"He told me this Schillingschen had searched the whole country over for the stuff—had it straight from Schillingschen's boys—I dare say you know how Courtney can make a native tell him all he knows. Schillingschen, he said, had eliminated pretty nearly all the likely places until Mount Elgon was about all there is left. Courtney said, too, that there were always so many thousands of elephants near Elgon that Tippoo Tib probably gathered a harvest there. We discussed probabilities, and agreed it wasn't likely he would carry the stuff far in order to hide it. It seemed likely to both of us, too, that if the quantity the old man hid was anything like what rumor says, then there were probably half a dozen hiding-places, not one. Most of the stuff may be in the Congo Free State, and we'll do well to leave that to Leopold of Belgium and his pet concessionaires. Some of it may be near here. I stayed in the lazaretto an extra day with Courtney, talking it over. One other thing he remembered to tell me was that Schillingschen had hunted high and low for Tippoo Tib's old servants, and had finally managed to have the relatives of that man Hassan—I remember, Fred, you called him Johnson in Zanzibar—thrown in jail in German East for some alleged offense or other."
Monty stopped to scrape out a faithful pipe, fill it, press down tobacco with a practised thumb, and reach toward the campfire for a burning brand. Then he smoked for two minutes reflectively.
"I offered Courtney a share should we find the stuff. Knew you fellows would agree." Pause. "Courtney wouldn't hear of it." Pause. "Said good-by to him, and took a coastwise trading steamer back to Mombasa. Delightful trip—put in everywhere—saw everything. Saw a lot of the Galla—fine tribe, the Galla."
"Suppose you cut the travelogue stuff until later on!" suggested Will.
"Landed at Mombasa, and learned the first day that you fellows had managed to make more enemies than friends. Put in a number of days on heavy social labor—lingered at the club—drank too much of their infernal gin-and-black-pepper appetizer—but made you fellows right, I think."
"We're not interested in the slumming. Go on and tell us what you did!" urged Fred.
"That is what I did—and undid. I made friends. Soon I had all the other junior officials in a state of mind to help me if they could. Then I began to inquire for Hassan. They drew the dragnet tight, and discovered him at Nairobi! A young assistant district superintendent of police, who will rise in the service, I hope, before long, discovered a woman—who was jealous of a man—who was just then making love to the dusky damsel particularly favored by Hassan; and in that roundabout way we discovered that Hassan intended to take a trip very soon toward Mount Elgon, where, if you please, he was to take part in Professor Schillingschen's ethnological studies. On condition that he held his tongue until I gave him leave to talk, I promised that young policeman—to put him en rapport with Schillingschen's doings as swiftly as may be. Then I returned to Mombasa, and got your code letter saying you would head this way. It all fitted in like a game of chess."
"How in the world did you get that letter so soon?" demanded Fred.
"The missionary chap was to mail it in Ujiji, via Salisbury, Rhodesia."
"I suppose he simply didn't do that, that's all," Monty answered. "The bank manager told me he received it in the mission mail bag—from Ujiji, yes, but by way of Muanza, Tabora, and Dar es Salaam. It reached me in the nick of time. I must have been marching nearly parallel with you chaps for about a week!"
"If coincidence of evidence means anything," said Will "we're all on a red-hot scent! That Baganda we have in our outfit is our prisoner. One of Schillingschen's pet pimps. He swears Hassan—or rather some old native whose name he doesn't know—was to meet Schillingschen in these parts and lead him to where he actually helped bury the ivory, years ago!"