The curator shook his head. It would be at least another hour before Dwight could even move his own legs. The curator fidgeted with impatience as he cursed the upas vine and all its relatives. Hours were precious as dear life, now. He had about decided on a scheme for pushing along and carrying Dwight in relays, when a low whistle from Nicky brought him to his feet. “Here they come, sir!” announced the boy, tensely. He peered out of their lair. A long line of the little black men swept across the upper swales, arrows on bows, walking about fifteen feet apart, searching warily every foot of the grass. More burst out of the jungle along the creek every few moments, and far to the right, other parties could be seen beating across the jungle toward the banyan-tree mountain. Nothing could escape such a dragnet! They watched them impotently, as the warriors slowly worked down the swales toward their position. There were at least fifty of them in the line that finally reached the site of Cassowary Camp. Then they began to slowly filter up the mountain side. “Now’s our only chance!” said the curator in a low voice. “Sadok, you pick off any that come near this position, or any that seem likely to discover us, and we’ll hope that the rest may go by without finding us.” “How about their finding the canoe before we do?” suggested Nicky, eagerly. “I’ve thought of that. We’ve got to move as soon as they pass us, and get Dwight along somehow. Sadok and I will carry him. We’ll have to beat ’em to it.” A pygmy came out of the bushes directly below him, and his little black eyes popped with sudden discovery. Before he could utter a yell a dart from Sadok’s sumpitan ended him. Then another appeared, working uphill to their right, and he, too, was tumbled over in a silent heap. The curator felt a touch on his arm. He turned his head, to see Dwight, who had crawled over on hands and knees, and he was pointing up to their left with a look of horror in his eyes. There stood a pygmy in plain sight in the act of raising the warwhoop! [Illustration: THE PISTOLS BARKED IN UNISON WITH THE HIGH-PITCHED YELL THAT THE MAN LET OUT] The pistols barked in unison with the high-pitched yell that the man let out. There were swift rustlings all over the mountain side, and a knot of warriors below charged up the hill, shouting their battle cries. The curator dropped a shell on them. A great brown geyser of earth and stones obliterated the group, simultaneous with its thundering report, and the jungle below burst into flames with the intense heat of the explosion. In another instant there was not a pygmy in sight anywhere on the whole landscape. “Now, then, cut and run for it!” hissed the curator. “Make for the canoe, Nick, and get sail on her. We’ll come along with Dwight, somehow!”