But Carter refused to see it in this light. "I'm tough," he told himself, "and I've worked up a certain reputation for ju-ju. If I use my wits I shall get through, and be successful. I absolutely refuse to die here in Africa. I've promised to marry Laura, and, let it cost what it may, I'm going to do it. I must; I've promised; and, besides, she's absolutely no other prospect before her. But I do wish to goodness I'd a decent shotgun. I'm no kind of hand with this badly balanced Winchester." So, with a high courage, he addressed himself to departure, and invited White-Man's-Trouble with the promise of goods, lands, goats, wives, guns, and the other things that go to make up a Krooboy competency, to accompany him. It was without surprise that he received a flat refusal. "O Carter," said his servant, "I no fit for lib for bush. I got 'nother palaver too-much-important here at factory. Dem headman of factory boys say to me, 'Sar, you been stand-by-at-crane boy on steamah? An' I say, 'Sar, I plenty-much-too-good educate.' And he say to me, 'Sar, you fit for lib here an' take dem job of second headman?' An' I say to him, 'Sar, I fit.' O Carter, if I lib for bush with you, an' let Okky-men spear me, an' leopards chop me, I dam fool." "You're a cheerful animal. If you think you are more likely to get an archbishopric by staying here, by all means stay. Hope you'll like the Dutchmen when they come." White-Man's-Trouble crooked a bunch of fingers, and scratched his ribs. "O Carter, dem Dutchman all-e-same bush-Englishmen?" "You've got it in once. I've no doubt they're a most degraded lot." "Dem Dutchman he no have as much savvy as an Englishman?" "Nowhere near. They wouldn't have chucked up the factory in the first instance if they had, and in the second no Englishman would have bought it back again at such an absurd figure as they were fools enough to pay Missy Kate." "O Carter?" "Well?" "I fit for steal small-small sometimes from Englishmen?" "I can guarantee that, you scamp." "Then," said White-Man's-Trouble triumphantly, "I fit for steal plenty-much-big from Dutchman, an' he no savvy." "You'll taste abundance of chiquot, my lad." The Krooboy snapped a piebald thumb and finger. "I take chiquot from Englishman, not from bush-Englishman. If he flog me with chiquot, I put ju-ju on him--" He picked up an empty bottle and handled it thoughtfully. "Ju-ju, if dem Dutchmen give me chiquot." "Of the powdered-glass variety in his morning sausage," said Carter thoughtfully. "Well, it would be no use warning the poor devils, because, in the first place, they wouldn't believe me, and in the second they'd get it all the same. I guess these new colonizers must worry out the methods of dealing with the natives for themselves, as their betters did before them. And for myself, I fancy a knapsack will be the wear. Thank the Lord, I've tramped a good many hundred miles with one before." * * * * *