the other boy’s face smiling grimly from between those upstretched arms. Kamuka’s voice came calmly. “Hold tight, Biff. I will pull up slowly.”

Now Biff was glad that the bough was a stout one, for he could feel it give under Kamuka’s added weight. Biff tried to work himself higher by bending his arms and turning them along the branch, so that he could use his hands to grip his opposite wrists.

That helped at first, but Kamuka’s weight kept increasing as he emerged gradually from the ooze, and the strain made Biff’s shoulders feel as if they would pull from their sockets. But by then, Kamuka had worked clear of the quicksand’s suction. He caught Biff’s belt with one hand; then the other. Next, he was clamping Biff’s shoulder and finally the tree branch.

The strain lessened then, with both boys dangling from the bough. Practically side by side, they made a hand-over-hand trip toward the tree trunk and dropped to solid ground. There they sat a moment, panting and rubbing their shoulders as they looked at each other, a bit bewildered by their short but strenuous adventure.

From the distance came that clear metallic note that they had heard before. Kamuka looked at Biff.

“We still go find it—maybe?”

“All right, Kamuka. Let’s go find it.”

They skirted the quicksand and took the path that Kamuka had missed in his hurry. It divided into lesser paths, but they continued to pick a course in the general direction of the clanging sound.

“Somebody use that for a signal,” declared Kamuka. “When we find it, you will see that I am right—”

“You are right,” Biff whispered. “Look there!”

A figure had cut into the path well ahead of them and was continuing on. Softly, Kamuka whispered the name: “Luiz!”

The boys were fortunate. Luiz hadn’t spotted them. Evidently, the guide had left the camp by another path and had followed a roundabout course to reach his present goal. Luiz, judging by the eager expression on his scheming face, was also following the call of the false bellbird. Cautiously, the boys took up Luiz’s trail until he reached a clearing. There, they sidled into a patch of jungle and spread the foliage just enough to view the open space in front of them.

A big man was 

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