ood-natured about the affair and seemed so eager to do the utmost to
render Beecher's trick void, that the others fell into a lighter mood,
and went on more cheerfully, though the way was rough and the packs
heavy.

They stopped at noon under a bower they made of palms, and, spreading
the nets over them, got a little rest after a lunch. Then, when the
sun was less hot, they started off again.

"Forward is the word!" cried Ned cheerfully. "Forward!"'

They had not gone more than an hour on the second stage of their tramp
when Tom, who was in the lead, following the direction laid out by the
compass, suddenly stopped, and reached around for his electric rifle,
which he was carrying at his back.

"What is it?" asked Ned in a whisper.

"I don't know, but it's some big animal there in the bushes," was Tom's
low-voiced answer. "I'm ready for it."

The rustling increased, and a form could be seen indistinctly. Tom
aimed the deadly gun and stood ready to pull the trigger.

Ned, who had a side view into the underbrush, gave a sudden cry.

"Don't shoot, Tom!" he yelled. "It's a man!"

CHAPTER XIV

A NEW GUIDE

In spite of Ned Newton's cry, Tom's finger pressed the switch-trigger
of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it
was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way
corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the
muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the air over the
head of a native Indian who, at that moment, stepped from the bush.

The man, startled and alarmed, shrank back and was about to run into
the jungle whence he had emerged. Small wonder if he had, considering
the reception he so unwittingly met with. But Tom, aware of the
necessity for making inquiries of one who knew that part of the jungle,
quickly called to him.

"Hold on!" he shouted. "Wait a minute. I didn't mean that. I thought
at first you were a tapir or a tiger. No harm intended. I say,
Professor," Tom called back to the savant, "you'd better speak to him
in his lingo, I can't manage it. He may be useful in guiding us to
that Indian village Jacinto told us of."

This Professor Bumper did, being able to make himself understood in the
queer part-Spanish dialect used by the native Hondurians, though he
could not, of course, speak it as fluently as had Jacinto.

Professor Bumper had made only a few remarks to the man who had so
unexpectedly appe