"Then, as there is only starvation and other unpleasant things behind, I'm going ahead to prospect. Gee! There's somebody on this side with a rifle. And, by Christopher, there's another rifle in the village shooting back!" The flintlock trade guns roared out at intervals, and every now and again there came the sharp bark of smokeless powder, and its clean whop-whop of a bullet from a modern rifle. By careful watching Carter decided that there was only one rifle on each side, and he further made out that one was bombarding the other to the exclusion of all lesser interests. Now when a man has hunger gnawing at the inside of his ribs, and knows, moreover, that any movement in retreat will be fatal, it does not take much to spur him on to an advance. So Carter went cautiously ahead, keeping well under the fringe of the cover, and White-Man's-Trouble, who was copiously afraid, and who muttered evil things under his breath in Kroo, hung on to the remains of the Gladstone bag and crouched along at his heels. Carter took a step at a time, and was cautious always not to rustle a leaf or tread on a dead branch. So he pushed his way ahead, and when the Krooboy, with less dexterity, blundered and made the shadow of a noise, he turned upon him with such a look of ferocity that it awed even so cross-grained a person as White-Man's-Trouble. A dozen times Carter nearly walked on to the heels of one or other of the attacking force, and as often drew off unnoticed; and at last he made his way to the place where he had located the rifle fire, and was closing in on it from behind, when of a sudden he was confronted with a rifle muzzle which suddenly spirted up from the middle of a clump of bush. It swung up till it covered the left side of his chest, and hung steady there for an appreciable number of seconds, and then a very well-known voice said, "Well, Mr. Carter, I congratulate you on keeping your nerve in spite of the climate." "Gee!" said Carter under his breath. "That's old Swizzle-Stick Smith." "I beg your pardon?" "I said I'm sure that's Mr. Smith." A bald head, garnished with an eyeglass, shaggy gray hair and a shaggy beard, came forth. "May I ask what you are doing here? Thrown up your commission by any chance?" "Exactly that." "On your own?" "Well, sir, starvation's my master at present." "Oh, I beg pardon. Go into the mess and order what you'll have. Or look here, I've shot my man, so I'm free for the moment, and I'll come with you. Whiskey we're out of, but I can recommend gin and soda. We looted a sparklet machine, by the way, from the Frenchman."