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TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS

OR

The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold

BY VICTOR APPLETON

1 TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE 2 TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT 3 TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP 4 TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT 5 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT 6 TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE 7 TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS 8 TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE 9 TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER 10 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE 11 TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD 12 TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER 13 TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY 14 TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA 15 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT 16 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON 17 TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE 18 TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP 19 TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL 20 TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS 21 TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK 22 TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT 23 TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH 24 TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS 25 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE 26 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT 27 TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT OIL GUSHER 28 TOM SWIFT AND HIS CHEST OF SECRETS 29 TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRLINE EXPRESS ***

CHAPTER I

"Well, that is certainly one wonderful story!"

"Neither one, you--you unscientific heathen," answered Tom, with a laugh at Ned. "Though that isn't saying such a machine couldn't be invented."

"As for inside baseball, or outside, for that matter, I hardly believe I'd be able to tell third base from the second base, it's so long since I went to a game," proceeded Tom. "I've been too busy on that new airship stabilizer dad gave me an idea for. I've been working too hard, that's a fact. I need a vacation, and maybe a good baseball game----"

"I wonder if it can possibly be true," he went on. "It sounds like the wildest dream of a professional sleep-walker; and yet, when I stop to think, it isn't much worse than some of the things we've gone through with, Ned."

"A joke?"

"Well, it may be a joke; and yet the professor seems very much in earnest about it," replied Tom. "It certainly is one wonderful story!"

"Professor Swyington Bumper."

"Yes. You ought to remember him. He was on the steamer when I went down to Peru to help the Titus Brothers dig the big tunnel. That plotter Waddington, or some of his tools, dropped a bomb where it might have done us some injury, but Professor Bumper, who was a fellow passenger, on his way to South America to look for the lost city of Pelone, calmly picked up the bomb, plucked out the fuse, and saved us from bad injuries, if not death. And he was as cool about it as an ice-cream cone. Surely you remember!"

"There isn't," agreed Tom. "But this isn't that," and Tom picked up the magazine and leafed it to find the article he had been reading.

"Oh, no. I haven't any such idea," Tom said. "I've got enough work laid out now to keep me in Shopton for the next year. I have no notion of going anywhere with Professor Bumper. Yet I can't help being impressed by this," and, having found the article in the magazine to which he referred, he handed it to his chum.

"Yes. Though there's nothing remarkable in that, seeing that he is constantly contributing articles to various publications or writing books. It's the story itself that's so wonderful. To save you the trouble of wading through a lot of scientific detail, which I know you don't care about, I'll tell you that the story is about a queer idol of solid gold, weighing many pounds, and, in consequence, of great value."

"That's it. Got on your banking air already," Tom laughed. "To sum it up for you--notice I use the word `sum,' which is very appropriate for a bank--the professor has got on the track of another lost or hidden city. This one, the name of which doesn't appear, is in the Copan valley of Honduras, and----"

"Well, it isn't, though it might be," laughed Tom. "Copan is a city, in the Department of Copan, near the boundary between Honduras and Guatemala. A fact I learned from the article and not because I remembered my geography."

"Oh, it's all plainly written down there," and Tom waved toward the magazine at which Ned was looking. "As you'll see, if you take the trouble to go through it, as I did, Copan is, or maybe was, for all I know, one of the most important centers of the Mayan civilization."

"I see," laughed Tom. "Well, Mayan refers to the Mayas, an aboriginal people of Yucatan. The Mayas had a peculiar civilization of their own, thousands of years ago, and their calendar system was so involved----"

"This. He has come across some old manuscripts, or ancient document records, referring to this valley, and they state, according to this article he has written for the magazine, that somewhere in the valley is a wonderful city, traces of which have been found twenty to forty feet below the surface, on which great trees are growing, showing that the city was covered hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago."

"I'm coming to that," said Tom. "Though, if Professor Bumper has his way, the idol will be coming out instead of coming in."

"That's it, Ned. It has great value not only from the amount of pure gold that is in it, but as an antique. I fancy the professor is more interested in that aspect of it. But he's written a wonderful story, telling how he happened to come across the ancient manuscripts in the tomb of some old Indian whose mummy he unearthed on a trip to Central America.

"This story has to do with the hidden city, and tells of the ancient civilization of those who lived in the Copan valley thousands of years ago. The people held this idol of gold to be their greatest treasure, and they put to death many of other tribes who sought to steal it."

"I don't know. The article seems to be written with an idea of interesting scientists and research societies, so that they will raise money to conduct a searching expedition.

"Your financial affairs are all right, Tom," said Ned. "I have just been going over the books, and I'll submit a detailed report later."

"Well, this certainly is wonderful!" he exclaimed, in much the same manner as when he had finished reading the article about the idol. "It certainly is a strange coincidence," he added, speaking in an aside to Ned while he himself still listened to what was being told to him over the telephone wire.

CHAPTER II

But the young inventor was too busy listening to the unseen speaker to answer his chum, even if he heard what Ned remarked, which is doubtful.

There was no way of finding out, however, until Tom had a chance to talk to Ned, and at present the young scientist was eagerly listening to what came over the wire. Occasionally Ned could hear him say:

Then the person at the other end of the wire must have plunged into something very interesting and absorbing, for Tom did not again interrupt by interjected remarks.

Tom and his father lived in the village of Shopton, New York, and their factories covered many acres of ground. Those who wish to read of the earliest activities of Tom in the inventive line are referred to the initial volume, "Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle." From then on he and his father had many and exciting adventures. In a motor boat, an airship, and a submarine respectively the young inventor had gone through many perils. On some of the trips his chum, Ned Newton, accompanied him, and very often in the party was a Mr. Wakefield Damon, who had a curious habit of "blessing" everything that happened to strike his fancy.

Mary Nestor, a girl of Shopton, might also be mentioned. She and Tom were more than just good friends. Tom had an idea that some day----. But there, I promised not to tell that part, at least until the young people themselves were ready to have a certain fact announced.

The book immediately preceding this is called "Tom Swift and His Bit, Tunnel," and deals with the efforts of the young inventor to help a firm of contractors penetrate a mountain in Peru. How this was done and how, incidentally, the lost city of Pelone was discovered, bringing joy to the heart of Professor Swyington Bumper, will be found fully set forth in the book.

"Well, he certainly is having some conversation," reflected Ned, as, after more than five minutes, Tom's ear was still at the receiver of the instrument, into the transmitter of which he had said only a few words.

"That certainly was wonderful!"

"No, indeed! I beg your pardon. I'll tell you at once. But I couldn't break away. It was too important. To whom do you think I was talking just then?"

"I'm afraid neither of them would be quite up to telephone talk yet," laughed Tom. "No, this was the gentleman who wrote that interesting article about the idol of gold," and he motioned to the magazine Ned held in his hand.

"That's just whom I do mean."

"He wants me to help organize an expedition to go to Central America--to the Copan valley, to be exact--to look for this somewhat mythical idol of gold. Incidentally the professor will gather in any other antiques of more or less value, if he can find any, and he hopes, even if he doesn't find the idol, to get enough historical material for half a dozen books, to say nothing of magazine articles."

"I didn't say. But it was a long-distance call from New York. The Professor stopped off there on his way from Boston, where he has been lecturing before some society. And now he's coming here to see me," finished Tom.

"Nor I, Ned. The professor isn't going to lecture. He's only going to talk, he says."

"He's going to try to induce me to join his expedition to the Copan valley."

"No, Ned, I do not. I've got too many other irons in the fire. I shall have to give the professor a polite but firm refusal."

"Oh, you're thinking of its money value, Ned, old man!"

"I don't see how I can go, Ned. But come over and meet the delightful gentleman when he arrives. I expect him day after to-morrow."

"Well, Tom, have you heard any more about your friend?" asked Ned, two days later, as he came to the Swift home with some papers needing the signature of the young inventor and his father.

"Professor Bumper."

"Yes, he and Eradicate were having an argument about who should move a heavy casting from one of the shops. Rad wanted to do it all alone, but Koku said he was like a baby now."

Koku was an immense man, a veritable giant, one of two whom Tom had brought back with him after an exciting trip to a strange land. The giant's strength was very useful to the young inventor.

"But I don't want to gouge 'em, Ned. I'm satisfied with a fair profit. The trouble with you is you think too much of money. Now----"

"Now, my dear lady, don't trouble yourself. I can find my way in to Tom Swift perfectly well by myself, and while I appreciate your courtesy I do not want to trouble you."

"Mr. Damon!" ejaculated Ned.

CHAPTER III

Greetings and inquiries as to health having been passed, not without numerous blessings on the part of Mr. Damon, the little party gathered in the library of the home of Tom Swift sat down and looked at one another.

Ned himself admitted that he was frankly curious. The story of the big idol of gold had occupied his thoughts for many hours.

"I met him on the train," explained the author of the book on the lost city of Pelone, as well as books on other antiquities. "I had no expectation of seeing him, and we were both surprised when we met on the express."

"Glad you did," voiced Tom.

"Well, I'm doubly glad," answered Tom.

Koku, the giant, who was in the hall, opened the door and in his imperfect English asked:

"No," answered Tom with a smile, "I didn't knock or call you, Koku. Some books fell, that is all."

"No, Rad, I don't need anything," Tom said. "Though you might make a pitcher of lemonade. It's rather warm."

"Me help, too!" rumbled Koku, in his deep voice. "Me punch de lemons!" and away he hurried after Eradicate, fearful lest the old servant do all the honors.

"Where?" asked Tom, more from habit than because he did not know.

"And think of all the adventures that may befall us! We'll get lost in buried cities, ride down raging torrents on a raft, fall over a cliff maybe and be rescued. Why, it makes me feel quite young again!" and Mr. Damon arose, to pace excitedly up and down the room.

"I understand, Tom," he said, "that you read my article in the magazine, about the possibility of locating some of the lost and buried cities of Honduras?"

"And yet there are more wonders to tell," went on the professor. "I did not give all the details in that article. I will tell you some of them. I have brought copies of the documents with me," and he opened a small valise and took out several bundles tied with pink tape.

"On one condition!" put in the eccentric man.

"Yes, I said I'd go if Tom Swift did."

"Soon after I called you up, Tom--and it was quite a coincidence that it should have been at a time when you had just finished my magazine article. Soon after that, as I was saying, I arranged to come on to Shopton. And now I'm glad we're all here together.

"I've left there," explained Ned.

"No worries at all, as far as the Swift Company is concerned," returned Ned.

"Plenty, Tom, plenty. I could talk all day, and not get to the end of the story. But a lot of it would be scientific detail that might be too dry for you in spite of this excellent lemonade,"

"So, not to go into too many details," went on the professor, "I'll just give you a brief outline of this story of the idol of gold.

"`Thank the Lord, we have left the deep waters (honduras)' that being the Spanish word for unfathomable depths. So Honduras it was called, and has been to this day.

"Honduras, I might add, is about the size of our state of Ohio. It is rather an elevated tableland, though there are stretches of tropical forest, but it is not so tropical a country as many suppose it to be. There is much gold scattered throughout Honduras, though of late it has not been found in large quantities.

"Do you know where it is?" asked Ned.

"No, we've got to hunt for the idol of gold in this land of wonders where I hope soon to be. Later on I'll show you the documents that put me on the track of this idol. Enough now to show you an old map I found, or, rather, a copy of it, and some of the papers that tell of the idol," and he spread out his packet of papers on the table in front of him, his eyes shining with excitement and pleasure. Mr. Damon, too, leaned eagerly forward.

"I'll help you, of course," said Tom. "You may use any of my inventions you choose--my airships, my motor boats and submarines, even my giant cannon if you think you can take it with you. And as for the money part, Ned will arrange that for you. But as for going with you myself, it is out of the question. I can't. No Honduras for me!"

CHAPTER IX

"Bless my----!"

"Surely you don't mean it, Tom Swift," gasped Professor Bumper at length. "Won't you come with us?"

