if they are dissatisfied
with my treatment."

"No," replied Mark, laughing; "and they seem ready enough to pay your
fees."

"Yes, and I must make haste and get our little friend well, which he
soon will be, for Nature will do the rest; but I don't suppose we shall
see any more of them, for people of such a low grade of civilisation
would probably soon forget. But we must get on. I want to discover
Captain Lawton's ancient city."

"Yes, I want to see that," cried Dean. "One doesn't want to be always
hunting and shooting."

"That's right, Dean. The sooner we are off the better. Oh, here comes
Mak. Let's stir him up again about where the big stones are."

"He will only point with his spear at the forest as if they were there,"
said Mark, "and of course we can't drive the bullocks through."

"No," said Dean; "but he may mean that the old ruins are on the other
side."

"Yes," said the doctor, "and that we can go round, for we are evidently
skirting the edge of this primaeval jungle."

"Skirting the edge!" said Mark, laughing. "Oh, yes--like skirting the
edge of the world, and we shall be coming out some day--some year, I
mean, right on the other side of America. I don't believe there are any
old stones. It's all what-you-may-call-it."

"All what-you-may-call-it, you young sceptic!" said the doctor,
laughing. "Well, what _do_ you call it, for I don't know?"

"Trade--tradesman--trading--trade--"

"'Dition," suggested Dean.

"Yes, that's it--all a tradition. I could only think of hunting a
will-o'-the-wisp."

"I don't think so," said the doctor. "The captain said some of the
hunting parties had seen the great stones in the distance."

"And he said too that they might have been kopjes. And I don't believe
that those who came hunting ever ran against these trees, or saw these
little pigmy chaps, or else they would have talked about it."

"Similar people were seen by some of our travellers, but that was
farther north and more central."

"But I don't see why we should be in such a hurry to get on. We are
very comfortable here," said Mark.

"Why do you say that?" said the doctor, looking at the boy searchingly.
"You have some reason for it?"

"Well," said Mark hesitating, "I should like to see more of these little
people. They amuse me. They are not much bigger than children, and
they are such solemn, stolid little chaps. I don't believe any of them
ever had a good laugh in their lives."