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O THE northwest of the valley o f Opar the smoke rose from the cook fires o f a camp in which some hundred blacks and six whites were eating their evening meal. T h e negroes squatted sullen and morose, mumbling together in low tones over their meager fare, the whites, scowling and apprehensive, kept their firearms close at hand. One of them, a girl, and the only member o f her sex in the party, was addressing her fellow's:

"We have Adolph's stinginess and Esteban's braggadocio to thank for the condition in which we are," she said.

T h e fat Bluber shrugged his shoulder, the big Spaniard scowled.

"For vy," asked Adolph, "am I to blame?"

"You were too stingy to employ enough carriers. I told you at the time that we ought to have had two hundred blacks in our party, but you wanted to save a little money, and now what is the result? Fifty men carrying eighty pounds o f gold apiece and the other carriers are overburdened with camp equipment, while there are scarce enough left for askari to guard us properly. W e have to drive