trees that year, and on riding up
to the shingled wood house, they found no sign of living creature--no
ducks paddling in the pool, or fowls pecking about near the enclosed
yard; all was still and silent. They had come upon another sign of
failure, for, as far as they could see, the place had been deserted for
quite a year.

"A sign that we are not alone in giving up," said the doctor; "but it
will make a capital place for our first halt. Go and see what the water
is like in that farthest pool, Chris. This one is nearly all mud."

Chris urged his mustang forward towards where there was a glint of water
through some trees four or five hundred yards ahead, but he had not gone
one-fourth of the distance before he was overtaken by Ned, who was as
eager as he to see what the place was like.

They soon knew--a carefully-tended Far West estate, given up and allowed
to go back to a state of nature. Fruit-trees had been planted in
abundance, but as the boys got farther from the house the wild vines and
weeds were gradually mastering the useful trees, and in another year or
two the plantations would have lost all trace of the hand of man and be
wild jungle once more.

"I dare say there'll be fish enough," said Chris. "This is a deeper
pool than we generally see. I say, how sandy the ground is here!"

The next minute they realised why it was so sandy, for instead of its
being a cleared track it proved to be the dried-up bed of a little sandy
river, one that linked the pools together when the wet season came on.

"It looks as if no water had been along here for a twelvemonth," said
Chris. "Look there."

His cob had seen the object at which he pointed first, and stopped short
with its ears pricked forward to where, grey and glistening, a snake lay
basking in the hot sunshine amongst some stones, but now, alarmed by the
snort given by Chris's mustang, it began to glide away, passing amongst
some dried-up reeds and leaves, giving forth its strange soft rattling
sound with its tail the while.

"Well, we don't want to waste powder and shot on him," said Chris.
"Come on," and they rode on to the edge of what proved to be a shallow
lagoon some acres in extent, from which they startled a few waterfowl
into flight, the ducks, as they splashed along the surface before
rising, starting off other occupants of the pool in turn, a little shoal
of fish darting off and raising a wave which marked their course towards
the middle, wh