“Oh, I do wish I had something to eat!” thought poor Mappo.  But he did not see anything for a long time.  It was getting dark when the natives, carrying the crates, set them down in the jungle, and began to build fires to cook their supper.  They were going to camp out in the woods all night, and they had stopped near a pool of water.

Mappo smelled the water.  So did the other animals, and they began to howl for drinks.  You remember I told you wild animals can often smell better than they can see.

The natives did not want to be cruel to the animals; they only wanted to sell them to the white people.  And the natives knew if the animals did not get something to drink, they might die.  So, pretty soon, they began to give the beasts water to drink.  Mappo got some, and oh! how good it was to his little dry throat and mouth.

“Don’t forget, you are going to let me loose in the night,” whispered the tiger to Mappo, as it grew darker and darker in the jungle.  Mappo said nothing.  He pretended to be asleep.  But, all the same, he made up his mind that he was not going to let the tiger loose.

When it was all dark and quiet in the camp, Mappo tried to open his own cage with his smart little fingers.  But the natives were smarter than the little monkey.  They knew all monkeys were very good at picking open boxes, so they had made this one, for Mappo, especially tight.  Mappo tried his best, but he could not get out.

So, after all, he did not have to play any trick on the tiger, and not let Sharp-Tooth out, and he was glad of it.

“Hist!  Hist!” the tiger called, from his crate, near that of Mappo.  “Aren’t you going to let me out?”

“I can’t get out myself,” answered the little monkey.

“Bur-r-r-r-r!  Wow!  Wuff!” roared the tiger.  And then he was so angry that he growled and jumped about, trying to break out of his cage.  The natives awoke, and one of them, running over to Sharp-Tooth, said: 

“Quiet here, tiger, or I shall have to hit you on the nose with a stick!”

But the tiger would not be quiet, and, surely enough, the black man hit him on the nose with a stick.  The tiger howled and then became quiet.  All the other animals who had made different noises when they heard the racket made by Sharp-Tooth, grew quiet also.

Mappo went back to sleep, after trying once more to open his crate so he could get away in the jungle.

“I guess I shall have to let them put me on the house in the big water,” he said to himself.  “Never mind, I may have some fine adventures.”

When morning came, the natives got their breakfast, fed the animals in the crates, and off they started once more through the forest.  Mappo looked out of his cage, and he could see, swinging along in the trees on either side of the jungle path, other monkeys like himself.  But they were free, and could climb to the tops of the tallest trees.