you later on. Now then, Dick. Take some more stuff, and walk quicker.”
Harley Greenoak was not one to be hurried, but when they did return to investigate, he took them straight to where he had fired his first shot under the shade of the yellow-wood trees.
“Why, this is where I first felt queer,” said Dick.
“No doubt,” stooping down and picking up something that looked like a bit of stick about six or eight inches long. “See that?” showing a tiny needle-like point. “That’s what made you feel queer, and all the others too. It’s tipped with a strong and subtle poison.”
“By Jove! You don’t say so.”
“Rather. I’ve got a theory that your clothes helped to save you. You were saying, Hesketh, that the only one of those who came to grief here and recovered consciousness was a Hottentot. Well, he would have had clothes on, and the Kaffirs wouldn’t.”
“Something in that, may be,” answered the old man.
A little farther on he picked up another of the tiny arrows. This one was sticking in the ground.
“The one I dodged,” he said. “Come on further.”
He led the way. Suddenly Dick Selmes gave a start.
“What’s that?” he said. “Ugh!”
“The mystery,” answered Greenoak.
The monkey-like shape lying there looked more hideous and horrible in death, if possible than when it skipped along the tree-tops.
“But what is it?”
“A survivor of the original Bushmen who lived among the holes and caves of these mountains. He adopted this method of setting up a scare in order to have the run of this place unmolested. You see, if he went on the ground he’d leave spoor, and he knew that—hence the tree dodge.”
“How is it we never found any of these arrows?” said old Hesketh.
“Probably you never thought of looking for them.”
“No more we did.”
“You see,” explained Greenoak, “when you were spinning that yarn about the kloof it brought back to my mind one similar case I’d known of the kind, and I began to put two and two together. Well, the murdering little beast has only got what he deserved, but it’ll save bother if we keep our mouths shut, all the same.”
“But how do you know there are no more of ’em, Greenoak?” said Dick Selmes.
“I’m sure there aren’t. This one is as old as Methuselah. He’d be the only one. You can use Slaang Kloof again, Hesketh.”
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