Page:The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.djvu/277

 "But why," I asked, "did he go the whole way round the mountain first?"

Then the three of us got into a violent argument. But in the middle of it all the Doctor suddenly called out,

"Look, look!"

We turned and found that he was pointing to the Jabizri, who was now walking up the mountain at a much faster and more business-like gait.

"Well," said Bumpo sitting down wearily; "if he is going to walk over the mountain and back, for more exercise, I'll wait for him here. Chee-Chee and Polynesia can follow him."

Indeed it would have taken a monkey or a bird to climb the place which the beetle was now walking up. It was a smooth, flat part of the mountain's side, steep as a wall.

But presently, when the Jabizri was no more than ten feet above our heads, we all cried out together. For, even while we watched him, he had disappeared into the face of the rock like a raindrop soaking into sand.

"He's gone," cried Polynesia. "There must be a hole up there." And in a twinkling she had fluttered up the rock and was clinging to the face of it with her claws.

"Yes," she shouted down, "we've run him to earth at last. His hole is right here, behind a