limbing higher and higher, till,
coming to an opening, they both paused in silent admiration of the view
spread out before them, of river, lake, and mountain, whose top
glistened like silver, where glacier and snow lay unmelted in spite of
the summer heat.

"Wouldn't you like to go up there, Mas' Don?" said Jem, after a few
moments' silence.

"Go? I'd give anything to climb up there, Jem. What a view it must
be."

"Ah, it must, Mas' Don; but we won't try it to-day; and now, as we've
been on the tramp a good two hours, I vote we sit down and have a bit of
a peck."

Don agreed, and they sat down at the edge of the wood to partake of the
rather scanty fare which they spread on the ground between them.

"Yes, it would be fine," said Jem, with his mouth and hands full. "We
ought to go up that mountain some day. I've never been up a mountain.
Hi! Wos!"

This was shouted at another of the peculiar-looking little birds which
ran swiftly out of the undergrowth, gave each in turn a comical look,
and then seized a good-sized piece of their provender and ran off.

"Well, I call that sarce," said Jem; "that's what I calls that. Ah, if
I'd had a stone I'd soon have made him drop that."

"Now," said Don laughing, "do you call that an ostrich?"

"To be sure I do!" cried Jem. "That proves it. I've read in a book as
ostriches do steal and swallow anything--nails, pocket-knives, and bits
o' stone. Well! I never did!"

Jem snatched off his cap and sent it spinning after another rail which
had run up and seized a fruit from their basket, and skimmed off with
its legs forming a misty appearance like the spokes of a rapidly turning
wheel.

"Sarce is nothing to it, Mas' Don. Why, that little beggar's ten times
worse than the old magpie we used to have in the yard. They're so
quick, too. Now, just look at that."

Either the same or another of the little birds came out of the
undergrowth, peering about in the most eccentric manner, and without
displaying the least alarm.

"Just look at him, Jem."

"Look at him, Mas' Don? I am a-looking at him with all my eyes. He's a
beauty, he is. Why, if I was a bird like that with such a shabby, dingy
looking, sooty suit o' clothes, I know what I'd do."

"What would you do?"

"Why, I'd moult at once. Look at the rum little beggar. Arn't he
comic? Why, he arn't got no wings and no tail. Hi! Cocky, how did you
get your beak bent that way? Look as if you'd had it caugh