w why we had played you
dirty at Freetown and Kuka. They accused us of purposely carrying off
your share of fuel at Freetown, and of stirring up the natives at Kuka
so you couldn't make a safe landing."

"We simply couldn't stand keeping quiet any longer, John," put in Paul
very heatedly. "We thought it a good time to have it out with these
fellows for their crookedness."

"That's right; they're a bunch of snakes!" supported Bob, his cheeks
red with excitement and anger, and his fists doubled menacingly.

John turned to the slouching figures of the rival crew. "Do you
fellows deny these charges?" he asked quietly.

Crossman, Torrey, and Lane looked at their leader, merely shrugging
their shoulders. Pete Deveaux took a quick glance in their direction,
in turn. Then his face clouded a little darker, and he blurted out to
his men: "You confounded babies, why don't you deny it? You know we
didn't do anything on purpose to hold these guys back!"

"That's right; we sure didn't," said Sam Lane.

"Of course not," added Chuck Crossman.

"Wouldn't think of it," interjected Oliver Torrey.

Our boys were disgusted by the cringing attitude of Pete Deveaux's
cronies. Two of them were larger than the Frenchman, yet they seemed
to be afraid of him. John saw that nothing was to be gained at this
time by continuing the argument, so he pulled his comrades away with
this parting and significant warning to their rivals: "Well, Deveaux,
we'll let this drop now; but we certainly hope that you will take pains
to see that nothing more of so strongly a suspicious character occurs
on this trip!"

Pete Deveaux snarled back some answer which they could not make out.

Our friends returned to the Sky-Bird. In a few minutes Bob, who had
climbed on top of the fuselage to test the helium valves, came down and
said: "Something new is going on over in our neighbor's yard, fellows.
When I was up there I could see right over the natives' heads, and I
noticed Chuck Crossman and Pete Deveaux hunting around the field till
they found half-a-dozen rocks as big as a football, and they put these
in the cabin of the _Clarion_. Wonder what on earth they intend to do
with those?"

"It's too hard a nut for me to crack," answered John.

The others expressed equal inability to discern the purpose of their
rivals, and the incident was soon forgotten.

But twenty minutes later the familiar roar of a revolving airplane
propeller greeted their ears