Page:Tom Swift in Captivity.djvu/139

Rh with much success, and thereafter they traveled better.

But even at the best it was not easy work, and more than once Tom's friends urged him to turn back. But he would not, ever pressing on, with the strange land for his goal. They had long since passed the last of the native villages, and they had to depend on their own efforts for food. Fortunately they did not have any lack of game, and they fared well with what they had with them in the packs.

Occasionally they met little bands of native hunters, and, though usually these men fled at the sight of our friends, yet once they managed to make signs to one, who, informed them as best he could, that giant land was still far ahead of them.

Twice they heard distant sounds of native battles and the weird noise of the wooden drums and the tom-toms. Once, as they climbed up a big hill, they looked down into a valley and saw a great conflict in which there must have been several thousand natives on either side. It was a fierce battle, seen even from afar, and Tom and the others shuddered as they slipped down over the other side of the rise, and out of sight.

"We'd better steer clear of them," was Tom's opinion; and the others agreed with him.