with friends or foes."

"Right-away. If you're ready, I'm ready also," said Alf promptly. "It
will be a strange thing if 'Rule Britannia' leads Britons into a mess
instead of out of one."

Having thus determined what course to pursue, the two boys began to
creep cautiously through the bush towards the locality from whence still
proceeded the music that was being repeated with all the diligence of
some one who was determined to learn his lesson thoroughly.

The night was now quite dark, but presently the chums were able to
distinguish the flickering of a camp-fire at no great distance before
them.

Taking every care not to betray their presence by any careless footstep,
they twined a path with all the success that a professional tracker
would have admired. Then, penetrating a more than usually dense portion
of the bush, the young explorers found themselves right on the edge of
the encampment, and the picture that they then discovered was one that
was surely calculated to drive away all melancholy thoughts and feelings
of fatigue, for the time being at least.

Seated on the end of a water-keg, in front of a moderate-sized "A" tent,
was a man of gigantic size whose black hair stood up from his head as if
he were constantly seeing ghosts, and whose equally black beard streamed
down his breast like a cataract of ink. He was dressed in a blue shirt,
corduroy trousers protected with cowboy "shaps," and heavy top-boots. In
his hands was an accordion, at his side sat a collie dog, while in front
of him, with his back to the fire--standing with his hands behind his
back in the attitude of a schoolboy repeating a lesson--was a
tousle-headed half-breed, whom he of the black beard was addressing in
encouraging tones--

"Noo then, ma callant, we'll just be having that last line ower again.
It's no' bad as an eemitation o' a cat left oot on a winter's night; but
it's no' just what I call 'ceevilised'; no' just quite that--yet."

Then the accordion sounded a dismal chord suggestive of an attack of
asthma, the half-breed reattacked the "ne-vaire, ne-vaire, ne-vaire" in
a manner that made up in energy what it lacked in music, and the collie
raised his head to add a long-drawn wail to the concert.

"That's a wee bit better," was the player's verdict at the finish. "I'm
thinking we'll make a ceevilised creature oot o' you in time, Haggis."
Then the speaker turned to the dog. "As for you, Bannock, you're a bit
oot o' tune at times.