The Flying Machine Boys in the Wilds

Frank Walton

Frank Walton

The Flying Machine Boys in the Wilds / The Mystery of the Andes

CHAPTER I.

UNDER THE EQUATOR

The Flying Machine Boys were camping under the equator. The Louise and the Bertha, the splendid aeroplanes in which the lads had visited California and Mexico, lay on a great plateau some fifteen thousand feet above the level of the Pacific ocean, and two thin tents of light oiled-silk stood not far away.

Ben Whitcomb and Jimmie Stuart sat at the entrance of one of the tents shivering with cold, while Glenn Richards and Carl Nichols, in the interest of increased warmth, chased each other around a miserable little apology for a fire which alternately blazed and smoldered near the aeroplanes.

“I begin to understand now how those who freeze to death must suffer!” declared Ben, his teeth chattering like the “bones” of an end-man in a minstrel show.

“You give me a pain!” grinned Jimmie. “Here we are almost exactly under the equator, and yet you talk of being cold!”

The boy’s lips were blue and he swung his arms about his body in the hope of getting a livelier circulation of blood as he spoke.

“Under the equator!” scoffed Ben. “Better say �under the Arctic circle!’ What are we camping here for, anyway?” he added impatiently, springing to his feet. “Why not drop down into a region where the equator isn’t covered with ice a foot thick?”

“You wanted to pass a night up here!” laughed Carl, stopping in front of the two boys, his eyes dancing with mischief, his cheeks flushed from exercise. “You told us how you wanted to breathe the cool, sweet air of the hills! Now breathe it!”

“The cool, sweet air of the hills,” Ben retorted, “reminds me of the atmosphere of the big refrigerator at home.”

Glenn Richards now joined the little group and stood laughing at the disgusted expression on the face of his chum.

“Didn’t I tell you,” he exclaimed, “that Ecuador is the land of contradictions? When you come here, you bring a peck or two of quinine tablets, a bundle or two of mosquito netting, and a couple of bales of fans. You bring your summer clothing, and don’t expect to wear much of that. Then you go on a trip up-country and freeze to death where the ice is about nine thousand feet thick!”

“I know where all the heat goes!” Jimmie declared. “It pours out of those big peaks you see off there. How do you suppose the earth is going to keep any warmth in it when it is all running out at volcanoes?”

The boys were, perhaps, twenty miles north of Quito, almost exactly under the equator. From the plateau on which they were encamped several ancient volcanoes were in plain view.

“Huh! I guess the volcanoes we see are about burned out!” Carl declared. “At any rate, I don’t hear of their filling in any valleys with lava.”

“I guess about all they do now is to smoke,” Ben suggested.

“And that’s a bad habit, too!” Glenn Richards grinned.

“Now, I’ll tell you what we’d better do, boys,” Glenn said, after glancing disapprovingly at the small fire. “We’d better hop on the machines and drop down about ten thousand feet. I’ve got enough of this high mountain business.”

“All right!” Jimmie returned. “You know what you said about wanting experiences which were out of the way. If you think you’ve got one here, we’ll slide down to the green grass.”

It was late in November and the hot, dry season of the South American continent was on. Far below the boys could see the dark green of luxuriant vegetation, while all around them lay the bare brown peaks of lofty plateaus and lifting mountain cones.

As it was somewhere near the middle of the afternoon, the boys lost no time in packing their camp equipage and provisions on the aeroplanes. In order to find a suitable place for a camp lower down they might be obliged to traverse considerable country.

In describing this part of the continent a traveler once crumpled a sheet of paper in his hand and tossed it on the table, saying t