gh the thicket was
increased tenfold. He had, he said, to bend himself double in stooping
so as to push along the wheelbarrow into the birds' breeding-place,
which he did, thinking his path would become more open the farther he
got in.

So, not to be daunted, Eric trundled along the little vehicle right into
the heart of the birds' colony, beating down the grass as he advanced
and crushing hundreds of eggs in his progress, as well as wheeling over
those birds that could not, or stupidly would not, get out of his way;
when, as he was beginning to load up the wheelbarrow with a mass of the
finer sort of guano which he had scraped up, the penguins, which had
been all the while grumbling terribly at the intruder who was thus
desolating their domain--waiting to "get up steam," as the lad expressed
it--made a concerted rush upon him all together, just in the same manner
as they appeared always to enter and leave the water.

"In a moment," Eric said, "the wheelbarrow got bowsed over, when I
managed, worse luck, to fall underneath; and then, finding I couldn't
get up again, I hailed you, brother."

"I came at once," interposed Fritz, "the moment I heard you call out."

"Well, I suppose you did, old fellow," said Eric; "but whether you did
or didn't, in another five minutes I believe it would have been all up
with me, for I felt as if I were strangled, lying down there on my face
in that beastly stuff. It seemed to have a sort of take-away-your-
breath feeling, like smelling-salts; and, besides, the penguins kicked
up such a hideous row all the while that I thought I would go mad. I
never heard such a racket in my life anywhere before, I declare!"

"But they've bitten you, too, awfully," remarked Fritz sympathisingly.
"Look, your poor legs are all bleeding."

"Oh, hang my legs, brother!" replied the other. "They'll soon come
right, never fear, when they have had a good wash in salt water. It was
the noise of the blessed birds that bothered me more than all their
pecking; and, I can say truly of them, as of an old dog, that their bark
is worse than their bite!"

So chuckling, the lad appeared to think no more of it; albeit he had not
escaped scathless, and had been really in imminent peril a moment
before. "The penguins do bark, don't they, Fritz?" he presently asked
when he had stopped laughing.

"Yes," said his brother, "I don't think we can describe the sounds they
make as anything else than barking. Talking of