"Seesanah (peace)," said Sikaso gravely, advancing in his turn.
"Seesanah," echoed the tribesmen, who evidently recognized Sikaso from their greetings. The boys stood grouped in the background—Billy Barnes and Lathrop even viewing with some alarm the advance of the savage-looking natives.
"Well, he seems to have fallen in with several members of his club," remarked the irrepressible Billy as old Sikaso and the natives talked away at a great rate.
"I'm going to get a picture of some of these niggers when they get through," he continued aside to Lathrop.
"What; you brought a camera?" asked the other boy.
"Sure thing," replied Billy, "and if their ugly mugs don't break the lens, I mean to get some good snaps."
He drew a small flat folding camera from his pocket as he spoke and got it ready for action.
"Do you think Frank would stand for it? It might make trouble you know," said Lathrop.
"Pshaw," retorted the cocksure Billy, "what trouble can it make? I wish I knew bow to say 'Look pleasant, please,' in Hottentot, or whatever language these fellows talk."
By this time old Sikaso's 'pow-wow' was over and he motioned Frank and Harry forward. After they had been introduced to the chiefs and headmen of the village, the "big chief," a villainous-looking old party with only one eye and his legs thrust into a red shirt—into the armholes that is, with the rest of the garment rolled round his waist—announced he was ready to give fresh provisions for calico, red and blue, and several sections of the brass rod that passes for currency on the West Coast. While Frank, Harry and Sikaso were bargaining behind a hut, over the price to be charged for a razor-backed porker of suspicious appearance the village suddenly became filled with an uproar of angry shouts and tumult.