“You must listen and you will!” she cried with determination. “Oh, Panama, can’t you see it all now? The whole thing was my fault! I shouldn’t have let you care when I knew that I could never love you, but you seemed so fine—so good that I dreaded to hurt you. Upon my honor, I swear that Lefty, never in his life, has made love to me—I made love to him!” Panama’s eyes grew wide and questioning and his face turned a chalk white at this revelation. “Elinor—you’re—you’re telling me the truth?” “I’ve never been more honest in my life,” she insisted. “That boy thinks the sun rises and sets upon you. He would have rather sacrificed his very life than cause you one single moment of pain. Now he’s gone—perhaps dying in the impenetrable swamps of the jungle. Can’t you do something? Don’t you see what it all means to me?” Unable to turn back the rising emotions within her, the girl gave vent to her feelings, suddenly overcome with tears of abject helplessness and despair. Panama gazed at her silently for one brief moment, then putting on his helmet, turned about and walked with brisk determination toward his plane. CHAPTER XVIII A week had passed without a single sign of Lefty, Steve or the missing plane. Every pilot had taken a hand in the search for the lost Marines but each in turn finally gave up the hunt in despair as a hopeless task. The only man who remained on the blind trail without a single lead was Panama, who, with silent doggedness, flew over the jungle, through swamp lands and across mountain tops night and day, grimly determined to bring back his men dead or alive. In a malaria-filled swamp, just behind the tall mountain range that looked down upon the corral on the opposite side where the brave company of Marines had met Sandino’s men seven days before, what was once an airplane rested in an upright position with more than two feet of its nose imbedded in the mud. Shaded by large tropical trees, it was difficult for anyone flying overhead to penetrate through the thick foliage and see below to the swamp, but because of Steve’s weakened condition and Lefty’s refusal to leave his comrade, the men stuck it out, hoping against hope that somehow, some way they would be rescued. For days, Graham lay upon the remains of the plane’s lower wing with the upper part shading him from the sun, a helpless, dying shadow of what was once a man, tortured inwardly from a severe, untreated wound and outwardly by thousands of mosquitoes and biting ants. Lefty sat beside him, filthy and red with insect bites, his clothing tom to shreds due to journeys through the bushes in search of food. “Do you feel any better, Steve?” he asked, as the same time shooing a swarm of mosquitoes away from the stricken boy’s face. “Do you think maybe I could carry you?” The wounded pilot gazed up at his companion with a grateful look and attempted to smile weakly.