This made the immediate proximity safe for the time, and Bomba took the pail and started out for the tree he had discerned.
“Wouldn’t one or both of us better go with you?” asked Dorn anxiously. “It isn’t right to let you go in there alone.”
“No,” said Bomba. “I must do my work myself. You can keep the iron sticks ready. But you will not need them yet.”
He took the pail and went unhesitatingly into the woods. The heavy underbrush closed behind him and swallowed him up, though the lurid glare of the fire gave those in the camp occasional glimpses of his progress.
Bomba made his way toward the tree he sought, and, reaching it, set down the pail and drew his machete.
He drove the knife through the bark and into the body of the tree as far as his strength permitted. Then he drew the knife down in a long vertical slash.
He pulled the blade out, lifted the pail, held it under the cut and waited.
In a few moments a sticky sap began to exude from the tree, at first slowly, and then more rapidly. Soon it was trickling in a thin stream into the pail.
It was eerie work waiting there, where he knew that greenish-yellow eyes were watching him from the jungle, only deterred for the moment from coming nearer by the light that came from the fire. But Bomba had learned patience in the hard school of the jungle, and he stood like a statue, the pail in one hand, his machete in the other ready for instant use, until the receptacle was nearly full.
Then he took it and, tilting it slightly so that a thin but steady stream fell on the leaves that carpeted the jungle, he made the circuit of the camp.