Look at this one, Dick."

He drew a silver coin from his pocket, a shilling, and held it upon his open palm. "Ladies and gentlemen!" he declaimed. "We have here an ordinary silver shilling, worth twelve pence. Step right up and examine it, feel of it, bite it! You see that it is gen-u-ine. You will note that I have no accomplices. Now, ladies and gentlemen, watch me closely!"

He placed his other palm over the coin, hiding it, clasped his hands, blew upon them, raised them above his head.

"Abacadabra! Allo, presto, change ears and be gone! Now you see it, now you don't!" He opened his hands and held them palms up. The coin had vanished.

"Hurray!" shouted Dick, clapping his hands, as he had done a hundred times before, for Dick was always the audience.

Doc bowed very low, reached out and took the coin from Dick's ear, or so he made it appear. Then into one clenched fist, between the thumb and first finger, he inserted the stub of a lead pencil, shoving it down until it was out of sight. "Abacadabra! Allo! Presto! Change cars and be gone! Now you see it, now you don't!" Doc opened his hand and the pencil was gone.

"Hurray!" shouted Dick, clapping his hands, and both boys broke into laughter.

For an hour Doc practiced the several sleight of hand tricks he had mastered and Dick pretended to be an enthusiastic audience; anything was better than looking out of the windows at the endless row of silent trees.

Then, quite suddenly and without the slightest warning, the monotony was broken. Something happened. Something startling happened. There was a grinding of brakes. The railway carriage in which they rode seemed to leap into the air; it lurched and rocked and bumped, throwing both boys to the floor, and then, just as they were sure it was going to overturn, it came to a sudden stop, quite as though it had run into one of those great, silent trees.

The boys scrambled to their feet and looked out of the windows; then they hastened to get out of the car and when they reached the ground outside they saw excited passengers pouring from the train, asking excited questions, getting in everyone's way. It did not take Dick and Doc long to learn that the train, striking a defective rail, had run off the track and that it would be many hours before the journey could be resumed. For a while they stood about with the other passengers idly looking at the derailed carriages but this diversion soon palled and they turned their attention toward the jungle. Standing quietly upon the ground and looking at it was quite different from viewing it through the windows of a moving train. It became at once more interesting and more mysterious.

"I wonder what it is like in there," remarked Dick.

"It looks spooky," said Doc.

"I'd like to go in and see," said Dick.

"So would I," said Doc.

"There isn't any danger--we haven't seen a thing that could hurt a flea since we landed in Africa."

"And we wouldn't go in very far."

"Come on," said Dick.

"Hi, there!" called a man's voice. "Where you boys goin'?"

They turned to see one of the train guards who chanced to be passing.

"Nowhere," said Doc.

"Well whatever you do, don't go into the jungle," cautioned the man, moving on toward the head of the train.

"You'd be lost in no time."

"Lost!" scoffed Dick. "He must think we're a couple of zanies."

Now that someone had told them that they must not go into the jungle, they wanted to go much more than they had before, but as there were many people upon this side of the train, they were quite sure that someone else would stop them, should they attempt to enter the jungle in plain view of passengers and train crew.

Slowly they sauntered to the rear end of the train and passed around it onto the opposite side. There was no one here and right in front of them was what appeared to be an opening through the tangled vegetation that elsewhere seemed to block the way into that mysterious hinterland that lay beyond the solid ranks of guardian trees. Dick glanced quickly up and down the train. There was no one in sight.

"Come on," he said, "let's just take a little peek."

It was only a step to the opening, which proved to be a narrow path that turned abruptly to the right after they had followed it a few paces. The boys stopped and looked back. The right-of-way, the train, the passengers --all were as completely hidden from view as though they had been miles and miles away, but they could still hear the hum of voices. Ahead the little path turned toward the left and the boys advanced, just to look around the turn; but beyond the turn was another. The path was a very winding one, turning and twisting its way among the boles of huge trees; it was quiet and dark and gloomy.

"Perhaps we'd better not go in too far," suggested Doc.

"Oil, let's go a little way farther," urged Dick. "We can always turn around and follow the path back to the train. Maybe we'll come to a native village. Gee! wouldn't that be great?"

"Suppose they were cannibals?"

"Oh, shucks! There aren't any cannibals any more. You afraid?"

"Who me? Of course I'm not afraid," said Doc, valiantly.