strode
gloomily from the hut.

When Patricia Hamilton woke the next morning, she found a note pinned to
her pillow.

We may gloss over the impropriety of the proceedings which led to
this phenomenon. Bones was an artist, and so small a matter as the
proprieties did not come into his calculations.

Patricia sat up in bed and read the letter.

"DEAR OLD FRIEND AND DOUTTING THOS."
(Bones's spelling was always perfectly disgraceful),--

"When this reaches you, when this reaches you, I shall be far, far
away on my long and dangerus journey. I may not come back, I may
not come back, for I and a faithful servant are about to penetrate
to the lares of the wild beasts of the forest, of the forest. I am
determined to wipe out the reproach which you have made. I will
bring back, not a dead leppard, not a dead leppard, but a live one,
which I shall seeze with my own hands. I may lose my life in this
rash and hazardus enterprise, but at least I shall vindycate my
honour.--Farewell, dear old Patrisia.

"Your friend,

"B."

"Which proves," said Hamilton, when he was shown the letter, "that Bones
is learning to spell. It only seems yesterday when he was spelling
'Hamilton' with three m's. By the way, how did you get this letter?"

"I found it pinned to the door," said Patricia tactfully.

Bones went by the shortest route to Jumburu, and was received without
enthusiasm, for he had left a new chief to rule over a people who were
near enough to the B'wigini to resent overmuch discipline. But his
business was with K'sungasa, for the two days' stay which Bones had made
in the village, and all that he had learnt of the old tamer, had been
responsible for his reckless promise to Patricia Hamilton.

He came at a critical moment, for K'sungasa, a thin and knobbly old man,
with dim eyes and an incessant chuckle, was very near his end. He lay
on a fine raised bed, a big yellow-eyed wild cat at his feet, a monkey
or two shivering by the bedside, and a sprawling litter of kittens--to
which the wild cat leapt in a tremble of rage when Bones entered the
hut--crawling in the sunlight which flooded the hut.

"Lord Tibbetti," croaked the old man, "I see you! This is a good time,
for to-morrow I should be dead."

"K'sungasa," said Bones, seating himself gingerly, and looking about for
the snake which was usually coiled