nd troubled,
wild-animal eyes. He was disposed of along the middle of the line, one
of the Poonga-Poonga men leading him at the end of a length of bark-rope.

The trail began to rise out of the jungle, dipping at times into
festering hollows of unwholesome vegetation, but rising more and more
over swelling, unseen hill-slopes or climbing steep hog-backs and rocky
hummocks where the forest thinned and blue patches of sky appeared
overhead.

"Close up he stop," Binu Charley warned them in a whisper.

Even as he spoke, from high overhead came the deep resonant boom of a
village drum. But the beat was slow, there was no panic in the sound.
They were directly beneath the village, and they could hear the crowing
of roosters, two women's voices raised in brief dispute, and, once, the
crying of a child. The run-way now became a deeply worn path, rising so
steeply that several times the party paused for breath. The path never
widened, and in places the feet and the rains of generations had scoured
it till it was sunken twenty feet beneath the surface.

"One man with a rifle could hold it against a thousand," Sheldon
whispered to Joan. "And twenty men could hold it with spears and
arrows."

They came out on the village, situated on a small, upland plateau, grass-
covered, and with only occasional trees. There was a wild chorus of
warning cries from the women, who scurried out of the grass houses, and
like frightened quail dived over the opposite edge of the clearing,
gathering up their babies and children as they ran. At the same time
spears and arrows began to fall among the invaders. At Sheldon's
command, the Tahitians and Poonga-Poonga men got into action with their
rifles. The spears and arrows ceased, the last bushman disappeared, and
the fight was over almost as soon as it had begun. On their own side no
one had been hurt, while half a dozen bushmen had been killed. These
alone remained, the wounded having been carried off. The Tahitians and
Poonga-Poonga men had warmed up and were for pursuit, but this Sheldon
would not permit. To his pleased surprise, Joan backed him up in the
decision; for, glancing at her once during the firing, he had seen her
white face, like a glittering sword in its fighting intensity, the
nostrils dilated, the eyes bright and steady and shining.

"Poor brutes," she said. "They act only according to their natures. To
eat their kind and take heads is good morality for them."

"