"If it's a question of making a profit on it, Tom," began Mr. Damon, "I can let you have some money until----"

"So I have been working out a sort of modified gyroscope, and it seems to answer the purpose. I have already received advance orders for a number of my devices from abroad, and as they are destined to save lives I feel that I ought to keep on with my work.

"No, it is impossible to wait, Tom," declared Professor Bumper.

"No, I did not have time. There are so many ends to my concerns. But, Tom Swift, you simply must go!"

"But, Tom, think of it!" cried Mr. Damon, who was as much excited as was the little baldheaded scientist. "You never saw such an idol of gold as this. What's its name?" and he looked questioningly at the professor.

"Tom, if I could show you the translations I have made of the ancient documents, referring to this idol and the wonderful city over which it kept guard, I'm sure you'd come with us."

"What's this about the idol keeping guard over the ancient city?" asked Ned, for he was interested in strange stories.

"But these traces, and such hieroglyphics, or, to be more exact pictographs, as I have been able to decipher from the old documents, tell of one country, or perhaps it was only a city, over which this great golden idol of Quitzel presided.

"Two tons of gold!" cried New Newton. "Why, if that's the case it would be worth----" and he fell to doing a sum in mental arithmetic.

"How do you know there are other statues?" asked Mr. Damon.

"If all the people were killed, and the city buried, how did the story of Quitzel become known?" asked Mr. Damon.

"And now, what I want to do, is to go and make a search for this buried city. I have fairly good directions as to how it may be reached. We will have little difficulty in getting to Honduras, as there are fruit steamers frequently sailing. Of course going into the interior--to the Copan valley--is going to be harder. But an expedition from a large college was recently there and succeeded, after much labor, in excavating part of a buried city. Whether or not it was Kurzon I am unable to say.

"Oh, it isn't a question of money," said Tom. "It's time."

"Your rivals!" cried Tom. "You didn't say anything about them!"

"Pooh! You're not old!" cried Mr. Damon. "You're no older than I am, and I'm still young. I'm a lot younger than some of these boys who are afraid to tackle a trip through a tropical wilderness," and he playfully nudged Tom in the ribs.

"No, I know you're not," laughed Mr. Damon. "But I've got to say something, Tom, to stir you up. Ned, how about you? Would you go?"

"There you are, Tom Swift!" cried Mr. Damon. "You see you are holding back a number of persons just because you don't want to go."

"And my promise to go was dependent on Tom's agreement to accompany us," said Mr. Damon

"I wouldn't like to see that," Tom said slowly. "Who is he--any one I know?"

"Beecher!" exclaimed Tom, and there was such a change in his manner that his friends could not help noticing it. He jumped to his feet, his eyes snapping, and he looked eagerly and anxiously at Professor Bumper.

"That's what it is--Professor Fenimore Beecher. He is really a learned young man, and thoroughly in earnest, though I do not like his manner. But he is trying to get ahead of me, which may account for my feeling."

"I'll be back in about five minutes," he said, as he went out.

"The mention of Beecher's name, evidently. Though I never heard him mention such a person before."

At that moment Tom came back into the room.

"Good!" cried Professor Bumper.

"But what about your stabilizer?" asked Ned.

"It is, if we are to get ahead of Beecher."

CHAPTER V

THE LITTLE GREEN GOD

"Within a week, if you want to start that soon."

"Well, I hope we'll be as successful this time," murmured Tom. "I don't want to see Beecher beat you."

"Oh, yes, I have met him. once," and there was something in Tom's manner, though he tried to speak indifferently, that made Ned believe there was more behind his chum's sudden change of determination than had yet appeared.

"No, he wouldn't be likely to speak of me," said Tom significantly.

"There's no special rush," Tom said. "We won't leave for a week. I can't get ready in much less time than that."

"I don't believe the telegraph there is working," laughed Professor Bumper. "But suit yourself. I must go back to New York to arrange for the goods we'll have to take with us. In a week, Tom, we'll start."

"We'll stay and take the night train back," agreed Mr. Damon. "It will be like old times, Tom," he went on, "traveling off together into the wilds. Central America is pretty wild, isn't it?" he asked, as if in fear of being disappointed! on that score.

"Well, now to settle a few details," observed Tom. "Ned, what is the situation as regards the financial affairs of my father and myself? Nothing will come to grief if we go away, will there?"

"No, of course not."

"I meant you and I are going."

"Sure, you! I wouldn't think of leaving you behind. You want Ned along, don't you, Professor?"

Mr. Swift came in at this point to meet his old friends.

Professor Bumper told Mr. Swift something about the proposed trip, while Mr. Damon went out with Tom and Ned to one of the shops to look at a new model aeroplane the young inventor had designed.

"Thinking about the idol of gold?" asked Ned in a whisper to his chum, when they were about to leave the table.

Ned was right, as he proved for himself a little later, when, Mr. Damon and the professor having gone home, the young financial secretary took his friend to a quiet corner and asked:

"Matter? What do you mean?"

"Oh--er--well, you wouldn't want to see our old friend Professor Bumper left, would you, after he had worked out the secret of the idol of gold? You wouldn't want some young whipper-snapper to beat him in the race, would you, Ned?"

"Neither would I. That's why I changed my mind. This Beecher isn't going to get that idol if I can stop him!"

"Bitter? Oh, not at all. I simply don't want to see my friends disappointed."

"Oh, I've met him, that is all," and Tom tried to speak indifferently.

But though Ned tried to pump Tom, he was not successful. The young inventor admitted knowing the youthful scientist, but that was all, Tom reiterating his determination not to let Professor Bumper be beaten in the race for the idol of gold.

Ned did some more thinking. Then he clapped his hands together, and a smile spread over his face.

This he did, stopping at the home of Mary Nestor, a pretty girl, who, rumor had it, was tacitly engaged to Tom. Mary was not at home, but Mr. Nestor was, and for Ned's purpose this answered.

"No, Tom isn't with me this evening," Ned answered. "The fact is, he's getting ready to go off on another expedition, and I'm going with him."

"Some place in Central America," Ned answered, not wishing to be too particular. He was wondering how he could find out what he wanted to know, when Mary's mother unexpectedly gave him just the information he was after.

"Yes, I believe he did mention something about that."

"Yes," said Mr. Nestor. "And a mighty fine young man he is, too. I knew his father well. He was here on a visit not long ago, young Beecher was, and he talked most entertainingly about his discoveries. You remember how interested Mary was, Mother?"

"No?" questioned Ned.

"I see," murmured Ned. "Well, I suppose Tom must have been thinking of something else at the time."

"Sometimes I think," went on Mr. Nestor, "that Tom isn't quite steady enough. He's thinking of so many things, perhaps, that he can't get his mind down to the commonplace. I remember he once sent something here in a box labeled `dynamite.' Though there was no explosive in it, it gave us a great fright. But Tom is a boy, in spite of his years. Professor Beecher seems much older. We all like him very much."

"I knew it!" Ned exclaimed as he walked home. "I knew something was in the wind. The little green god of jealousy has Tom in his clutches. That's why my inventive friend was so anxious to go on this expedition when he learned Beecher was to go. He wants to beat him. I guess the professor has plainly shown that he wouldn't like anything better than to cut Tom out with Mary. Whew! that's something to think about!"

CHAPTER VI

"That is, I won't let him know that I know," said Ned to himself, "though he is probably as well aware of the situation as I am. But it sure is queer that this Professor Beecher should have taken such a fancy to Mary, and that her father should regard him so well. That is natural, I suppose. But I wonder how Mary herself feels about it. That is the part Tom would be most interested in.

"He'd have no end of honors heaped on him, and I suppose his hat wouldn't come within three sizes of fitting him. Then he'd stand in better than ever with Mr. Nestor. And, maybe, with Mary, too, though I think she is loyal to Tom. But one never can tell.

Ned, who was walking along in the darkness, clapped his open hand down on Tom's magazine he was carrying home to read again, and the resultant noise was a sharp crack. As it sounded a figure jumped from behind a tree and called tensely:

Ned stopped short, thinking he was to be the victim of a holdup, but his fears were allayed when he beheld one of the police force of Shopton confronting him.

"I haven't any, Mr. Newbold," answered Ned with a laugh, as he recognized the man.

"No, nothing like that," answered Ned, still much amused. "I was talking to myself about a trip Tom Swift and I are going to take and----"

"Indeed he is," agreed Ned, making a mental resolve not to be so public with his thoughts in the future. He chatted for a moment with the officer, and then, bidding him good-night, walked on to his home, his mind in a whirl with conglomerate visions of buried cities, great grinning idols of gold, and rival professors seeking to be first at the goal.

Ned was engaged in putting the financial affairs of the Swift Company in shape, so they would practically run themselves during his absence. Then, too, there was the packing of their baggage which must be seen to.

One day, near the end of the week (the beginning of the next being set for the start) Eradicate came shuffling into the room where Tom was sorting out the possessions he desired to take with him, Ned assisting him in the task.

"I done heah, Massa Tom, dat yo' all's gwine off on a long trip once mo'. Am dat so?"

"Well, den, I'se come to ast yo' whut I'd bettah take wif me. Shall I took warm clothes or cool clothes?"

"I---- I ain't gwine? Does yo' mean dat yo' all ain't gwine to take me, Massa Tom?"

"In certain not!" broke in the voice of Koku, the giant, who entered with a big trunk Tom had sent him for. "Master want strong man like a bull. He take Koku!"

"He take me!" cried Koku, and his voice was a roar while he beat on his mighty chest with his huge fists.

"I don't believe you'd like it there, Rad--not where we're going. It's a bad country. Why the mosquitoes there bite holes in you--raise bumps on you as big as eggs."

"It sure is. Then there's another kind of bug that burrows under your fingernails, and if you don't get 'em out, your fingers drop off."

"It sure is. I don't want to see those things happen to you, Rad."

"I don't mahse'f," he said. "I---- I guess I won't go."

But there remained Koku to dispose of, and he stood smiling broadly as Eradicate shuffled of.

"No," said Tom, with a look at Ned, for he did not want to take the big man on the trip for various reasons. "No, maybe not, Koku. Your skin is pretty tough. But I understand there are deep pools of water in the land where we are going, and in them lives a fish that has a hide like an alligator and a jaw like a shark. If you fall in it's all up with you."

"Well, I've never seen such a fish, I'm sure, but the natives tell about it."

"Me stay home and keep bad mans out of master's shop."

"Well, I guess that clears matters up," said Tom, as he looked over a collection of rifles and small arms, to decide which to take. "We won't have them to worry about."

"Oh, we'll dispose of him all right!" asserted Tom boldly. "He hasn't had any experience in business of this sort, and with that you and Professor Bumper and Mr. Damon know we ought to have little trouble in getting ahead of the young man."

"Oh, I'll do what I can, of course," said Tom, with an air of indifference. But Ned knew his chum would work ceaselessly to help get the idol of gold.

That night saw the preparations of Ned and Tom about completed. There were one or two matters yet to finish on Tom's part in relation to his business, but these offered no difficulties.

"Tell him to come in," ordered Tom.

"The land of wonders?" repeated Ned.

"It'll be great!" cried Ned. "I suppose you're ready, Mr. Damon--you and the professor?"

"Unpleasant news?"

"I heard him speak of him--yes," and the way Tom said it no one would have suspected that he had any personal interest in the matter.

"Well, this Professor Beecher, you know," went on Mr. Damon, "also knows about the idol of gold, and is trying to get ahead of Professor Bumper in the search."

"But it is certain!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "Bless my toothpick, it's altogether too certain!"

"Yes, of course. But what is worse, he and his party will leave New York on the same steamer with us!"

CHAPTER VII

"On the same steamer with us, is he?" mused Tom.

"Just got a wire from Professor Bumper telling me. He asked me to telephone to you about it, as he was too busy to call up on the long distance from New York. But instead of 'phoning I decided to come over myself."

"Yes, he asked me to warn you to be careful what you did and said in reference to the expedition."

