gain and again.

But he was not in the least squeamish about telling us that Tippoo Tib
had surely buried huge quantities of ivory, and had caused to be slain
afterward every one who shared the secret.

"How long ago?" asked Monty. But natives of that part of the earth are
poor hands at reckoning time.

"Long time," he assured us. He might have meant six years, or sixty.
It would have been all the same to him.

"No. Me not liking Tippoo Tib. One time his slave. That bad. Byumby
set free. That good. Now working here. This very good."

"Where do you think the ivory is?" (This from Yerkes.)

But the old man shook his head.

"As I understand it," said Monty, "slaves came mostly from the Congo
side of Lake Victoria Nyanza. Slave and elephant country were
approximately the same as regards general direction, and there were two
routes from the Congo--the southern by way of Ujiji on Tanganyika to
Bagamoyo on what is now the German coast, and the other to the north of
Victoria Nyanza ending at Mombasa. Ask him, Fred, which way the ivory
used to come."

"Both ways," announced Juma without waiting for Fred to interpret. He
had an uncanny trick of following conversation, his intelligence
seeming to work by fits and starts.

"That gives us about half Africa for hunting-ground, and a job for
life!" laughed Yerkes.

"Might have a worse!" Fred answered, resentful of cold water thrown on
his discovery.

"Were you Tippoo Tib's slave when he buried the ivory?" demanded Monty,
and the old man nodded.

"Where were you at the time?"

Juma made a gesture intended to suggest immeasurable distances toward
the West, and the name of the place he mentioned was one we had never
heard of.

"Can you take us to Tippoo Tib when we leave this place?" I asked, and
he nodded again.

"How much ivory do you suppose there was?" asked Yerkes.

"Teli, teli!" he answered, shaking his head.

"Too much!" Fred translated.

"Pretty fair to middling vague," said Yerkes,
"but"--judicially--"almost worth investigating!"

"Investigating?" Fred sprang from his chair. "It's better than all
King Solomon's mines, El Dorado, Golconda, and Sindbad the Sailor's
treasure lands--rolled in one! It's an obviously good thing! All we
need is a bit of luck and the ivory's ours!"

"I'll sell you my share now for a thousand dollars--come--come across!"
grinned Yerkes.

There was a rough-house after that. He and Fred nearly pulled the old
att