"Guk-uk-uk-uk! guk-uk-uk-uk!" was the way he laughed; and if you
think a hippopotamus does not laugh this way you have but to listen
to one and you will find I am right.
He crawled out of the mud where he was wallowing and tramped away
through the bushes, and the last his mother heard as she lay half in
and half out of the water was his musical "guk-uk-uk-uk!" dying away
in the distance.
Keo was in such a happy mood that he scarcely noticed where he
stepped, so he was much surprised when, in the middle of a laugh,
the ground gave way beneath him, and he fell to the bottom of
Gouie's deep pit. He was not badly hurt, but had bumped his nose
severely as he went down; so he stopped laughing and began to think
how he should get out again. Then he found the walls were higher
than his head, and that he was a prisoner.
So he laughed a little at his own misfortune, and the laughter
soothed him to sleep, so that he snored all through the night until
daylight came.
When Gouie peered over the edge of the pit next morning he
exclaimed:
"Why, 'tis Ippi--the Jolly One!"
Keo recognized the scent of a black man and tried to raise his head
high enough to bite him.
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