"Yes, in a way. I think he is very much afraid this young Beecher will not only be first on the site of the underground city, but that he may be the first to discover the idol of gold. It would be a great thing for a young archaeologist like Beecher to accomplish a mission of this sort, and beat Professor Bumper in the race."

"Yes, I do," said Mr. Damon. "Though from what Professor Bumper said I know he regards Professor Beecher as a perfectly honorable man, as well as a brilliant student. I do not believe Beecher or his party would stoop to anything dishonorable or underhand, though they would not hesitate, nor would we, to take advantage of every fair chance to win in the race."

"It will be all the livelier with two expeditions after the same golden idol," remarked Ned.

Mr. Damon, having delivered his message, and remarking that his preparations for leaving were nearly completed, went back to Waterfield, from there to proceed to New York in a few days with Tom and Ned, to meet Professor Bumper.

"Go to it!" laughed Ned, guessing a thing of two. "I've got a raft of stuff myself to look after, but don't let that keep you."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Ned. "I can do it all alone. It's some of the company's business, anyhow, and I'm paid for looking after that."

"He's going to see Mary," observed Ned with a grin, as he observed Tom hop into his trim little roadster, which under his orders, Koku had polished and cleaned until it looked as though it had just come from the factory.

"No, I'm sorry, but Mary isn't in," said Mrs. Nestor, answering his inquiry after greeting him.

"No, she went on a little visit to her cousin's at Fayetteville. She said something about letting you know she was going."

"That was her plan, Tom. But she changed it. Her cousin wired, asking her to advance the date, and this Mary did. There was something about a former school chum who was also to be at Myra's house--Myra is Mary's cousin you know."

"Oh, about two weeks. She wasn't quite certain. It depends on the kind of a time she has, I suppose."

"I will, Tom. And I know Mary will be sorry she wasn't here to take a ride with you; it's such a nice day," and the lady smiled as she looked at the speedy roadster.

"No, thank you. I'm too old to be jounced around in one of those small cars."

"Well, I have to go to a Red Cross meeting, anyhow, so I can't come, Tom. Thank you, just the same."

"Well?" called Tom's chum.

"Something wrong," mused Ned.

"Good-bye, Tom," said his father. "Goodbye, and good luck! If you don't get the idol of gold I'm sure you'll have experiences that will be valuable to you."

"Look out for the bad bugs," suggested Eradicate.

Tom's last act was to send a message to Mary Nestor, and then he, with Ned and Mr. Damon, who blessed everything in sight from the gasoline in the automobile to the blue sky overhead, started for the station.

"He hasn't arrived yet," said Tom, after glancing over the names on the hotel register and not seeing Professor Bumper's among them.

"There are some other professors registered, though," observed Ned, as he glanced at the book, noting the names of several scientists of whom he and Tom had read.

And during that wait Tom heard something that surprised him and caused him no little worry. It was when Ned came back to his room, which adjoined Tom's, that the young treasurer gave his chum the news.

"I haven't the least idea."

"You don't mean it!"

"How do you know?"

"They did? But where is Beecher?"

"Why isn't he here now?"

"Fayetteville!" ejaculated Tom. "Yes. That isn't far from Shopton."

"I can tell you that, too."

"No, I just happened to overhear it. Beecher is going to call on Mary Nestor in Fayetteville, so his friends here said he told them, and his call has to do with an important matter--to him!" and Ned gazed curiously at his chum.

CHAPTER VIII

"So he is going to see her about `something important,' Ned?"

"And they're waiting here for him to join them?"

"Important? Yes, I suppose so," assented Tom. "And yet even if he waits for the next steamer he will get to Honduras nearly as soon as we do."

"The next boat is a faster one."

"Well, for one thing it would hardly do to change now, when all our goods are on board. And besides, the captain of the _Relstab_, on which we are going to sail, is a friend of Professor Bumper's."

"Oh, I'm ready for any trouble HE might make!" quickly exclaimed Tom.

But, in his heart, though he said nothing to Ned about it, Tom was worried. Much as he disliked to admit it to himself, he feared the visit of Professor Beecher to Mary Nestor in Fayetteville had but one meaning.

"He's relying on the prestige he'll get out of this idol of gold if his party finds it," thought on the young inventor. "But I'll help find it first. I'm glad to have a little start of him, anyhow, even if it isn't more than two days. Though if our vessel is held back much by storms he may get on the ground first. However, that can't be helped. I'll do the best I can."

"Well, come on out and see the sights. It will be long before we look on Broadway again."

"Where's Professor Bumper?" asked Ned, the next day.

"And Mr. Damon?"

"Bless my overshoes!" he cried, "I've been looking everywhere for you! Come on, there's no time to lose!"

"Has anything happened to Professor Bumper?" Tom demanded, a wild idea forming in his head that perhaps some one of the Beecher party had tried to kidnap the discoverer of the lost city of Pelone.

"For what?" asked Tom and Ned together.

"I wonder, Tom," said Mr. Damon, as they came out of the theater two hours later, all three chuckling at the remembrance of what they had seen, "I wonder you never turned your inventive mind to the movies."

He spoke rather uncertainly. The truth of the matter was that he was still thinking deeply of the visit of Professor Beecher to Mary Nestor, and wondering what it portended.

While at the hotel they had several glimpses of the members of the Beecher party who were awaiting the arrival of the young professor who was to lead them into the wilds of Honduras. But our friends did not seek the acquaintance of their rivals. The latter, likewise, remained by themselves, though they knew doubtless that there was likely to be a strenuous race for the possession of the idol of gold, then, it was presumed, buried deep in some forest-covered city.

The preparations were finally completed. The party went aboard the steamer, which was a large freight vessel, carrying a limited number of passengers, and late one afternoon swung down New York Bay.

"Who knows?" asked Tom, shrugging his shoulders, Spanish fashion. And there came before him the vision of a certain "little lady," about whom he had been thinking deeply of late.

CHAPTER IX

"Well, Ned, it isn't exactly like going up in an airship," and Tom Swift who was gazing over the rail down into the deep blue water of the Caribbean Sea, over which their vessel was then steaming, looked at his chum beside him.

"Bless my sea legs!" interrupted Mr. Damon, overhearing the conversation. "Don't speak of THAT trip. My wife never forgave me for going on it. But I had a fine time," he added with a twinkle of his eyes.

"What do you mean?" asked Ned.

At first, used as they were to the actions of unscrupulous rivals in trying to thwart their efforts, Tom and Ned had been on the alert for any signs of hidden enemies on board the steamer. But aside from a little curiosity when it became known that they were going to explore little-known portions of Honduras, the other passengers took hardly any interest in our travelers.

"What do you mean?" asked Ned again, when Tom did not answer him immediately. "What's the excitement?"

"Let it come!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "We're not afraid of trouble, Tom. Swift, are we?"

"Then I am going to see if my books and papers are ready, so I can get them together in a hurry in case we have to take to the life-boats," said Professor Bumper, coming on deck at that moment. "It won't do to lose them. If we didn't have the map we might not be able to find----"

"What's the matter?" asked the scientist in a whisper, as the man went on. "Do you know him? Is he a----?"

"You are right, Tom," said Professor Bumper. "I'll be more careful."

Sharp commands from the ship's officers hastened the work of the crew in making things snug, and life lines were strung along deck for the safety of such of the passengers as might venture up when the blow began.

It really was a violent storm, approaching a hurricane in force, and at one time it seemed as though the craft, having been heeled far over under a staggering wave that swept her decks, would not come back to an even keel.

But the vessel proved herself sturdier than the timid ones had dared to hope, and she was soon running before the blast, going out of her course, it is true, but avoiding the danger among the many cays, or small islands, that dot the Caribbean Sea.

This, as well as the loss of a deckhand overboard, was the effect of the hurricane, and though the end of the trip came amid sunshine and sweet-scented tropical breezes, many could not forget the dangers through which they had passed.

"How are we going to make the trip?" asked Ned, as they sat at supper, the first night after their arrival, eating of several dishes, the redpepper condiments of which caused frequent trips to the water pitcher.

"Now the Chamelecon river seems to run to within a short distance of there, but there is no telling how far up it may be navigable. If we can go by boat it will be much more comfortable. Travel by mules and ox-carts is slow and sure, but the roads are very bad, as I have heard from friends who have made explorations in Honduras.

"What about arranging for boats and animals?" asked Tom. "I should think----"

"Whew!" he exclaimed, when he could catch his breath. "That was a hot one."

"Bit into a nest of red pepper. Guess I'll have to tell that cook to scatter his hits. He's bunching 'em too much in my direction," and Tom wiped the tears from his eyes.

"When do we leave?" asked Mr. Damon.

As the party was about to leave the table, they were approached by a tall, dignified Spaniard who bowed low, rather exaggeratedly low, Ned thought, and addressed them in fairly good English.

"How do you know we are going into the interior?" asked Tom, a bit sharply, for he did not like the assurance of the man.

"I saw your name on the register," he proceeded, "and it was not difficult to guess your mission," and he flashed a smile on the party, his white teeth showing brilliantly beneath his small, black moustache.

For a moment Tom and his friends hardly knew how to accept this offer. It might be, as the man had said, that he was a professional tour conductor, like those who have charge of Egyptian donkey-boys and guides. Or might he not be a spy?

"At your service!"

"Most expensively--I mean, most expeditionlessly," said Val Jacinto eagerly. "Pardon my unhappy English. I forget at times. The charges will be most moderate. I can send you by boat as far as the river travel is good, and then have mules and ox-carts in waiting."

"A hundred miles as the vulture flies, Senor, but much farther by river and road. We shall be a week going."

"Yes, but we haven't it. However, we're in no great rush."

"Very good, Senor. I am sure you will be pleased with the humble service I may offer you, and my charges will be small. Adios," and he bowed himself away.

"He's a pretty slick article," said Mr. Damon. "Bless my check-book! but he spotted us at once, in spite of our secrecy."

Inquiries next morning brought the information, from the head of a rubber exporting firm with whom the professor was acquainted, that the Spaniard was regularly engaged in transporting parties into the interior, and was considered efficient, careful and as honest as possible, considering the men he engaged as workers.

"I am more than pleased, Senor. I shall take you into the wilds of Honduras. At your service!" and he bowed low.

If Tom could have seen the crafty smile on the face of the Spaniard as the man left the hotel, the young inventor might have felt even less confidence in the guide.

CHAPTER X

It brought those days back, in a measure, to Tom also. For there were a number of canoes filled with the goods of the party, while the members themselves occupied a larger one with their personal baggage. Strong, half-naked Indian paddlers were in charge of the canoes which were of sturdy construction and light draft, since the river, like most tropical streams, was of uncertain depths, choked here and there with sand bars or tropical growths.

As Ned remarked, it did look like a camping party, for in the canoes were tents, cooking utensils and, most important, mosquito canopies of heavy netting.

On the advice of Val Jacinto, who was to accompany them, the travelers were to go up the river about fifty miles. This was as far as it would be convenient to use the canoes, the guide told Tom and his friends, and from there on the trip to the Copan valley would be made on the backs of mules, which would carry most of the baggage and equipment. The heavier portions would be transported in ox-carts.

The plan, therefore, was to travel by canoes during the less heated parts of the day, and tie up at night, making camp on shore in the netprotected tents. As for the Indians, they did not seem to mind the bites of the insects. They sometimes made a smudge fire, Val Jacinto had said, but that was all.

"No, he doesn't seem to have arrived," agreed Professor Bumper. "We'll get ahead of him, and so much the better.

"The sooner the better!" cried Tom, and Ned fancied his chum was unusually eager.

"You may start, Senor Jacinto," said the professor, and the guide called something in Indian dialect to the rowers. Lines were cast off and the boats moved out into the stream under the influence of the sturdy paddlers.

"Oh, no. But this is only the beginning."

The guide called something to the Indians, who increased their stroke.

"Bless my ham sandwich, but they'll need plenty of some sort of refreshment," said Mr. Damon, with a sigh. "I never knew it to be so hot."

It really was not unpleasant traveling, aside from the heat. And they had expected that, coming as they had to a tropical land. But, as Tom said, what lay before them might be worse.

