"Hims wos a Injin," resumed Bunco, "ant me moder him wos a Spanish
half-breed from dis yer country--Peru. Me live for years in de forests
an' plains an' mountains ob Callyforny huntin' an fightin'. Oh, dem
were de happy days! After dat me find a wife what I lub berry moche,
den me leave her for short time an' go wid tradin' party to de coast.
Here meet wid a cap'n of ship, wot wos a big raskil. Him 'tice me
aboord an' sail away. Short ob hands him wos, so him took me, an' me
never see me wife no more!"

There was something quite touching in the tone in which the poor fellow
said this, insomuch that Larry became sympathetic and abused the captain
who had kidnapped him in no measured terms. Had Larry known that acts
similar to this wicked and heartless one were perpetrated by traders in
the South Seas very frequently, he would have made his terms of abuse
more general!

"How long ago was that?" inquired Old Peter.

"Tree year," sighed Bunco. "Since dat day I hab bin in two tree ships,
but nebber run away, cause why? wot's de use ob run away on _island_?
Only now me got on Sout 'Meriky, which me know is not far from Nord
'Meriky, an' me bin here before wid me moder, so kin show you how to
go--and speak Spanish too--me moder speak dat, you sees; but mesilf larn
English aboord two tree ships, an', so, speak him fust rate now."

"So ye do, boy," said Larry, whose sympathetic heart was drawn towards
the unfortunate and ill-used native; "an', faix, we'll go on travellin'
through this forest till we comes to Callyforny an' finds your missus--
so cheer up, Bunco, and let us see how we're to go to roost, for it
seems that we must slaip on a tree this night."

During the course of the conversation which we have just detailed, the
wild denizens of the forest had been increasing their dismal cries, and
the seamen, unused to such sounds, had been kept in a state of nervous
anxiety which each did his utmost to conceal. They were all brave men;
but it requires a very peculiar kind of bravery to enable a man to sit
and listen with cool indifference to sounds which he does not
understand, issuing from gloomy recesses at his back, where there are
acknowledged, though unknown, dangers close at hand. Bunco, therefore,
grinning good-humouredly as usual, rose and selected a gigantic tree as
their dormitory.

The trunk of this tree spread out, a few feet above its base, into
several branches, any one of which would have been de