ight without the least fear that the man
who had twice attacked him in the streets of Shopton would be able to
trouble him unless he went abroad again. Koku was on guard.

The giant whom Tom had brought home from one of his distant wanderings
was wholly devoted to his master. Koku never had, and he never would,
become entirely civilized.

He was naturally a born tracker of men. For generations his people had
lived amid the alarms of threat and attack. He could not be made to
understand how so many "tribes," as he called them, of civilized men
could live in anything like harmony.

That somebody should prowl about the Swift house at night with a desire
to rob his young master or injure him, did not surprise Koku in the
least. He accepted the fact of the marauder's presence as quite the
expected thing.

But the man who had robbed Tom and later tried to repay him for playing
what appeared to be a practical joke on the robber, did not trouble the
Swift premises with his presence before morning. Koku, thrusting
Eradicate Sampson aside and striding to his bedroom to report this
fact, was what awoke Tom at eight o'clock.

"Hey! What you want, tromping in here for, man?" demanded old Rad
angrily. "An' totin' that spear, too. Where you t'ink yo' is? In de
jungle again? Go 'way, chile!"

Both Rad and Koku were rapidly outliving the sudden friendship of Rad's
sick days, when it was thought he might be blind for life, and were
dropping back into their old ways of bickering and rivalry for Tom's
attention.

"I report to the Master," declared the giant, in his deep voice.

"You tell me, I tell him," Rad said pompously. "No need yo' 'sturbing
Massa Tom at dis hour."

"Koku go in!" declared the giant sternly.

"Jes' stay out dere on de stair an' res' yo'self," said Rad.

Koku lost his temper with old Rad. There was a feud between them,
although deep in their hearts they really were fond of each other. But
the two were jealous of each other's services to young Tom Swift.

Suddenly Tom heard the old negro utter a frightened squeal. The door
which had been only ajar, burst inward and banged against the door-stop
with a mighty smash.

Rad went through the big bedroom like a chocolate-colored streak,
entered Tom's bathroom, and the next moment there was the sound of
crashing glass as Eradicate Sampson went through the lower sash of the
window, headfirst, out upon the roof of the porch!

"What do you mean by this?" shouted