uliar strait he could not refrain from looking longingly at plant,
insect, and bird, especially at a great bunch of orchids which were
pendent from a bough.

He did not seem likely to have much success in the pool or eddy where
the other fish had been caught, and soon after moved off to another
place, but meanwhile Rob and Shaddy were busy in the extreme, the latter
making some half-charred pieces of wood from the fire into little
hardened points ready for Rob to fix into the cleft he split in the end
of each reed and then binding them tightly in, making a notch for the
bow-string at the other end, and laying them down one by one finished
for the sheaf he had set himself to prepare.

These done, Rob began upon the silken bow-string, pulling out the
threads from his neckerchief and tying them together till he had wound
up what promised to be enough, afterwards doubling and twisting them
tightly, while Shaddy was whistling softly and using his pocket-knife as
if it were a spoke-shave to fine down the thick end of the piece of wood
intended for the bow.

"Strikes me, Mr Rob," he said, "that we shall have to use this very
gingerly, or it will soon break. I know what I wish I had."

"What?" asked Rob.

"Rib of an old buffalo or a dead horse."

"What for?"

"To make a bow, my lad. It would only be a short one, but wonderfully
strong. You'd have to use short arrows, and it would be hard to pull,
but with a bow like that you could send an arrow through a deer. But as
we haven't got one, nor any chance of finding one, we must do the best
with this."

Rob watched with the greatest of interest the progress of the bow,
busying himself the while with the string, which was finished first; and
as it displayed a disposition to unwind and grow slack, it was
thoroughly wetted and stretched between two boughs to dry.

"Shall you succeed in getting a bow made?" said Brazier, coming up.

"Oh yes, sir, I think so," said the guide; "better bow than archer, I'm
thinking, without Mr Rob here surprises us all by proving himself a
clever shot."

"Don't depend upon me," said Rob mournfully, for his thoughts were upon
Joe and his sad end, and when by an effort he got rid of these
depressing ideas, his mind filled with those of the Indians turning
against them in so cowardly a way, leaving them to live or die, just as
it might happen, while they escaped with the plunder in the boat.

"What are you thinking about, Rob?" said Brazie