a grand gallop across the ranches."

"Same here," Jim nodded with a little sigh.

"But since we are here I'd like to see more of what grows in this climate. We have to wait for the 'Lark,' the message tube is safe in the hands of Don Haurea instead of in your pocket-"

"Or Arthur Gordon's," supplemented Jim.

"Wow. I say, I bet a jack-straw against the White House that he was congratulating himself that we didn't take it back from him when he was laid out so nicely-"

"I'd give a pair of colts to have seen his face when he opened the empty one. Silver pants, but that was a streak of luck-"

"I'll say it was. That was a mistake as was a mistake," Bob chuckled. "Gee, when I saw you let him take it away from you without so much as a yelp I might have known it was flukey. We couldn't put up a fight, all tied around like a pair of hot dogs, but you didn't even squirm. And you never knew that you'd sent it by the mail pilot from La Paz-"

"Didn't discover it until just before Gordon's gang flew over the 'Lark' and dropped the big boy on our wings. Some stunt that was, you have to hand it to him-"

"Yep. I'm going to get the lariats then have a look around; also a drink of water. That spring looks good enough to be the fountain of life. Bet the old lad who was here must have filled up on it to renew his youth."

"You nut. Going around by the woods?"

"Right the first time. I won't go out of sight though. Maybe you'd better stay here. My massive brain informs me that if some fellow should come along and round up that plane we'd be in a fix."

"And how. There are miles of those woods."

"Then some." Being cowboys of no mean standing, the Flying Buddies just naturally unhooked their ropes from their saddle horns when they changed from a horse to a plane, and on more than one occasion that habit of their lives had helped them through several mighty serious and tight spots. Now Caldwell got the two lariats, which had been transferred as a matter of course from the "Lark" to the good-natured Canadian's helicopter when they started on this observation trip. Bob hoped he might discover, among the wild tropical growths, some fruits, roots or herbs which could be raised advantageously on his mother's own ranch, the Cross-Bar in Texas. He was intensely interested in flying, thoroughly appreciated the joys and practicality of air travel for either long or short distances, but his love for the land and what might be done with the great acreage he would some day own, was uppermost in his thoughts. The horticultural and chemical department of Don Haurea's immense laboratory was the one from which he derived the greatest satisfaction; while electricity and mechanical sciences fascinated Austin.

"Taking them both?" Jim asked.

"No, thought you might like to have yours handy."

"Thanks, Old Timer. Maybe you'll see how Enoch got away."

"He had no wings so must have dug-in or crawled." Bob strode off briskly toward the edge of the forest, leaving Jim, the rope hanging loosely in his hand, to see that nothing happened to the plane. Austin watched the younger boy stop at the lovely spring, scoop some of the clear water up in his hand, and take a good drink. "Great stuff," he called. "Feel as if I'd knocked off ten years."

"Go on," Jim grinned. "Don't drink any more. I do not know how to take care of infants."

At that, Bob shied a stone that struck the ground within an inch of his step-brother's foot, then proceeded. He reached the rim of the thick woods, where Jim saw him pause, then start slowly around, scrutinizing everything that grew. Keeping one eye on the lad, whose white suit made him easy to follow, Austin glanced around at the ground and began to wonder what it had been and what it was. Since his acquaintance with Don Haurea he had seen and been inside many marvelous underground caves, temples, ancient hiding-houses, homes of the once famous race of the Yncas, as well as their vast laboratories. He knew that the lost empire had extended no further north than Quito, hundreds of miles south of them, but he knew also that at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, this northern portion of South America had been inhabited by intelligent Indians whose origin none could trace. They too had built amazing temples, and it occurred to the boy that five hundred years ago, when the remnant of the conquered tribe had gotten together, some of them may have been mobilized from localities far from their original homes. It was not straining credulity to reason that some of the temples of the northern tribes might have been utilized to advantage, and certainly this dome-like clearing of rock, with its gurgling spring, might be over one of them, and the water might be forced through the stones so that the moisture would assure the underground community, if there was one, of dense growths which would be an added protection against invasion of their domains.

