others to a distant spot where they expected that the ripening
fruit on a cashew tree would attract a large number of birds.
The fruit, however, proved still green, so that we gathered none
and killed few birds. Returning together, Kua-ko kept at my
side, and by and by, falling behind our companions, he
complimented me on my good shooting, although, as usual, I had
only wasted the arrows I had blown.

"Soon you will be able to hit," he said; "hit a bird as big as a
small woman"; and he laughed once more immoderately at the old
joke. At last, growing confidential, he said that I would soon
possess a zabatana of my own, with arrows in plenty. He was
going to make the arrows himself, and his uncle Otawinki, who had
a straight eye, would make the tube. I treated it all as a joke,
but he solemnly assured me that he meant it.

Next morning he asked me if I was going to the forest of evil
fame, and when I replied in the negative, seemed surprised and,
very much to my surprise, evidently disappointed. He even tried
to persuade me to go, where before I had been earnestly
recommended not to go, until, finding that I would not, he took
me with him to hunt in the woods. By and by he returned to the
same subject: he could not understand why I would not go to that
wood, and asked me if I had begun to grow afraid.

"No, not afraid," I replied; "but I know the place well, and am
getting tired of it." I had seen everything in it--birds and
beasts--and had heard all its strange noises.

"Yes, heard," he said, nodding his head knowingly; "but you have