f burnt oil.

"All right, Paula?" asked Bell quietly.

"I--I'm all right."

The plane was drifting backward, now. It spun around in a stately
fashion, its tail caught in underbrush, and it swung back. It drifted
past cliffs of darkness for a long time, and grounded, presently, with
a surprising gentleness.

"Do you know," said Bell dryly, "this sort of thing is getting
monotonous. I think our motor's ruined. I never knew before that
misfortunes could grow literally tedious. I've been expecting to be
killed any minute since we started off, but the idea of being stuck in
the jungle with a perfectly good plane and a bad motor...."

He fished inside his flying suit and extracted a cigarette. Then he
lit it.

"Let's see.... We haven't a thing to eat, have we?"

* * * * *

There was a little slapping noise. Bell became suddenly aware of a
horde of insects swarming around him. Smoke served partially to drive
them off.

"Look here," he said suddenly, "we could unfold a parachute and cover
the cockpits for some protection against these infernal things that
are biting me."

"We may need the parachute," said Paula unsteadily. "Does--does that
smoke of yours drive them away?"

"A little." Bell hesitated. "I say, it would be crowded, but if I came
up there, or you here...."

"I--I'll come back there," she said queerly. "The extra cans of
gasoline here...."

She slipped over the partition, in the odd flying suit which looks so
much more odd when a girl wears it. She settled down beside him, and
he tried painstakingly to envelope her in a cloud of tobacco smoke.
The plague of insects lessened.

There was nothing to do but wait for dawn. She was very quiet, but as
the moon rose higher he saw that her eyes were open. The night noises
of the jungle all about them came to their ears. Furtive little
slitherings, and the sound of things drinking greedily at the water's
edge, and once or twice peculiar little despairing small animal cries
off in the darkness.

* * * * *

The jungle was dark and sinister, and all the more so when the moon
rose high and lightened its face and left them looking into weird,
abysmal blackness between moonlit branches. Bell thought busily,
trying not to become too conscious of the small warm body beside him.

He moved, suddenly, and found her fingers closed tightly on the sleeve
of his flying suit.

"Frightened, Paula?" he aske