eft
the boys watching the bees, till he returned with a cooliman--a bark
bowl formed by peeling the excrescence of a tree--and some sticks well
lighted at the end.

By means of these the black soon had a fire of dead grass tufts smoking
tremendously, arranging it so that the clouds curled up and played round
the bees' nest.

"Bee fellow baal like smoke," he cried. "Make bee go bong."

Then seizing the hatchet and cooliman he rapidly ascended the tree, and
began to cut out great pieces of dripping honeycomb, while the boys
laughed upon seeing that the hobbled horses, objecting to be left alone
in the great wild, had trotted close up and looked as if they had come
on purpose to see the honey taken.

It was not a particularly clean process, but the result was plentiful,
and after piling his bark bowl high, Shanter came down laughing.

"Plenty mine tickee, tickee," he said; but it did not seem to occur to
him that it would be advantageous to have a wash. He was quite content
to follow back to the camp-fire and then sit down to eat honey and comb
till Tim stared.

"I say, Shanter," he cried, "we didn't bring any physic."

"Physic? What physic? Budgery?"

"Oh, very budgery indeed," said Rifle, laughing. "You shall have some
when we get back."

Shanter nodded, finished his honey, and went to sleep till he was roused
up, and the party started off once more.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

"DON'T SAY HE'S DEAD."

It was comparatively an aimless expedition the boys were making.
Certainly they were to note down any good sites for stations; but
otherwise they roamed about almost wherever Shanter led them. Now it
would be down some lovely creek, overhung by wide-spreading ferns, in
search of fish; now to hunt out and slay dangerous serpents, or capture
the carpet-snake, which the black looked upon as a delicacy. Twice over
they came across the lyre-tailed pheasant; but the birds escaped
uninjured, so that they did not secure the wonderful tail-feathers for a
trophy.

The last time Tim had quite an easy shot with both barrels, and there
was a roar of laughter when the bird flew away amongst the dense scrub.

"Well, you are a shot!" cried Norman.

"Shanter plenty mumkull that fellow with boomerang," said the black,
scornfully.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," said Tim, reloading coolly. "The feathers
would only have been a bother to carry home."

"Sour grapes," said Rifle, laughing.

"Oh, all right," replied Tim; "pe