for it after we rescue the missionaries as well as before. Perhaps
there will be a lot of elephants in the pygmies' land."

"I was only thinking that we can't go on forever in the airship."
said Mr. Anderson. "You'll have to go back to civilization soon,
won't you, Tom, to get gasolene?"

"No, we have enough for at least a month," answered the young
inventor. "I took aboard an unusually large supply when we started."

"What would happen if we ran out of it in the jungle?" asked Ned.
"Bless my pocketbook! What an unpleasant question!" exclaimed Mr.
Damon. "You are almost as cheerful, Ned, as was my friend Mr.
Parker, the gloomy scientist, who was always predicting dire
happenings."

"Well, I was only wondering," said Ned, who was a little abashed by
the manner in which his inquiry was received.

"Oh, it would be all right," declared Tom. "We would simply become a
balloon, and in time the wind would blow us to some white
settlement. There is plenty of material for making the lifting gas."

This was reassuring, and, somewhat easier in mind, Ned took his
place in the observation tower which looked down on the jungle over
which they were passing.

It was a dense forest. At times there could be seen, in the little
clearings, animals darting along. There were numbers of monkeys, an
occasional herd of buffaloes were observed, sometimes a solitary