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ng small, but I can't see what it is." "Whatever it may be," said the doctor, "it's running through the grass in the direction we are going. Look at the grass yonder, it's waving as something passes through." But whatever it was they could not get a glimpse of it, though time after time, when they felt that the game had either been passed or had gone off to right or left, they saw the grass in motion again. Then it stopped altogether, and the grass began to grow shorter before them, the longer beds being down to their right where the land sloped down, and they here and there caught the glint of water. "Why, we must be following up the bed of an underground river," said Bourne, "and this keeps breaking out from time to time, forming quite a chain of little lakes. Yes, there, look; those must be ducks." "Ducks they are," cried Griggs, as a little flock rose cackling from somewhere away to their right and skimmed along over the top of some waving reed-beds, but far out of shot. "Another proof that we shall not starve," said the doctor, as they rode slowly on, with the grass in places reaching to their saddle-bows. "Let's strike away to the left here," he continued. "I fancy the ground is drier. It is certainly wetter down to the right there, and the grass longer." He was quite right, for by bearing off a little they found at the end of about half-a-mile that their progress had grown more and more easy, the grass now only reaching to their stirrup-irons, while away further to their left it was shorter still, looking quite lawn-like in the distance. "We're a good deal higher than we were at the camp, aren't we?" asked Bourne. "Certainly, and far-off as we are we certainly seem to be approaching the mountain by a gradual slope." "And that chain of pools and swamps is something of a river or stream that comes down from one of the valleys yonder. Hallo! look out!" Every one present had already been put on the _qui vive_ by a quick rustling in front, followed by a loud whirring sound, as some half-a-dozen birds, which they had evidently been driving before them through the long grass in which they had kept out of sight, had now found themselves too much exposed in the shorter herbage and taken flight. "Big partridges--monsters!" cried Chris excitedly. "Yes," said the doctor dryly; "the most monstrous partridges I ever saw, Chris. Why, they're turkeys, boy. They're making for those trees yonde
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