New channels seemed to open with each swerve of the cruiser’s bow.

Biff’s father had seen Navy service in the South Pacific and was familiar with jungle waterways as well as tropical storms. As a Lieutenant, Junior Grade, he had been trained specially for jungle fighting and had won medals for bravery, finally leaving the service as a Lieutenant Commander.

“It’s better to buck the current,” Mr. Brewster declared, “than to let it carry us into something we can’t avoid.”

Igo and Ubi were releasing curtains from beneath the permanent top, giving the cruiser’s interior the effect of a long, narrow tent, completely sheltered from the terrific downpour, which like many tropical rains, was coming straight downward.

Some of the narrow channels were flooding rapidly, and there, big logs and branches occasionally met the cruiser’s rounded prow, only to glance aside as Mr. Brewster deftly turned the wheel. They reached a wider channel where a headland bulked suddenly in midstream; but it proved to be a small floating island, composed of small palm trees sprouting from a mass of soil and undergrowth that had come loose from an overhanging bank.

Biff could hear the chatter of monkeys and the screech of birds as the passing branches scraped the hanging canvas on the cruiser’s side. Then the tiny islet and its excited living freight had drifted far downstream. Still Mr. Brewster kept steadily to his course, staring upstream through the cruiser’s rainswept windshield.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ended, revealing a new maze of channels that could be found only by looking for gaps among the tree branches, so high had the water risen in this sunken area. Cutting the speed, Mr. Brewster navigated the openings gingerly. That brought a chuckle from Joe Nara.

“Kind of lucky, weren’t you?” he remarked.

“Yes, I was rather lucky,” acknowledged Mr. Brewster. “Like you and Lew Kirby, when you stumbled onto that mine of yours.”

“We were more than lucky,” retorted Nara. “We were smart. Didn’t Lew tell you how we doped it out?”

“He said you ran into a tribe of Indians who were guarding a mountain that they claimed was sacred.”

“That’s right. Wai Wai Indians. Igo and Ubi are members of the tribe.” Nara gestured toward the stolid pair who now were rolling up the 

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