“No,” replied Bomba. “I make fire like this.”
He took a stick and a tiny wooden bowl from his belt, twirled the stick dexterously, and in a few moments produced a spark.
“Well done!” cried Dorn admiringly.
Bomba was pleased at the note of approbation, but in his heart he knew that the white men’s way was quicker and better. He looked longingly at the matches, and Gillis, with a smile, handed him a box of them, which Bomba grasped eagerly and thrust into the small pouch at his belt. Now he could make fire as the white men did. He felt that he was growing closer to them.
Gillis showed him his rifle. It was a far finer iron stick than Casson’s had been, and Bomba examined it with the greatest curiosity.
He did not in the least understand the principle of it, but he knew its power. The dead tapir was evidence of it, as well as his memory of the way a similar stick had slain the jaguar.
“I’ll show you how it works,” volunteered Gillis, noting the boy’s eager interest in the weapon.
Bomba nodded delightedly. This was what he had been wishing for ever since he had reached the camp, but had been too shy to ask of his own accord.
Ralph Gillis took a card and tacked it up against a tree about fifty feet away, Bomba watching him intently.
Then Gillis took up his position and raised the rifle to his shoulder. Bomba, with a lively recollection of what had happened when Casson had fired at the anaconda, edged some distance away.