Page:Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle.djvu/155

Rh "No, we have enough for at least a month," answered the young inventor. "I took aboard an unusually large supply when we started."

"What would happen if we ran out of it in the jungle?" asked Ned.

"Bless my pocketbook! What an unpleasant question!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "You are almost as cheerful, Ned, as was my friend Mr. Parker, the gloomy scientist, who was always predicting dire happenings."

"Well, I was only wondering," said Ned, who was a little abashed by the manner in which his inquiry was received.

"Oh, it would be all right," declared Tom. "We would simply become a balloon, and in time the wind would blow us to some white settlement. There is plenty of material for making the lifting gas."

This was reassuring, and, somewhat easier in mind, Ned took his place in the observation tower, and looked down on the jungle over which they were passing.

It was a dense forest. At times there could be seen, in the little clearings, animals darting along. There were numbers of monkeys, an occasional herd of buffaloes were observed, sometimes a solitary stray elephant was noted, and