oulder to the hilt. The lion must
have died within the minute without my shot to finish him.

Coutlass lay dead under the defeated beast that had crawled away to
hide and lick his wounds. We dragged his body out from under, and in
proof that Schillingschen, the common enemy, lived, a bullet came
whistling between us. The flash of my shot had given him direction.
Perhaps he could see us, too, against the moon. We ducked, and lay
still, but no more shots came.

"He's only got four left," Will whispered. "Maybe he'll husband those!"

"Maybe he knows by now that box is empty!" said I. "He'll stalk us on
the way back!"

"Us for the tree, then, until morning!" said Will.

"Sure!" I answered. "And be shot out of it like crows out of a nest!"

But Will had the right idea for all that. He was merely getting at it
in his own way. After a little whispering we went to work with fevered
fingers, stripping off the bloody bandages we had tied on the Greek's
ribs--stripping off more of his clothes--then more of ours--tying them
all into one--then skinning the mangled lion with the long knife that
had really ended his career, tearing the hide into strips and knotting
them each to each. In twenty minutes we had a slippery, smeary, smelly
rope of sorts. In five more we had dragged the Greek's dead body
underneath the tree.

Then I went back to the vantage point among the rocks and waited until
Will had thrown the rope with a stone tied to its end over an upper
branch. Presently I saw Coutlass' dead body go clambering ungracefully
up among the branches, looking so much less dead than alive that I
thought at first Will must have tangled the rope in the crotch of the
tree and be clambering up to release it.

The ruse worked. Georges Coutlass served us dead as well as living.
Out of the darkness to my left there came a flash and a report. I did
not look to see whether the corpse in the tree jerked as the bullet
struck. Before the flash had died--almost before the crack of the
report bad reached my ear-drums I answered with three shots in quick
succession.

"Did you get him?" called Will.

"I don't know," I answered. "If I didn't, he's only got three
cartridges left!"

We left the Greek's body in the tree for Schillingschen to shoot at
further if he saw fit; it was safer there from marauding animals than
if we had laid it on the ground, and as for the rites of the dead, it
was a toss-up which was better, kites and