“Listen!”

“Singing,” Sparky whispered back after a tense moment. “Natives on the river.”

“The moon has gone behind the hills. They’re coming back. The natives are coming.”

“Yes, and let them come,” Sparky rattled his sub-machine gun. “If they’re peaceful, things will be all right. If not—” He rattled the gun once more. “This is war. The Lone Star and her secret cargo must go through!”

After that for some time they sat there in silence listening to the wild native chant that, with every movement, grew louder.

Then, suddenly, the dark waters of the river came all alight. The long canoes had turned a bend of the river. In each canoe were a dozen torches held aloft. Mary counted nine canoes in all. To her heightened imagination each canoe seemed a hundred feet in length.

“Do they come like that when they want to fight?” she asked gripping Sparky’s arm hard.

“Who knows?” was the brief reply.

CHAPTER III BATTLING A SPY

CHAPTER III

BATTLING A SPY

For a time Sparky and Mary sat in the dark silently watching the torch-lit procession of great canoes. To Mary it was a fascinating and fearsome spectacle.

Suddenly Sparky let out a low exclamation. “Thunderation!”

At that he jumped from the log on which he had been sitting to kick at their half-burned-out campfire until the coals glowed red again. Then, gathering up an armful of dry-as-tinder leaves, he threw them on the coals.

For a space of seconds a column of dense smoke rose straight toward the stars. Then, as the whole mass burst into flames, all about them, the native huts, the airplanes, and the jungle at their backs stood out in bold relief.

“Sparky!” Mary exclaimed, shrinking back. “Why did you do that?”

“I’ll meet any man half way,” was the reply. “That is, anyone but Hitler’s mob and those dirty, little Japs.”

“But those men are savages!”

“Who knows? What’s a savage anyway,” Sparky’s voice sounded strange. “Every 

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