ellow, and I feel as if I
must help him. Oh, what a thick-headed noodle I am not to have thought
of it before! Why, I remember quite well now all he said about it.
Hullo! what are those? They must be the great hawk parrots old Sam
talked about. Bother the birds! I've got something else to think of
to-day. Why, there goes another of those great iguana things! Where
did the dogs go?"

He had ridden on slowly, startling bird and lizard, and completely lost
trace of the collies, when all at once he heard a smothered growl in a
dense patch close at hand.

"They've found a snake," he said to himself, cocking his piece. "I
mustn't have them bitten."

He pressed forward, peering in amongst the bushes, passing some young
clean-stemmed trees; and as he rode unconsciously by one, a nude black
figure, neatly ornamented with two or three stripes of white pipeclay on
its breast, pressed close up to the tree holding a spear erect, and, as
the horse passed, moved so exactly round that the tree was kept between
it and Nic.

That tree did not appear to be thick enough to hide the black, but so
cleverly did the man move that Nic saw nothing, though he was not ten
yards away; and the black would have been unnoticed if it had not been
for the action of the dogs, which suddenly charged out playfully, one
going one side, the other the other, and then stopping barking at a
respectful distance from the tree.

"You vagabonds!" cried Nic; "how dare you come! Here, what have you
found? Fetch it out!"

Rumble dashed forward barking; and Nic noted that the dogs did not look
excited or angry, but playful, and as Rumble charged on one side Tumble
made a bound forward on the other.

"It must be a 'possum," thought Nic; but he altered his mind the next
moment, for he saw a spear come forward with a poke on one side of the
tree, and then drive at the second dog on the other.

Nic lowered the gun and moved round toward the other side cautiously;
but the black edged himself along, as he did so cleverly keeping the
tree still between them, and would have continued to keep himself in
hiding if it had not been for the dogs, which, encouraged now by their
young master's presence, made a playful dash together at the black's
legs, and made him bound from the tree to keep them at bay with his
spear.

"Why, Bung! You?" cried Nic, who felt considerably relieved, while the
dogs now scampered around, barking and leaping as if at the end of a
g