g it on top his heap of clothes. "A stray
bunch of blacks might just happen to surprise us."

Villa stepped into the water to her knees, looked up at the dark jungle
roof high overhead through which only occasional shafts of sunlight
penetrated, and shuddered.

"An appropriate setting for a dark deed," she smiled, then scooped a
handful of chill water against her husband, who plunged in in pursuit.

For a time Jerry sat by their clothes and watched the frolic. Then the
drifting shadow of a huge butterfly attracted his attention, and soon he
was nosing through the jungle on the trail of a wood-rat. It was not a
very fresh trail. He knew that well enough; but in the deeps of him were
all his instincts of ancient training--instincts to hunt, to prowl, to
pursue living things, in short, to play the game of getting his own meat
though for ages man had got the meat for him and his kind.

So it was, exercising faculties that were no longer necessary, but that
were still alive in him and clamorous for exercise, he followed the long-
since passed wood-rat with all the soft-footed crouching craft of the
meat-pursuer and with utmost fineness of reading the scent. The trail
crossed a fresh trail, a trail very fresh, very immediately fresh. As if
a rope had been attached to it, his head was jerked abruptly to right
angles with his body. The unmistakable smell of a black was in his
nostrils. Further, it was a strange black, for he did not identify it
with the many he possessed filed away in the pigeon-holes of his brain.

Forgotten was the stale wood-rat as he followed the new trail. Curiosity
and play impelled him. He had no thought of apprehension for Villa and
Harley--not even when he reached the spot where the black, evidently
startled by bearing their voices, had stood and debated, and so left a
very strong scent. From this point the trail swerved off toward the
pool. Nervously alert, strung to extreme tension, but without alarm,
still playing at the game of tracking, Jerry followed.

From the pool came occasional cries and laughter, and each time they
reached his ears Jerry experienced glad little thrills. Had he been
asked, and had he been able to express the sensations of emotion in terms
of thought, he would have said that the sweetest sound in the world was
any sound of Villa Kennan's voice, and that, next sweetest, was any sound
of Harley Kennan's voice. Their voices thrilled him, always, reminding
him o