at the bottom of
the tree dead as a last year's butterfly, and I can put my foot right on
the place. Come along."

Rob smiled, raised his eyebrows a little, and followed.

"Better let him convince himself," he thought; and as Shaddy forced back
the low boughs and held them apart for his companion to follow, he went
on talking.

"I knew you could do it by the way you handled your bow and arrow. Your
eyes are as straight as mine is, and I watched you as you sent an arrow
first one side and then another till you got the exact range, and then
it was like kissing your hand: just a pull of the string, off goes the
arrow, and down drops the lizard, and a fine one, too. Round that
trunk, my lad! There you are, and there he lies, just down in that tuft
of grass."

"Where?" said Rob banteringly. "Why, Shaddy, I thought your eye was
better than spy-glasses."

Shaddy made a dash at the tuft of thick growth beneath the bough where
the iguana had stood, searched about, and then rose and took off his cap
to give his head a scratch.

"Well, I never!" he said in a tone full of disappointment; "I was as
sure as sure that you hit that thing right through."

He looked round about, and then all at once made a rush at a spot whence
came a faint rustling; and the next minute he returned dragging the
iguana by the tail, with the half of the arrow through its shoulder.

"Now then," he cried, "was I right, or was I wrong? He made a big
scramble to get away, and hid himself in that bush all but his tail. My
word, Mr Rob, sir, what a shot you will make!"

"Nonsense, Shaddy!" said the lad, looking down with a mingling of
compunction and pride at his prize.

"Ah, you may call it nonsense, Mr Rob. I calls it skill."

"Why, it was a mere accident."

"Hark at him!" cried Shaddy, looking round at the trees as if to call
their attention to the lad's words. "Says it was an accident when I
told him to aim straight at the thing's shoulder, and there's the arrow
right through it from one side to the other, and the poor brute dead as
dead."

"But I hardly aimed at it, Shaddy," protested Rob.

"Of course you didn't. A good shot just makes up his mind to hit a
thing, and he hits it same as you did that lizard. Well, sir, that's
one trouble off my mind; and I can say thankfully we shan't starve.
There'll be times when the river's so flooded that we can't fish, and
then we might have come worst off; but you can shoot us birds and
bea