said about this woman?”

“Yes,” Nicky answered softly. “He said Ma’am Sib is a Voodoo woman and that the colored people are afraid of her. But I’m not! I want to see what she is going to do.”

That was quickly seen. She laid the little objects in a row on the doorsill; all of them had their tiny heads pointed out from the shade of the roof, so that the heads were in the sunshine.

She scowled at Nicky and Tom, then muttered under her breath and glanced up toward the sun, then back at the boys.

“I know it’s just imagination,” Tom told his chum, “but I feel sort of queer——”

Nicky made a practical suggestion.

“I think she’s trying to scare us away by making us believe that she has bewitched us or something,” he said, “It’s something that the sun will do to us. If you’re uneasy, go and stay in the cabin shade at the side.”

Tom looked sheepish and uncomfortable, but after hesitating for a while his fears overcame his good sense and he went out of sight.

Nicky did not follow; instead, he made an unexpected move.

Quick as a flash he leaped forward, bent and made a scooping movement of his fingers. When he dodged back out of reach of the irate old woman’s cane, his hand was closed over the mud images.

“I’ll keep these,” he said, trembling a little with natural uncertainty as to the outcome of his bravado.

“Here comes Cliff with Mr. Neale!” called Tom from beside the cabin, while the colored boy poked his head out through the door and made his eyes roll in his excitement. Cliff and the young archaeologist were climbing the fence. They hurried over and confronted the woman.

“What does this mean, Ma’am Sib?” asked Clarence Neale quietly. He showed no anger, only curiosity. The old woman looked up at the tall, clean-cut young fellow, not much more than twenty-two or so, and frowned.

“White boys not to dig! I order them to go yesterday. They come back! I—” she made a gesture toward Nicky who unclosed his hand. The moisture of his palm was already breaking up the shape of the figures.

“Cliff’s father told us about the Egyptians doing this like this,” Nicky said. “They used to make little images of wax, 

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