es, and
practically all the largest ones, spend the night alongshore.

Matches were wet. We had no means of making a flare to frighten the
monsters away. We simply had to "chance it" as cheerfully and swiftly
as we could, and at the end of a half-hour's slimy toil we carried our
muddied loads to the nearest high ground and settled down there for the
night.

It would be mad exaggeration to say we camped. Wet to the skin--dirty
to the verge of feeling suicidal--bitten by insects until the blood ran
down from us--lost (for we had no notion where the end of the ford
might be)--at the mercy of any prowling beasts that might discover us
(for our rifle locks were fouled with mud)--we sat with chattering
teeth and waited for the morning.

When the sun rose we found a village less than four hundred yards away
and sent the boys down to it to unpack the loads and spread everything
in the sun to dry, while we went down to the river again and washed our
rifles. Then we dried and oiled them, and without a word of bargain or
explanation, invaded the cleanest looking hut, lay down on the stamped
clay floor, and slept. It was only clean-looking, that hut. It housed
more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but we
slept, unconscious of them all.

At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused by
Fred's voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters dropped
their burdens inside the village stockade. He had scorned the ferry
and crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keep
crocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy on
vacation.

"Wake up, you vorloopers!" he shouted. "Wake up! Shake off the fleas
and come, and I'll show you something."

He had already had the tale of our night's misfortune in detail from
the owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground that
we had lost no loads in spite of over-turning. "The last really white
man who crossed lost all his loads!" he explained.).

"Come and I'll show you something you never saw before, you
scouts!--you advance guard!--you line of skirmishers!"

Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, where
they wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both were
breathless. Then, when neither could make another effort:

"Look!" gasped Fred.

There was an island in mid-stream below where we must have crossed.
The stream was straight, and from where we stood