e of
doing.

"You know what I'm hoping to discover, Frank?" he remarked as he
continued to scan every part that was at all exposed by openings among
the trees.

"Percy's lost biplane, I take it," came the prompt reply.

"Yes, because they couldn't very well have landed without a certain
amount of open space. We know how hard it is to drop into a hole, and
worse still to climb up out of one. Didn't we have the toughest of times
down there in that South American forest finding open spots where we
could land with some chance of ever getting out again, without cutting
trees down that were as big around as a young house?"

"But I don't hear you shouting out that you've made any sort of
discovery, up to now, Andy?"

"Well, no, for a fact I haven't. But Frank, I wish you could take the
glass and let me hold the wheel for a minute."

"You can tell me just as well, I think," replied the other.

"It's about the sandy beach in front of the point," remarked Andy.

"What ails it then?" Frank inquired, seeing his cousin hesitate.

"Why," Andy went on to say, "you know how powerful this glass is, and
how it shows up the smallest of things when the sun is just right? It's
doing that now. I can look down on the sand spit at the point; and for a
lonely spot where hardly a man ever comes from November to June, it
looks pretty well trampled up to me."

"Trampled by men or animals?" the pilot inquired.

"I think by two-legged animals," answered the one who held the powerful
lenses to his young eyes. "And it struck me that perhaps the biplane
came down right there early this morning. It was headed this way when I
saw it, and not so very high up; though that flock of crazy crows
knocked me out of watching it for some times."

"Do you mean it fell there; that they had an accident of some kind,
Andy?"

"Might be that; and then, again, perhaps they dropped down on purpose;
p'raps they mean to have another warm session around Bloomsbury before
skipping out of this section for good. With the aeroplane to make a
quick get-away, they might think of some rich haul they want to gather
in. Am I away off in my guess, Frank, or do you kind of lean the same
way?"

"I think you are getting pretty close to the truth, Andy, and that's a
fact," replied the other. "But it would clinch it if you could only
glimpse the biplane hidden away somewhere down there under the brush or
the trees."

"That's what I've been hoping for," returned Andy, a