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MR. COMMISSIONER SANDERS sat in the palaver house of an N'gombi village, and the deep circle of half-naked cannibals who squatted about him were not happy. The cooking-pots of the village were untended, for the women and even the children had gathered at the edge of the crowd to hear in what manner Sandi would accept an embarrassing situation.

All the morning the chief and his headmen had been talking, walking about the semicircle and waving their arms in gesticulations which betokened at once their earnestness and apprehension, and now the last speaker had finished, and it was the turn of the Law Giver.

"All this morning have I listened to you," said Sanders, in the deep-chested Bomongo tongue, "until my ears have grown weary. Now, this I know. That in the full of the sixth moon I come to this village, as is the custom, to take in my two hands the taxes you must pay to Government—so much fish, so much manioc, so much corn and rubber and ivory. Now, you tell me that your hunting has been poor, and that your crops have been bad, and your young men have been too sick to go into the far forest to tap the trees, and that I must take to my King one-half of what is his due. Now, I know—because I have many spies—that you have given great feasts, and have had dances, and have traded your rubber with the Arabi for foolish trinkets. This I tell you—that I will come to you when three moons have passed, and you shall give me all that you owe, and then, when another three moons have gone, I will come again, and you shall give me full measure. This palaver is finished."

He rose stiffly from his stool and walked through the throng, which gave way sullenly and with lowering brows—for this order meant much work for the young men—and walked through the village. Standing before the hut of the chief M'liko was the little daughter of the house, a wilting, dejected figure. Sanders was fond of children, and he laid his hand upon the child's head and said:

"What is wrong with you, M'jibini?"

"Lord," said the child, "I have a great pain in my head."

"Go to my big ship," said Sanders, "and speak with my soldier capitan, and he will give you good medicine."

It is a fact that the little girl did not go, but, overcome by fright at having been spoken to by so great a man, ran into her father's hut.

The chief M'liko came to the beach to see Sanders depart. "Lord," said M'liko, "we are poor and feeble men, and what magic can you give us that we may perform all the terrible tasks you have set us?"

Sanders looked at him through narrowed lids. "This day," he said quietly, "my magic shall begin to work, and you will see that I am very powerful."

And he steamed away down stream, leaving a fuming and an insubordinate chief to scowl at the wake of the white Zaire,

That night the chief's daughter died suddenly, and a vengeful M'liko called his kindred together to tell him of the magic Sandi had wrought.

"This we know," said M'liko, "that Sandi has been very cruel to the people of this village. Now he has done the worst of all, for he has put his hand upon the child of my second wife, and she has died the death."

He touched the ground to the left and to the right, to propitiate the ghost of the dead child, and all who listened did the same.

"Now, if we do not work," said M'liko, "Sandi will come here, and he will blast our children by his magic, for this he has promised to do by his own mouth. Shall we wait to die?" He peered round at the terrified faces, and saw that his kindred were with him.

This happened a week before the events which are recorded below. On a hot spring evening Lieutenant Tibbetts strutted across the Houssas' parade-ground, his brow wrinkled in a fierce frown. Now and again he would stop, open the big book he carried under his arm, read a passage and apparently memorize the wisdom he culled, for he threw up his head, closed his eyes, and appeared to be praying.

His superior, Captain Hamilton, watched the performance with annoyance. Mr. Commissioner Sanders was a puzzled and amused spectator, but the girl, who stood between the two men in the shade of the Residency veranda, was all gurgling merriment.

"What the dickens is wrong with Bones?" demanded Hamilton fretfully. "Is he training for a Buddhist priest, or something?"

Bones came nearer, discovered with an exaggerated start that he had an audience, and, with a smile wholly self-conscious and apologetic, came with quick, mincing strides to the veranda steps, humming what he was pleased to describe as a 'snatch' in a loud, unmusical hum.

"Whenever you start singing, Bones," growled Hamilton, "I am reminded of the noise which a gramophone makes before the needle strikes the harmony."

Bones clicked his feels and saluted. This heel clicking of his was a new accomplishment which for some reason was particularly irritating to Hamilton.

"Where on earth did you pick up that disgusting habit of yours, Bones?" he snarled. The temperature was only a hundred and four in the shade, but the Houssa captain was shaking off an overnight attack of malaria.

"Dear old sir an' almost father," said Bones airily, 'there are certain jolly old stunts that a feller who is studyin' for The Service has to get acquainted with."

"What service? Are you going to battle?" asked his incredulous chief. "And what is that book you're hiking around?"

Bones handed the volume to the other without a word. "Twenty Years in the Secret Service, by an ex-spy," read Hamilton, and glared at his imperturbable junior.

"Oh, Bones," cried the admiring girl, "you're not going to be a Secret Service man? How perfectly splendid!"

