I lay there for
over two hours reading and dozing. My friend aloft never stirred. When
dusk fell he was still there. Some time after dark he must have regained
his band, for in the morning the limb was vacant.
Now comes the part of this story that really needs a witness, not to
veracity perhaps, but to accuracy of observations. Fortunately I have F.
About noon next day the monkey returned to his point of observation. He
used the same precautions as to concealment; he followed his route of
the day before; he proceeded directly to his old conning tower on the
big limb. It did not take him quite so long to get there, for he had
already scouted out the trail. _And close at his heels followed two
other monkeys_! They crawled where he crawled; they crouched where he
crouched; they hid where he hid; they flattened themselves out by him on
the big limb, and all three of them passed the afternoon gazing down on
the strange and fascinating things below. Whether these newcomers were
part of the first one's family out for a treat, or whether they were
Cook's Tourists of the Jungle in charge of my friend's competence as a
guide, I do not know.
Farther down the river F. and I stopped for some time to watch the
crossing of forty-odd of the little blue monkeys. The whole band
clambered to near the top of a tall tree growing by the water's edge.
There, one by one, they ran out on a straight overhanging limb and cast
themselves into space.
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