sts. Then we can find eggs, and lay traps, and search for fruit.
Why, Mr Rob, sir, we're going to have our bread buttered on both sides,
and we can keep Mr Brazier going while he collects. It looked very
black indeed time back, but the sun's shining in on us now. We shall be
a bit like prisoners, but where are you going to find a more beautiful
prison for people who want to study natural history? Hooray I look
here, too--mushrooms."

"What, those great funguses?"

"To be sure: they're good eating. I know 'em, sir. Found 'em before,
and learnt to eat 'em off the Indians. Here, wait a moment; let's take
enough of 'em for supper, and then get back to the kitchen and have a
turn at cooking. That's enough," he continued, picking up from the
mouldering stump of a huge decaying tree a great cluster of fungi;
"those others'll do for another time."

"I hope you will not be disappointed in my shooting next time," said
Rob, taking the cluster of mushroom growth and thrusting an arrow
through it like a skewer. "I have very little faith in it myself,
Shaddy."

"More likely to do good, and I believe in you all the more, Mr Rob,"
said the man, seizing the lizard, tying its legs together with a band of
twisted twigs, thrusting his bamboos through, and swinging the prize
over his shoulder. "If you went puffing and blowing about and saying
you was going to shoot this, and hit that, I should begin to wonder how
ever we were to get our next dinner. Never you mind about feeling
afraid for yourself. `Modesty's the best policy,' as the old saying
goes, or something like it. Now then, best foot foremost! Tread in my
steps, and I think I can lead you straight for the head of the clearing,
pretty close to home, sweet home. D'yer mind what I say?" he continued,
with a queer smile. "Think. I ain't quite sure, my lad, but I'll try."

Shaddy took a fresh observation, and then gave a satisfied nod of the
head.

"Forrard!" he said; and he made off as if full of confidence, while Rob
followed behind, taking care of his mushrooms and watching the nodding
head of the iguana low down at Shaddy's back in a curiously grim
fashion, and thinking that it looked anything but attractive as an
object for the cook's art.

They had been walking nearly an hour, very slowly--for it was difficult
work to avoid the tangled growth which hemmed them in--when Shaddy, who
had been chatting away pleasantly about the trees and their ill-luck in
not