o so that he ran screaming
to his mother's protecting arms.

But Momaya, though startled, had wheeled to face the fearsome thing
with all the savage ferocity of a she-tiger at bay. When she saw who
it was, she breathed a sigh of partial relief, though she still clung
tightly to Tibo.

"I have come," said Bukawai without preliminary, "for the three fat
goats, the new sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire as long as a
tall man's arm."

"I have no goats for you," snapped Momaya, "nor a sleeping mat, nor any
wire. Your medicine was never made. The white jungle god gave me back
my Tibo. You had nothing to do with it."

"But I did," mumbled Bukawai through his fleshless jaws. "It was I who
commanded the white jungle god to give back your Tibo."

Momaya laughed in his face. "Speaker of lies," she cried, "go back to
your foul den and your hyenas. Go back and hide your stinking face in
the belly of the mountain, lest the sun, seeing it, cover his face with
a black cloud."

"I have come," reiterated Bukawai, "for the three fat goats, the new
sleeping mat, and the bit of copper wire the length of a tall man's
arm, which you were to pay me for the return of your Tibo."

"It was to be the length of a man's forearm," corrected Momaya, "but
you shall have nothing, old thief. You would not make medicine until I
had brought the payment in advance, and when I was returning to my
village the great, white jungle god gave me back my Tibo--gave him to
me out of the jaws of Numa. His medicine is true medicine--yours is
the weak medicine of an old man with a hole in his face."

"I have come," repeated Bukawai patiently, "for the three fat--" But
Momaya had not waited to hear more of what she already knew by heart.
Clasping Tibo close to her side, she was hurrying away toward the
palisaded village of Mbonga, the chief.

And the next day, when Momaya was working in the plantain field with
others of the women of the tribe, and little Tibo had been playing at
the edge of the jungle, casting a small spear in anticipation of the
distant day when he should be a full-fledged warrior, Bukawai had come
again.

Tibo had seen a squirrel scampering up the bole of a great tree. His
childish mind had transformed it into the menacing figure of a hostile
warrior. Little Tibo had raised his tiny spear, his heart filled with
the savage blood lust of his race, as he pictured the night's orgy when
he should dance about the corpse of his