cussin’ had took, see! Then they passed them rings around here and there so they’d bob up fer a long time and raise Sam Hill with any white man that got hold of one,” he said impressively.

“Cussed ’em, eh.” The chap straightened, and despite their predicament, the Flying Buddies had difficulty to keep from roaring with laughter at the strange recital. “Aw, I say, these fellows has been wearin’ ’em!”

“Sure, en aint they outta luck?” That was evident to the gangster, who resolutely turned his face from temptation and such glaring misfortune.

“Say, you guys know the way outta here ’cept by plane?” Mills demanded suddenly.

“No we do not,” Jim replied emphatically. He recognized the questioner as one of the men who had been on the ledge the night they were captured with the De Castros.

“Quit wastin’ time on them. Come on in this place en we’ll see where it’s leading,” proposed the pilot. “We aint none of us hankerin’ to hang around here.”

“No we aint,” responded Lang. “You take that whirlgig plane en fly her where she won’t be spotted—”

“I aint flying no plane that can be spotted side every other one between here en Medicine Hat. En what’s more, I aint leavin’ my machine while I go off some place else, see. How’d I get back, you goop—”

“That’ll do—”

“Sure it will, but when I leave, it’s in my own cock-pit, see.”

“Yeh, en when he goes, I’m goin’ long,” spoke up a red-headed fellow stepping beside the pilot, his fist dug menacingly in his pocket.

“Oh, keep your shirts on,” snapped the leader. “I fergot you couldn’t get back. Can you cover the machine up so if any one flies over she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb?”

“Sure,” the pilot agreed readily, then he and his pal strode off to the helicopter. “Get the boys to chop us some vines,” he called.

Paying no further attention to their captives, the men set to work with a will and soon the two planes were so effectively covered with foliage that only a very close observer in the air would have suspected for a moment that they were not clumps of underbrush which had sprung out of the rocky crevices. Cautiously Mills and his red-headed pal examined the work and finally pronounced it finished.

 Prev. P 18/91 next