you trust me?" growled Buck.

"Trust you! Of course!" cried Mark, laying his hand on the big fellow's
shoulder. "I'd trust you anywhere, but--"

"Here, I know," said the driver good-humouredly. "Good boy! Always
obey orders."

But all the same the deliberate crawl of the bullocks made both the lads
terribly impatient.

"I wish you had got your whip, Buck," said Dean. "Oh, I don't know,
sir. Let 'em alone. It's their way. They are going willing enough,
and they have had a nasty night. I never give them a touch up only when
I see one lazy and won't pull. Then it's crick crack, and I let go at a
fly on his back."

At last, though, the span belonging to the second waggon had taken their
places, and Dunn Brown was at the front waiting for the sonorous "Trek!"
which Buck Denham roared out, accompanied by a rifle-like report of his
tremendous whip, when Dunn threw up his hands, stepped right before the
team, and stopped them.

"What game do you call that?" roared Buck, from where he was seated on
the waggon chest.

"Too--late," sighed the white foreloper, and he drew out his scissors to
begin his morning apology for a shave.

"Can't you see, Buck?" cried Mark. "Come along, Dean. Just think of
that!"

For, slowly trudging along, Bob Bacon appeared, bending low under his
burden, giving his fellow-keeper a comfortable pick-a-back, having
carried him all the way from where he had been found lying helpless, and
apparently now not much the worse for his novel ride.

"Bravo, Bob!" cried Mark, as he and his cousin ran up to meet them.
"Why, you haven't carried Peter all this way?"

"Phew! Arn't it hot, sir! Not carried him? Well, what do you call
this?"

"How are you, Peter?" asked Dean.

"Very bad, sir."

"Oh, don't say very," cried Mark. "You will be better when you have had
some breakfast."

"Hope so, sir," said the man, with a groan; and he was carefully carried
to the first waggon, in front of which Dan had already begun to busy
himself raking the fire together and getting water on to boil, while as
soon as the doctor had seen to his patient and had had him laid upon a
blanket, he joined Sir James and the boys to look round while breakfast
was being prepared, and examine the traces of the night's encounter.

There lay one huge lion, stretched out and stiffening fast, showing the
blood-stained marks of its wound, and a short distance beyond were the
torn and horribly mutilated bodies of two of