asked the tall rascal.

"Don't 'dear chap' me!" retorted Tom. "I don't want to talk to you. I'm
going to drop you at the native village."

"But that will burn!" cried the Englishman.

"The wind is changing," was our hero's answer. "The fire won't get to
the village. You'll be safe. Have you damaged my camera?" he asked as
he began to examine it, while Ned managed the ship.

"No, my dear chap. You mustn't think too hard of us. We were both down
on our luck, and a chap offered us a big sum to get on your trail, and
secure the camera. He said you had filched it from him, and that he had
a right to it. Understand, we wouldn't have taken it had we known--"

"Don't talk to me!" interrupted Tom, as he saw that his apparatus had
not been damaged. "The man who hired you was a rascal--that's all I'll
say. Put on a little more speed, Ned. I want to get rid of these 'dear
chaps' and take some pictures of the jungle fire."

As Tom had said, the wind had changed, and was blowing the flames away
off to one side, so that the native village would be in no danger. It
was soon reached, and the Africans were surprised to see Tom's airship
back again. But he did not stay long, descending only to let the
Englishmen alight. They pleaded to be taken to the coast, making all
sorts of promises, and stating that, had they known that Turbot and
Eckert (for whom they admitted they had acted) were not telling the
truth, they never would have taken Tom's camera.

"Don't leave us here!" they pleaded.

"I wouldn't have you on board my airship another minute for a fortune!"
declared Tom, as he signalled to Ned to start the motor. Then the Flyer
ascended on high, leaving the plotters and started back for the fire,
of which Tom got a series of fine moving pictures.

A week later our friends were in Paris, having made a quick trip, on
which little of incident occurred, though Tom managed to get quite a
number of good views on the way.

He found a message awaiting him, from Mr. Period.

"Well, where to now?" asked Ned, as his chum read the cablegram.

"Great Scott!" cried our hero. "Talk about hair-raising jobs, this
certainly is the limit!"

"Why, what's the matter?"

"I've got to get some moving pictures of a volcano in action," was the
answer. "Say, if I'd known what sort of things 'Spotty' wanted, I'd
never have consented to take this trip. A volcano in action, and maybe
an earthquake on the side! This is certainly going some!"