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being.
    “Shoot him!” shouted Skull Tattoo as the cigar fell from his mouth.
    The short stocky man pulled a machine gun from the sack and fired wildly. The Phantom ducked, and with blinding speed drew both of his pistols and fired back. The machine gun flew from the man’s hands.
    “Oh, no!” shouted Panama Hat.
    “Run!” Skull Tattoo yelled.
    The three men darted into the jungle. Hero bolted after them, but the underbrush slowed the horse and gave the men an edge. But not for long. The Phantom found a narrow trail and sent the stallion charging down it toward the man who had fired the machine gun. The gap quickly closed. The man looked back at the horse and dropped his sack of booty to lighten his load. But he was still no match for Hero.
    Without breaking stride, the Phantom reached down, grabbed the man by the back of the collar and jerked him a foot off the ground. The man’s short legs pumped uselessly in the air as the Phantom carried him forward and he screamed in terror.
    “Ahhhhhh!”
    Then he saw what the Phantom had in mind as a huge tree trunk loomed ahead. “Noooo!”
    The Phantom slammed the man’s head into the trunk so hard he would be seeing stars for years to come. He dropped the looter and turned to the wolf. “Watch him, Devil. If he moves, eat him.”
    Devil remained behind as the Phantom galloped onward in pursuit of the other two.
    Quill and Morgan, gasping for breath, burst out of a tangle of jungle and onto the road where the truck was parked. They clambered into the cab; Quill cranked the engine and slapped the accelerator to the floor. The engine promptly flooded. “C’mon, start, you sonuva . . .” The engine popped and rumbled to a start.
    Morgan’s head snapped this way and that, looking for the weirdo on the horse. “What about Breen, man? We can’t leave him back there.”
    “Tough luck. Forget ’im.”
    “What kind of Bangallaman was that back there?” Quill ignored him. He knew exactly what they had just run into, but he didn’t want to think about it right now. It just didn’t make sense. No way could he accept what he’d seen. He’d already killed Ghost Who Walks. The Phantom was dead.
    The truck groaned as he spun the steering wheel and swung into a U-turn. Finally they roared away and Quill patted the leather pouch, feeling the skull inside. It wasn’t exactly a perfect operation, but it was a successful one as far as he was concerned. Mr. Drax would be very pleased. Maybe he’d even get a second skull tattoo to match the one he already had.
    The Phantom knew the jungle—its darkest places, its secrets, its rivers, and the spots where roads intersected. He took the shortest route to the road in order to head off the grave robbers before they reached the rope bridge.
    He rode hard, but Hero was tireless. When he finally emerged on the road, he spurred his mount and galloped ahead, knowing he had outdistanced the truck.
    As he passed underneath a tree, the Phantom stood up in his stirrups and grabbed the lowest branch. He flipped himself over it with the agility of a gymnast and disappeared into the tree’s foliage. Hero raced on down the road.
    Quill gripped the wheel tightly, shifted gears, and stomped on the gas pedal. The truck bounced hard on its bad springs. He’d forgotten all about the rope bridge, but he’d deal with that when the time came. For now he was content to put as much distance as he could between himself and that purple nightmare.
    Morgan was finally catching his breath. He wiped his face and neck with his bandanna, then tossed the sack of gemstones through the opening behind him, into the cargo area. It landed next to Zak, the young native guide, who was still bound and gagged.
    “You know something about that guy back there, don’t you, Quill? What’s going on? Who is he?”
    Quill took out a new cigar and stuck it in his mouth. “He’s somebody I already killed.”
    “What?”
    “It was years go, before your time. I’ll tell you