"If his story is true," said Mr. Hume, "he owes much to his mother."

"Where is your mother?" asked Compton.

"The chief's wife is not a woman," said Muata. "And yet she is a
woman. She beguiled them in the forest by pretence of great
submission and fear of the woods. So they trusted her to bring
firewood, believing she would not go far from the camp. But she was
watching for sign of the little people. This I know, for she
vanished in the woods near the river. And the yellow hunters of men
knew not how she had gone; but they left word to people by the river
to say to me that my mother had been carried away in a canoe."

"And what will you do now?"

"See, I am no one--a liver on kindness, a slave at the gate. But in
time Muata will return to the place of hiding."

"Better stay with us, Muata. We go into the forest ourselves. We
will give you food, and teach you how to use the weapon of the Arab
hunters. You will hunt for us, work in the canoe for us, and, maybe,
we will go with you to your hiding-place."

"The forest is dark and terrible. Why, will my father enter the
darkness with his sons?"

"We go to hunt, and for the love of the woods and the water. Has not
a hunter joy in the hunting?"

"I know it;" and the chief observed them intently, as if he were