to take such liberties with the boy's rubicund locks there would
have been a fight right away, but Lathrop felt that the best policy
to assume in the present situation was silence, and as the old ship
captain said to his mate, "dem little of that."

"I say, Billy," whispered Lathrop suddenly, as, after eating the
stew, they watched the hunters piling their belongings into their
canoes, "you don't suppose they mean to fatten us up to eat us, do
you?"

"Well, we can't starve even if that is the reason," replied the
practical Billy, "but so far they seem friendly enough. They have
not even taken my rifle away."

"That looks encouraging, certainly," replied Lathrop; "if only we
knew where Frank and Harry and good old Ben were we might find this
all very interesting, as it is though--"

"We've got to make the best of it," chimed in Billy, "come on. See
old job-lots is signing to us to come down and get in a canoe."

"Whatever they mean to do with us they seem determined to make us
comfortable," remarked Billy, as the boys took their seats in a
canoe in which skins had been piled to make an easy seat.

For most of that afternoon they paddled steadily up the brown river,
the savages singing from time to time an unending sort of chant,
that sounded like nothing so much as a continuous repetition of:

"I-told-you-so. I-told-you-so. I--told-YOU-SO."