ly back on his thick five-foot arms.

"Gone, gone!" cried Thimble in triumph, leaning breathless on his
paddle.

"Crow when your egg's hatched, brother Thimble," muttered Thumb. "He's
gone to fetch his bow."

True it was. Down swung the gibbering Gunga, his Oomgar-nugga's bow
across his shoulder. Crouching by the water-side, he stretched its
string with all his strength. And a thin, keen dart sung shrill as a
parakeet over their heads. Again, again, and then it seemed to Nod a
red-hot skewer had suddenly spitted him through the shoulder, and he
knew the Fish-catcher had aimed true. He plucked the arrow out and waved
it over his head, scrunching his teeth together, and saying nothing save
"Paddle, Thimble! Paddle, O Thumb!"

Mightily they leaned on their broad, unwieldy paddles. But now, not
looking where the water was sweeping them, of a sudden the Bobberie
butted full tilt into a great hummock of ice, and water began welling up
through a hole in the bottom. Nod knelt down, and, while his brothers
paddled, he flung out the water as fast as he could with his big
fish-skin cap. But fast though he baled, the water rilled in faster, and
just as they floated under a long, snow-laden branch of an
Ollaconda-tree, the Bobberie began to sink.

Then Thimble cried in a loud voice, "Guzza-guzza-nahoo!" and, with a
great leap, sprang out of the boat and caught the drooping branch. Thumb
clutched his legs and Nod Thumb's; and there they were, all three
swinging over the water, while the branch creaked and trembled over
their heads.

Down sank the staved-in Bobberie, and up--one, two, three, four,
five--floated huge, sluggish Mumboes or Coccadrilloes, with dull,
grass-green eyes fixed gluttonously on the dangling Mulgars. And a thick
muskiness filled the air around them.

Inch by inch Thimble edged along the bough, until, because of the
jutting twigs and shoots, he could edge no farther. Then, slowly and
steadily at first, but gradually faster, the three travellers began to
swing, sweeping to and fro through the air, above the enraged and
snapping Coccadrilloes. The wind rushed past Nod's ears; his jacket
flapped about him. "Go!" squealed Thumb; and away whisked Nod, like a
flying squirrel across the water, and landed high and dry on the bank
under the wide-spreading Ollaconda-tree. Thumb followed. Thimble, with
only his own weight to lift, quickly scrambled up into the boughs above
him. And soon all three Mulla-mulgars were