THE LURE OF KARTABO 29 
their death. But Kib came one day, brought by 
a tiny copper-bronze Indian. He looked at me, 
touched me tentatively with a mobile little paw, 
and my firm resolution melted away. A young 
coati-mundi cannot sit man-fashion like a bear- 
cub, nor is he as fuzzy as a kitten or as helpless 
as a puppy, but he has ways of winning to the hu- 
man heart, past all obstacles, 
The small Indian thought that three shillings 
would be a fair exchange; but I knew the par 
value of such stock, and Kib changed hands for 
three bits. A week later a thousand shillings 
would have seemed cheap to his new master. A 
coati-mundi is a tropical, arboreal raccoon of 
sorts, with a long, ever-wriggling snout, sharp 
teeth, eyes that twinkle with humor, and clawed 
paws which are more skilful than many a fingered 
hand. By the scientists of the world he is ad- 
dressed as Nasua nasua nasua—which lays itself 
open to the twin ambiguity of stuttering Latin, 
or the echoes of a Princetonian football yell. 
The natural histories call him coati-mundi, while 
the Indian has by far the best of it, with the ring- 
ing, climactic syllables, Kibihée! And so, in the 
case of a being who has received much more than 
his share of vitality, it was altogether fitting to 
