the skull, the would believe that their master had fallen a victim to some wandering savage.
There were half a dozen runaways—deserters from the plantation—hiding back in the bush, afraid to go into the hills for fear of the ferocious hill men and, at the same time, fearful of the punishment certain to be meted out to them should they return to the plantation. One of them would be blamed for Hansen's death. The blacks would vouch for such a story when he told it to Donaldson and Svensen upon their arrival.
He had covered a small part of the distance back to the house, his head bent low in thought, when a rustling among the palms at his right caused him to turn suddenly. As he did so, a spear whizzed past his head, imbedding itself in the tree beside him.
Whirling, he drew his revolver and pumped the clip of shells in the direction from which the spear had been thrown. It was too dark to make for good shooting; and an instant later a flash of lightning showed him a naked figure dodging behind a tree in the distance. Too late, he realized that he had left the house without an extra clip of cartridges. Unarmed, he broke into a run, dodging here and there among the long avenues of trees until he reached the edge of the grove.
The blacks were already tumbling out of their quarters, chattering excitedly.
"Ornburi!" he snapped at one of the houseboys. "You tell 'm fella boys sick marster, him run away. Got devil-devil in head. Me go after him. Meet bad black fella. Black fella kill him mebbe. You look. You catch 'm black fella, plenty kai-kai in morning, no work, plenty tobacco—plenty everything!"
As Ornburi stepped forward, proud of being singled out among his fellows, and explained to the late comers what had happened, Kimball dashed back up the steps and into the house. Returning an instant later with his rifle and bandolier of cartridges, he found the blacks arming themselves with their native weapons, squealing and chattering their glee at the prospect of the man-hunt and the holiday to follow in case of their success.
In spite of his efforts to maintain some semblance of order, however, assisted by the elated Ornburi, it was nearly daylight when the expedition was ready to start. The rain was nearly over, but a glance showed him that the night's downpour had completely washed out the trail he had made. Dodging here and there among the trees, savagely alert for their hidden enemies, it was almost an hour before the natives had covered the distance that Kimball, loaded down as he had been, had covered in twenty minutes.
The body of Hansen lay where he had thrown it.
But the head had been hacked off!
III.
In his own mind, Kimball had no doubt as to the identity of the black who had hurled the spear at him int he darkness, for a check up of the laborers showed Tulagi missing.
Bitter at the trouncing Kimball had administered, the native had bolted. Hiding in the darkness, nursing his anger, fate had thrown in his way the man who had whipped him. The same fate had caused him to miss his mark when he had thrown the spear.
And Tulagi was of a tribe that believed in taking heads for souvenirs.
With the coming of Donaldson and Svensen in the Scary-Saray three days later, giving him enough white aid to handle the plantation without fear of an uprising, Kimball renewed the search for the runaway. Tulagi, at large, would be a constant menace, not only to his own safety, but to the peace and quiet of the blacks. The runaway was a man of considerable influence among the others, and there was already too much dissatisfaction among the laborers to allow any additional trouble to creep in.
The body of the murdered Hansen had been decently buried close to the edge of the cocoanut grove under Kimball's direction.
Donaldson and Svensen never for a moment doubted his story, which was
