The
Balesuna grew shallow as well, and oftener were the loaded boats bumped
along and half-lifted over the bottom. In places timber-falls blocked
the passage of the narrow stream, and the boats and canoes were portaged
around. Night brought them to Carli, and they had the satisfaction of
knowing that they had accomplished in one day what had required two days
for Tudor's expedition.
Here at Carli, next morning, half-way through the grass-lands, the boat's-
crews were left, and with them the horde of Binu men, the boldest of
which held on for a bare mile and then ran scampering back. Binu
Charley, however, was at the fore, and led the way onward into the
rolling foothills, following the trail made by Tudor and his men weeks
before. That night they camped well into the hills and deep in the
tropic jungle. The third day found them on the run-ways of the
bushmen--narrow paths that compelled single file and that turned and
twisted with endless convolutions through the dense undergrowth. For the
most part it was a silent forest, lush and dank, where only occasionally
a wood-pigeon cooed or snow-white cockatoos laughed harshly in laborious
flight.
Here, in the mid-morning, the first casualty occurred. Binu Charley had
dropped behind for a time, and Koogoo, the Poonga-Poonga man who had
boasted that he would eat the bushmen, was in the lead.
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