We're picking technicians and mechanics who can drive trucks so as to cut down the size of the company as much as possible. I'm sorry you weren't in town to pick your own company, but we had to rush things. Every one's signed up but the assistant director. You can take any one along you please."

"When do we leave?"

"In about ten days."

"It's a great life," sighed Orman. "Six months in Borneo, ten days in Hollywood, and then another six months in Africa! You guys give a fellow just about time to get a shave between trips."

"Between drinks, did you say?" inquired Joe.

"Between drinks!" offered another. "There isn't any between drinks in Tom's young life."

Chapter Two

Mud

Sheykh ab EL-GHRENNEM and his swarthy followers sat in silence on their ponies and watched the mad Nasara sweating and cursing as they urged on two hundred blacks in an effort to drag a nine-ton generator truck through the muddy bottom of a small stream.

Nearby, Jerrold Baine leaned against the door of a muddy touring car in conversation with the two girls who occupied the back seat.

"How you feeling, Naomi?" he inquired.

"Rotten."

"Touch of fever again?"

"Nothing but since we left Jinja. I wish I was back in Hollywood; but I won't ever see Hollywood again. I'm going to die here."

"Aw, shucks! You're just blue. You'll be all right."

"She had a dream last night," said the other girl. "Naomi believes in dreams."

"Shut up," snapped Miss Madison.

"You seem to keep pretty fit, Rhonda," remarked Baine.

Rhonda Terry nodded. "I guess I'm just lucky."

"You'd better touch wood," advised the Madison; then she added, "Rhonda's physical, purely physical. No one knows what we artistes suffer, with our high-strung, complex, nervous organizations."

"Better be a happy cow than a miserable artiste," laughed Rhonda.

"Beside that, Rhonda gets all the breaks," complained Naomi. "Yesterday they shoot the first scene in which I appear, and where was I? Flat on my back with an attack of fever, and Rhonda has to double for me—even in the close-ups."

"It's a good thing you look so much alike," said Baine. "Why, knowing you both as well as I do, I can scarcely tell you apart."

"That's the trouble," grumbled Naomi. "People'll see her and think it's me."

"Well, what of it?" demanded Rhonda. "You'll get the credit."

"Credit!" exclaimed Naomi. "Why, my dear, it will ruin my reputation. You are a sweet girl and all that, Rhonda; but remember, I am Naomi Madison. My public expects superb acting. They will be disappointed, and they will blame me."

Rhonda laughed good-naturedly. "I'll do my best not to entirely ruin your reputation, Naomi," she promised.

"Oh, it isn't your fault," exclaimed the other. "I don't blame you. One is born with the divine afflatus, or one is not. That is all there is to it. It is no more your fault that you can't act than it is the fault of that sheik over there that he was not born a white man."

"What a disillusionment that sheik was!" exclaimed Rhonda.

"How so?" asked Baine.

"When I was a little girl I saw Rudolph Valentino on the screen; and, ah, brothers, sheiks was sheiks in them days!"

"This bird sure doesn't look much like Valentino," agreed Baine.

"Imagine being carried off into the desert by that bunch of whiskers and dirt! And here I've just been waiting all these years to be carried off."

"I'll speak to Bill about it," said Baine.

The girl sniffed. "Bill West's a good cameraman, but he's no sheik. He's just about as romantic as his camera."

"He's a swell guy," insisted Baine.

"Of course he is; I'm crazy about him. He'd make a great brother."

"How much longer we got to sit here?" demanded Naomi, peevishly.

"Until they get the generator truck and twenty-two other trucks through that mud hole."

"I don't see why we can't go on. I don't see why we have to sit here and fight flies and bugs."

"We might as well fight 'em here as somewhere else," said Rhonda.

"Orman's afraid to separate the safari," explained Baine. "This is a bad piece of country.