Bones flushed with pride, screwed in his monocle and clicked his heels again, bowing from the waist downward. "Army's a bit full, dear Miss Patricia Hamilton," he said; "no chance for a feller with brains and that sort of thing. All very well for a dear old gentleman like Ham—no offence, jolly old skipper—but for a bright lad with vision an' judgment—"

"Do you mean to tell me that you're swotting up this kind of stuff?" demanded Hamilton smacking the book with his cane.

"Just pickin' up a few hints—that's all," Bones clicked his heels again, saluted, and bent double.

"Swedish drill, too? Good Heavens, Bones," said Hamilton, wilfully dense, "what a deuce of a lot of things you have to learn in the Secret Service! Can you do conjuring tricks?"

Bones shrugged his shoulders, raised his eyebrows, and spread out his palms in a gesture of despair. "Watch him closely, everybody," said Hamilton admiringly, "he's going to palm a rabbit!"

Bones cleared his throat. "Between the diplomatic an' the military mind, my jolly old officer, there's a chasm which—"

"Dinner!" said Sanders briskly. "Bones, we will anticipate your admission to the Great Service in the usual way. O Abiboo, bring me from the cold cellar of my fine house one bottle of the wine with the golden end, and also one bottle of the wine with the dust of many days."

"What has put me on to the idea," said Bones, over coffee and one of Sanders' black cheroots, which Bones, with politeness, made an heroic effort to enjoy, "was a remark dropped by that naval person—you remember, sir?—leading up to my daring conduct on the night of the fourteenth ultimo."? Hamilton nodded. "Naturally, it is a very difficult and dangerous job, requiring a certain amount of observation and powers of deduction, but this jolly old book of mine, sir, is a regular corker. The disguises that fellow carried! The jolly old dodges he tried! Full of hints, sir. One of the most valuable works in my collection."

"What is your collection?" asked Hamilton, innocently.

"Well, to be absolutely accurate, dear old friend," explained Bones, "I haven't made the collection yet, but I have written home for books on the criminal and physiognomy, all Lombroso's stuff, an' a complete manual on the finger-print system. I am also thinking of getting another microscope for bloodstains and all that sort of thing."

Sanders was eyeing the young man thoughtfully. "Do you really think you have an aptitude for following clues?"

"An aptitude!" scoffed Bones. "My dear Excellency, it's a gift. Why, when I was a kid about so high—"

"Suppose something very important disappeared from the Residency, do you think you could track it down?" asked Sanders, and added: "I am asking you this because, seriously, Bones, if you are keen on that kind of work I might be of some assistance to you."

"Give me," said Bones impressively, "a button off the jolly old criminal's coat, a bit of his cigar ash, a handkerchief he has worn—anything you like—and leave the rest to me."

"I wonder," said Sanders.

That Bones was an advanced pupil in the art of deduction he demonstrated the next morning, when he met Hamilton on the edge of the reservation wood. Hamilton was rather burdened, for he carried a fisherman's creel and under his arm a thick bundle of rods.

"You've been fishin', sir," said Bones carelessly. "From certain indications I gather you've had no luck. On your way back you met a man of the village, who asked you whether he might hunt in the reservation forest, to which you replied—"

"How on earth did you know this?" demanded Hamilton.

"Simple, dear old sir," said Bones, with an indulgent smile. "In the first place, your creel is empty."

"As a matter of fact, it is full," said Hamilton, opening the lid of the basket and revealing an orderly mass of silver trout, "only it happens to be Sanders's creel."

"Well, anyway," said the unruffled Bones. "You've been fishin'."

"On the contrary, I have been shooting," replied Hamilton with annoying calm. "But I happened to overtake the chief, and he asked me for my gun—he saw a hawk over the trout pond. I took his rod and traps, and came on."

Bones rolled his head from side to side in a gesture of impatience.

"But tell me, how did you know I met a man who wanted a licence to shoot?"

"Ah," said Bones, in triumph, 'there I've got you, dear old fellow. In the first place, by the dust on your boots—"

"To be perfectly frank, I didn't meet him," interrupted Hamilton, "but Sanders did. M'fufa of Besibi. He said you had told him you couldn't give a permit, and had sent him along to me. Am I right, sir?"

Bones coughed. "Deduction, dear old man, is one of those dinky little sciences that are in their infancy," he said hurriedly. "An' now let's turn to more serious subjects."

Bang! Bang!

"I wonder if Sanders got his hawk," said Hamilton, turning his face in the direction whence the sharp explosions came.

"Personally," said Bones, "I should not have taken two shots at a hawk. I should have taken only one, dear old sportsman."

"At the end of which time," suggested Hamilton, "your hawk would have been half-way home. What is your serious subject, Bones?"

