ll right. Old times again, old un, and we're going to do
it yet, eh?"

"And you'll forgive me, Joe?" said Dyke earnestly.

"Forgive you?" cried Emson, looking at his brother with his big pleasant
manly face all in wrinkles. "Get along with you! What is there to
forgive?"

"I will try now and help you, Joe; I will, indeed."

"Of course you will, old chap," cried Joe, a little huskily too; "and if
you and I can't win yet, in spite of the hot sun and the disease and the
wicked ways of those jolly old stilt-stalkers, nobody can."

"Yes, we will win, Joe," cried Dyke enthusiastically.

"That's your sort!" cried Emson. "We'll have a good long try, and if
the ostriches don't pay, we'll hunt, as, I know, we've got plenty of
room out here: we'll have an elephant farm instead, and grow ivory, and
have a big warehouse for making potted elephant to send and sell at home
for a breakfast appetiser. Who's going to give up, eh? Now, then, what
about this canter? The horses want a breather--they're getting fidgety.
I say, feel better now, old chap, don't you?"

Dyke pinched his lips together and nodded shortly.

"So do I.--Here! What's that?"

He checked his horse, and pointed far away in the distance.

"Ostrich!" cried Dyke.

"Yes, I saw her rise and start off! My word! how she is going. I can
see the spot where she got up, and must keep my eyes on it. There's a
nest there, for a pound. That means luck this morning. Come along
steady. Lucky I brought the net. Why, Dyke, old chap, the tide's going
to turn, and we shall do it yet."

"But the goblin's dead."

"Good job, too. There's as good ostriches in the desert as ever came
out, though they are fowl instead of fish. It's my belief we shall
snatch out of that nest a better game-cock bird than ever the goblin
was, and without his temper. Come along."

Dyke felt glad of the incident occurring when it did, for his mind was
in a peculiar state just then. His feelings were mingled. He felt
relieved and satisfied by having shifted something off his mind, but at
the same time there would come a sense of false shame, and a fancy that
he had behaved childishly, when it was as brave and manly a speech--that
confession--as ever came from his lips.

All the same, on they rode. And now the sky looked brighter; there
seemed to be an elasticity in the air. Breezy had never carried Dyke so
well before, and a sensation came over him, making him feel that he must