e skin from the rhino and were ready
to pare it down for transportation.

"That'll take a couple of days anyway," said Mr. Wallace that night as
they sat around the fire. "I think we might as well establish a camp
here for a week, Montenay. We are right in the game country and I can
get hold of all the specimens I want to send home while we are here, and
get them safely off. Then we can strike on after ivory and see what
we'll find."

"Suits me," returned Captain Mac. "Ye've done vera well, lads! The horn
o' yon beast is eighteen inches."

"I'd kind o' like to keep the head, uncle," said Burt. "Critch an' I had
a hard time gettin' him. We don't want the skin but we could set up the
head back home an'--"

"Sure!" returned Mr. Wallace heartily. "We'll keep the skin without
paring it down, then. We can trade it to the natives for almost anything
we ask. Aren't there some villages near here, Captain?"

Montenay called up the head Bantu and put some questions to him. They
learned that there was a village several miles off where ivory might be
found, and the Bantu was ordered to send a man over in the morning to
bring back whatever ivory the natives might have to trade.

The next day Critch and Burt superintended the preparation of the rhino
head and the skins of a number of various antelope varieties which Mr.
Wallace and the captain shot. On the day following the Bantu messenger
returned with a score of blacks who bore two small fifty-pound tusks.
These they gladly traded for the rhino skin, which they would use for
shields, and for some tobacco, beads, and sweaters of blazing red.

On that same day Burt evened up trophies with his chum. In the afternoon
Mr. Wallace and Critch went off together when the trading had been
finished. Barely had they left when a Bantu ran in with the news that
there was a herd of buffalo near the stream which ran a few hundred
yards past the camp. Captain Mac immediately called Burt and the
gun-bearers and on they went with all haste.

After half an hour's walking they located the buffalo at the edge of the
creek bed in a thick jungle swamp. Holding their guns in readiness the
explorer and Burt advanced slowly. They could see two or three bulls
watching them, the rest of the herd being hidden. Not until the hunters
were within a hundred yards did the buffaloes move. Their massive white
in-curving horns shone against the black bodies, and their wicked little
eyes were fixed sullenly on t