to have known better, Nat," said my uncle, with an exclamation
of impatience. "I have not the most remote idea where our camp is, and
Ebo will be expecting us back."

"Oh! never mind, uncle," I said; "let's have a try. I dare say we can
find the way back."

"My dear boy, it would be sheer folly," he replied. "How is it
possible? We are tired out now, and it would be only exhausting
ourselves for nothing, and getting a touch of fever, to go striving on
through the night."

"What are we to do then, uncle?"

"Do, my boy? Do as Adam did, make ourselves as comfortable as we can
beneath a tree. We can do better, for we can cut some wood and leaves
to make ourselves a shelter."

"What, build a hut, uncle?" I said in dismay; for I was now beginning
to find out how tired I really was.

"No; we won't take all that trouble; but what we do we must do quickly.
Come along."

I followed him up a slope to where the ground seemed to be a trifle more
open and the trees larger, and as we forced our way on my uncle drew his
great hunting-knife and chopped down a straight young sapling, which,
upon being topped and trimmed, made a ten-feet pole about as thick as my
arm was then.

This he fixed by resting one end in the fork of a tree and tying the
other to a branch about five feet from the ground.

"Now then, Nat," he cried, "get your big sheath-knife to work and clear
the ground here. Does it seem dry?"

"Yes, uncle, quite," I said.

"Well, then, you chop off plenty of soft twigs and leaves and lay them
thickly for a bed, while I make a roof over it."

We worked with a will, I for my part finding plenty of tree-ferns, whose
fronds did capitally, and Uncle Dick soon had laid sloping against the
pole a sufficiency of leafy branches to form an ample shelter against
the wind and rain should either come.

"So far, so good, Nat," he said; "now are you very hungry?"

"I'm more tired than hungry, uncle," I said.

"Then I think we will light a fire and then have as good a night's rest
as we can."

There was no difficulty in getting plenty of dried wood together, and
after a few failures this began to blaze merrily, lighting up the leaves
of the trees with a rich red glow; and when it was at its height setting
a good many birds flitting about in the strange glow, so that we could
have procured more specimens here. But after sitting talking by the
fire for some time we crept in under our leafy shed, and it seemed to me