p
for himself and his passenger.

Fortunately neither of them was injured but their condition seemed
indeed a hopeless one. It was a grave question as to whether the
man could repair his plane and continue the journey, and it seemed
equally questionable as to their ability either to proceed on foot
to the coast or retrace their way to the country they had just
left. The man was confident that they could not hope to cross the
desert country to the east in the face of thirst and hunger, while
behind them in the valley of plenty lay almost equal danger in the
form of carnivores and the warlike natives.

After the plane came to its sudden and disastrous stop, Smith-Oldwick
turned quickly to see what the effect of the accident had been on
the girl. He found her pale but smiling, and for several seconds
the two sat looking at each other in silence.

"This is the end?" the girl asked.

The Englishman shook his head. "It is the end of the first leg,
anyway," he replied.

"But you can't hope to make repairs here," she said dubiously.

"No," he said, "not if they amount to anything, but I may be able
to patch it up. I will have to look her over a bit first. Let us
hope there is nothing serious. It's a long, long way to the Tanga
railway."

"We would not get far," said the girl, a slight note of hopelessness
in her tone. "Entirely unarmed as we are, it would be little less
than a miracle if we covered even a small fraction of the distance."

"But we are not unarmed," replied the man. "I have an extra pistol
here, that the beggars didn't discover," and, removing the cover
of a compartment, he drew forth an automatic.

Bertha Kircher leaned back in her seat and laughed aloud, a mirthless,
half-hysterical laugh. "That popgun!" she exclaimed. "What earthly
good would it do other than to infuriate any beast of prey you
might happen to hit with it?"

Smith-Oldwick looked rather crestfallen. "But it is a weapon," he
said. "You will have to admit that, and certainly I could kill a
man with it."

"You could if you happened to hit him," said the girl, "or the
thing didn't jam. Really, I haven't much faith in an automatic. I
have used them myself."

"Oh, of course," he said ironically, "an express rifle would be
better, for who knows but we might meet an elephant here in the
desert."

The girl saw that he was hurt, and she was sorry, for she realized
that there was nothing he would not do in her service or protection,
an