"Yes; there were boys everywhere."
"Anyway, I found a 'splash' beetle."
"Eh!"
"A beetle that has developed the protective instinct till it looks like a splash of white on a rock. Here it is;" and Venning displayed his find.
"Doesn't help us much."
"No; but when I took it off the rock I could hear a faint rumbling from below, over here to the left, between our gorge and the canon where the river disappears."
"Come, that's something."
"Yes; but as far as I could make out, there was not an opening in the cliff on that side big enough to hold a swallow's nest."
"Better luck to-morrow. Now, lads, if that old woman puts any leading questions about the pool, don't give yourselves away."
But when the chief's mother came up the next day, she never breathed a word about the pool. She talked of the "good white man" who had lived in the cave when Muata was a boy.