of gasoline was strong, but cleared
away. And Bell, with the frosty grim smile of a man who gambles with
his life, struck a light. The cloth flared wildly, and he reached his
hands into the flame and heaved the tin of fuel overside.

The cloth was burning fiercely, and spilled gasoline caught in
mid-air. A fierce and savage flame dropped earthward. Spark on the
cloth, and the cloud of inflammable vapor that formed where the
leaking tin fell plummetlike, carried the flame down when the wind of
its fall would have blown it out.

The following planes saw a flash of light. They saw a swiftly
descending conflagration tracing a steep arch toward the tree tops.
They saw that flaming vanish among the trees. And then they saw a vast
upflaring of fire below. Flames licked upward almost to the tree
tops....

Bell looked back from two thousand feet. Wing-tip lights were on,
below, and disks of illumination played upon the roof of the jungle
above the fire. The three planes were hovering over the spot. But a
thick dense column of smoke was rising, now. Green things shriveling
in the heat, and dried and rotted underbrush. Altogether, the volume
of smoke and flame was very convincing evidence that an airplane had
burst into flame in mid-air and crashed through the jungle top to burn
to ashes beneath.

* * * * *

But Bell climbed steadily to five thousand feet. He cut out the motor,
there, and in the shrieking and whistling of wind as the plane went
into a shallow glide, he spoke sharply.

"Paula?"

"I am all right," she assured him unsteadily. "What now?"

"There's a seat pack under you," said Bell. "It's a parachute. You'd
better put it on. God only knows where we'll land, but if the motor
stops we'll jump together. And I think we'll have to jump before dawn.
This plane won't fly indefinitely. There's just one chance in a
million that I know of. There'll be a moon before long. When it comes
up, look for the glitter of moonlight on water. With the wing-tip
lights we may--we may--manage to get down. But I doubt it."

He moved his hand to cut in the motor again. She stopped him.

"If we head south," she said unsteadily, "we may reach the Paraguay.
It is perhaps two hundred miles, but it is broad. We should see it.
Perhaps even the stars...."

"Good work!" said Bell approvingly. "_Nils desperandum!_ That's our
motto, Paula."

He swung off his course and headed south. He was flying high, now,