The little party broke into a desperate run, and blundered blindly, frantically forward. The mysterious, danger-breathing jungle surrounding them on every side, the horrible pursuit closing in on them from behind, caused their hair to rise with an awful terror that lent wings to their feet. They stumbled, fell, picked themselves and each other up again, and hastened madly forward in their wild race.
"If we can only make it, if we can only make it," Bert repeated over and over to himself, while the breath came in great sobbing gasps from between his lips. He was thinking of their one last chance of safety--the little knoll that he had marked as they followed the savages' trail the previous day as a possible retreat if they were pursued.
Loud and weird came the baying of the beasts on their trail, but Bert, straining his eyes ahead, could make out a little patch of moonlight through the trees.
"Faster, fellows, faster," he gasped. "A little further, and we'll be there. Faster, faster!"
With a last despairing effort they dashed into the clearing, which was flooded with silvery moonlight. Now, at least, they would be able to see and fight, and their natural courage came back to them.
"Get up on that big rock in the center!" yelled Bert, "for your lives, do you hear me? for your lives!"
They scrambled madly up the huge boulder, Bert helping them and being pulled up last by Dick and Tom. Dropping on the flat top of the rock, perhaps seven or eight feet from the ground, they drew their revolvers and faced toward the opening in the trees from which they had dashed a few moments before.
Nor had they long to wait. From the jungle rushed three huge wolves, forming such a spectacle as none of the little party ever forgot to his dying day. The hair bristled on their necks and backs, and foam dropped from their jaws. As they broke from the line of trees they gave utterance once more to their blood-curdling bay, but then caught sight of the men grouped on the big boulder, and in terrible silence made straight for them.
Without stopping they made a leap up the steep sides of the rock. Almost at the same instant the three revolvers barked viciously, and one big brute dropped back, biting horribly at his ribs, and then running around the little glade in circles. The other two scrambled madly at the rock, trying to get a foothold, and one grasped Dick's shoe in his teeth. A second later, however, and before his jaws even had a chance to close, the three guns spoke at once, and the animal dropped quivering back upon the ground. The third beast seemed somewhat daunted by the fate of his comrades, and was moreover wounded slightly himself. He dropped back and took up a position about ten feet from the boys' place of refuge, and throwing back his head, gave utterance to a dismal howl. Faintly, as though answering him, the boys heard a yell, that they knew could be caused by none but the savages themselves.
