d plunged at once into the great cocoanut grove,
followed by Carey and his companions.

"Big Dan no see now," cried Jackum, and he grinned and pointed up at the
nuts overhead. "Good, good?"

"Yes," cried Carey; "let's have some."

The black said something to his companions, two of whom took off their
plaited hair girdles, joined them together, and then the band was passed
round a likely tree, knotted round one of the wearers' loins, and the
next minute he was apparently walking like a monkey up the tree,
shifting the band dexterously and going on and on till he reached the
crown of leaves and the fruit, which he began screwing off and pitching
down into the sand, where they were caught up, the pointed end of a
club-handle inserted, and the great husk wrenched off. Then a few chops
with a stone axe made a hole in the not yet hardened shell, and a nut
with its delicious contents of sweet, sub-acid milk and pulp was handed
to the boy, the giver grinning with satisfaction as he saw how it was
enjoyed.

The blacks were soon similarly occupied, each finishing a nut, and then
Jackum led the way inland.

"Are you going to the river?" asked Carey.

"No, walk, kedge fis'," said Jackum, shaking his head. "Bully-woolly
dar."

"Bully-woolly?" said Carey, wonderingly.

Jackum threw himself on the ground, with his legs stiffened out behind,
and his hands close to his sides. Then with wonderful accuracy he went
through the movements of a crocodile creeping over the sand, and then
made a snap at the boy's leg with his teeth, making believe to have
caught him, and to be dragging his imaginary prey down to the water,
ending by wagging his legs from side to side like a tail.

"I see," cried Carey. "Crocodiles. Yes, I know."

"Big, big. Mumkull black fellow, white boy. Come 'long."

Jackum started off, followed by Carey and the rest in single file, their
leader with his head down and eyes reading the ground from right to left
as if in search of something lost. He made straight for the forest, but
selected the more open parts where the undergrowth was scarce, so as to
get quickly over the ground, stopping suddenly by a great decayed tree,
about which his companions set to work with the sharp ends of their
club-handles, and in a very short time they had dug out of the decayed
wood some three double handfuls of thick white grubs as big as a man's
fingers, and these were triumphantly transferred to the grass bag one
man h