As the canoe containing the men was paddled along, there floated down beside it what seemed to be a big, rough log.

And the "log" was indeed so, for there was a sudden flash of white teeth, a long red opening showed, and then came a click as an immense alligator, having opened and closed his mouth, sank out of sight in a swirl of water.

"Alligator," explained Jacinto succinctly, in their tongue.

"Bless my--bless my----" hesitated Mr. Damon, and for one of the very few times in his life his language failed him.

"Plenty," said the guide, with a shrug of his shoulders. He seemed to do as much talking that way, and with his hands, as he did in speech. "The river is full of them."

"Don't go in swimming," was the significant advice. "Wait, I'll show you," and he called up the canoe just behind.

Hardly a second later there was a rushing in the water as though a submarine were about to come up. An ugly snout was raised, two rows of keen teeth snapped shut as a scissorslike jaw opened, and the meat was gone.

"We certainly shall," agreed Tom. "They're fierce."

"And to think that I--that I nearly had my hand on it," murmured Mr. Damon. "Ugh! Bless my eyeglasses!"

They paddled on up the river, the dusky Indians now and then breaking out into a chant that seemed to give their muscles new energy. The song, if song it was, passed from one boat to the other, and as the chant boomed forth the craft shot ahead more swiftly.

As is usual in traveling in the tropics, a halt was made during the heated middle of the day. Then, as the afternoon shadows were waning, the party again took to the canoes and paddled on up the river.

"Oh, yes; a most excellent place. It is where I always bring scientific parties I am guiding. You may rely on me."

"We stay here for the night," said Jacinto. "It is a good place."

"We are a good distance from a settlement," agreed the guide. "But one can not explore-and find treasure in cities," and he shrugged his shoulders again.

"Pardon, Senor," replied Jacinto softly. "I meant no offense. I think that all you scientific parties will take treasure if you can find it."

"And doubtless you will find it," was the somewhat too courteous answer of the guide. "Make camp quickly!" he called to the Indians in their tongue. "You must soon get under the nets or you will be eaten alive!" he told Tom. "There are many mosquitoes here."

"Sort of lonesome and gloomy, isn't it, Tom?"

"No, and yet-- Look out! What's that?" suddenly cried Ned, as a great soft, black shadow seemed to sweep out of a clump of trees toward him. Involuntarily he clutched Tom's arm and pointed, his face showing fear in the fast-gathering darkness.

CHAPTER XI

"What is it?" asked the young inventor. "What's the matter? What did you think you saw, Ned; another alligator?"

Tom laughed quietly.

"I'm not afraid of ordinary shadows," answered Ned, and in his voice there was an uncertain tone. "I'm not afraid of my shadow or yours, Tom, or anybody's that I can see. But this wasn't any human shadow. It was as if a great big blob of wet darkness had been waved over your head."

"But that just describes it," went on Ned, looking up and around. "It was just as if you were in some dark room, and some one waved a wet velvet cloak over your head--spooky like! It didn't make a sound, but there was a smell as if a den of some wild beast was near here. I remember that odor from the time we went hunting with your electric rifle in the jungle, and got near the den in the rocks where the tigers lived."

"Do you mean to say you didn't feel that shadow flying over us just now?" asked Ned.

"Well it wasn't a bird--at least not a regular bird," said Ned in a low voice, as once more he looked at the dark and gloomy jungle that stretched back from the river and behind the little clearing where the camp had been made.

Not at all unwilling to leave so gloomy a scene, Ned, after a brief glance up and down the dark river, followed his chum. They found Professor Bumper and Mr. Damon in their tent, a separate one having been set up for the two men adjoining that of the youths.

"We were chasing shadows!" laughed Tom. "At least Ned was. But you look cozy enough in there."

"Better get inside and under the nets," advised Professor Bumper to Tom and Ned. "The mosquitoes here are the worst I ever saw."

As Tom and Ned had no wish for a light, which would be sure to attract insects, they entered their tent in the dark, and were soon stretched out in comparative comfort. Tom was just on the edge of a deep sleep when he heard Ned murmur:

"What's that?" asked the young inventor.

"Understand what?"

"Oh, go to sleep!" advised Tom, and, turning over, he was soon breathing heavily and regularly, indicating that he, at least, had taken his own advice.

The feeling, sensation or dream--whatever it was--perhaps a nightmare--became at last so real to Ned that he struggled himself into wakefulness. With an effort he sat up, uttering an inarticulate cry. To his surprise he was answered. Some one asked:

"Who--who are you?" asked Ned quickly, trying to peer through the darkness.

For a moment Ned did not answer. He listened and could tell by the continued heavy and regular breathing of his chum that Tom was still asleep.

"Yes," answered Jacinto. "I came in to see what was the matter with you. Are you ill?"

"For that I am glad. Try to get all the sleep you can, for we must start early to avoid the heat of the day," and there was the sound of the guide leaving and arranging the folds of the mosquito net behind him to keep out the nightflying insects.

It was about two o'clock in the morning, as they ascertained later, when the whole camp-white travelers and all--was suddenly awakened by a wild scream. It seemed to come from one of the natives, who called out a certain word ever and over again. To Tom and Ned it sounded like:

"What's the matter?" cried Professor Bumper.

Notwithstanding this warning Ned stuck his head out of the tent. The same instant he was aware of a dark enfolding shadow passing over him, and, with a shudder of fear, he jumped back.

CHAPTER XII

"I don't know, but Jacinto is yelling something about vampires!"

"Yes. Big bats. And he's warning us to be careful. I stuck my head out just now and I felt that same sort of shadow I felt this evening when we were down near the river."

"I tell you I did!"

"There it is! That's the shadow! Look out!" and he held up his hands instinctively to shield his face.

He caught up his camera tripod which was near his cot, and made a swing with it at the creature that had flown into the tent through an opening it had made for itself.

"It won't do anything to me!" shouted Tom, as he struck the creature, knocking it into the corner of the tent with a thud that told it must be completely stunned, if not killed. "But what's it all about, anyhow?" Tom asked. "What's the row?"

"Oshtoo! Oshtoo!"

"It is a raid by vampire bats!" was all Tom and Ned could distinguish. "We shall have to light fires to keep them away, if we can succeed. Every one grab up a club and strike hard!"

"You're not going out there, are you?" asked Ned.

Tom's plan seemed to be a good one. His lamp and Ned's had small hooks on them, so they could be carried in the upper coat pocket, showing a gleam of light and leaving the hands free for use.

Circling and wheeling about in the camp clearing were many of the black shadowy forms that had caused Ned such alarm. Great bats they were, and a dangerous species, if Jacinto was to be believed.

"We are safe--for the present!" exclaimed Jacinto with a sigh of relief.

"They may--there is no telling."

"The alligators aren't much worse," asserted Jacinto with a visible shiver. "These vampire bats sometimes depopulate a whole village."

"Not quite. Though they might if they got the chance," was the answer of the Spanish guide. "These vampire bats fly from place to place in great swarms, and they are so large and blood-thirsty that a few of them can kill a horse or an ox in a short time by sucking its blood. So when the villagers find they are visited by a colony of these vampires they get out, taking their live stock with them, and stay in caves or in densely wooded places until the bats fly on. Then the villagers come back.

"Come back again!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my skin! I hope not! I've had enough of bats-and mosquitoes," he added, as he slapped at his face and neck.

Tom and Ned kicked outside the bat the former had killed in their tent, and then both went back to their cots. But it was some little time before they fell asleep. And they did not have much time to rest, for an early start must be made to avoid the terrible heat of the middle of the day.

"Oh, we've gone through with worse than this," laughed Tom. "It's all in the day's work. We've only got started. I guess we're a bit soft, Ned, though we had hard enough work in that tunnel-digging."

"This is a true blood-sucking bat," went on the professor. "This," and he pointed to the nose-leaves, "is the sucking apparatus. The bat makes an opening in the skin with its sharp teeth and proceeds to extract the blood. I can well believe two or three of them, attacking a steer or mule at once, could soon weaken it so the animal would die."

"Well a man has hands with which to use weapons, but a helpless quadruped has not. Though if a sufficient number of these bats attacked a man at the same time, he would have small chance to escape alive. Their bites, too, may be poisonous for all I know."

"Well, we're on our way once more," remarked Tom as again they were in the canoes being paddled up the river. "How much longer does your water trip take, Professor?"

"We go two more days in the canoes," the guide answered, "and then we shall find the mules waiting for us at a place called Hidjio. From then on we travel by land until--well until you get to the place where you are going.

"Oh, I have a map, showing where I want to begin some excavations," was the answer. "We must first go to Copan and see what arrangements we can make for laborers. After that--well, we shall trust to luck for what we shall find."

For a moment none of the professor's companions spoke. It was as though Jacinto had tried to get some information. Finally the scientist said:

"Huh!" grunted Jacinto, and then he called to the paddlers to increase their strokes.

Tom turned in time to see the poor fellow's struggles, and at the same time there was a swirl in the water and a black object shot forward.

"I see," observed Tom calmly. "Hand me the rifle, Ned."

There was a wild scream of agony and then a dark arm shot up above the red foam. The waters seethed and bubbled as the alligators fought under it for possession of the paddler. Tom fired bullet after bullet from his wonderful rifle into the spot, but though he killed some of the alligators this did not save the man's life. His body was not seen again, though search was made for it.

Aside from being caught in a drenching storm and one or two minor accidents, nothing else of moment marked the remainder of the river journey, and at the end of the third day the canoes pulled to shore and a night camp was made.

"In the next village. We shall march there in the morning. No use to go there at night when all is dark."

The Indians made camp as usual, the goods being brought from the canoes and piled up near the tents. Then night settled down.

"I didn't hear any one call us," remarked Ned.

"What's the matter?" asked the young inventor. "Have the others gone on ahead?"

"Gone back?"

"Bless my time-table!" cried Mr. Damon. "You don't say so! What does it mean? What has becomes of our friend Jacinto?"

CHAPTER XIII

"What does it all mean?" asked Tom, seeing that the note was written in Spanish, a tongue which he could speak slightly but read indifferently.

"In his pay!" cried Mr. Damon. "Do you mean that Beecher deliberately hired Jacinto to betray us?"

"Senors: I greatly regret the step I have to take, but I am a gentleman, and, having given my word, I must keep it. No harm shall come to you, I swear it on my honor!"

Professor Bumper read on:

"So, knowing from what you said that you were going to this place, I engaged myself to you, planning to do what I have done. I greatly regret it, as I have come to like you, but I had given my promise to Professor Beecher's friend, that I would first lead him to the Copan valley, and would keep others away until he had had a chance to do his exploration.

"I write this note as I am leaving in the night with the Indians. I put some harmless sedative in your tea that you might sleep soundly, and not awaken until we were well on our way. Do not try to follow us, as the river will carry us swiftly away. And, let me add, there is no personal animosity on the part of Professor Beecher against you. I should have done to any rival expedition the same as I have done with you. JACINTO."

"Well, of all the mean, contemptible tricks of a human skunk this is the limit!"

"I'd like to start after him the biggest alligator in the river," was Ned's comment.

"Professor Beecher has more gumption than I gave him credit for," he said. "It was a clever trick!"

"Yes. I can't exactly agree that it was the right thing to do, but he, or some friend acting for him, seems to have taken precautions that we are not to suffer or lose money. Beecher goes on the theory that all is fair in love and war, I suppose, and he may call this a sort of scientific war."

"Well, it can't be helped, and we must make the best of it," said Tom, after a pause.

"Send the mule drivers after them?" questioned Ned. "What do you mean to do?"

"But," began Mr. Damon, "I don't see how--"

Tom and Ned got the meal, and then a consultation was held as to what was best to be done.

"But how can we, and carry all this stuff?" asked Ned.

"Good!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my rubber boots! but that's what I say--keep on!"

"But how can we manage it?" asked Ned.

"We'll pack up what we can carry and leave the rest," added the scientist.

