yhow, they're big
and strong enough. Look! What a pity we haven't got a gun. Might have
shot a pig and had some pork."

He pointed to about half-a-dozen good-sized pigs, which had scurried
across the path they followed, and then disappeared among the ferns.

"Rum thing, it always seems to me that there's nothing here except pigs.
There must be, farther in the woods. Mind that hole, my lad."

Don carefully avoided stepping into a bubbling patch of hot mud right in
their path, and, wondering what would be the consequences of a step in,
he went on, in and out, among dangerous water holes and mud springs.
Cockatoos whistled overhead, and parrots shrieked, while every now and
then they came upon a curious-looking bird, whose covering resembled
hair more than feathers, as it cocked its curved bill towards them, and
then hurriedly disappeared by diving in amongst the dense low growth.

"Look at that!" said Jem. "Ostrich?"

"Ostrich!" cried Don contemptuously. "Why, an ostrich is eight feet
high."

"Not when he's young," said Jem. "That's a little one. Shouldn't
wonder if there's some more."

"You may be right, Jem, but I don't think there are ostriches here."

"Well, I like that," said Jem, "when we've just seen one. I knew it
directly. There used to be a picture of one in my old reading-book when
I was at school."

They trudged on for some distance in silence.

"What yer thinking 'bout, Mas' Don?"

"Home," said Don, quietly.

"Oh! I say, don't think about home, Mas' Don, because if you do, I
shall too; it do make me so unked."

"I can't help it, Jem. It doesn't seem natural to settle down here, and
go on week after week. I get asking myself, what we are doing it for."

"To catch fish, and find fruit and keep ourselves alive. Say, Mas' Don,
it's under them trees they digs up the big lumps of gum that they burn.
Ah, there's a bit." Jem stooped and picked out from among the rotten
pine needles a piece of pale yellowish-looking gum of the size of his
fist.

"That'll do for a light for us," Don said. "Take it back."

"Going to," said Jem laconically. "We may want it 'fore long."

"Here's another bit," said Don, finding a similar sized piece, and
thrusting it into the basket. "Couldn't we make some matches, Jem?"

"Couldn't we make some matches? Why, of course we could. There's
plenty of brimstone, I'm going to try and manage a tinder-box after a
time."

They again walked on in silence, c