of the nomads, but all he saw were three vultures circling above them. That was not a good omen.

Rowing rhythmically, the pilot wiped his sweaty brow with his sweaty arm. It was excruciatingly hot! There were no trees to give respite from the scorching sun. To quench his thirst, he scooped up a handful of warm water and slurped it down. It tasted like burnt sand, but at least it was wet. He gulped down a few more handfuls and splashed some on his face.

Because it seemed sacrilegious to speak aloud in the cathedral-like hush, he whispered, “Can’t we rest a spell, Becky?”

“Rest?” Rebecca echoed, looking over at him in surprise. Her voice reverberated like a thunderclap in the uncanny silence. “We can’t rest now.”

“Shh! Nomads!” he whispered urgently, looking over his shoulder nervously.

“Where?” she whispered back. Her eyes followed his, but she saw nothing.

“They’re here somewheres. I can sense it.”

Rebecca fixed her shrewd, skeptical gaze on him. “You’re probably just sensing your own laziness, Baloo. Well, you’re not getting out of rowing that easily. Onward! Onward!”

An Hour Later

On they rowed for what seemed like another hundred years. The great granite rocks gradually thinned out, then disappeared altogether, leaving flat, sandy saltbush-strewn plains. Scraggly shrubs as well as a few tufts of grass hugged the river. The increase in flora brought an increase in fauna. Here, there were more lizards, snakes, birds, and mosquitoes.

Despite the heat, despite her aching shoulders, despite the fact that her clothes were plastered to her with sweat, Rebecca was thrilled to her fingertips. This is what she thought the air cargo business was going to be like - exciting and adventurous. Never in her life did she think that she’d actually be paddling up a river, through an exotic, untamed land, in search of a treasure. It was a wonderful change from the run-of-the-mill business proceedings.

There was one damper on her happiness - Baloo’s constant complaints. She had the urge to strangle him every time a sullen remark escaped his lips. But, by the same token, she was glad that he was there. He was pulling his own weight, and, considering how much he weighed, that was saying quite a lot. Rebecca, who was beginning to think that they made a good team, grudgingly admitted to herself that she would never had made it this far without him. She also knew that he wouldn’t let any harm come to her, no matter what happened. Still, she wished that he’d stop looking over his shoulder every two seconds. It was making her nervous.

Baloo, hot, tired, and hungry, growled grumpily, “There’s gotta be an easier way to make a few thousand shaboozies.”

Rebecca, who was just as hot, tired, and hungry as her pilot, replied philosophically, “Look at it this way, Baloo. It’s an adventure. You like adventures.”

“This ain’t an adventure.” He slapped at a mosquito that was buzzing in his ear with one of his raw, blistered hands, then peeked over his shoulder to see if any nomads were listening in on their conversation. “It’s torture!”

“It’s an adventure to me!” Rebecca exclaimed, a hint of pathetic desperation in her voice. She turned her head so that he couldn’t see the tears of frustration that pricked her eyes. Loath as she was to admit it, Baloo was right. This was torture. She, little fool that she was, had been fooling herself into thinking that this was a fun adventure.

Yesterday, her scheme had seemed so simple. She had planned on zipping in, grabbing the feathers, and zipping back out. She thought that she would have been back in Cape Suzette by now, counting her money. Instead, she was here, still rowing up the Ramalama River, miserable, grimy, and covered with a million mosquito bites. She wanted to be home, soaking in a bubble bath.

However, she could never let Baloo know that she was becoming discouraged, and she definitely couldn’t let him know that he had been right about anything. To calm herself, she concentrated on rowing, but the tremor in her words betrayed her. “Just because you’re a pilot, you think that you’re entitled to more adventures than everyone else. Well, you aren’t! So there!”

Hearing the catch in her voice, Baloo looked over at her sharply. This was the Rebecca that he rarely saw - the vulnerability under her tough businesswoman exterior. Waves of protectiveness and remorse surged over him. His sulky expression faded. He murmured contritely, “Now, Becky, I didn’t mean...” His ears perked up at a new sound that broke the silence. “What’s that?”

Rebecca forgot her tears at the alarm in Baloo’s voice. She sniffled, “What’s what?”

“Listen!”

It was a low, rumbling, sucking sound, almost as if someone had pulled the plug on a very large bathtub. And it was getting louder by the second.

“Stop rowin’ so fast, Becky!” Baloo cried as the raft picked up speed.

“I’m not rowing any faster. You must be rowing faster.”

