believed the camp to be situated, when four lusty men who appeared to be
Filipinos crept noiselessly out of the jungle and sat down on their
backs with chuckles of satisfaction.

"Quit it!" roared Jimmie, thinking they had been followed from the boat.

Then he saw it was no joke, for Jack was floundering about, and one of
the little brown men was tying his hands with a hard cord. He flopped
over on his back and looked up into the sinister face of a native.

"What's comin' off here?" demanded the boy, trying hard to get a glimpse
of Jack from where he lay.

"We're pinched!" Jack called out.

Then the two were dragged hastily to their feet and pushed through the
jungle toward the camp. Jimmie thought this a place for optimism, and
decided to try it on the low-browed chap who was rather rudely forcing
him along. "I was just thinking of going down to see your camp," he said
with a grin, "but I didn't know the way exactly. I'm glad you happened
along. I've got the left hind foot of a rabbit that was caught by a
black cat at midnight, in the dark of the moon, in a negro cemetery, on
the grave of a black man who was hanged for murder. Guess that's brought
me luck."

"You'll need four rabbits' feet if you get out of this," Jack grumbled.
"Suppose we take a quick hike for the boat, right now?" he added,
believing the Filipinos would not be able to understand English.

In this he was mistaken, for one of the men said:

"Don't you ever try it. Your left hind foot won't protect you if you
do."

The boys gazed about the group, now halted, trying to pick out the
speaker.

"But this is a magic rabbit-foot," Jimmie retorted, scornfully as if any
sane person ought to know of the virtues of a left hind rabbit-foot. "It
used to be owned by an armless man who rowed over the Great American
Desert in an open boat!"

This, of course, was all for the purpose of inducing the one who had
spoken in English to speak again, in order that he might be sorted out
of the others. Jimmie's imaginative powers proved equal to the occasion.

A man who, regarded closely, did not look at all like a Filipino--a
slender, though broad-shouldered, man with sharp gray eyes and the
awkward manner of one unused to disguise--laughed lightly at the boy's
odd conceit and said:

"That will be about enough of that Bowery lingo. What are you boys doing
here?" he added.

"We came over to see about puttin' up a couple of skyscrapers!" replied
Jimmie. "The