I sat down to this simple fare--after raking the "cookie" from the fire-place, whence it came baking hot with wood cinders embedded in its steaming crust; while Abe leant against the door-post, pulling reflectively at his pipe. "What has become of Bolo?" I asked. "He quitted last night. No, he ain't gone off with your cow. He was skeered." I nodded an inquiry, being engaged with the mealie cob, the eating of which occupies the mouth too fully for speech. "Old Bolo were skeered. Try some of that honey--it's real good. None of your euphorbia juice in it to burn your mouth out, but just ripe sweetness from the hill flowers and sugar bushes." The old man held his pipe away, and his lips were drawn in as I placed a piece of gleaming yellow comb on my plate. "Yes," he chuckled, "old Bolo were skeered, and he lit out for home. You see, him and me were sitting away yonder, under the tree in the shade, talking about things, when up comes a honey-bird. `Chet-chet-chet-chee!' he said, sitting up there in the branches, with his head on one side and then the other as he fussed about with his news. `Chet-chet-chet-chee!' he said--which is his way of saying as how he'd found a honey-tree and wanted someone to go shares with him. "`Shall we foller him!' says I. "Bolo he grunted. For a heathen he's spry, but it was his lazy time, and for another thing he was in the middle of a long-winded story, which he was bound to finish, being a born talker, and very strong ag'inst being interrupted. "`Chet-chet-chet-chee!' said the honey-bird, jumping from one branch to another all in a quiver of impatience. "`Come on,' says I, `let's see what sort of a nest he's got.' "`That bird is a mischief bird,' said Bolo; `he will lead us to a snake or a tiger. Eweh! to the black tiger.' "`How?' says I. "`Why,' says he, `if he were a good bird he would sit away over there on that thorn bush and wait till we have finished our talk. This bird is too anxious.' "Just then that bird flew away, off to the thorn tree, and there he sat dumb. "`By Jimminy,' says I, `that's funny.' "Bolo he took a pinch of snuff, and he drove on with his story, with his `congella wetu,' and his `ke-ke-lo-ko-ke,' jes' 's if nothing had happened, while I sat with my eyes fixed on that there bird. "Well, the longest river reaches the sea some time, and at last Bolo finished that yarn, and what it was about I couldn't tell you, sonny. `Now,' says I, `let us investigate this matter,' and hang me ef at that precise moment of the ending of that yarn, the bird didn't come back, all agog with his news. "Bolo he shook his head. `That bird is no bird,' he says, `it's a familiar.' "`Whose familiar?' says I. "`It belongs to that dog of a Fingo,' naming a rival medicine man, `or else 'tis a slave of the black tiger sent to lead us into a trap.'