that had overtaken them, Ben Stubbs, who had been down to the river
bank, reappeared.

"Look here!" he exclaimed, holding out at arms length a long white
cloak. One glance at the garment was enough--it was an Arab article
of dress. There was no further doubt about it, then. Muley-Hassan
and his men had carried off Billy and Lathrop.

"But that's not the most extraordinary part of it," went on Ben;
"while there are half a dozen of the Arabs' canoes down there, there
are a lot of others, that must have belonged to a bunch of natives
from their shiftless look--and I could see the bare imprint of the
savages' feet in the mud, coming after the Arabs had trod around
there."

This was a new mystery. Apparently, then, a tribe of cannibals had
been on the trail of the Arabs who had carried off their two young
companions. This could only mean one thing, that they meant to
punish the Arab slave-dealers for some outrage and, while this would
have been quite satisfactory to the boys under other conditions, as
things were it meant that there would be a fight in which both
Lathrop and Billy would probably be seriously wounded, if not
killed. How wrong this surmise was we know, and it serves to show
how very wide of the mark it is possible for the constructors of a
theory to steer.

And here for a time we will leave our despairing friends while we go
back to the Moon Mountains.

The outline of the Golden Eagle II, in her flight to the river camp,