“Quiet!” ordered the curator, sternly. “This show isn’t over yet, and there may be scouts along shore. We’ve got to make time!” They bent to the paddles, driving the heavy canoe along down the shore of the lagoon. Fifteen tense minutes passed, while black palm fronds and ragged banana leaves swept by overhead past the stars. They had put nearly a mile between them and the landing when-- “Hist!” called the curator, stopping his paddle suddenly. A riot of excited yells came faintly through the jungle. “They’re wise! Hep, boys! _hep!_” They drove the canoe along as fast as she could be made to go. She needed at least ten paddlers to get any real speed out of her, and the boys realized that there would be more doings this night! A clearer burst of sounds told that the natives had come down to the beach and discovered their missing canoe. Then torches glared out over the black, glassy water, and presently a fleet of canoes set out, each with a blazing brand flaming on its prow. Some of them set out across the lagoon, others went upstream, and eight started down the shore, moving abreast and covering the water far out. Nothing could escape them! “Make for the open, Sadok!” called the curator over his shoulder to the Dyak, who was stern paddle. “We haven’t a chance here, but we might get by them out beyond the last one out there.” They drove the canoe out on the broad bosom of the lagoon, the lights from the eight flares streaming across the water to them in long red pencils, and it seemed incredible that they were not seen already. The curator, however, knew better the actual range of a flare visible from the eyes of a man in the boat with it, for he had tried it before, jacking deer. The lights came steadily on, yells and whoops blaring over the waters. The canoes soon passed them, in a long, straggly line between them and the shore. They stopped their own boat and watched their pursuers. “Gee! it’s a clean escape!” exulted Dwight, “and we’re bows on, so it’s impossible to see us--” The enthusiasm in his voice trailed off as they all paused, holding their breaths, to watch the flare on the nearest canoe. It seemed to be parting in two and the second light grew to a long flame. Then it suddenly rose in a high, curving arc as a flaming javelin went up like a rocket. A weird glare lit up the water far and wide. “Clever stunt! Those savages are sure resourceful, I’ll say!” admired the curator. “We’re _it_, all right!” A babel of yells arose from the nearest canoe as he spoke, and her light began to move out toward them, the flashes of her paddles winking like swiftly waving bars of light. The other canoes changed course likewise, and the whole pack fanned out in a sort of V, with the nearest canoe leading. A second flaming javelin soared into the night and lit up the waters. Diabolical war whoops burst out from all the canoes this time, and amid exulting yells a few long-range, roving arrows fell into the lagoon around them.