White-Man's-Trouble spoke, and nothing happened. He laced into their bare backs with his chiquot, but still they did not budge. One of them, who seemed to be spokesman, merely talked to him quietly. The Krooboy explained. "Dem bushmen very uneducate. Dey say if you no take 'em dey lib for die. Dem big black fellow there wid one ear, he say if you no take him, he walk into dem ribber an' be crocodile chop." "They'll do it, too, confound them," Carter assured himself vexedly. And so it came to pass, as he could not very well condemn the enterprising seven to death--for that is what leaving them amounted to--he was forced to take them with him, and very idle, inefficient boatmen they proved. They knew nothing of the river, once the two miles of their fishing had been passed; they had no idea of the obvious set of currents, no eyes for the plainest shoal. If they were left to themselves for a dozen minutes they would run the raft into the bush, and as likely as not get on board a cargo of red ants that seemed to have white-hot teeth when they started to bite. They gorged upon the scanty store of dried fish if they were not watched, and never caught more unless they were incessantly goaded. When the reeking yellow river was more than usually full of crocodiles they would dangle their legs over the side; and when the raft was drifting past a village which was most probably hostile, they would break into song. They always felt that the great white ju-ju man, under whose protection they had elected to place themselves, was competent to shelter them if he so desired. And if he willed otherwise, and they died, well, that did not greatly concern them. They were very exasperating animals, and Carter about three times a day much wished that the handling of them could be transferred to some of those kind-hearted people at home who always insist that the negro of the West Africa hinterland is a man and a brother. They had a small dugout canoe in tow, and greatly they needed it. After twice running the big raft down streams that ended in impassable morass, and having tediously to tow and punt her back against the current, they always hereafter sent the lighter craft ahead on voyages of discovery. Or to be more accurate, Carter had to go in her with one of the fishers as assistant. The excellent White-Man's-Trouble had limits to his intelligence, and there was no driving into him that water which would carry a canoe that drew three inches of water was too shallow for a heavy raft that drew three feet. The Winchester rifle and the remains of the Gladstone bag seemed the only two things that linked them now with civilization. They lived in the African manner upon African food; the intricate branching of the creeks was charted in matchet-scratches upon the smoothed surface of a log of wood; even English speech was discarded in favor of the native tongue.