nt cloth over the
sleeping man, and then Adams set Felix to work splicing and mending the
tent pole. The two porters, who had stuffed themselves with food, were
looking better and a shade more human; the glossy look was coming back to
their skins and the fright was leaving their faces. He set them to work,
piling the recovered stores in the bit of shade cast by the tree and the
improvised tent, and as they did so he took toll of the stuff.

He judged that there was enough provisions to take them back along the
road they had come by. The hunt was ended. Even should Berselius recover
fully in a couple of days, Adams determined to insist on a return. But he
did not expect any resistance.

It was a long, long, wearisome day. The great far-stretching land,
voiceless except just over there where birds were still busy and would be
busy till all was gone; the cloudless sky, and the shifting shadow of the
tree; these were the best company he had. The blacks were not companions.
The two porters seemed less human than dogs, and Felix poisoned his
sight.

His dislike for this man had been steadily growing. The thought that
Berselius had risked his life for this creature, and the remembrance of
how he had pointed to the dead man with a grin and said "B'selius," had
brought matters to a head in the mind of Adams, and turned his dislike
into a furious antipathy. He sat now in what little shadow there was,
watching the figure of the Zappo Zap.

Felix, the tent-pole finished, had slunk off westward, hunting about, or
pretending to hunt for salvage. Little by little the black figure dwindled
till it reached where the birds were discoursing and clamouring, and Adams
felt his blood grow cold as he watched the birds rise like a puff of black
smoke and scatter, some this way, some that; some flying right away, some
settling down near by.

The black figure, a tiny sketch against the sky, wandered hither and
thither, and then vanished.

Felix had sat him down.

Adams rose up and took the elephant rifle, took from the bag a great solid
drawn brass cartridge, loaded the rifle, and sat down again in the shade.

Berselius was sleeping peacefully. He could hear the even respirations
through the tent cloth. The porters were sleeping in the sun as only
niggers can sleep when they are tired; but Adams was feeling as if he
could never sleep again, as he sat waiting and watching and listening to
the faint whisper, whisper of the grass as the wi