At the end of two days Mr. Hampton and Niellsen, the photographer, a tall rangy Scandinavian some ten years older than the boys, returned. And when this intelligence was communicated to Chief Ruku-Ru he made preparations for the carrying out of the ceremonies in honor of the boys that very night.  
Prior to going to the village, the two parties exchanged experiences. And while Mr. Hampton and Niellsen had had no such exciting times as the boys, yet they, too, had not been without adventure.
 
In particular, the boys laughed over Niellsen’s description of an incident attending the photographing of some . It being the dry season, their guides had taken Mr. Hampton and Niellsen to a certain dry river bed in which water could be obtained by digging, a fact with which the baboons were well aware. Here, the guides, they would be able to obtain excellent pictures of baboons. And in this prophecy they had been correct.
 
“But,” laughed Mr. Hampton, “you should have seen what happened to Niellsen. Tell it, Oscar.”
 
Niellsen joined the older man in the laugh. He had an honest open face with a tip-tilted nose and sandy hair which gave him a humorous appearance calculated to induce smiles in his before ever he . And in keeping with his appearance he had a habit of dry speech which the boys found highly amusing.
 
“The joke was on me, all right,” he said.
 
“Or the was,” said Mr. Hampton, laughing harder than ever, as if at some diverting recollection.
 
At this could no longer his . “Come on, tell it,” he said. “Don’t keep this all to yourselves.”
 
“Well, it was this way,” said Niellsen. “You know if I’d have shown myself to the baboons with my camera, I’d never have gotten them to stand still long enough to have their pictures taken. Instead of watching the birdie, they’d have come up and tried to operate the machine. So I to hide myself. And for my place of , I chose the branches of a small tree.
 
“There I was, had been waiting about half an’ hour, when the baboons arrived. They began digging in the sand like regular ditch diggers. How they did make the dirt fly. There were baboons everywhere, scores of them. The whole tribe must have eaten pretzels and then off to this spot in the river with a whale of a thirst to be squenched.
 
“I was fooling around, trying to get a good focus, for the light was . And at last I had just what I wanted, and set my hand to the crank, all ready to begin grinding.
 
“At that moment, something lighted on my head with such force that I fell clean out of my . But fortunately the ground wasn’t far away, a matter of three or four feet.
 
“I didn’t know what had struck me. But when I got to my feet and looked around, there sat a baboon in my old perch. And he was cranking away, just grinding for dear life, and with delight.
 
“The beggar had jumped on my head, and then had taken my job away from me.”
 
The boys roared.
 
“What did you do?” asked Frank.
 
“Do? I bows to him and says, ‘Please, Mr. Baboon, won’t you go away?’ And after giving me a line of baboon talk that I couldn’t understand because I didn’t have my dictionary with me, he swung away to join his friends.”
 
“But the camera?” asked Jack. “Had the baboon damaged it?”
 
“Not a bit of it,” Niellsen. “I found the focus still good, and continued to grind out some more film. And I believe the beggar took some good stuff while he was at the crank. If it comes out all right in developing, I’m going to have stuff worth a fortune. ‘Baboons photographed by one of their number.’ Can’t you just see that on the screen?”
 
“Yes,” said Mr. Hampton, “and I was fortunate enough to obtain a picture of the baboon turning the crank, for I was nearby with my camera when it occurred. So you see we could show an actual ‘still’ of the baboon playing photographer.”
 
Dinner was hastily consumed, and then the whole party escorted by a guard of honor from the chief’s own , comprising the tallest and best formed of the young , proceeded to the village.
 
Under the council tree in his arm chair sat Chief Ruku-Ru, and near him the boys took their station. A great fire blazing in the middle of the square threw off a dancing light which illumined the mud walls of the nearest huts, showed rank on rank of dusky bodies gathered in the square and, falling upon the spears of the chief’s bodyguard at his back, struck from their brightly polished heads a gleams as if fireflies flitted in the dusk.
 
A hung over the scene, a solemnity that impressed itself on the boys. And as they took their places at the chief’s right, surrounded by their escort, they spoke only in whispers.
 
“What’s that package under your arm, Bob?” asked Jack, for the first time noting a bulky package borne by his comrade. “Is it—”
 
But he did not get to finish his question, for Mr. Hampton laying a warning hand on his arm silence as Chief Ruku-Ru, rising from his chair and advancing several steps in their direction, began to address them.
 
He spoke at length, the sound of his voice alone being heard in the great square. And when he had finished, Wimba translated hurriedly.
 
Chief Ruku-Ru, said he, was deeply grateful to the young white men for the part they had played in routing the Bone Crusher’s warriors. For this, all three were to be admitted to warriorhood in the .
 
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