Kwa and the Ape People by Perley Poore Sheehan

HE was a white man, all right, and not a ghost--that lone bather in the pool which the crocodile king claimed as his own. But he didn't act like one, either then nor later.

At that first note of alarm the kingfisher uttered, he'd thrust up a sinewy arm to a vine swinging low overhead. By the time the little blue sentinel had flashed across the pool the man was seated in a loop of the vine--composed, at ease, but curious. He'd struck up a friendship with this bird two days ago, some forty miles back in the direction of the coast. Since then, they'd been following this stream together--deeper and deeper into the forbidden jungle of the Devil Bush.