"Well," laughed his chum, "you know how it is yourself, when you want
something pretty hard. And they've got the notion in their stubborn
heads that if they only had a modern, up-to-date aeroplane, they could
just make the miserly old government come to terms instanter. Don't
blame them too much, Andy. Maybe you and I would do the same thing--if
we were Colombians, and on the outs."

"Looks to me like there was something like a fire ahead, Frank!"
declared Andy, right at that juncture.

"I say, you're on the spot every time, old fellow," observed the other,
as he shaded his eyes to look. "There's a sharp turn ahead, where Felipe
says we enter the narrow place. And I honestly believe they've got a
bonfire burning on the right-hand bank."

"Then, after all, shutting off our bully little searchlight won't do us
much good," complained Andy, regretfully.

"Don't you believe it," Frank hastened to remark. "A fire isn't going to
reach all the way across the river, which is pretty wide, even at its
narrowest part. And depend on it, our clever old wheelsman will keep
just as snug up against the left hand shore as he dares go."

All the same, despite these assurances from his cheerful chum, Andy
confessed to a secret feeling of apprehension as they drew closer to the
point of land beyond which the danger possibly lay in wait.

It seemed to him that every conceivable species of peril threatened the
sacred enterprise, upon which he had so eagerly embarked. From various
sources did harm hover over their heads. And even though they passed