“I—am a soldier, too. Well, perhaps not quite, but I’m serving in a soldier’s plane, a mighty good one, too. Any man in my shoes would have to have had five hundred hours in the air.”

“And so where duty calls or danger—” he quoted.

“I shall always hope to be there,” she saluted. “But look!” she exclaimed. “Don is trying to sit up. He must not do that!”

“No! No! Old man! Not yet!” Once again Sparky was at his comrade’s side gently pushing him down.

“Wh—where am I? Who—what happened?” came in thick tones.

“You’re here and we’re here. Sparky and Mary,” said Sparky.

“Oh! Then it—it’s all right.” The injured man settled back.

“I’ll go get some pneumatic pillows,” Mary volunteered.

“Yes, and something hot to drink,” Sparky suggested. “That will help a lot.” Mary was away.

When Don had fully recovered consciousness and had been made as comfortable as possible, they gathered around him for a council of war.

“It’s getting dark,” said Sparky. “In another quarter of an hour it will be darker than a stack of black cats. In this land the dawn comes up like thunder, and the sun blinks out in the same way.”

“And there’s no moon,” said Janet.

“All of which means we’re here for the night,” said Mary. “Sparky,” her voice seemed a little strained. “What kind of a country is this?”

“Good head-hunting country,” Sparky laughed.

“No, but really, we’ve got to face facts,” Mary insisted.

“Truth is,” said Sparky, “I don’t know about the upper waters of the Amazon, or the people who live here. Do the rest of you?”

There came a chorus of “no”s.

“All right, then we’ll be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”

“They scattered fast enough when they saw us coming down,” Don volunteered.

“That was natural,” said Sparky. “It is also natural to suppose that, in the end, they’ll defend their homes. They may come back in the night. There are two loose machine guns in each plane. The Major had them put there for just such a time as this.”

“And for the time when we’ll be over battle zones,” Mary added. “We may be attacked—”

“Just now we’re in a jungle, so we’ll limber up the guns,” said Sparky. “How about you ladies fixing up a little chow?”

“Sure, oh, sure! We’ll do that!” was the quick response.

By the time Sparky had two guns set up in the Lone Star, which he figured might, in the event of an attack in force, be used as a fort, and had dragged the other guns to the spot, a short distance away, which they had chosen as a camp site, darkness had fallen and the girls had coffee brewing over a cheerful fire.

“Say! This is great!” Sparky exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to go camping but never had time!”

“Well,” Don drawled, “You’ve got about ten hours now with nothing else to do but camp.”

“Unless we’re attacked,” Janet supplemented with a shudder.

“Why bring that up?” Mary laughed. “Dinner is about ready to serve. Let’s make it a date.”

“A date it is,” Sparky agreed.

Their grub box contained a little more than iron rations. Sweet potatoes and sausages each served from a can, big, round white crackers, a square of butter and, aromatic coffee with real sugar and canned cream, made up the bulk of their satisfying meal. Dessert was little wild bananas, and huge, over-ripe grapefruit that were sweet as oranges. These came from the edge of the jungle.

“Um,” Janet breathed. “That was really a feast.”

“Yes, and listen!” Mary exclaimed low, “What was that? Really something different!”

A low rolling sound had come drifting in out of the night.

“A native drum!” was Sparky’s instant answer.

As they listened from farther away came the answer.

“Talking drums,” Mary whispered. “I never expected to hear them.”

She was hearing them all the same and, coming as they did out of the night with the low murmur of the dark, rushing river as their accompaniment, they sounded weird indeed. Now came a roar close at hand, tom-tom-tom sharp and clear, and now from far away with the booms blended into one long roar.

“Night in the jungle,” Mary whispered.

“Crawl into your ship and forget it,” Sparky suggested. “We’ll be here in the morning.”

“Oh! I never could do that,” Janet exclaimed.

“All right,” said Sparky. “Then you girls keep the first watch and I’ll sleep. But first we’ll fix Don up as comfortable as we can.”

It was Don whose eyes first closed in slumber. With soft pneumatic cushions under him and a mosquito canopy to protect him and a soothing capsule to allay his pain, he was asleep before the others could arrange for the watches of the night.

Just as Sparky crept away to the Lone Star for three winks a bright golden moon came rolling along the fringe of the forest.

“Oh! That’s better!” Janet exclaimed.

Was it? It was not long before every shadow cast by the moon appeared to move and the darkened grass houses seemed alive with people.

“Ghosts,” Mary whispered. “Ghosts of native men and women who lived here long before we were born.”

“Be still!” Janet whispered. “I heard a voice. It was somewhere down the river. Listen!”

As they listened a voice seemed to ask: “Why? why? why?”

“That,” Mary laughed low. “That’s a big, old tree frog. He lives in a pool of green water in a hollow tree, way up high. I read about it once. If you drink the water he lives in you’ll go crazy.”

“I think you might,” Janet whispered. “What do you suppose he wants to know with his eternal ‘why’?”

“Perhaps he wants to know why we are here, why my father is out somewhere in Africa.”

“And why my two brothers are in Australia,” said Janet. “Do you know the answer?”

“No,” said Mary. “At least not all the answer. I only know that we must keep on being here, and in Africa, Egypt, Syria, India, China, wherever we’re sent until this terrible war is over and all our loved ones can come home again.”

“Yes, that’s right. But, Mary, you know we were volunteers. We didn’t have to join up. And above all, we didn’t have to go on this long, long trip so far from home.”

This Mary knew was true. They had, in truth, volunteered twice. Joining the WAFS was purely on a voluntary basis. Once they were in they were expected to ferry planes from place to place in their own country. But a sudden, urgent call had come from China for forty planes, all but two of them bombers. There were not enough men available so volunteers were called from among the women.

“All of us volunteered, except those who had children,” Janet said, thinking aloud.

“Who wouldn’t? It’s what I’ve always wanted most.” Mary’s