“Him go-stop sacaléli tree,” put in Sadok, who had been listening, fumbling at the cover of his dart quiver. “Yes? The sacaléli, the plumage dance,” agreed the curator. “They meet in some large tree, where the males dance and show off their plumes before the females. Baderoon, ask’m hunter-fellah if we go catch’m sacaléli tree, all right,” he said, turning to the negro. There were a few grunts between the Papuan and the Aru hunter, who nodded stolidly and led on. The party quickened their pace as the path led upward through the hills. Then Sadok stopped and raised his long ironwood sumpitan. It poised for an instant, pointing up into a wide-branched bamboo clump, and, before their eyes could pick out the mark, came the soft plop! of the dart as it left the sumpitan like a streak of light. Followed the fall of a reddish bird, tumbling down through the leaves, and Baderoon dashed into the thicket to retrieve it. He brought back a jewel of fluttering fire in his hands. Of an intense metallic red, its throat was of deep orange, and from under the wings jutted out two little fronds of gray aigrettes tipped with broad bands of lustrous metallic green. “The king bird of paradise!” cried the curator, holding the feathered beauty in his hands and examining it admiringly. “Great business, Sadok! What a wonderful bird!” “Rare, too, isn’t it?” asked Dwight. “You’re dead right it is! We’ll be lucky if we get two of them this expedition!” said the curator. Just then Nicky, who had come back from a foray with his hands full of lizards and crabs, had a flash of inspiration. “Put him on a twig, quick!” he yelled. “I’ll get a colored photo of him!” “Good idea, kid!” smiled the curator. “That will be something new.” The bird was alive yet, only partly paralyzed by the poison, and his eyes were bright and open, and the little tufts on his breast still erect. He sat quietly on a twig in the sunlight, while Nicky set up a folding steel tripod and took three color plates as fast as he could change holders. “That’ll be about worth the whole trip to me!” he cried. “Wait till the director of the Museum sees that print, eh, Mr. Baldwin?” he chuckled. The curator grinned indulgently. He loved Nick’s intense enthusiasms, particularly when they led to something of scientific value. Sadok wrapped the prize carefully in a cone of pandanus leaf and they started out again. After about an hour’s travel they came to a high plateau where the creepers and hanging vines were less abundant and one could see for some distance under the forest floor. A grove of tall tree trunks loomed up ahead, with bare, scant-leaved branches. Each had a sort of leaf hut, built far up in the fork.