at shall I say, sir?" asked Hamilton after he had delivered the
message.

"Just say 'a hero,'" said Sanders huskily.

CHAPTER VII

BONES, KING-MAKER

Patricia Hamilton, an observant young lady, had not failed to notice
that every day, at a certain hour, Bones disappeared from view. It was
not for a long time that she sought an explanation.

"Where is Bones?" she asked one morning, when the absence of her
cavalier was unusually protracted.

"With his baby," said her brother.

"Please don't be comic, dear. Where is Bones? I thought I saw him with
the ship's doctor."

The mail had come in that morning, and the captain and surgeon of the
s.s. _Boma Queen_ had been their guests at breakfast.

Hamilton looked up from his book and removed his pipe.

"Do you mean to tell me that Bones has kept his guilty secret all this
time?" he asked anxiously.

She sat down by his side.

"Please tell me the joke. This isn't the first time you have ragged
Bones about 'the baby'; even Mr. Sanders has done it."

She looked across at the Commissioner with a reproving shake of her
pretty head.

"Have _I_ ragged Bones?" asked Sanders, in surprise. "I never thought I
was capable of ragging anybody."

"The truth is, Pat," said her brother, "there isn't any rag about the
matter. Bones adopted a piccanin."

"A child?"

"A baby about a month old. Its mother died, and some old bird of a
witch-doctor was 'chopping' it when Bones appeared on the scene."

Patricia gave a little gurgle of delight and clapped her hands. "Oh,
please tell me everything about it."

"It was Sanders who told her of Henry Hamilton Bones, his dire peril and
his rescue; it was Hamilton who embellished the story of how Bones had
given his adopted son his first bath.

"Just dropped him into a tub and stirred him round with a mop."

Soon after this Bones came blithely up from the beach and across the
parade-ground, his large pipe in his mouth, his cane awhirl.

Hamilton watched him from the verandah of the Residency, and called over
his shoulder to Patricia.

It had been an anxious morning for Bones, and even Hamilton was
compelled to confess to himself that he had felt the strain, though he
had not mentioned the fact to his sister.

Outside in the roadstead the intermediate Elder Dempster boat was
waiting the return of the doctor. Bones had been to see him off. An
important day, indeed, for Henry Hamilton Bones had been vaccinated.

"I think i