"There are four of us," remarked Tom, "and if we can not pack enough along with us to enable us to get to the nearest village, we had better go back to civilization. I'm not afraid to try."

The baggage, stores and supplies that were to be left behind were made as snug as possible, and so piled up that wild beasts could do the least harm. Then a pack was made up for each one to carry.

As far as could be learned from a casual inspection, Jacinto and his deserting Indians had taken back with them only a small quantity of food. They were traveling light and down stream, and could reach the town much more quickly than they had come away from it.

Professor Bumper had a general idea in which direction lay a number of native villages, and it was determined to head for them, blazing a path through the wilderness, so that the Indians could follow it back to the goods left behind.

They stopped at noon under a bower they made of palms, and, spreading the nets over them, got a little rest after a lunch. Then, when the sun was less hot, they started off again.

They had not gone more than an hour on the second stage of their tramp when Tom, who was in the lead, following the direction laid out by the compass, suddenly stopped, and reached around for his electric rifle, which he was carrying at his back.

"I don't know, but it's some big animal there in the bushes," was Tom's low-voiced answer. "I'm ready for it."

Ned, tho had a side view into the underbrush, gave a sudden cry.

CHAPTER XIV:

In spite of Ned Newton's cry, Tom's finger pressed the switch-trigger of the electric rifle, for previous experience had taught him that it was sometimes the best thing to awe the natives in out-of-the-way corners of the earth. But the young inventor quickly elevated the muzzle, and the deadly missile went hissing through the air over the head of a native Indian who, at that moment, stepped from the bush.

"Hold on!" he shouted. "Wait a minute. I didn't mean that. I thought at first you were a tapir or a tiger. No harm intended. I say, Professor," Tom called back to the savant, "you'd better speak to him in his lingo, I can't manage it. He may be useful in guiding us to that Indian village Jacinto told us of."

Professor Bumper had made only a few remarks to the man who had so unexpectedly appeared out of the jungle when the scientist gave an exclamation of surprise at some of the answers made.

"What's the matter now? Is anything wrong? Does he refuse to help us?"

"Come back?" queried Tom.

They don't show much emotion, but they have deep feelings. This one says he will devote himself to your service from now on. I believe we can count on him. He is deeply grateful to you, Tom."

The professor asked some more questions, receiving answers, and then translated them.

"Well I'm glad I didn't frighten him off with my gun," remarked Tom grimly. "So he agrees with us that Jacinto is a scoundrel, does he? I guess he might as well classify Professor Beecher in the same way."

"Oh, of course Beecher did it!" cried Tom. "He heard we were coming here, figured out that we'd start ahead of him, and he wanted to sidetrack us. Well, he did it all right," and Tom's voice was bitter.

"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Fine!" cried Ned. "When can we start?"

"He says it will be better for us to go back where we left our things and camp there. He will stay with us to-night and in the morning go on to the nearest Indian town and come back with porters and helpers."

So it was agreed that they would make a forced march back through the jungle to where they had been deserted by Jacinto. There they would make camp for the night, and until such time as Tolpec could return with a force of porters.

"We'll get ahead of Beecher yet," said Tom.

"I guess I am," admitted Tom. "I want to see that idol of gold in the possession of our party."

As the green vines and creepers closed after him, and the explorers were left alone with their possessions piled around them, Ned remarked:

"Why not?" asked Tom.

A silence followed Ned's intimation.

CHAPTER XV

"Well, I don't know," was the slowly given reply. "It's a possibility, isn't it?"

"But that's just it!" complained Tom. "We don't want to lose any time with that Beecher chap on our trail."

"Why not?" snapped out Mr. Damon.

"So I thought it best to take a chance with this Indian. He would hardly have taken the trouble to come all the way back, and run the risks he did, just to delay us a few days. However, we'll soon know. Meanwhile, we'll take it easy and wait for the return of Tolpec and his friends."

But there was nothing for it but to wait, and it might be at least a week, Professor Bumper said, before the Indian could return with a party of porters and mules to move their baggage.

But there were only two things left to do--wait and hope. The travelers did both. Four days passed and there was no sign of Tolpec. Eagerly, and not a little anxiously, they watched the jungle path along which he had disappeared.

"Bless my watch hands! So am I!" cried Mr. Damon. "Let's all go for a trip. It will do us good."

Accordingly, having made everything snug in camp, the party, Tom and Ned equipped with electric rifles, and the professor with a butterfly net and specimen boxes, set forth. Mr. Damon said he would carry a stout club as his weapon.

"We'll try some shots on our back trip," said the young inventor.

"But I didn't let him get away," he said in triumph when he had dropped the clawing insect into the cyanide bottle where death came painlessly. "It is well worth a sore thumb."

"Well, it's about time we shot something, I think," remarked Ned, when they had been out about two hours. "Let's try for some of these wild turkeys. They ought to go well roasted even if it isn't Thanksgiving."

The change was made, and once more the two young men started off, a little ahead of Professor Bumper and Mr. Damon. Tom and Ned had not gone far, however, before they heard a strange cry from Mr. Damon.

"A tiger!" ejaculated Tom, as he began once more to change the charge in his rifle to a larger one, running back, meanwhile, in the direction of the sound of the voice.

"Come on, Ned!" cried Tom. "He's in some sort of trouble!"

"Kill it, Tom! Kill it!" begged the eccentric man. "Bless my insurance policy, but it's a terrible beast!"

"Don't be afraid, Mr. Damon," called Tom, still laughing. "It won't hurt you!"

"Just take your club and poke it out of the way," the young inventor advised. "It's only waiting to be shoved."

Mr. Damon was not a coward, but the giant iguana was not pleasant to look at. Tom, with the butt of his rifle, gave it a gentle shove, whereupon the creature scurried off through the brush as though glad to make its escape unscathed.

"Where is it?" asked Professor Bumper, coming up at this juncture. "A new species of alligator? Let me see it!"

Notwithstanding this, when he heard that it was one of the largest sized iguanas ever seen, the professor started through the jungle after it.

"We might take the skin," answered the professor. "I have a standing order for such things from one of the museums I represent. I'd like to get it. Then they are often eaten. We can have a change of diet. you see."

Off they started through the jungle, trailing after the impetuous professor who was intent on capturing the iguana. The giant lizard's progress could be traced by the disturbance of the leaves and underbrush, and the professor was following as closely as possible.

"Wait a minute. We'll all be lost if you keep this up."

His voice ended in a scream that seemed to be one of terror. So sudden was the change that Tom and Ned, who were together, ahead of Mr. Damon, looked at one another in fear.

"Don't stop to ask--come on!" shouted Tom.

"Tom! Ned!" he gasped, rather than cried.

"In the coils!" repeated Ned. "What does he mean? Can the giant iguana----"

CHAPTER XVI

Before Tom and Ned reached the place whence Professor Bumper had called, they heard strange noises, other than the imploring voice of their friend. It seemed as though some great body was threshing about in the jungle, lashing the trees, bushes and leaves about, and when the two young men, followed by Mr. Damon, reached the scene they saw that, in a measure, this really accounted for what they heard.

Between the two trees, and seemingly bound to them by a great coiled rope, spotted and banded, was the body of Professor Bumper. His arms were pinioned to his sides and there was horror and terror on his face, that looked imploringly at the youths from above the topmost coil of those encircling him.

"It's a snake--a great boa!" gasped Tom. "It has him in its coils. But it is wound around the trees, too. That alone prevents it from crushing the professor to death.

The great, ugly head of the boa reared itself up from the coils which it had, with the quickness of thought, thrown about the man between the two trees. This species of snake is not poisonous, and kills its prey by crushing it to death, making it into a pulpy mass, with scarcely a bone left unbroken, after which it swallows its meal. The crushing power of one of these boas, some of which reach a length of thirty feet, with a body as large around as that of a full-grown man, is enormous.

"I see a good chance now," added Ned, who had taken the small charge from his weapon, replacing it with a heavier one.

"One other will be enough to make him loosen his coils!" cried Tom, as he fired again, and such was the killing power of the electric bullets that the snake, though an immense one, and one that short of decapitation could have received many injuries without losing power, seemed to shrivel up.

Professor Bumper seemed to fall backward as the grip of the serpent relaxed, but Tom, dropping his rifle, and calling to Ned to keep an eye on the snake, leaped forward and caught his friend.

Ned Newton fired two more electric bullets into the still writhing body of the boa.

"Bless my horseradish! And so our friend seems to be," commented Mr. Damon. "Have you anything with which to revive him, Tom?"

"I have some in my flask."

"What happened?" he asked faintly as he opened his eyes. "Oh, yes, I remember," he added slowly. "The boa----"

Professor Bumper appeared to be considering. He moved first one limb, then another. He seemed to have the power over all his muscles.

"It was the big boa that whipped itself around you, as you leaned over," explained Tom, as Ned came up to announce that the snake was no longer dangerous. "But when it coiled around you it also coiled around the two trees, you, fortunately slipping between them. Had it not been that their trunks took off some of the pressure of the coils you wouldn't have lasted a minute."

"I should say not!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my circus ring! one might as well try to combat an elephant! But, my dear professor, are you all right now?"

Professor Bumper was indeed unable to go about much for a few days after his encounter with the great serpent. He stretched out in a hammock under trees in the camp clearing, and with his friends waited for the possible return of Tolpec and the porters.

"For he's sure to come back that way--if he comes at all," declared Ned; "which I am beginning to doubt."

A week passed. Professor Bumper was able to be about, and Tom and Ned noticed that there was an anxious look on his face. Was he, too, beginning to despair?

"We had better if Tolpec does not return today," was the answer.

"Hark!"

"It is Tolpec coming back!" cried Mr. Damon. "Hurray! Now our troubles are over t Bless my meal ticket! Now we can start!"

"Nonsense! you old cold-water pitcher!" cried Tom. "It's Tolpec! I can see him! He's a good scout all right!"

"Me come back!" he exclaimed in gutteral English, using about half of his foreign vocabulary.

"All right," was the answer. "These Indians will take you where you want to go, and will not leave you as Jacinto did."

"Good!" grunted the new guide and soon the hungry Indians, who had come far, were satisfying their hunger.

There was a feast and a sort of celebration in camp that night. Tom and Ned shot two deer, and these formed the main part of the feast and the Indians made merry about the fire until nearly midnight. They did not seem to mind in the least the swarms of mosquitoes and other bugs that flew about, attracted by the light. As for Tom Swift and his friends, their nets protected them.

The march onward for the next two days was tiresome; but the Indians Tolpec had secured were as faithful and efficient as he had described them, and good progress was made.

In due season the Indian village was reached. where, after a day spent in holding funeral services over the dead bearer, preparations were made for proceeding farther.

"And now we're really off for Copan!" exclaimed Professor Bumper one morning, when the cavalcade, led by Tolpec in the capacity of head guide, started off. "I hope we have no more delays."

Weary marches fell to their portion. There were mountains to climb, streams to ford or swim, sending the carts over on rudely made rafts. There were storms to endure, and the eternal heat to fight.

Not wishing to attract attention in Copan itself, Professor Bumper and his party made a detour, and finally, after much consultation with Tom over the ancient maps, the scientist announced that he thought they were in the vicinity of the buried city.

The party was in camp, and preparations were made for spending the night in the forest, when from among the trees there floated to the ears of our friends a queer Indian chant.

Almost as he spoke there filed into the clearing where the camp had been set up, a cavalcade of white men, followed by Indians. And at the sight of one of the white men Tom Swift uttered a cry.

CHAPTER XVII

The on-marching company of white men, with their Indian attendants, came to a halt on the edge of the clearing as they caught sight of the tents already set up there. The barbaric chant of the native bearers ceased abruptly, and there was a look of surprise shown on the face of Professor Fenimore Beecher. For Professor Beecher it was, in the lead of the rival expedition.

"Is it really Beecher?" asked Ned, though he knew as well as Tom that it was the young archaeologist.

"Maybe he thinks we have nerve to get here ahead of him," suggested Ned, smiling grimly.

