“Unless we’re attacked,” Janet supplemented with a shudder.

“Why bring that up?” Mary laughed. “Dinner is about ready to serve. Let’s make it a date.”

“A date it is,” Sparky agreed.

Their grub box contained a little more than iron rations. Sweet potatoes and sausages each served from a can, big, round white crackers, a square of butter and, aromatic coffee with real sugar and canned cream, made up the bulk of their satisfying meal. Dessert was little wild bananas, and huge, over-ripe grapefruit that were sweet as oranges. These came from the edge of the jungle.

“Um,” Janet breathed. “That was really a feast.”

“Yes, and listen!” Mary exclaimed low, “What was that? Really something different!”

A low rolling sound had come drifting in out of the night.

“A native drum!” was Sparky’s instant answer.

As they listened from farther away came the answer.

“Talking drums,” Mary whispered. “I never expected to hear them.”

She was hearing them all the same and, coming as they did out of the night with the low murmur of the dark, rushing river as their accompaniment, they sounded weird indeed. Now came a roar close at hand, tom-tom-tom sharp and clear, and now from far away with the booms blended into one long roar.

“Night in the jungle,” Mary whispered.

“Crawl into your ship and forget it,” Sparky suggested. “We’ll be here in the morning.”

“Oh! I never could do that,” Janet exclaimed.

“All right,” said Sparky. “Then you girls keep the first watch and I’ll sleep. But first we’ll fix Don up as comfortable as we can.”

It was Don whose eyes first closed in slumber. With soft pneumatic cushions under him and a mosquito canopy to protect him and a soothing capsule to allay his pain, he was asleep before the others could arrange for the watches of the night.

Just as Sparky crept away to the Lone Star for 

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