They found Mr.Hume in an easy-chair, drinking his early morning cup of coffee, and at his feet, stretching along the scuppers, was the canoe, still with its crew aboard and asleep, though the jackal slept apparently with one eye open.

The canoe was, they saw, made out of a single tree-trunk, and was thickly coated with the slime of the river, a heavy, sodden, roughly shaped craft, most unlike the light boat that skimmed into view from out the mist.
"What do you make of it ?" said Mr.Hume, after the two boys had made a long inspection.
"It seems to me," said Venning, "that the jackal has a very dark coat." "That is so; it is unusually dark.

What does that suggest to you ?" "Well, as the colour is adapted to the nature of the country in which the animal hunts, I should say that the jackal came from a wooded district." "Good.

And what is your opinion, Compton ?" Compton bent down to examine the bows.

"Look here, sir," he said; "there is a prayer to Allah carved in Arabic on a leaden medallion, and fixed into the wood." "Is that so ?" and the hunter looked at the signs with interest.