ch a brave chap. I say, Joe Carstairs, I wish I
could grow into a big broad-chested brave chap with a great beard, like
the doctor."

"So you will some day."

"Tchah!" he cried impatiently. "Look there--there's long thin arms!
There's a pair of legs! And see what a body I've got. I ain't got no
looking-glass here, but last time I looked at myself my head and face
looked like a small knob on the top of a thin pump."

"You let yourself alone, and don't grumble at your shape," I said
sturdily, and to tell the truth rather surprising myself, for I had no
idea that I was such a philosopher. "Your legs are right enough. They
only want flesh and muscle, and it's the same with your arms. Wait a
bit and it will all come, just as beards do when people grow to be men."

"I sha'n't never have any beard," said Jack, dolefully; "my face is as
smooth as a girl's!"

"I daresay the doctor was only a little smooth soft baby once," I said;
"and now see what he is."

"Ah! ain't he a fine fellow?" said Jack. "I'm going to try and do as he
does, and I want to have plenty of pluck; but no sooner do I get into a
scrape than I turn cowardly, same as I did over that little humbug of a
crocodile."

"Don't talk nonsense, Jack!" I said.

"'Tisn't nonsense! Why, if I'd had as much courage as a wallaby I
should have kicked that thing out of the water; and all I did was to lay
hold of a bough and holler murder!"

"I didn't hear you," I said.

"Well, _help_! then. I know I hollered something."

"And enough to make you. The doctor said he is sure he should not have
borne it so bravely as you."

"No: did he? When?"

"To be sure he did, when we were sitting watching last night."

"Bah! it was only his fun. He was laughing at me again."

"He was not," I said decidedly. "He was in real earnest."

"Oh!" said Jack softly; and there was once more the pleasant light in
his countenance that quite brightened it up.

I was going to say something else, but he made a motion with his hand as
if asking me to be silent; and he walked on to the front to go behind
Ti-hi, who was first man, while I went and marched beside the doctor,
and chatted with him about the country and our future prospects.

"It seems, almost too lovely," I said; "and it worries me because I feel
as if I ought to be sad and unhappy, while all the time everything seems
so beautiful that I can't help enjoying it."

"In spite of perils and dangers, Joe, eh?" he s