With a courteous gesture the little man invited Mary and Sparky to resume their positions on the log. Then he sat down at Sparky’s side.

“I,” he said, “am Doctor Salazar. I have studied in your country. Being not unskilled in the medical profession and also possessed of an interest in native life, I was sent to this place that I might make friends of the natives. This, you will see, I’ve done.”

“You are wonderful,” Mary exclaimed. “And you are a doctor.”

“Yes, that is my profession.”

“One member of our party has been injured, how seriously we can’t tell,” Sparky explained.

“I am at your service. Shall we have a look at this man?”

They rose and walked over to Don’s side. He had been sleeping but now stared at them with questioning eyes.

“We have brought you a doctor,” said Mary.

“And not a medicine man either,” Sparky laughed.

With practised fingers the little man went over Don from head to toe. “No bones broken,” was his diagnosis. “Probably three ribs cracked. When his chest is taped up, he can be moved.”

“Good! We’ll take him to Para in the morning.”

“In that large plane, I suppose,” said the doctor.

“Yes.”

“And the other plane?” asked the doctor.

“If your men will help us, we can load the motors in our good plane,” said Sparky.

“It shall be done. You are Americans. I am an American. We all are Americans.”

“You’re right. We all are!” Mary exclaimed.

“The motors shall go,” said the doctor. “But that which remains?”

Sparky shrugged. “In a war there will always be losses.”

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