Baloo showed her his oar’s blade; it was out of the water. “But I ain’t even rowin’.”

The raft sped upstream as if a gigantic invisible hand was pushing it along.

“What is it, Baloo?” Rebecca asked, dreadful feelings of foreboding washing over her. She securely gripped the side of the raft. Her womanly intuition was telling her that they needed to pull over to shore.

“Dunno. Can’t see a thing.” Baloo shielded his eyes against the glaring sun to see further ahead, but all he saw was a bend in the river.

They came flying around the bend in the river to see...

“Whirlpool!” they cried in unison.

“Thatwasn’t on the map!” Rebecca exclaimed.

“Would you like to tell it that?” Baloo started paddling in the opposite direction, back towards the lake.

Rebecca did likewise. “Row! Row!”

“I’m rowin’! I’m rowin’!” Baloo snatched the oar from Rebecca. But no matter how fast or furiously he paddled, the whirlpool was sucking the raft into its frothing, churning abyss. “Hang on!”

Around and around, faster and faster, the raft whipped around the periphery of the maelstrom at a dizzying speed until the two bears couldn’t tell left from right, up from down.

Baloo, who was turning a pale shade of green, gasped out, “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa!" with every revolution. "How do ya stop this crazy thing?”

Amidst the blur that was the spinning scenery, Rebecca spied a particularly large saltbush growing on the shore, near the whirlpool. Its branches extended over the river. She made several attempts to stand up so she could reach the bush, but to no avail. The centrifugal force kept pushing her back down. It was all she could do to stay in the raft.

Then, with much exertion, she struggled to her knees and prepared to grab onto the bush. She would have to time this just right. As the raft drew near the bush, she lunged for it. Miraculously, her fingertips snagged a branch. With an “Eep!” she was yanked out of the raft. She dangled on the branch, legs kicking, like a fish on a hook.

“Becky, wait for me!” Baloo tossed the oars aside. One of them happened to hit Rebecca square on the back.

“Ouch! Watch where you’re throwing that!”

“Sorry.” He seized onto her ankles and hung on for dear life.

And not a moment too soon. The raft was sucked into the center of the whirlpool, never to be seen again. Both bears watched the terrifying scene over their shoulders. If not for the saltbush’s extensive root system, they would have plunged into the swirling vortex of terror along with the raft.

“Hurry, Baloo!” Rebecca cried, her hands slipping down to the end of the slender branch. She felt like her legs were coming out at the hip sockets. “This is no time to hang around.”

Baloo swung himself on shore where he belly-flopped on the ground, exhausted.

Arms shaking and heart pounding, Rebecca used the branch to pull herself onto the sandy shore. The wild-eyed bearess, whose legs felt like jelly, sank to her knees beside the pilot, relieved. She had a strange urge to hug the big bear. Instead, she put a gentle paw on his back and asked, “Are you okay, Baloo?”

“I’m too tired to check.” With a grunt, Baloo rolled over on his back, exposing his sand-encrusted stomach. “I’m gonna take about forty winks right here.”

Rebecca sat beside him, knees drawn up to her chest as she attempted to regain her composure. She took in their position. The whirlpool was located at a fork in the river. She was unsure of which branch of the river to follow - the one heading due east or the one heading southeast.

Then, she got her answer.

Through the waves of shimmering heat, Rebecca saw what looked like the peaks of tents in the distance off to the south. Her weariness and discouragement dissolved faster than ice cream would under the Watoosian sun. A big smile lit up her face. “I see the nomad camp! See, I told you they’d be living along the river somewhere.” Childlike, she excitedly pointed to the tents. “Look, Baloo!”

“Great. Say hi to them from me.” He made a pillow out of a rock and closed his eyes.

Rebecca sprang to her feet. “This is no time to sleep. There’s a fortune out there just waiting to be plucked.” She energetically marched off.

Baloo made a slight effort to follow her - he raised his head, then let it fall back to the ground. “Oh, let her go.” Instead, he grabbed a prickly pear from a bush beside him and began peeling it.

A few minutes and a few prickly pears later, he heard her faint, far-off shriek. “Ba-LOO! Heeeeellppp!”

“Aw, why can’t I have a normal boss like everyone else? One that don’t get in trouble every ten seconds.” Grumbling, he stuck the peeled prickly pear in his mouth, got to his feet, and followed the sound of her screams.

“Help! Help! Help!”

Baloo stopped at a clump of grass, peering around. From the sound of it, she should have been

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