"That's right," assented Ned. "Well, what's the next move?"

"Do!" exclaimed the eccentric Mr. Damon, not giving Tom time to reply. "Why, stand your ground, of course! Bless my house and lot! but we're here first! For the matter of that, I suppose the jungle is free and we can no more object to his coming: here than he can to our coming. First come, first served, I suppose is the law of the forest."

There was a hasty consultation among the professors accompanying Mr. Beecher, and then the latter himself advanced toward the tents of Tom and his friends and asked:

"I don't see that we are called upon to answer that question," replied Professor Bumper stiffly.

"There is no perhaps about it!" said Professor Bumper quickly. "I know what your object is, as I presume you do mine. And, after what I may term your disgraceful and unsportsmanlike conduct toward me and my friends, I prefer not to have anything further to do with you. We must meet as strangers hereafter."

"An explanation would be wasted on you," said Professor Bumper stiffly. "But in order that you may know I fully understand what you did I will say that your efforts to thwart us through your tool Jacinto came to nothing. We are here ahead of you."

"Your denial is useless in the light of his confession," asserted Professor Bumper.

"Now look here!" exclaimed the older professor, "I do not propose to lower myself by quarreling with you. I know certainly what you and your party tried to do to prevent us from getting here. But we got out of the trap you set for us, and we are on the ground first. I recognize your right to make explorations as well as ourselves, and I presume you have not fallen so low that you will not recognize the unwritten law in a case of this kind--the law which says the right of discovery belongs to the one who first makes it."

"It will be useless to discuss it further!" broke in Professor Bumper.

"I should have suggested the same thing myself," came from Tom's friend, and the two rival scientists fairly glared at one another, the others of both parties looking on with interest.

"Well, he certainly had nerve, to deny, practically, that he had set Jacinto up to do what he did," commented Tom.

"How do you imagine he got here nearly as soon as we did, when he did not start until later?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Well, I did hope we might have the ground to ourselves, at least for the preliminary explorations and excavations. But it is not to be. My rival is here," sighed Professor Bumper.

"Yes, Tom Swift, that is true," agreed the scientist. "I am not going to give up, but I shall have to change my plans a little. Perhaps you will come into the tent with me," and he nodded to Tom and Ned. "I want to talk over certain matters with you and Mr. Damon."

A little later, supper having been eaten, the camp made shipshape and the natives settled down, Tom, Ned, Mr. Damon and Professor Bumper assembled in the tent of the scientist, where a dry battery lamp gave sufficient illumination to show a number of maps and papers scattered over an improvised table.

"Aside from being on the spot, below which, or below the vicinity where, I believe, lies the lost city of Kurzon and, I hope, the idol of gold, a situation has arisen--an unexpected situation, I may say--which calls for different action from that I had counted on.

"That's right," agreed Ned. "He may get up in the night, dig up this city and skip with that golden image before we know it."

"No," said Professor Bumper. "Excavating buried cities in the jungle of Honduras is not as simple as that. There is much work to be done. But accidents may happen, and in case one should occur to me, and I be unable to prosecute the search, I want one of you to do it. For that reason I am going to show you the maps and ancient documents and point out to you where I believe the lost city lies. Now, if you will give me your attention, I'll proceed."

"But this is the most valuable of all," he said, as he opened an oiled-silk packet. "And before I show it to you, suppose you two young men take a look outside the tent."

"To make sure that no emissaries from the Beecher crowd are sneaking around to overhear what we say," was the somewhat bitter answer of the scientist. "I do not trust him, in spite of his attempted denial."

"Doesn't seem to be any one around here," remarked Ned, after waiting a minute or two.

In the distance, and from the direction of their rivals' camp, came the weird chant.

"Everything's quiet," reported Ned.

Carefully, as though about to exhibit some, precious jewel, he loosened the oiled-silk wrappings and showed a large map, on thin but tough paper.

"Wouldn't it have been wise to make two copies?" asked Tom.

"Over it!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my gunpowder! What do you mean?" and he looked down at the earthen floor of the tent as though expecting it to open and swallow him.

"Considerable excavation has been done in Central America," went on Professor Bumper, "and certain ruins have been brought to light. Near us are those of Copan, while toward the frontier are those of Quirigua, which are even better preserved than the former. We may visit them if we have time. But I have reason to believe that in this section of Copan is a large city, the existence of which has not been made certain of by any one save myself--and, perhaps, Professor Beecher.

"How long ago do you think the city was buried?" asked Tom.

"That would mean," said Mr. Damon, "that the ancient cities were in ruins, buried, perhaps, long before Columbus discovered the new world."

"Now this is the map of the district, and by the markings you can see where I hope to find what I seek. We shall begin digging here," and he made a small mark with a pencil on the map.

"How do you ever expect to find it?" asked Ned.

"At what point?" asked Tom.

The two tents housing the four white members of the Bumper party were close together, and it was decided that the night would be divided into four watches, to guard against possible treachery on the part of the Beecher crowd.

The others agreed with him, and though standing guard was not pleasant it was done. However the night passed without incident, and then came morning and the excitement of getting breakfast, over which the Indians made merry. They did not like the cold and darkness, and always welcomed the sun, no matter how hot.

"Yes," agreed Professor Bumper, "I will consult the map, and start the diggers where I think the city lies, far below the surface. Now, gentlemen, if you will give me your attention----"

"What's the matter?" asked Tom.

"The map gone?" gasped Mr. Damon.

He ceased speaking to make a further search in all his pockets.

"Or maybe some of the Beecher crowd took it!" snapped Tom.

CHAPTER XVIII

"Are you sure the map is gone?" asked Tom. "I know how easy it is to mislay anything in a camp of this sort. I couldn't at first find my safety razor this morning, and when I did locate it the hoe was in one of my shoes. I'm sure a rat or some jungle animal must have dragged it there. Now maybe they took your map, Professor. That oiled silk in which it was wrapped might have appealed to the taste of a rat or a snake."

"When did you put it there?" asked Ned.

"Oh, then you have had it since last night!" Tom ejaculated.

"The map or the oiled-silk package?" asked Mr. Damon, who, once having been a businessman, was sometimes a stickler for small points.

"Then the whole thing has been taken--or you have lost it," suggested Ned.

"Well, we mustn't overlook any possible chances," suggested Tom. "Come on now, we'll search every inch of the ground over which you traveled this morning, Professor."

They all went into the tent where the professor and Mr. Damon had slept when they were not on guard. The camp was a busy place, with the Indians finishing their morning meal, and getting ready for the work of the day. For word had been given out that there would be no more long periods of travel.

Leaving this busy scene, the four, with solemn faces, proceeded to the tent where it was hoped the map would be found. But though they went through everything, and traced and retraced every place the professor could remember having traversed about the canvas shelter, no signs of the important document could be found.

"Then it was taken," declared Tom.

"Easy, my boy," cautioned Mr. Damon. "We don't want to make accusations we can't prove."

"But how could any of them get it?" asked Mr. Damon. "You say you had the map this morning, and certainly none of them has been in our camp since dawn, though of course it is possible that some of them sneaked in during the night."

"Very grave. In fact I may say it is impossible to proceed with the excavating without the map."

"We must get it back!" declared Tom.

"Suppose he says he hasn't taken it?" asked Tom.

A more detailed search did not reveal the missing map, and Mr. Damon and his friend the scientist were on the point of departing for the camp of their rivals, less than a mile away, when Tom had what really amounted to an inspiration.

"Well, Tom, I did intend to compare my map with the configuration of the country about here. There is a certain mountain which serves as a landmark and a guide for a starting point. I think that is it over there," and the scientist pointed to a distant snow-capped peak.

"The point where I believe we should start to dig," said the professor, "is near the spot where the top of the mountain casts a shadow when the sun is one hour high. At least that is the direction given in the old manuscripts. So, though we can do little without the map, we might make a start by digging there."

"Why not?"

"But they know anyhow, for they have the map," commented Ned, puzzled by his chum's words.

"Very good! If they do that we have a right to dig near the same place. But if they have not the map, which is possible, and if we start to dig where the professor's memory tells him is the right spot, we'll only give them the tip, and they'll dig there also."

"Just what do you propose doing?" asked Ned.

"If, on the other hand, they have the map, and see us digging at a spot not indicated on it, they will be puzzled, knowing we must have some idea of where the buried city lies. They will think the map is at fault, perhaps, and not make use of it. Then we can get it back."

And this was done. Search for the precious map was given up for the time being, and the professor and his friends set the natives to work digging shafts in the ground, as though sinking them down to the level of the buried city.

"If we could only get it back!" exclaimed the professor, again and again.

"I can't imagine what they're up to," he said. "If they have my map they would act differently, I should think."

Until some evidence should have been obtained by digging, as to the location beneath the surface of a buried city, there was nothing for the travelers to do but wait. Turns were taken in directing the efforts of the diggers, and an occasional inspection was made of the shafts.

"Potsherds and artifacts," was the answer.

"Artifacts are things made by the Indians--or whatever members of the race who built the ancient cities were called--such as household articles, vases, ornaments, tools and so on. Anything made by artificial means is called an artifact."

"Exactly," said the professor, laughing. "Though some of the strange-appearing inscriptions give much valuable information. As soon as we find some of them--say a broken bit of pottery with hieroglyphics on--I will know I am on the right track."

"El tigre! El tigre!"

CHAPTER XIX

"Surely," was the cautious answer. "Keep still, and I'll try for a shot."

And as Ned's voice trailed off into a whisper, again came the cry, this time in frenzied pain.

"It's over this way!" and this time Ned shouted, seeing no need for low voices since the other was so loud.

Directly in front of him and Ned, and not more than a hundred yards away, was a great tawny and spotted jaguar--the "tigre" or tiger of Central America. The beast, with lashing tail, stood over an Indian upon whom it seemed to have sprung from some lair, beating the unfortunate man to the ground. Nor had he fallen scatheless, for there was blood on the green leaves about him, and it was not the blood of the spotted beast.

The young inventor understood the unspoken question.

Cautiously Tom brought his weapon to bear. Quiet as Ned and he had been after the discovery, the jaguar seemed to feel that something was wrong. Intent on his prey, for a time he had stood over it, gloating. Now the brute glanced uneasily from side to side, its tail nervously twitching, and it seemed trying to gain, by a sniffing of the air, some information as to the direction in which danger lay, for Tom and Ned had stooped low, concealing themselves by a screen of leaves.

Suddenly the jaguar, attracted either by some slight movement on the part of Ned or Tom, or perhaps by having winded them, turned his head quickly and gazed with cruel eyes straight at the spot where the two young men stood behind the bushes.

"Yes," assented Tom. "And it's a perfect shot. Hope I don't miss!"

Straight through the throat and chest under the uplifted jaw of the jaguar it went--through heart and lungs. Then with a great coughing, sighing snarl the beast reared up, gave a convulsive leap forward toward its newly discovered enemies, and fell dead in a limp heap, just beyond the native over which it had been crouching before it delivered the death stroke, now never to fall.

"Just a minute!" interposed Tom. "Those beasts sometimes have as many lives as a cat. I'll give it one more for luck." Another electric projectile through the head of the jaguar produced no further effect than to move the body slightly, and this proved conclusively that there was no life left. It was safe to approach, which Tom and Ned did.

The American jaguar is not so formidable a beast as the native name of tiger would cause one to suppose, though they are sufficiently dangerous, and this one had rather badly clawed the Indian. Fortunately the scratches were on the fleshy parts of the arms and shoulders, where, though painful, they were not necessarily serious.

"Oh, well, I guess you'd have hit him if I hadn't," returned the young inventor. "But let's see what we can do for this chap."

"Blessed if I can tell whether he's one of our Indians or whether he belongs to the Beecher crowd," remarked Tom.

Tom and Ned knew a little Spanish, and with that, and simple but expressive signs on the part of the Indian, they learned his story. He had his palm-thatched hut not far from the Beecher camp, in a small Indian village, and he, with others, had been hired on the arrival of the Beecher party to help with the excavations. These, for some reason, were delayed.

