"My word, me no like boy _kai- kai_ me." Three days later Sheldon caught one of the boys, helpless from swamp fever, and unable to fight or run away.

On the same day Seelee caught the second boy in similar condition.

Gogoomy alone remained at large; and, as the pursuit closed in on him, he conquered his fear of the bushmen and headed straight in for the mountainous backbone of the island.

Sheldon with four Tahitians, and Seelee with thirty of his hunters, followed Gogoomy's trail a dozen miles into the open grass-lands, and then Seelee and his people lost heart.

He confessed that neither he nor any of his tribe had ever ventured so far inland before, and he narrated, for Sheldon's benefit, most horrible tales of the horrible bushmen.