“What did you do that for?” I asked him. He looked at the feather. “I don’t know,” he said. “I guess it reminded me of the time I was on the Congo River.” “What about the Congo River does an old crow’s feather remind you of?” I asked him. “Well, magic,” Jibby said. “A black feather is one of the things the natives use for bad magic. They use a black feather when they want to spoil an enemy’s plans. They stick a black feather in the ground like this, and then they make a ring of other stuff around it and put magic things in the circle.” He showed me how they did it. He broke up some twigs and made a circle around the feather, and then he felt in his pocket for things to put in the circle. First he found his knife, and he held it in the cup of his two hands and said something like: “Keeko, muk-muk, chuck-a-wah chang cho!” Only, of course, I can’t remember what it was he did say. Then he put his knife inside the magic circle, and took out a box of safety matches and said: “Keeko, muk-muk, chuck-a-wah chang cho!” Then he put the matches in the magic circle, and dug into his pocket again, and all he could find was three or four nails and a couple of screw eyes big enough to run a tiller rope through. He chanted: “Keeko, muk-muk, chuck-a-wah chang cho!” So into the magic circle went the nails and the screw eyes, and he looked around and picked up the map Uncle Beeswax had made, and he chanted over that and put that in the magic circle. Then he held out his hands over the whole business and began some more nonsense-chanting, starting low and getting louder, and I sort of got the idea and began to chant with him, and there we both were, slapping our knees and chanting away like lunatics: “Keeko! Keeko! Keeko, muk-muk, keeko! Chuck-a-wah! Chuck-a-wah! Chuck-a-wah chang cho chee!” And over and over again. And then, all of a sudden, somebody was standing behind us. I nearly jumped out of my skin, I was so frightened at first. I thought maybe our magic had really raised an evil spirit or something, and then I saw it was Cawley Romer. And I hadn’t been so far wrong, either, for Cawl Romer is one of the meanest fellows that ever comes to our island. Only one is meaner, and that is his brother Hen. They are great big bullies. [Illustration: SLAPPING OUR KNEES AND CHANTING AWAY LIKE LUNATICS] “What are you doing?” Cawl Romer asked in that rough way a bully asks things. “Magic,” I said, as meek as Moses. “Jibby was showing me how the Congo natives do magic.” Cawl Romer was looking at the magic circle, and all at once he pushed his foot over it and knocked down the feather and scattered the twigs and things.