“Is it really Beecher?” asked Ned, though he knew as well as Tom that it was the young archaeologist.

“It certainly is!” declared Tom.  “And he has nerve to follow us so closely!”

“Maybe he thinks we have nerve to get here ahead of him,” suggested Ned, smiling grimly.

“Probably,” agreed Tom, with a short laugh.  “Well, it evidently surprises him to find us here at all, after the mean trick he played on us to get Jacinto to lead us into the jungle and desert us.”

“That’s right,” assented Ned.  “Well, what’s the next move?”

There seemed to be some doubt about this on the part of both expeditions.  At the sight of Professor Beecher, Professor Bumper, who had come out of his tent, hurriedly turned to Tom and asked him what he thought it best to do.

“Do!” exclaimed the eccentric Mr. Damon, not giving Tom time to reply.  “Why, stand your ground, of course!  Bless my house and lot! but we’re here first!  For the matter of that, I suppose the jungle is free and we can no more object to his coming:  here than he can to our coming.  First come, first served, I suppose is the law of the forest.”

Meanwhile the surprise occasioned by the unexpected meeting of their rivals seemed to have spread something like consternation among the white members of the Beecher party.  As for the natives they evidently did not care one way or the other.

There was a hasty consultation among the professors accompanying Mr. Beecher, and then the latter himself advanced toward the tents of Tom and his friends and asked: 

“How long have you been here?”

“I don’t see that we are called upon to answer that question,” replied Professor Bumper stiffly.

“Perhaps not, and yet——­”

“There is no perhaps about it!” said Professor Bumper quickly.  “I know what your object is, as I presume you do mine.  And, after what I may term your disgraceful and unsportsmanlike conduct toward me and my friends, I prefer not to have anything further to do with you.  We must meet as strangers hereafter.”

“Very well,” and Professor Beecher’s voice was as cold and uncompromising as was his rival’s.  “Let it be as your wish.  But I must say I don’t know what you mean by unsportsmanlike conduct.”

“An explanation would be wasted on you,” said Professor Bumper stiffly.  “But in order that you may know I fully understand what you did I will say that your efforts to thwart us through your tool Jacinto came to nothing.  We are here ahead of you.”

“Jacinto!” cried Professor Beecher in real or simulated surprise.  “Why, he was not my `tool,’ as you term it.”

“Your denial is useless in the light of his confession,” asserted Professor Bumper.

“Confession?”

“Now look here!” exclaimed the older professor, “I do not propose to lower myself by quarreling with you.  I know certainly what you and your party tried to do to prevent us from getting here.  But we got out of the trap you set for us, and we are on the ground first.  I recognize your right to make explorations as well as ourselves, and I presume you have not fallen so low that you will not recognize the unwritten law in a case of this kind—­the law which says the right of discovery belongs to the one who first makes it.”