, that's sure! I'll promise, if you like, that,
if I do ever find out the whole truth about this plot, and if it's
something which, as an American, I oughtn't to let go by, I won't make
any move in it until I know you've been warned in plenty of time. If it
isn't, I'll say nothing. There's no reason why I should get Leborge or
you in trouble. It's Manuel I'm after."

"If you'll promise that," said Cecil, "I fancy I can afford to let you
go. I don't want you with me, anyway, for that Cuban dog would be sure
that you had betrayed him to me, and he would suppose that I was going
to betray him in turn. I'll land you in Cuba, and if you take my advice,
you'll keep away from Haiti. It isn't healthy--for you."

Having thus settled Stuart's fate to his own satisfaction, Cecil
climbed a little distance up the tree, caught the ropes of the
parachute, and with much hauling, assisted by Stuart, he pulled the
wreckage down and thrust it under a bush.

"The weather and the ants will make short work of that," he commented.
"There won't be much of it left but the ribs in a week. And now, lad,
we'll strike for the coast."

Though there seemed to Stuart no way of telling where they were, Cecil
took a definite course through the jungle. They scrambled over and
through the twisted tangle of undergrowth, creepers and lianas, and, in
less than an hour, reached a small foot-path, bearing north-westward.

"I don't know this path," the Englishman remarked frankly, "but it's
going in the direction I want, any way." A little later, he commented,
"I fancy this leads to a village," and struck out into the jungle for a
detour. On the further side of the village, he remarked, "I know where I
am, now," and, thereafter, made no further comment upon the route. He
talked very interestingly, however, about the insects, flowers and trees
by the way, and, when dark came on, taught Stuart more about the stars
than he had learned in all his years of schooling.

They walked steadily without a halt for food, even, from the late
afternoon when the parachute had hit the trees, until about an hour
after sunrise the next morning, when the faint trail that they had
lately been following, suddenly came to an end on the bank of a narrow
river, hardly more than a creek.

Putting a tiny flat instrument between his teeth, Cecil blew a shriek so
shrill that it hurt Stuart's ears. It was repeated from a distance,
almost immediately. Five minutes later the boy heard