They strolled together to the Residency, and Bones poured forth a story concerning a certain shortage of stores, due apparently to the fact that the last man who visited the store forgot to turn and remove the key. Bones condemned, in the fiercest language, the stupidity, the carelessness, and the criminal folly of a man who leaves a store unlocked in the midst of representatives of the Kano race. He concluded that the last person who had gone to the store had forgotten to lock the door—had, in fact, left the key in the lock—and invited Hamilton to search out the offender and visit upon him the severest penalties that military law allowed.

"You were in the store after lunch yesterday," accused Hamilton.

"Me?" said the indignant Bones. "Certainly I was in the store."

"Did you lock it?"

"Did I lock it?" gasped Bones, clasping his forehead. "Did I lock it? Now, I wonder, if I did lock it?"

"Of course you didn't lock it, you silly ass!" said Hamilton. "Who else could it have been? I gave you the key, which you did not return."

"It was a mistake," said Bones mildly, "that anybody might make—anybody—I don't care who it is, dear old Ham. You might have made it yourself. If you cannot trust your own men, whom can you trust? Dear old lenient superior, have a heart!"

The matter of the rifled store—no more than a bolt of cloth was missing, and that had been heavily drawn upon—lasted until the lunch gong sounded.

Patricia Hamilton joined them on the veranda at a moment when the argument was becoming rather heated, and managed to soothe them both. Ten minutes passed but there was no sign of Sanders.

Another five minutes passed, and Hamilton was growing a little alarmed, when Sanders appeared on the edge of the wood and came walking slowly toward the Residency. His gun was under his arm, and there was in his face that far-away look of detachment which came to him in very critical moments. He mounted the steps of the veranda, slowly put down his gun, and then, as on second thoughts, took it up again and carried it inside the building.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," he said. "If you don't mind I will wash my hands."

"What have you got there, sir?" asked Hamilton, for Sanders was holding very gingerly a thin arrow.

"Be careful," warned the Commissioner, and held up the point. The two men looked, and Hamilton uttered an exclamation, for the point was covered with a thin coating of brown gum.

"Poisoned! Where did you find it?" asked Hamilton.

"It nearly found me," said Sanders grimly. "I was looking for my hawk, when it whizzed not an inch from my shoulder."

"But who—" began Hamilton.

"I didn't see the gentleman," said Sanders, with a little smile. "I fired twice at the bush whence it came, and searched the path."

He went into his room and reappeared cheerily enough, in time to hear the conclusion of the many suggestions which Bones was making to bring the miscreant to justice.

"Leave the matter entirely in my hands, dear old sir," he said, rising to his feet. "Already I have one or two clues which are working themselves out in my mind."

"They will die from lack of space," said Hamilton.

"It seems awfully alarming," said the girl seriously. "Do you think they will make another attempt?"

"No, I don't think so," said Sanders airily.

He was a poor hand at a lie and convinced nobody.

Later he brought the two men together. "I don't know who the fellow is, but from the news I had from the N'gombi this morning, I should imagine it is M'liko. Ahmet sends word that the chief is spreading a story that I killed his child by witchcraft—that is always a murder palaver. I expect him to make another attempt tonight, but I don't want your sister to know."

"Why not let me put a guard round the reservation?" suggested Hamilton.

Sanders shook his head. "You could do it for one night, or for two, but you could not keep it up with your small force. No, let him come as soon as he likes—tonight for preference."

Bones suddenly rose. "This jolly old rascal can't come by the beach," he said rapidly, "he can't come by the quay, he must come along the bush path. Leave it to me. I have got an idea in my head, sir." He tapped his forehead, and was all aquiver with excitement. "Trust old Bones! I will save you!"

"Where are you going, Bones?" asked Hamilton.

"Trust me, sir," said Bones incoherently. "This is one of the grandest ideas—" He stumbled out of the room, crossed the veranda, and reached the ground in two strides, and they heard his raucous voice calling for Ali Abid before he was halfway across the parade-ground.

They saw no more of Bones that day, but late in the afternoon came his solemn servant with a strange request.

"Sir," said Ali confronting Hamilton, "my lord needs a consignment of brown enveloping paper, or alternative supplies of ancient press journals."

"What does he want them for?" asked Hamilton, in surprise.

"Sir," said Ali profoundly, "for criminal detections by scientific brain-waves."

He was handed a roll of brown paper, and made his way back to his master.

What Bones was doing, none knew. There was a tangle of bush behind his house, to which he retired with a large saucepan, and they saw the smoke of his fire, and Abiboo and many others complained bitterly of a vile smell that came therefrom, permeating the married quarters to an unbearable degree.

