"Per Pete's sake!" said Rosetti. "Wot a guy!"

Swinging through the trees toward them, the carcass of a deer slung over one shoulder, was the Englishman. He swung onto the platform. "Here's breakfast," he said. "Go to it."

Dropping the carcass, he drew his knife and hacked out a generous portion. Tearing the skin from the flesh with powerful fingers, he squatted in a far corner of the platform and sank his strong teeth into the raw flesh. Shrimp's jaw dropped and his eyes went wide. "Ain't you goin' to cook it?" he asked.

"What with?" inquired Clayton. "There's nothing around here dry enough to burn. If you want meat, you'll have to learn to eat it raw until we can find a permanent camp and get something that will burn."

"Well," said Shrimp, "I guess I'm hungry enough-"

"I'll try anything once," said Bubonovitch.

Jerry Lucas hacked off a small piece and started to chew it. Clayton watched the three men chewing on bits of the warm raw meat. "That's not the way to eat it," he said. "Tear off pieces you can swallow, and then swallow them whole. Don't chew."

"How did youse learn all dis?" inquired Rosetti.

"From the lions."

Rosetti glanced at the others, shook his head, and then tried to swallow to large a piece of venison. He gagged and choked. "Geeze!" he said, after he had disgorged the morsel, "I never went to school to no lions." But after that he did better.

"It's not so bad when you swallow it whole," admitted Lucas.

"And it fills your belly and gives you strength," said Clayton.

He swung into the next tree and got more durian fruit. They ate it now with relish. "After dis," said Shrimp, "there ain't nuthin' I can't eat."

"I passed a stream near here," said Clayton. "We can drink there. I think we'd better get started. We've got to do some reconnoitering before we can make any definite plans. You might take some of this meat along in your pockets if you think you'll be hungry again soon. But there's plenty of game everywhere. We won't go hungry."

No one wanted to take any of the meat; so Clayton tossed the carcass to the ground. "For Stripes," he said.

The sun was shining, and the forest teemed with life. Bubonovitch was in his element. Here were animals and birds he had studied about in books, or whose dead and mounted frames he had seen in museums. And there were many that he had neither seen nor heard of. "A regular museum of natural history on the hoof," he said.

Clayton had led them to the stream, and after they had quenched their thirsts he guided them to a well marked game trail he had discovered while hunting for their breakfast. It wound downward in the direction he and Lucas had decided they would take-toward the west coast, many, many long marches away.

"There have been no men along this trail recently," said Clayton, "but there have been many other animals-elephant, rhinos, tigers, deer.