The party marched on down toward the old site of Cassowary Camp, and were soon at the familiar grounds where so many adventures had befallen them and so many happy days spent in collecting. The mountain loomed up invitingly behind it, and the curator led the way up the slopes. Dwight felt himself stumbling unaccountably. His eyesight appeared to be wavering, and the bushes that he grasped at to aid in climbing seemed to elude his grasp. “Mr. Baldwin, quick! I’m fainting!” he gasped, weakly, and he pitched forward on his face, his arms still reaching uphill. They all stopped. “The reaction has come,” said the curator. “He’ll be better soon. I think we can risk an hour’s stop and get some rest and something to eat.” His eye roved the mountain side, and finally rested on a rocky ledge with bowlders and thickets of thorny bushes on its brink. “Carry him up there,” he ordered. “We’ll dig in there and lay low for a bit.” They brought him up, and the curator applied restoratives, while Nicky and Sadok busied themselves in rolling bowlders and making the place as impregnable as possible. Then Nicky got out his alcohol kit, with a joke or two about its being the only camp fire worth a whoop, and started cooking a soup for all, composed of dried pemmican and soup powder. The site commanded the swales below for miles. To the left lay the pebbly bars of the creek, with the old trail of the Outanatas entering the jungle like a green tunnel. With ammunition, they could hold this place for a long time, at least until flanking parties had ascended the mountain back of them, but their supply was now reduced to only a few cartridges. The curator studied the situation over uneasily. “I do wish Dwight could move!” he said to Nicky at his right. “We might try carrying him, but it seems suicidal to me. The pygmies are coming, sure as death, and they’ll move much faster than we could go with a burden. We’d be overtaken before we got halfway back to the canoe. We’ll have to stay here and fight. After the ammunition is all gone, every man make for that canoe at top speed. The first one there will get sail on her and wait until forced to draw out to the lagoon. That is about all I can plan ahead at the present. Too bad we lost Baderoon,” he sighed. “That was the finest black boy I ever knew! No one who ever knew that happy, rollicking native could help loving him--and I rather depended on him getting through and bringing up the Outanatas.” He went over to where Dwight lay in the shade of a bush. “How’s it coming, old man?” “I’m weak as a cat,” said Dwight, lifelessly. “I can’t even move that arm. Pull it in out of the sun and lay it across my chest, won’t you?” he begged, querulously.