It was only clean-looking, that hut.

It housed more myraids of fleas than the air outside supported "skeeters"; but we slept, unconscious of them all.
At four that afternoon we had the mortification of being roused by Fred's voice, and the dumping of loads as his sixty porters dropped their burdens inside the village stockade.

He had scorned the ferry and crossed the ford on foot, making a prodigious splash to keep crocodiles away, and was as full of life and fun as a schoolboy on vacation.
"Wake up, you vorloopers!" he shouted.

"Wake up! Shake off the fleas and come, and I'll show you something." He had already had the tale of our night's misfortune in detail from the owner of the only canoe (who claimed double pay on the ground that we had lost no loads in spite of over-turning.

"The last really white man who crossed lost all his loads!" he explained.).
"Come and I'll show you something you never saw before, you scouts!--you advance guard!--you line of skirmishers!" Will hurled a lump of earth at him, and chased him to the river, where they wrestled, trying to throw each other in, until both were breathless.