Andy was bending over the fire making a pot of coffee, for they had brought along with them the necessary cooking utensils, including a frying pan, not knowing how long they might be adrift in the wilderness, far from the domicile of any human being.

“How do you find it?” he sang out, for his chum had been examining the aeroplane as well as possible under the circumstances.

“Everything seems to be hunky-dory,” came the reply.  “I’m going to start up the engine now to see if it works without a hitch.”

“Don’t I hope so,” was what Andy said, as he paused in his task to watch.

A minute afterward he gave a little cheer, as the familiar throbbing sound was heard, making the sweetest music that ever greeted the listening ear of an aviator.

“That sounds good to me, Frank!” he cried.

“Nothing wrong about it, thank goodness!” came the reply of the other, as he again shut off power, because they could not afford to waste a drop of their valuable supply of gasoline.

“Well, suppose you drop in here and sample this brand of coffee.  What with the cold snack we brought, and which still holds out, we ought to get along right decently, Frank.”

“I tell you right now,” replied the other, as he came up, “I’m hungry enough to eat anything going; yes, even some of our native cook’s worst garlic-scented messes.  And that coffee just seems to make me wild.  Shove a cup over this way as quick as you know how, brother.  Yum, yum, that goes straight to the spot.  And this cheese and crackers isn’t half way bad, even if it is pilot biscuit.”

“Well,” said Andy, “ain’t you a pilot all right, and don’t they feed sailors on this hard tack generally?  Sure we’ve got no kick coming.  Everything is to the mustard, and if you asked me my opinion right now I’d say things are coming our way.”

“Listen to that chorus, would you?” remarked Frank, as various sounds arose all through the dense timber around them; “they seem to be heading this way sure enough.”

At that Andy reached again for the gun on which he seemed to depend so much.

“Well, if any of ’em take a sneaking notion to look in on us, why I’m meaning to use up a few of these flat-nosed cartridges in this six-shot magazine,” he remarked, sturdily, as he glanced cautiously around.

“No fear of that now,” said his chum, reassuringly.  “The danger will come, if it does at all, later on, when we have more trouble keeping the fire going.  So after we get this supper down we shall have to gather fuel.  It may not be quite so nice to go after it when we see a line of yellow eyes watching all around.”

“Oh, shucks!  You’re just stringing me now, Frank.  If I really thought they’d be as bold as that, why I’d climb a tree, that’s what.”

“What good would that do, tell me?” jeered the other.  “Why, these cats just live in trees and can leap twenty feet if they can one.  Perhaps if you found a hollow tree now you might feel safe, but in the branches of one—­never!  Why, the monkeys would come and laugh at you.  The ground is the best place for us, after all, Andy.”