"Maybe," agreed Tom.

"But you saved my life, Senor," he said to Tom, dropping on one knee and trying to kiss Tom's hand, which our hero avoided. "And now my life is yours," added the Indian.

"My wife she make a poultice of leaves--they cure me," said the Indian.

"Well, we'll take him home," suggested Tom. "He might keel over from loss of blood. Come on," he added to Tal, indicating his object.

"I hate this business!" complained Tom, after having been knelt to by the Indian's wife and child, who called him the "preserver" and other endearing titles of the same kind. "Come on, let's hike back."

"My life--my house--all that I own is yours," said Tal in deep gratitude. "Take everything," and he waved his hand to indicate all the possessions in his humble hut.

"The Senor shall have a dozen," promised the Indian.

"These the arrows," explained Tal's wife, bringing a bundle from a corner of the one-room hut. As she held them out her husband gave a cry of fear.

In fear the Indian wife prepared to obey, but as she did so Tom Swift caught sight of the package and uttered a strange cry.

CHAPTER XX

Fascinated, Tom and Ned gazed at the package the Indian woman held out to them. Undoubtedly it was oiled silk on the outside, and through the almost transparent covering could be seen the small arrows, or darts, used in the blow gun.

"What is the matter, Senor?" asked the Indian in turn. "Is it that you are afraid of the poisoned arrows? Be assured they will not harm you unless you are scratched by them."

"We're not afraid," Tom said, noting that the oiled skin well covered the dangerous darts. "But where did you get that?"

"Quick! Yes! Tell us!" demanded Tom eagerly. "What did he do with the professor's map that was in the oiled silk? Where is it?"

"No, he did no harm," went on Tom, in a reassuring tone. "But he can do a whole lot of good if he tells us what became of the map that was in this oiled silk. Where is it?" he asked again.

"What, burned the professor's map?" cried Ned.

"Valdez open the package; but it is not gold, though he think so because it is yellow, and the man with no hair on his head keep it in his pocket close, so close," and Tal hugged himself to indicate what he meant.

"How did Valdez get the map out of the professor's coat?" asked Tom.

"The Indian must have sneaked into camp when we were eating," said Tom. "Those from Beecher's party and our workers look all alike to us. We wouldn't know one from the other, and one of our rival's might slip in."

"It certainly is the same," declared the young inventor. "See, there is his name," and he stretched out his hand to point.

"Don't worry, I won't touch," said Tom grimly. "But go on. You say Valdez sneaked into our camp, took the oiled-silk package from the coat pocket of Professor Bumper and went back to his own camp with it, thinking it was gold."

"Burned that rare map!" gasped Tom.

"No, thank you," answered Tom, in disappointed tones. "The oiled silk is of no use without the map, and that's gone. Whew! but this is tough!" he said to his chum. "As long as it was only stolen there was a chance to get it back, but if it's burned, the jig is up."

"Evidently not," assented Tom. "But I believe him capable of it."

"Huh!" was all the answer given by his chum.

"No, you could not help it," interrupted the young inventor. "But it just happens that it brings bad luck to us. You see, Tal, the papers in this yellow covering, told of an old buried city that the bald-headed professor--the-manwith-no-hair-on-his-head--is very anxious to discover. It is somewhere under the ground," and he waved to the jungle all about them, pointing earthwards.

"Yes. But now, of course, we can't tell where to dig for it."

"Where is she going?" asked Tom suspiciously.

"Good, Ned!" suddenly cried Tom. "Maybe, we'll get on the track of lost Kurzon after all, through some ancient Indian legend. Maybe we won't need the map!"

"No, and that may be just the reason they are more likely to be right," returned Tom. "Legends handed down from one grandfather to another go back a good many hundred years. If they were written they might be destroyed as the professor's map was. Somehow or other, though I can't tell why, I begin to see daylight ahead of us."

"Here comes Goosal I think," murmured Tom, and he pointed to an Indian, bent with the weight of years, who, led by Tal's wife, was slowly approaching the hut.

CHAPTER XXI

"Well, if he can tell us how to find the buried city of Kurzon and the--the things in it," said Tom, "he's all right!"

"I know what you seek in the buried city," remarked Tal.

"Yes you want pieces of rock, with strange writings on them, old weapons, broken pots. I know. I have helped white men before."

"No, but I can tell you what he says."

"Goosal say," translated Tal, "that he know a story of a very old city away down under ground."

But a difficulty very soon developed. Tal's intentions were good, but he was not equal to the task of translating. Nor was the understanding of Tom and Ned of Spanish quite up to the mark.

"What can we do?" asked Ned.

"That's right," agreed Ned. "We'll bring the professor here as soon as we can."

This seemed to suit the Indians, all of whom in the small colony appeared to be very grateful to Tom and Ned for having saved the life of Tal.

"Better than I realized, if it leads to the discovery of Kurzon and the idol of gold," remarked Tom.

That Professor Bumper was astonished, and Mr. Damon likewise, when they heard the story of Tom and Ned, is stating it mildly.

"Oh, somewhere in this vicinity, as nearly as I could make out. But you'd better talk with him yourself. We didn't say anything about the idol of gold."

"Bless my insurance policy!" gasped Mr. Damon. "It does not seem possible that we are on the right track."

"It is, if it is what I take it to be," agreed the professor. "I told you I would bring you to a land of wonders, Tom Swift, and they have hardly begun yet. Come, I am anxious to talk to Goosal."

"We'll pretend we are on the right track, and very busy," said Tom. "That will fool Beecher."

"Well, yes. It is hard to believe such things of a fellow scientist."

"Oh, you are hardly fair, perhaps, Tom," commented Ned.

With the Indians in camp busy on the excavation work, and having ascertained that similar work was going on in the Beecher outfit, Professor Bumper, with Mr. Damon and the young men, set off to visit the Indian village and listen to Goosal's story. They passed the place where Tom had slain the jaguar, but nothing was left but the bones; the ants, vultures and jungle animals having picked them clean in the night.

"But is that all you know about it, Goosal?" asked the savant.

"You have!" cried the professor, this time in English. "Where? When? Take us to it! How do you get here?"

"Bless my diamond ring!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, when Professor Bumper translated the reply. "What does he mean?"

Goosal, though in fear and trembling, was lead through it, and came to another cavern, vaster than the first. And there he saw strange and wonderful sights, for it was the remains of a buried city, that had once been the home of a great and powerful tribe unlike the Indians--the ancient Mayas it would seem.

"Yes," answered Goosal. "I will lead to it those who saved the life of Tal--them and their friends. I will take you to the lost city!"

"And the idol of gold," said Tom Swift to himself. "I hope we can get it ahead of Beecher. Perhaps if I can help in that--Oh, well, here's hoping, that's all!" and a little smile curved his lips.

CHAPTER XXII

"Now," remarked Tom, once they were back again in their camp, "we must go about this trip to the cavern in a way that will cause no suspicion over there as to what our object is," and he nodded in the direction of the quarters of his rival.

"Yes. And to keep the work going on here, at these shafts," put in the scientist, "so that if any of their spies happen to come here they will think we still believe the buried city to be just below us. To that end we must keep the Indians digging, though I am convinced now that it is useless."

One of the most intelligent of the Indians was put in charge of the digging gangs as foreman, and told to keep them at work, and not to let them stray. Tolpec, whose brother Tom had tried to save, proved a treasure. He agreed to remain behind and look after the interests of his friends, and see that none of their baggage or stores were taken.

Tom and his friends found it even worse than they had expected, for all their experience in jungle and mountain traveling. In places it was necessary to dismount and lead the mules along, sometimes pushing and dragging them. More than once the trail fairly hung on the edge of some almost bottomless gorge, and again it wound its way between great walls of rock, so poised that they appeared about to topple over and crush the travelers. But they kept on with dogged patience, through many hardships.

They had taken plenty of condensed food with them, and they did not suffer in this respect. Game, too, was plentiful and the electric rifles of Tom and Ned added to the larder.

"Who's there?" asked the young inventor sharply, as he reached for his electric rifle.

"Speak, or I'll fire!" Tom warned, adding this in such Spanish as he could muster, for he thought it might be one of the Indians. No reply came, and then, seeing by the light of the stars a dark form moving in front of the tent occupied by himself and Ned, Tom fired.

"What's the matter, Tom?" for he had been awakened, and heard the crackle of the electrical discharge.

"Maybe some of Beecher's crowd," ventured his chum. But when they got their electric torches, and focused them on the inert, black object, it was found to be a bear which had come to nose about the camp for dainty morsels.

It was shortly after noon the next day, when Goosal, after remarking that a storm seemed brewing, announced that they would be at the entrance to the cavern in another hour.

"Don't be too sure," advised Mr. Damon, "We may be disappointed. Though I hope not for your sake, my dear Professor."

"Here. somewhere, is the entrance to the cavern," said the aged man. "It was many years ago that I was here--many years. But it seems as though yesterday. It is little changed."

Slowly Goosal walked along the rocky trail, on one side a sheer rock, towering a hundred feet or more toward the sky. On the other side a deep gash leading to a great fertile valley below.

"It is here," said Goosal quietly. "The entrance to the cavern that leads to the burial place of the dead, and the city that is dead also. It is here."

"Come on!" cried Tom, impetuously.

Torches of a light bark, that glowed with a steady flame and little smoke, had been provided, as well as a good supply of electric dry-battery lamps, and the way into the cavern was thus well lighted. At first the Indians were afraid to enter, but a word or two from Goosal reassured them, and they followed Professor Bumper, Tom, and the others into the cavern.

"Talk about a wonderland!" cried Tom. "This is fairyland!"

"The city of the dead!"

"Doubtless a wealth of material of historic interest here," said Professor Bumper, flashing his torch on the skeletons. "But it will keep. Where is the city you spoke of, Goosal?"

Past the stone graves they went, deeper and deeper into the great cave. Their footsteps echoed and re-echoed. Suddenly Tom, who with Ned had gone a little ahead, came to a sudden halt and said:

He pointed ahead. Surely those were lights flickering and moving about, and, yes, there were men carrying them. The Bumper party came to a surprised halt. The other lights advanced, and then, to the great astonishment of Professor Bumper and his friends, there confronted them in the cave several scientists of Professor Beecher's party and a score or more of Indians. Professor Hylop, who was known to Professor Bumper, stepped forward and asked sharply:

"I might ask you the same thing," was the retort.

"Do you mean leave here?" asked Mr Damon.

"Are you speaking for Professor Beecher"' asked Tom.

"We have no wish to intrude," observed Professor Bumper, "and I fully recognize the right of prior discovery. But one member of our party (he did not say which one) was in this cave many years ago. He led us to it."

"Drive them out!" he ordered the Indians in Spanish, and with muttered threats the darkskinned men advanced toward Tom and the others.

He and Professor Hylop had quarreled bitterly years before on some scientific matter, and the matter was afterward found to be wrong. Perhaps this made him vindictive.

"I guess there is no help for it but to go. It seems to be theirs by right of discovery and government concession," he said, in disappointed tone. "Come friends"; and dejectedly they retraced their steps.

"We'll have to get our Indians and drive those fellows out!" declared Tom. "I'm not going to be beaten this way--and by Beecher!"

"Then we've failed!" cried Tom bitterly.

"Hark! What's that noise?" asked Tom, as they approached the entrance to the cave.

It was. As they stood in the entrance they looked out to find a fierce storm raging. The wind was sweeping down the rocky trail, the rain was falling in veritable bucketfuls from the overhanging cliff, and deafening thunder and blinding lightning roared and flashed.

"You can not stay in the cave! You must get out!" was the answer, as a louder crash of thunder than usual seemed to shake the very mountain.

CHAPTER XXIII

"We can't go out into that blow!" cried Ned. "It's enough to loosen the very mountains!"

"We must go out," said Professor Bumper simply. "I recognize the right of my rival to dispossess us."

