make him suffer!"

"He will be punished sooner or later," said Professor Oakwood. "No
villain escapes in the long run. Sometimes the penalty is delayed, but
somehow, sometime, the evil-doers pay for their wickedness."

"Is that why you never get excited, Dad?"

"Yes, Dick, I am philosophic about life. Believing as I do, I can take
things as they come."

"You and the Mahatma would have a lot to talk about," said Dan eagerly.
"Say, that wise old bird has everything all figured out. He's
wonderful!"

Ray laughed.

"Dan is funny," she said. "First he disbelieves everything, but once
he is convinced, he swallows all he is told."

"Oh, come now, Ray," exclaimed her brother. "You should be the first
to admit that Old Santa Claus--I mean the Mahatma--is the real thing.
Why, without him we would have been killed by the savages and you would
not have been rescued."

Dan went on to explain the Hindu's power to send his thoughts through
space and to control animals by his mysterious gift.

"Seeing is believing!" laughed Ray. "When I actually _see_ all that,
I'll believe it."

But Professor Oakwood was inclined to take the Mahatma seriously. "I
am anxious to talk to this wise man from the East," he said. "There is
nothing I should like better than to learn more about his occult power."

"You will have the chance today," said Dick. "He is waiting for us at
the camp."

"That's where you're wrong," said Dan. "Some mysterious power tells me
that he is on his way here."

He gravely closed his eyes, placed one hand on his forehead and raising
the other one spread his fingers rapidly and closed them again.
"Hocus-pocus! Abracadabra! Now-you-see-it. Now-you-don't! Here
comes the Mahatma now!"

Ray saw a suspicious twitch at the corner of her brother's mouth and
cried, "Dan Carter, you're spoofing us!"

Dick looked hastily in the direction of the jungle trail by which they
had come and saw figures moving through the trees.

"Say, you foxy rascal!" he exclaimed. "It's easy to guess what
'mysterious power' told you that the Mahatma is on the way. It was
just good eyesight!"

Sure enough, the litter bearers were now at the edge of the clearing
and the Hindu could be seen plainly moving toward them.

"I told you so!" cried Ray. "All this crystal gazing and the other
miracles can be explained just as easily. I bet the Mahatma has been
laughing at you all the time."

Both Dick and Dan paid no attention