unkind,
not to mention illegal."

"One more possibility," Chahda offered. "Catch him, tie him up, have
Scotty talk him into stupor."

Rick chuckled. "You may have an idea there, Chahda. Seriously, Nangolat
is guilty of kidnaping. That makes him a criminal. Surely it isn't wrong
to catch an escaped criminal and turn him over to justice."

"Not wrong," Tony said, "but maybe just a little bit impractical."

Rick pressed the point. "Why? If we thought faster, we could have picked
him up tonight. You knocked him colder than a penguin's pocketbook. We
could have tossed him into the back of the jeep like a sack of bones."

"Yes, Rick. But chances like that don't come twice. Catching him now
would mean making a definite attempt. It would mean an expedition. I
doubt that he'd stay around to be caught."

"Guess you're right," Rick admitted. "Then, to get back to Scotty's
question, what do we do now? Apparently Nangolat has his people up in
arms against us. There's no law enforcement worthy of the name up here,
so we can't call for help. So what next?"

Tony poured himself another mug of coffee from the steaming pot. "We
continue after the cache of artifacts."

The boys stared. Chahda shook hands with the scientist. "Now I see why
Rick and Scotty call you Tony. Number One regular guy. Why let little
thing like whole nation of head-hunters scare you off?"

"Archaeology is certainly a peaceful profession," Rick said admiringly.
"Scotty and I don't scare easily, but it didn't occur to me that we
should proceed as though nothing had happened."

"You're getting the wrong impression," Tony said mildly. "Let's consider
the situation. There's Nangolat, the principal troublemaker. What is his
reason for behaving as he does?"

"Well," Scotty began, "he certainly was the one who tried to kill you on
the boat."

"I think he was. He would have known all about the expedition from
Okola. He would have known what ship we were on, and a phone call to the
agent of the line would have told him our arrival time, from which he
could easily have figured what time we would enter Manila Bay. He would
also have known that I was the archaeologist for the expedition. After
all, I signed the correspondence we had with Okola, and he was Okola's
assistant."

"But why would he want to kill you?" Rick asked.

"For religious reasons. Nangolat is a religious fanatic. I saw that
quite clearly during the time I was his captive. He does not want the