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father said. He never forgot.

    They spent two days and two nights on this enchanted island. During the day, his father spent hours training and retraining the animals to various word and signal commands. Kit watched with delight as the animals responded, lying, sitting, running, fetching, staying, and a variety of others. He was watching an expert animal-trainer at work. There was never a harsh word used; only kindness, patience, and rewards of food when a lesson was well- learned. Kit could not know that generations of Phantoms had developed their own techniques for handling animals of all kinds, and had passed their knowledge down to each succeeding generation. These were the lessons that Kit was receiving now, and there would be more. He would never forget them.

    At night, they slept on the beach, on pallets of grass. Overhead were the blazing stars. Kit began to learn some of their names, to distinguish between planets and stars, and to learn something of their nature. He learned a few of the more prominent constellations, Orion the Hunter, the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades, the Big Bear or Big Dipper, the Little Bear, and others. He learned to find the North Star and to know that falling stars in the sky were meteors no larger than pebbles, or they might be meteorites as big as a house!

    Now it was time to go. Kit protested, unhappily clutching Fuzzy's mane. "Mother's waiting for us and she will worry," his father told him. Almost tearful, Kit said good-bye to the animals, hugging each one in turn. Fuzzy, Stripes, Spots, Flap-ears, Slim, and all the rest. Then as the animal host stood in a circle around the big tree, the boy and his father climbed up to the ropes. Once more he was secured to his father's chest and clung to his neck. With a last look at the circle of watching eyes below, his father grasped the ring on the return rope, and they sped across the wide green-gold river.
    Looking down, Kit now realized the danger and violence that lurked under those calm waters.
    They reached the thorn corral, where Thunder and Shaggy greeted them happily. They raced back on the jungle path, passed the Golden Beach of Keela-wee, passed the Whispering Grove, had a quick dip in a cool jungle pool, and then on. Soon, they could hear the distant roar of the waterfall. They were near home. A pygmy, bow and arrow in hand, rose silently out of the bushes to greet them, then another. They were at the edge of the Deep Woods. Other pygmy warriors appeared out of the thickets, laughing and shouting, and Kit shut his eyes and clung tightly to Shaggy as they raced through the waterfalls. Then came the roar of a hundred Bandar to greet them, the Skull Throne and Cave, and beautiful mother waiting with open arms.

    Excited and happy to be home again, the boy couldn't wait to tell her about his adventures. He skimmed quickly over the Whispering Grove and the Golden Beach, for Eden was fresher in his mind. Bubbling and dancing with joy, he told her about Stripes and Fuzzy and Spots and all the rest, and about catching fish with his bare hands. But, to his amazement, his mother turned pale. "Fuzzy, Stripes, Spots? How big are they?" she asked in a strained voice. "This big!" Kit shouted, measuring off a ten-foot space. He started to go on, but mother, after one horrified and quick examination of his little body, rushed out of the Cave. Kit was puzzled. He ran after her. She reached his father at the Skull Throne.

    "You took that child to Eden, with that full-grown tiger, and lion and leopard?" she cried.

    "It was quite safe, dear. He enjoyed it," said his father calmly.

    "Enjoyed it?" she fairly screamed, quivering with rage. "He could have been mangled, killed."

    The pygmies watched from the background with wide eyes. This was an unusual moment in the Deep Woods. No one had ever shouted in anger at the Phantom. In later years, Kit was to meet many girls and women, and some would be shrill or hysterical for various reasons, but he never