CHAPTER V
A HUNDRED AND EIGHT FEET OF CROCODILE
The party were stirring as soon as it was daylight; for in the tropics the early hours are the pleasantest, and they had fallen into the habit of early rising in India. The trees were alive with monkeys of several kinds, though the proboscis tribe seemed to be in the majority. Felix came out of the cabin with his gun in his hand, and began to regard the denizens of the tree-tops with interest.
"What are you going to do, Flix?" asked Louis, who was sitting on the rail, busily cutting out a notch in the end of a long piece of board.
"Don't you see there is plenty of game here, my darling?" demanded Felix, pointing up into the trees.
"Game!" exclaimed Louis contemptuously. "Monkeys!"
"Didn't you shoot a couple of them yesterday afternoon, Louis?"
"I did; but I wanted them in order to study the creature. Now every fellow knows what a proboscis monkey is, as he did not before except by name. I got my books out, and read him up with the animal before me. I am glad I did; for the picture of him I had seen was nothing like him in his nasal appendage, which gives him his name."
"What is the reason of that?"