Jim remembered that the first time they had landed on the high plateau, known to Peruvians as Amy Ran Rocks, they had found an ancient Indian woman apparently in possession of the place. At that time she had recognized the green emerald rings given the Flying Buddies by Yncicea Haurea and had told them to 'go in peace' but today, the ancient who had stood like a man struck dumb in amazement, had made no such identification. Thinking it all over carefully, Jim decided that the Amy Ran guardian was probably apprised of the boys' coming, while this man, if he watched an ancient fastness, had heard nothing of the Flying Buddies.

"Then, again," Jim grinned. "This may all be perfectly natural land, formed so through the ages, and the Indian a lad who lives in the forest as far from the whites as he can get. Our dropping down on him was a surprise, and the minute he got his wind, he beat it. Just the same, his exit was mighty sudden. He was standing near the water, then he just wasn't. I didn't see him run an inch or drop, but he surely did fade out pronto."

That fact stuck in the boy's mind, and now Bob was some distance from his starting point, so Austin moved to the front of the helicopter lest he lose sight of the youngster. There was an uncanniness about the place, and Jim wished that his step-brother would hurry with his investigations, but he appreciated the fact that Bob was thoroughly interested in what he was doing, and that it would be unfair to urge his step-brother to shorten his investigations. They could not possibly linger in the country many days and this opportunity seemed like an especially good one which should be made the most of, while it was possible.

Suddenly, from the east, Austin noticed a thick white cloud moving swiftly toward the coast, and forgetting Caldwell for the moment, he studied it in puzzled wonder. It certainly was not vapor of any kind, it was too substantial looking, and another thing he observed was that it did not move with the wind, which was from the south, although the breeze did affect its direction somewhat. As it drew closer, he noticed that it was considerably deeper than when he first picked it out against the sky, also from its midst tiny particles, almost like snow, seemed to hesitate and fall.

"What in heck?" Jim had his field glasses slung in a case from his shoulder, and now he hastily took them out and in a moment was examining the strange phenomena. "Well, what do you know about that!" he ejaculated.

Magnified by the glasses, the boy saw countless small, white butterflies, fluttering and poising in the sunlight. There were myriads of the tiny insects flying toward him, and as they came, hundreds of their number dropped out and tumbled toward the ground as if too exhausted to continue their journey. As the boy watched in astonishment he had no idea of what it was, then suddenly he remembered reading that every year the butterflies, their life work completed, start in a tremendous migration, drifting southeasterly along the sea coast until they finally reach the sea, where they drop exhausted into the water and die by the millions. He knew that science is unable to explain the strange instinct which prompts them to choose death sometimes thousands of miles from their breeding ground, and only a few weeks before he had read an article by someone who had seen this great funeral cortege when it hovered near a steamer. As the boy recalled, this migration usually took place in the autumn, but he decided that probably in different localities the time of year differed.

"Gee, they must be mighty tired," he exclaimed pityingly, "and I'll bet they are leaving a thick white track beneath them." They were getting so close now that he no longer needed the glass to see what they did. The outer edges of the "cloud" were thin, as if leaders or scouting parties were racing in advance, but from the main body so many were falling that they must have appeared like a strange sort of storm. Several minutes more he watched, then he remembered his step-brother, and glanced in the direction where he had seen Bob a bit earlier, but no white-suited boy stood out against the dark background of the dense foliage he had been examining, and Jim's heart jumped into his mouth.

"I say-" He moved in the direction Caldwell had been going, then he stopped with a gasp, the shout died on his lips and for the moment Jim was too paralyzed to make a move.

About half way between the plane and the rim of the woods he saw three tall natives, their bodies naked except for the tiger-skin and the grass belt such as the ancient had worn; their heads adorned with a high dress of peacock feathers whose many colors shone brilliantly in the sunshine, in one hand each held a long spear with a glistening point, while the other held a number of small, deadly-looking darts. One of the men had an arm raised, his body was bent slightly toward the woods, and from his extended hand shot the javeral, cutting sharply like a hissing knife through the air, and to Jim's horror, it was flying faster than the eye could travel, toward young Caldwell's unsuspecting back.