and cannibals up there, and we may find a little amusement."

"We're going after Ned and Jimmie," Jack explained. "This is a
relief expedition! After they get to Paraguay they'll snatch that
Lyman person out of the cold, damp dungeon keep he is supposed to be
in and then sail off over the Amazon valley. There's where we catch
up with them. Do you suppose we can find a ship going to the mouth
of the Amazon early in the morning?"

"You certainly are fierce when you get started!" laughed Harry.
"Well," he added, "you can't get ready any too soon to please me."

It was two days before the boys found a vessel going their way, and
even then Jack insisted that his father bribed the owners to run off
their course in order to set the boys and their motorboats down at
the mouth of the Amazon river. The boat, however, was a fast one,
equal in speed to a modern ocean liner; and in ten days from the
time of starting from New York--on the 12th of August--the boys were
stemming the current of the great river--more like a shoreless sea
there at the mouth than a river!

"Huh!" Frank exclaimed, as they left the island of Joannes to the
south, "this is no river! It is a blooming sea!"

"Pretty near three hundred miles wide at the delta, including that
big island," Harry said. "It is some river, eh?"

"Four thousand miles long!" Jack contributed. "It is navigable for
commercial purposes for 2,200 miles, and our boats can go up clear
to the foot of the Andes."