iculties of the way, the chief proved a new obstacle. Every
mile or so he would apparently repent of his hospitality. He would stop,
gather his tattooed braves about him and confer with them, while his
would-be visitors sat on the ground or a fallen tree-trunk to await his
pleasure. Finally he would start off again, the travelers following,
but no sooner were they under way than again their uncertain guide would
stop. Once he and his men stood motionless, listening. Away up in
the boughs of a camphor tree a little tailor-bird was twittering. The
savages listened as though to the voice of an oracle.

"What are they doing?" Mackay asked of one of his men, when the
head-hunters stopped a second time and stared earnestly at the boughs
above.

"Bird-listening," explained the guide. A few more questions drew from
him the fact that the savages believed the little birds would tell
them whether or not they should bring these strangers home. They
always consulted the birds when starting out on a head-hunt, he further
explained. If the birds gave a certain kind of chirp and flew in a
certain direction, then all was well, and the hunters would go happily
forward. But if the birds acted in the opposite way, nothing in the
world could persuade the chief to go on. Evidently the birds gave their
permission to bring the travelers home, for in spite of many halts, the
savages still moved forward.

They had been struggling for some miles through underbrush and prickly
rattan and the white men's clothes were torn and their hands scratched.
Now, however, they came upon a well-beaten path, winding up the
mountainside, and it proved a great relief to the weary travelers. But
here occurred another delay. The savages all stopped, and the chief
approached Mackay and spoke to him through the interpreter. Would the
white man join him in a head-hunting expedition, was his modest request.
There were some Chinese not so far below them, cutting out rattan, and
he was sure they could secure one or more heads. He shook the big net
head-bag that hung over his shoulder and grinned savagely as he made his
proposal. If the white men and their party would come at the enemy from
one side, he and his men would attack them from the other, he said,
and they would be sure to get them all. The incongruity of a Christian
missionary being invited on a head-hunt struck Captain Bax as rather
funny in spite of its gruesomeness. This was a delicate situation to
handl