A dozen negroes from one of the neighboring tribes had been left in charge of the aerodrome for the last week, and from these we now chose six as our personal bodyguard through the jungle. Fine fellows they were--tall, powerfully built, industrious (more or less) and very willing and obedient (as becomes the properly missionarified black). They treated us with idolatrous respect, chattered excitably of the gorillas they had heard in the vicinity, and told us that the narrow pathways which they had cut to our cages were in complete readiness. Leaving Oakley and Newland and the remainder of the negroes at the aerodrome, we soon reached the first cage, which was about a quarter of a mile away. There Stringer and I pitched camp for the day, retaining one-third of the bodyguard for porter work. "If you have any luck," I said to Gran'pa and Dr. Croft, "send a messenger along. The first capture will probably be the most important of all. To-day is a sort of apprenticeship." "Quite right, George! Much depends on our initial encounter with a free gorilla and whoever scores the first bull's-eye should hand on the valuable knowledge he has thereby acquired. . . . So long!" Stringer and I watched them disappear into the dense green mass of the encircling jungle, and then entered our fortress and donned our female gorilla garments. We saw that our revolvers were loaded and efficient, slipped them into the "hip pockets" cut in the rear of the skins, and turned our attention to the "gas-works." A flexible green tube (artfully disguised as a trailing tendril!) was affixed to each of the two cylinders and one nozzle was placed outside and the other inside the cage. Ropes, handcuffs, and chains were also placed in readiness. While we were thus engaged none of us spoke above the merest whisper, and the negroes themselves moved as silently as shadows. To a spectator, we should have presented a strange sight indeed. He would have seen a small, natural clearing in the jungle and a peculiar, leaf-bedecked arrangement of vertical green bars, behind which two negroes and (apparently) two gorillas were working in perfect harmony and peace. He would also have smelt a strong odor of aniseed (beloved of all animals), and, so we hoped, a reliable camouflage to our tell-tale "man-scent." Then he would have seen the centre portion of the bars slide apart and one of the gorillas emerge into the open and emit weird cries. At this point such a spectator would probably have fled (or fired!). . . . The interior of the cage was painted a dull black, so that from the outside everything behind the bars was, as it were, in deep shadows, the negroes themselves being almost invisible. (Yes! We had thought of everything!)