“Ought to cut out those and wear them in your nose, to be really fashionable in New Guinea, Dwight!” laughed Nicky, pointing to the razor-sharp tushes. “I was just coming over to lend a hand to help the curator up a tree when he fired, and the rest of the family beat it across the creek. Out o’ luck, as usual!” he grinned, cheerfully. After a time Sadok and Baderoon came up and set about butchering the two pigs. The bacon flitches and hams from them were cured over a smoke rack during the next two days, while the party dined on fresh liver, and, later, pork chops, after the game had hung for a day. On the third morning the whole party left camp with two days’ provisions, to make a first exploration of the table-lands back in the mountains. They steered across the jungle by compass, Sadok and Baderoon clearing the way with their parangs. Then the ground began to rise, and slowly they worked up from the wild profusion of equatorial jungle into the more arid growths of the mountain side. The going became easier, as on all high ground, and the nature of the wild life and vegetation began to change. New insects and birds became numerous, and their progress was slow because nearly all of them were wanted for the collections, and the curator knew from long experience that the time to take a specimen was when you saw him, for you might not get another. By midafternoon they had reached the plateaus near the notch in the mountains, and here they encountered their brook again. But what a different stream from the smooth, deep, jungly creek flowing silently down below through overhanging arches of vines and creepers! Here its bed was wide and pebbly as any northern stream, the creek following the deepest parts, with dry bars of pebbles scoured clean by former freshets. Wild trees of the coffee and Euphorbia families, thorns, and acacias dotted the stream banks. It was hot up here, but dry, and a pleasant place to live in. The curator was examining the pebbles eagerly, to get some idea of the rock formations of the mountains, when Sadok whistled softly and pointed upstream. A party of tall black natives was threading through the forest, and their leaders were already splashing across the stream bed! They stopped instantly as they spied the khaki helmets of the explorers, and more warriors joined them. It was a war party, as they could tell by the white-streaked faces, the weapons they carried, and the white breastplates of boars’ tusks that they had seen in museums before. “Outanatas,” said the curator, quietly, as their party drew together for support. “We’ll stand right here and watch what they do.”