Bones sent his excuses for dinner, and they did not see him again that night.

"So far as I can make out by judicious inquiry," said Hamilton, "he is making a peculiarly messy kind of fly-paper with a patent bird-lime which he and his infernal servant are concocting together."

"Bones means well," pleaded his sister.

"Bones does well," said Sanders, with that fleeting smile of his, "but I can scarcely imagine that he hopes to catch M'liko by that method."

They made a show of retiring to bed for the night at ten o'clock. The girl was the first to go.

"Are you going to bed soon?" she added.

"In a few minutes," said Hamilton glibly.

He and Sanders sat talking in quiet tones for half an hour, then Sanders disappeared into his room and came back with two rifles, one of which he handed to Hamilton.

"The moon will be down in a quarter of an hour," he said, "and that is about the time we may expect to meet our friend in the forest."

"What is the plan?" asked Hamilton, taking the rifle and softly opening the breech.

"I will go forward into the woods," said Sanders, "and do a little stalking. You remain halfway between the Residency and the wood, in support."

They passed noiselessly from the house. The moon was already behind the trees, and there was only the light of the stars.

"I wonder what Bones is doing," whispered Hamilton.

"I have great faith in Bones," replied Sanders.

He left Hamilton at the appointed spot, and went forward into the black wood. He moved silently and cautiously, for Sanders was a great hunter. There was no sound when he stopped, as he did from time to time, and he came to the narrow entrance of the forest path without discovering any sign of his enemies.

He stood at the entrance of the leafy alley for some time, and then:

"O white man," said a mocking voice right ahead of him, "I see you!"

Something snicked past him, and Sanders ducked and brought his rifle to his shoulder. There was another twang, and this time the arrow passed over him. He fired right ahead, though he knew that the men who were attacking him had taken cover behind the trees. In a momentary flash of the explosion he thought he saw a face, and fired again. He heard a scamper as of men running, and springing up, took two steps forward; but something caught him by the foot and held him.

He stumbled, put out his hand, and touched a soft gluey mess. Before he could think what had happened, he had put down his other hand to get a purchase to raise himself, and found that caught also. He pulled sharply, and there was a tearing sound, but the limed paper, though it came away, still clung to him. In an incredibly short space of time he was almost enveloped from shoulder to foot in a score of flapping, detaining squares of paper which literally held him to the ground. He forced himself forward, only to fall upon his knees into yet another well-limed trap. Bones had done his work very thoroughly. The paper had been glued to the canvas, and canvas had been staked to the ground, and over all had been spread this horrible viscid composition.

In that moment of quick anger Sanders spoke of Bones. He did not speak of him nicely. He did not refer to the excellent services which the enthusiastic young sleuth-hound had rendered to the State in other capacities.

Hamilton heard his shout, and came running up, but someone was there before him.

"Is that you, dear old Excellency?" said a voice from the bush. "Have you got 'em? What do you think of old Bones now?"

Sanders said nothing for a moment, and then: "I will tell you later, Bones. I was hoping you had heard."

"Surely," gasped Bones, "surely, sir—surely you haven't walked in it! Bless my heart alive! This is terrible! I shall never forgive myself, dear old Excellency!"

It took them half-an-hour to strip the 'fly papers' from Mr. Commissioner Sanders. Fortunately, Hamilton had an electric pocket-lamp, which assisted materially in the operation, but neither Sanders, nor his helpers, for that matter, were very presentable when the last of the papers had been forcibly torn from his person and flung into the bush.

"The men got away, sir, I am afraid," said Hamilton.

Sanders nodded. "I saw M'liko," he said. "That was quite enough. In another two strides I'd have had him. Lend me your lamp." He flashed the light ahead. "Bones, I shall find it difficult to—" He stopped. "Hello!" he said.

He went cautiously ahead, keeping his lamp on the ground, and with the butt of his rifle he tapped the grass-covered path before him. As he did so, the whole of the path, for a length of four feet and a width of three, caved in and vanished. He flashed his lamp into the hole. It was a small trap, such as the natives construct when trapping elephants, with this exception, that at the bottom were twenty upturned spear-heads, and each was coated with brown gum.

Sanders looked. He knew that one scratch from any of those spear-heads meant death, and he saw the whole plan in a flash. That wild scamper in the dark had been intended to lure him on. All that night M'liko had been working at the hole and planting his poisoned spears, covering his work with thin reeds and grass, lest his, victim carried a lantern and discovered the trap.

"Two more strides!" said Sanders thoughtfully. "If I hadn't struck your fly-papers, Bones—"

"Exactly, your Excellency," said Bones, not without dignity. "You grasp my idea?"

"You are a great man, Bones," said Sanders, "a truly great man."

"That is what I say!" said Bones.