Like all his fellows, he is an enterprising savage in that he is constantly on the lookout for forest products which can be turned to account in everyday life. See him now stopping to try the sap of a certain tree. With a flint axehead he probes the bark, when out oozes a thick white fluid, some of which drops on his hand. He rubs thumb against fingers to get it off, whereupon it gets thicker and thicker, and finally breaks loose as a bit of something solid. He experiments with this strange gift of the forest, and finds that it will stretch and rebound. He collects more of the sap, catching it this time in the palm of one hand. Into this liquid he drops the first little pellet he made, and proceeds to roll it round and round therein with his free hand. Soon the freshly collected sap begins to solidify on the pellet, and his treasure grows appreciably bigger. We watch this interesting experiment repeated time after time. The pellet has grown into a fair-sized ball; suddenly that ball slips from the grasp of the man who is so intelligently playing at work. Surely it is bewitched; for the moment it touches the ground, it tries to jump into the air. Why, if only he had known what was going to happen, if only he had stooped down a second earlier, he might have caught it before it again fell to earth. No wonder he looks pleased; he has discovered a new product that can be made into a plaything. He notes the kind of tree which has supplied him with the material for his highly amusing toy; then he picks up his blowpipe, calls his parrot back to its travelling perch, and goes his way. Yes, certainly we will follow this interesting discoverer, but first we must ask Mother Witch to borrow for us some of those magic cloaks which render the wearer invisible; for, as I have told you, were yon son of the wilds to see us, one way or another our adventures might be brought to an untimely end. CHAPTER II THE ROMANCE OF RUBBER--_continued_