"I would not give him the satisfaction of appealing to him," remarked Professor Bumper. "Come, we will go out. We have our ponchos, and we are not fair-weather explorers. If we can't get to the lost city one way we will another. Come my friends."

"Come on!" cried Tom, in a voice he tried to render confident, as they went out into the terrible storm. "We'll beat 'em yet!"

"We must take to the forest!" cried Tom. "There'll be some shelter there, and I don't like the way the geography of this place is behaving. There may be a landslide at any moment."

"Yes, it will be best to move into the jungle," said the professor. "Goosal, you had better take the lead."

The guide found a place where they could leave the trail, though going down a dangerous slope, and take to the forest. As carefully as possible they descended this, the rain continuing to fall, the wind to blow, the lightning to sizzle all about them and the thunder to boom in their ears.

"This is better!" exclaimed Ned, shaking his poncho and getting rid of some of the water that had settled on it.

"How?" asked Tom. "We are partly sheltered here, though had we stayed in the cave in spite of----"

"Struck by lightning!" yelled Ned.

Again came an interruption, but this time a different one. The very ground beneath their feet seemed to be shaking and trembling.

"It's an earthquake!" yelled Tom Swift.

Slowly at first the earth slid down, but constantly gathering force and speed. In the face of this new disaster the rain seemed to have ceased and the thunder and lightning to be less severe. It was as though one force of nature gave way to the other.

In silence, which was broken now only by a low and ominous rumble, more menacing than had been the awful fury of the elements, the travelers looked.

"There goes the entrance to the cavern!" cried Ned, and as the others looked to where he pointed they saw the hole in the side of the mountain --the mouth of the cave that led to the lost city of Kurzon--completely covered by thousands of tons of earth and stones.

"Of----" Ned stopped, his eyes staring.

CHAPTER XXIV

Stunned, not alone by the realization of the awfulness of the fate of their rivals, but also by the terrific storm and the effect of the earthquake and the landslide, Tom and his friends remained for a moment gazing toward the mouth of the cavern, now completely out of sight, buried by a mass of broken trees, tangled bushes, rocks and earth. Somewhere, far beyond that mass, was the Beecher party, held prisoners in the cave that formed the entrance to the buried city.

"We must help them!" he exclaimed, and it was characteristic of him that he harbored no enmity.

"We must get a force of Indians and dig them out," was the prompt answer.

The storm, indeed, seemed to be over, but it was no easy matter to get back over the soggy, rain-soaked ground to the trail they had left to take shelter in the forest. Fortunately the earthquake had not involved that portion where they had left their mules, but most of the frightened animals had broken loose, and it was some little time before they could all be caught.

"But what about them?" and Mr. Damon nodded in the direction of the entombed ones.

They all decided finally this was best. The professor, too, pointed out that their rivals were in a large and roomy cave, not likely to suffer from lack of air nor food or water, since they must have supplies with them.

The night seemed very long, and it was a most uncomfortable one, because of the shock and exertions through which the party had passed. Added to this was the physical discomfort caused by the storm.

"My!" exclaimed Tom, as they made their way slowly along, "it surely was some storm! Look at those big trees uprooted over there. They're almost as big as the giant redwoods of California, and yet they were bowled over as if they were tenpins."

"No wind could do that," declared Ned. "It must have been the landslide caused by the earthquake."

"There is no harm in settling the point," commented Professor Bumper. "It is not far off our trail, and will take only a few minutes to go over to the trees. I should like to get some photographs to accompany an article that perhaps I shall write on the effects of sudden and severe tropical storms. We will go to look at the overturned trees and then we'll hurry on to camp to get the rescue party."

"Look at the hole left when the roots pulled out!" cried Ned. "Why, it's like the crater of a small volcano!" he added. And, as they stood on the edge of it looking curiously at the hole made, the others agreed with Tom's chum.

"Look!" he shouted. "Isn't that some sort of tunnel or underground passage?" and he pointed to a square opening, perhaps seven feet high and nearly as broad, which extended, no one knew where, downward and onward from the side of the hole made by the uprooting of the trees.

"But what about the rescue work?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Perhaps this may be a better means of rescuing them than by digging them out, which will take a week at least," observed Tom.

"That's it," confirmed the savant. "If you will notice it extends back in the direction of the cave from which we were driven. Now if there is a buried city beneath all this jungle, this mountain of earth and stones, the accumulation of centuries, it is probably on the bottom of some vast cavern. It is my opinion that we were only in one end of that cavern, and this may be the entrance to another end of it."

"That's it. It is possible, and if we could it would save an immense lot of work, and probably be a surer way to save their lives than by digging a tunnel through the landslide to find the mouth of the cave where we first entered."

"I wonder," said Tom slowly, "if, by any chance, we shall find, through this passage, the lost city we are looking for."

"Goosal, do you know anything about this?" asked Professor Bumper. "Did you ever hear of another passage leading to the cave where you saw the ancient city?"

"That settles it!" cried the professor in English, having talked to Goosal in Spanish. "We'll try this and see where it leads."

"And this is one reason," said Tom, in commenting on this fact, "why I believe it leads to some vast cavern which is connected in some fashion with the outer air. Well, perhaps we shall soon make a discovery."

On and on they went, the darkness illuminated only by the torches they carried. But they noticed that the air was still fresh, and that a gentle wind blew toward them. The passage was undoubtedly artificial, a tunnel made by the hands of men now long crumbled into dust. It had a slightly upward slope, and this, Professor Bumper said, indicated that it was bored upward and perhaps into the very heart of the mountain somewhere in the interior of which was the Beecher party.

Suddenly Tom, who, with Professor Bumper, was in the lead, uttered a cry, as he held his torch above his head and flashed it about in a circle.

It was but too true. Confronting them, and extending from side to side across the passage and from roof to floor, was a great rough stone. Immense and solid it seemed when they pushed on it in vain.

"But there must be something on the other side of that stone," cried Tom. "See, it is pierced with holes, and through them comes a current of air. If we could only move the stone!"

Eagerly and frantically they tried to move it by their combined weight. The stone did not give the fraction of the breadth of a hair.

As he spoke old Goosal glided forward. He had remained behind them in the passage while they were trying to move the rock. Now he said something in Spanish.

"He asks that he be allowed to try," translated Professor Bumper. "Sometimes, he says, there is a secret way of opening stone doors in these underground caves. Let him try."

Suddenly he uttered an exclamation, and, as he did so, there was a noise from the door itself. It was a grinding, scraping sound, a rumble as though rocks were being rolled one against the other.

What lay before them?

CHAPTER XXV

"Where?" asked Mr Damon, hanging back for an instant. "Bless my compass, Tom! do you know where you're going?"

"Ask Goosal if he knows anything about it," suggested Mr. Damon to the professor.

"Then we're on the right track!" cried Tom. "If this is the same kind of door, it must lead to the same place. Ho for Kurzon and the idol of gold!"

"It's always well to have a line of retreat open," said Tom. "There's no telling what may lie beyond us."

Goosal, who had brought with him some of the fiber bark torches, set a bundle of them aflame. As they flared up, a wondrous sight was revealed to Tom Swift and his friends.

"Look!" whispered Tom. A louder voice just then, would have seemed a sacrilege. "Look!"

"I believe it is," replied the professor. "It is the lost city of Kurzon, or one just like it. And now if we can find the idol of gold our search will be ended--at least the major part of it."

"It should be in the main temple. Come, we will walk in the ancient streets--streets where no feet but ours have trod in many centuries. Come!"

There were rude but beautiful stone buildings. There were archways; temples; public squares; and images, not at all beautiful, for they seemed to be of man-monsters--doubtless ancient gods. There were smoothly paved streets; wondrously carved fountains, some in ruins, all now as dry as bone, but which must have been places of beauty where youths and maidens gathered in the ancient days.

"What a wealth of historic information I shall find here!" murmured Professor Bumper, as he caught sight of many inscriptions in strange characters on the walls and buildings. "I shall never get to the end of them."

"We must hurry on to the temple over there," said the scientist, indicating a building further along.

"Yes, Tom. But fortunately we are on the ground here before them," agreed the professor.

"The idol of gold!"

Eagerly the others followed Professor Bumper up the altar steps to the very throne of the golden idol. The scientist touched it, tried to raise it and make sure of its solidity and material.

"Hurray!" cried Tom Swift, and Ned and Mr. Damon joined in the cry.

"What is it?" asked Tom Swift.

"Indians!" cried Professor Bumper, recognizing the language--a mixture of Spanish and Indian.

"Friends," murmured Goosal, using the Spanish term, "Amigos."

"How did they get here?" asked Professor Bumper.

The Indians had seen, passing along the trail, the uprooted trees, and had noted the footsteps of the explorers going down to the stone passage. It was easy for them to determine that Tom and his friends had gone in, since the marks of their boots were plainly in evidence in the soft soil.

"That statue is yours--all yours," said old Goosal when he had talked with his relatives and friends among the natives. "They all say what you find you keep, and we will help you keep it."

"Except that of getting the idol out," said Mr. Damon.

"I can hardly believe my good luck," declared Professor Bumper. "I shall write a whole book on this idol alone and then----"

And at their head was no less personage than Professor Beecher himself.

"We are glad to see you," he said to his rival. "That is glad to see you alive, for we saw the landslide bury you. And we were coming to dig you out. We thought this cave--the cave of the buried city--would lead us to you easier than by digging through the slide. We have just discovered this idol," and he put his hand on the grim golden image.

"Yes, not ten minutes ago. The natives have kindly acknowledged my right to it under the law of priority. I am sorry but----"

"Let us go. We are too late. He has what I came after."

"Thank you! Are you sure your party is all right--not in need of assistance? How did you get out of the place you were buried?"

"Too late, I see, to claim the discovery of the idol of gold," went on Mr. Hardy. "But I trust you will be generous, and allow us to make observations of the buildings and other relics."

"That is generous of you, and quite in contrast to--er--to the conduct of our leader. I trust he may awaken to a sense of the injustice he did you."

"Humph!" grunted Tom. Then he continued: "That story about a government concession was all a fake, Professor, else he'd have put up a fight now. Contemptible sneak!"

Suffice it to say that means were at once taken to get the golden image out of the cave of the ancient city. It was not accomplished without hard work, for the gold was heavy, and Professor Bumper would not, naturally, consent to the shaving off of so much as an ear or part of the flat nose, to say nothing of one of the half dozen extra arms and legs with which the ugly idol was furnished.

And at the camp a surprise awaited Tom.

"Well, is every little thing all right, Tom?" asked Ned, as he saw a cheerful grin spread itself over his chum's face.

"I know. Mary Nestor. Go on."

"Oh, I'm a mind-reader."

"Had he?"

"No?"

"Good!" cried Ned. "Shake, old man. I'm glad!"

"Well, what's the matter? Didn't you read all of her letter?" asked Ned when he saw his chum once more perusing the epistle.

"`Sorry I couldn't see you before you left. It was a mistake, but when you come back----'

With the idol of gold safe in their possession, Professor Bumper's party could devote their time to making other explorations in the buried city. This they did, as is testified to by a long list of books and magazine articles since turned out by the scientist, dealing strictly with archaeological subjects, touching on the ancient Mayan race and its civilization, with particular reference to their system of computing time.

His colleagues, after their first disappointment at being beaten, joined forces with Professor Bumper in exploring the old city, and made many valuable discoveries.

In another point it was demonstrated that the old documents were at fault. This was in reference to the golden idol having been overthrown and another set up in its place, an act which had caused the destruction of Kurzon.

Perhaps an effort had been made, just before the burying of the city, to change idols and the system of worship, but Quitzel seemed to have held his own. The old manuscripts were not very reliable, it was found, except in general.

"Yes, luck seems to favor you," replied Ned. "You've had a hand in the discovery of the idol of gold, and----"

It was several weeks later that the explorations of Kurzon came to an end--a temporary end, for the rainy season set in, when the tropics are unsuitable for white men. Tom, Professor Bumper, Ned and Mr. Damon set sail for the United States, the valuable idol of gold safe on board.

End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders