drums, tom-toms, and bamboo flutelike contrivances made the presence of a village known a long way off We knew we were near, however, as pads were often interrupting our course, and we had to be very careful in avoid. ing sunken stake-traps. Suddenly we emerged from the forest and a glare of lights shone through a high bamboo stockade in front of us. We had arrived at the dreaded village. Our carriers were too frightened to wail but they refused to follow us farther, even their chief thinking it was up to the white men to do the rest themselves.

We peered through the stockade. Something was happening inside, but the silence was inexplicable. The village was much like any other native village but larger than any we had ever seen, its tabu house being a most imposing edifice, mounted on piles about ten feet off the ground, thatched artistically, and surmounted by a row of carved monstrosities fixed on the gable. Other houses also were large and formed a square, from which radiated lines of smaller dwellings surrounded by cultivated patches of yams, tobacco, and other growths we did not know. Some tree-houses could be seen in the distance, but the shadows cast by a row of fires in the square prevented us from seeing the distant side of the village.

The square was crowded with fiercelooking warriors silently performing some evolutions round a cluster of poles adorned with mummified human heads, which occupied its centre. A number of grotesquely masked beings evidently were in charge of the proceedings, and they seemed to be very efficient in giving silent directions. Their masks covered half of their bodies and were all of different designs, mostly tapering up to a point and giving them the appearance of pantomime giants. Fibre kilts were the lower gar

ments of leaders and men, and they wore long streamers, fastened in their bushy hair, and necklets of teeth. They were all armed with barbed spears, spiked clubs, and dart blowpipes. They certainly looked capable of making short work of any prospector.

'I'll sell you my mosquito net, cheap,' said Boston Bob to me as we watched; but before I could reply Silent Ted touched me on the shoulder and whispered: 'Watch that fellowfourth in the centre row!'

"That is the chief tabu priest,' I answered, but I obeyed Ted's injunction.

The warriors were now marching into the darkness on the other side of the village and most of the priests went with them. Soon all had gone and only recognized as such because of the flowers in their well-dressed hair - and the four central wizards were left. All were silent, and presently the women departed.

women

'Now's our chance,' Big Sam, who was always impetuously inclined, called out, climbing the stockade; but the Professor and the Doctor both signed to delay operations and he slid down again.

'Surely my imagination is tricking me,' muttered the Doctor. 'Do any of you fellows notice anything familiar?'

I started violently. The giant figure I had been watching was nervously scratching the back of his right leg. "That is Mac!' I almost shouted. 'I'd know him anywhere by that trick of his-'

The Doctor's face was bathed in perspiration. 'It is!' he cried. 'And look! There is proof!'

The masked man standing third had seemingly got into an argument with his neighbor and, as we were looking, the fourth man's fists shot out left and right and the third went down like a log, his mask smashed to fragments by the terrific blows.

'Come on, boys!' yelled the Professor

and we were over the stockade in less than a minute. If the three remaining priests saw us they made no sign, and the object of our interest strode after the warriors. As we approached, the first man suddenly turned on the second, tripped him up and sat upon him. Then he faced us. 'Glad to see you boys,' he drawled. 'Excuse me not rising.'

'Tommy Carstairs!' we cried simultaneously. 'We thought you had passed out

'Well, I have n't. I'm second tabu priest here and old Mac is first. Got a smoke about you? I don't care much for the home-grown tobacco.'

We all crowded round our old friend with exclamations of joy, and Silent Ted pulled the enormous covering from his body.

'Carry those beggars into the priests' house and tie them to the sacrificing posts, while I do my best to spread knowledge around,' laughed Carstairs. 'But say, Boston, you've lost that bet with old Murphy about the size of the biggest crocodile. He was n't lying, for there are some sacred ones in a pool here more than twenty feet - '

Tommy Carstairs informed us that Mac and he were survivors of Macrae's party and that they had been kept for a special feast. In the interval another tribe from down the river had attacked the village, and Mac had saved the chief from being carried off. The chief had no love for the white men but, realizing the value of their presence, had made Mac and Carstairs priests, out of gratitude. They had since been able to work magic in curing a lot of the leading warriors by the use of pills made of soap which they had recovered from their packs, and now were somewhat popular.

The natives had gone out that night to settle some old feud with a village upstream, and the silence which had

-

at

'Oh, Mac has gone after the warriors to throw curses with his rifle any deserters; and those two priests were jealous of our power and were getting nasty. They'll run for their lives down to the next village when we kick them out. We've made them break something about their tabu law by touching them, and they'll be the centrepieces of a big grill if they are ever caught.'

After a lengthy discussion it was decided that we should return to our camp and wait there until Mac and Carstairs came for us, in state, and took us to the village as their friends; then fresh plans could be arranged. We set the two priests free and they at once ran to the river and tumbling into a canoe, pushed off downstream. We followed in a larger craft, and our carriers ran alongside through the forest. The blazing camp-fire soon shone through the trees, and we beached our cleverly designed dugout and found that we had been raided, after all. Our nets were transfixed with dozens of spears, all thrown from the land side, and John L. S. Chalmers proclaimed them to be the weapons of some other tribe, lower down.

'Evidently it is a bit exciting round about here at times,' the Professor commented, and we all agreed, and set about preparing breakfast.

IV

With the coming of the sun the spirits of our carriers revived and, to make amends for their conduct during the night, they helped to work the goldsand patch we had struck. Their methods were amusing to us, at first: they stretched themselves on the sand and, thanks to marvelous eyesight, 'specked' the minute points of gold and picked them up with their tongues. At the end of an hour they had collected more than we had with our pans, and the Professor checked the amount to their credit so as to give them a good reason to stay with us. But their system had disadvantages. Lying prostrate on the sand, they could not 'get a move on' very quickly, and when an enormous saurian suddenly rushed out of the water and seized one, those disadvantages became apparent. Silent Ted and Sydney Charlie had seen the creature, however, and a moment before its great jaws had actually exerted full pressure through the native's fibre kilt they had each sent a bullet through its eyes into its brain. Paralyzed, but not yet dead, the monster relaxed its hold, and Boston Bob and I pulled the man free. Another fusillade of bullets finished the creature, and the Doctor attended to the carrier, who was more frightened than hurt. This incident put an end to the gold-extracting work of the carriers.

While we were still talking over the matter, a fleet of war canoes swept down the river toward us, the occupants shouting 'Begga-be-begga’ 'friends, we are friends.' Mac and Carstairs were in the first canoe, unadorned, and with them was a powerfully built warrior with a ring in his nose and saucer-like appendages to his ears, whose hair-streamers and necklet of teeth proclaimed him as the great War Chief.

Our carriers disappeared at once.

'Hullo, you bold bad gold-hunters!' cried Mac, as the first boat grounded. 'Let me introduce you to my friend Pickhimsbones, the mighty War Chief. He does n't know a word of English, so listen carefully to what I am saying, for I am sure he has already settled on which of you he 'll have for dinner tonight. Don't trust him, but make a big show of being impressed by the ugly old sinner.' Mac rubbed the back of his right thigh as he spoke, and we nearly spoiled the impressiveness of the introduction by laughing.

We greeted Mac with a dignity that hid our real feelings and responded to the Chief's grunt of salutation in a manner suggestive of a meeting of potentates. Pickhimsbones then rattled out a long jargon of words and made signs that he welcomed us as friends of his white priests. His warriors cheered lustily when he had finished, and Mac explained that he had been boasting of the fight during the night and of the number of slaves he would have in the spirit world, those slain in personal combat become the slaves of the victor in the after world, and that we had been invited to make his village our home while we were in the country.

We made suitable response and, at the same time, contrived to tell Mac that our camp had been attacked, that we had plenty of ammunition, and had found gold.

'You can never work here,' Mac said, when we had told everything and Carstairs was telling the Chief some tale supposed to be an interpretation of what we were saying, and some of the warriors were investigating our packs with doubtful intent. 'You are between two of the most bloodthirsty tribes in New Guinea and I think the Chief is about to act treacherously now. Watch the warriors nearest you, carefully, and be ready to shoot if need be; I am going to spring a risky trick.' Mac turned to

the Chief and apparently saw the dead crocodile for the first time. A look of horror came into his eyes and he ran over to the motionless monster and bent over it. The Chief eyed him strangely and followed. It seemed to me that he was thinking Mac was becoming too popular and that the seven extra white men would be better with their heads on poles. But he got a shock. By some accident, apparently, Silent Ted, rightly interpreting Mac's signal, got in his way and tripped him. He fell on the dead body.

'Tabu! Tabu!' screamed Mac, pointing to a symbol burned into the crocodile's scales.

The words acted like magic and, after a moment's awed silence, the warriors took them up.

'Tabu! Tabu!' they yelled and rushed to the war canoes.

The Chief picked himself up and hesitated, as if he would like to risk the awful fate in store for those who had been in contact, unlawfully, with anything tabu; but his men were leaving him, so, with a sudden bound, he joined one of the boats. Mac still continued to shriek out the word and the Chief deliberately hurled a spear at him from the water. It missed, and while he was aiming a second, Sydney Charlie shattered his wrist with a bullet from his Winchester. With frenzied shouts the warriors paddled up stream and Mac, rubbing his right leg, remarked: "That was a piece of luck, boys. This crocodile really is tabu. It must have got tired of the sacred pools in the village, or of the old men on which it was fed. It probably is the tomb of a lot of Papangis' ancestors.'

Boston Bob measured the creature in paces and observed, 'I think old Murphy has won that bottle of fruit salts, after all.'

'I think that, for a quiet peaceful life, prospecting in New Guinea is

Mac's tireless energy and enthusiasm were infectious, and, hastily collecting our stores and gold, we negotiated the river and cut through the dense undergrowth of the forest until we struck a well-defined pad leading into the ranges. At nightfall we were among towering mountains, clad to their summits with dense flowering vegetation, but our compasses were useless, and we had to climb trees to view the stars before we could determine which way we were heading.

'I believe this pad leads through to a west-coast river,' said Mac. "That peak on our right is Mount Albert Edward, and the Papangis are afraid of the spirits that dwell beyond it.'

'But we came here for gold,' Big Sam said. 'We're not afraid of spirits.'

"This afternoon you have been passing through the biggest gold-formation that I know of in the world,' Mac replied; 'but we cannot work quartz reefs without plant, so we'll just have to be content with panning out sordid wealth in the gully just ahead of us.'

We pushed on in the moonlight and presently, under Carstairs' leadership, swung off to our right through a closegrown mass of scrubby entanglements and found ourselves in a ravine completely shut off by the vegetation which grew across the entrance.

'Now, you sinners,' spoke Mac, fondling his nether limb, 'we have arrived.

Eat well and sleep well to-night, for tomorrow the gold fever will be on. You'll find gold wherever the sand is piled up against the hard quartz barriers which cross the bottom of this watercourse.'

We were too tired to ask questions, and anyhow, no one had any worry when Mac was in charge; so, after dining on wild pig, cooked in the ashes of our camp-fire, we stretched ourselves out for sleep in the smoke, each man taking an hour's turn on guard. Next morning we proved Mac to be correct. Gold was everywhere, and we panned out about three hundred ounces before night.

How did the Papangis manage to catch you here?' the Professor asked our two new members, as we again sat smoking round our fire.

"They did n't get us here,' Carstairs answered. 'We were going down to the river, homeward bound with our gold, when we ran into them. They've got our gold now

'But they'll track us here, this time,' said Mac, 'so always say your prayers at night.'

'How did you find this place?' I asked. 'You could n't tell such a place was here from the pad outside?'

'We did not know the pad was there until the day before we left,' Carstairs replied, while Mac, unconsciously, felt that his right leg was still where it should be. 'We came in here over the top of the divide, from the Mambare watershed on the other side. We did not think we were going back by the Kumusi route when we left for home.'

'I think we'll go back by the Mambare,' I said. 'I prefer sailing down a river among the gentle crocodiles to cutting through the forest to avoid the Papangi and other villages.'

"There is plenty of gold on the other side, too, among the Mount Scratchley foothills.' Mac spoke thoughtfully.

'You are a regular glutton on gold, Mac,' laughed the Doctor as he turned in for the night. 'One would think you enjoyed being a Papangi tabu priest.'

'I did, Doctor,' Mac replied seriously. 'I meant to kill old Pickhimsbones some day and start growing rubber in his kingdom; labor would be cheap, and the fat priests would last as food for a long time and just think how well a name like "The Papangi Rubber Company, Limited" would look on business paper - Mac may have rambled on, but all had fallen asleep.

Next day we repeated our first day's performance, and that night the Professor gave us a learned discourse on orchids and butterflies; but it was the Doctor who put us to sleep with his story of the life of the beriberi fever microbe.

The third day our enthusiasm eased off somewhat; getting gold was now monotonous work, fit only for our carriers if they had not been so lazy. We constructed some crude labor-saving devices and, trusting to them to keep up the returns with lessened labor, went out hunting, and incidentally gained much knowledge of our surroundings. We were continually striking fresh deposits of auriferous sands and stumbling across rich quartz-reefs on those short trips, but we knew it was useless attempting to develop any of our finds, with the knowledge that sooner or later the natives would track us down.

By the end of a week we had secured nearly two thousand ounces of gold and were thinking about going back to tell of our fortune and get reënforcements. We had piled up a mass of dry scrub around our camp and had laid several charges of gelignite in pop-holes underneath, that would be fired - with more noise than anything else when we set fire to the barricade. The Pa