After what he considered the proper amount of incantations and mysterious rigmarole, Doc stooped at the well mouth. So none could see, he poured out a little pile of the flash powder. He touched a lighter spark to it.

There was a flash, a great bloom of white smoke. And when the smoke blew away a loud howl of surprise went up from the red-fingered men.

For Long Tom stood upon the well lip!

The trick had worked perfectly.

Doc followed exactly the same procedure and got Ham out of the sacrificial pit.

Immediately Morning Breeze tried to dash up and look into the well. But Doc, with an ominous thunder in his voice, informed Morning Breeze that powerful invisible spirits, great enemies of his, were congregated about the sacrificial well mouth. And Morning Breeze retreated, scared in spite of himself.

Johnny was resurrected next. As Johnny came out of the pit, he jerked the trip string which separated the wire. And Monk, concealed in the brush, drew wire and saddle out of the well.

When Doc turned after the last reanimation and saw the effect on the red-fingered men, it was difficult not to show his satisfaction. For every warrior was on his knees, arms upstretched. Only Morning Breeze alone stood. And, after a compelling, hypnotic look from Doc's golden eyes, even Morning Breeze slouched reluctantly to his knees along with the rest.

It was a perfect victory. The lay tribesmen present were as impressed as the red-fingered men. The news would spread as though broadcast by radio. And to Doc would come the type of superstitious power, but an infinitely greater amount, that Morning Breeze had held.

Hearts were light as Doc and his five friends and King Chaac and entrancing Princess Monja turned away.

But their jubilation was short-lived.

With a piercing howl, Morning Breeze was on his feet. He urged his satellites erect, even kicking some of the less willing.

Shouting again in dramatic fashion, Morning Breeze pointed at the lake shore.

All eyes followed his arm.

Doc's low-wing speed plane had floated into view around a rocky headland. It was being pushed by a number of red-fingered warriors who had not attended the session at the sacrificial well.

The plane was no longer blue!

It was daubed with a bilious, motley assortment of grays and pallid yellows. And prominent upon the fuselage sides were large red spots.

"The Red Death!" The words rose in a low moan from the Mayans!

Morning Breeze was quick to seize his advantage.

"Our gods are angered!" he shrieked. "They have sent the Red Death upon the blue bird which brought these whiteskinned devils!"

Renny knotted and unknotted his gigantic, steel-hard fists.

"The whelp is clever! He repainted our plane last night," Doc spoke in a voice so low it carried only to his five friends. "Morning Breeze did not have the intelligence to think that up, if I am any judge. Somebody is prompting him. And that somebody can only be the murderer of my father, the fiend who is planning the Hidalgo revolution."

"But how could that devil get in touch with Morning Breeze so soon?"

"You forget the blue monoplane," Doc pointed out. "The craft could have dropped him by parachute in the Valley of the Vanished."

They ceased speaking to listen to Morning Breeze harangue his uncertain followers.

"The gods are wroth that we permit these white heretics in our midst!" was the gist of his exhorting. "We must wipe them out!"

He was rapidly undoing the good work Doc had accomplished.

King Chaac addressed Doc in a voice that was strained but full of violent resolve. "I have never executed one of my subjects during my entire reign, but I am going to execute one now — Morning Breeze!"

But before things could progress further, there came a new and startling interruption.

Chapter 15. THE BLUE BIRD BATTLE

Morning breeze it was who called attention to the new development. And it was evident from the way he did it that the whole thing was planned. More of the scheme to discredit Doc which had started with the painting of Doc's plane!

Straight above his head Morning Breeze pointed.

"Behold!" he shouted. "The genuine holy blue bird has returned! The same holy blue bird of which we obtained glimpses before these impostors arrived!"

Every one stared upward.

Perhaps five thousand feet above, a blue plane was circling slowly. Doc's keen eyes ascertained instantly that it was the monoplane which had attacked his expedition in Belize. The plane the instigator of the Hidalgo revolt was using to impress the superstitious Mayans!

Loud gasps came from the assembled people. The scarlet-fingered warriors recovered their punctured dignity and cast ominous glances at Doc and his friends. It was plain the tide was turning against the adventurers.

High overhead, the blue plane continued to spiral. Its presence had a ghostly quality, for no sound of its motor reached their ears. Doc, with all his keenness of hearing, could detect but the faintest drone of the motor. But he knew the explanation. The terrific winds that comprised the air currents over the chasm were sweeping the sound waves aside.

"I am worried!" benign King Chaac confided in shaky tones. "My people and the warriors are being whipped into a religious frenzy by Morning Breeze. I fear they will attack you."

Doc nodded. He could see that very thing impending. There was certain to be violence unless he did something to prevent

"The blue bird you see above is supreme!" Morning Breeze was shrieking. "It is all-powerful. It is the chosen of your gods! It has no white-skinned worms inside it! Therefore, destroy these white worms in your midst!"

Doc reached a decision.

"Stand by your guns!" he directed his men. "If you have to, shoot a few red-fingered men. But try holding them off a while. Renny, you come with me!"

Doc's friends' whipped out automatic pistols, which they had kept under their clothing. These automatics were fed by sixty-cartridge magazines, curled in the shape of compact rams' horns below the grips. The guns were what is known as continuously automatic in operation — they fired steadily as long as the trigger was held back. Both guns and magazines were of Doc's invention, infinitely more compact than ordinary submachine guns.

At the display of firearms, excited cries arose from the populace. Ample proof this, that they understood what guns were.

Doc and Renny sprinted for their plane.

Amid a great splashing, Doc and Renny waded out to the low-wing craft and hoisted themselves into the cabin. Doc planted his powerful frame in the pilot's bucket.

"Now if the engines haven't been tampered with!" Renny grated, anxiety on his long, puritanical face.

Doc stepped on the electro-inertia starter buttons. The port motor popped black smoke out of the stacks, then started turning over. Nose engine, starboard — both functioned.

Vastly relieved, Renny lunged back in the cabin. His monster, flinty hands tore the top from a metal case as another man would open a cigarette pack. Out of the case came the latest model of Browning machine gun, airplane type. An ammo box gave way to his iron fingers. The cartridges were already in long snakes of metal link belt.

The low-wing speed plane was going down the narrow lake now. Renny threaded a belt into the Browning. The gun was fitted with a rifle-like stock.

At the lake end, Doc jacked the ship about with sharp bloops of the engines. The craft gathered speed, a run of the whole lake length ahead of it. On step, it went. Then into the air.

With a touch little short of wizardry, Doc banked the speedy plane before it shattered itself against the sheer stone sides of the chasm. In tight, corkscrew turns, climbing, using all the power of the motors, Doc mounted out of the great cut.