ed Chris shortly. "Get out! You're going to
pretend that you'll lie down and die, and you're going to make your
will."

"No; it wasn't exactly that; but if you get back to them and are saved,
you may have my four-bladed knife with the stone-pick and lancet in it."

"Oh, hang your old knife!" cried Chris ungraciously. "I don't want it.
Mine's ever so much better, and doesn't hurt your hand when you're
cutting anything. Now, no nonsense! Fancying you're going to fall off
your pony and not being able to get up again! Why, if you go on
fancying such things as that in the hot sunshine, you're pretty well
sure to turn giddy and go down. Look here."

"Yes?" sighed Ned.

"I feel just as bad as you do, but I don't begin a lot of nonsense about
leaving you my knife.--Such stuff!"

"It isn't stuff," sighed Ned. "I'm horribly ill now. So faint and
strange."

"Have some water. I'll get some out."

"No, no, no; I've had enough. I don't feel a bit parched and thirsty
now, for the water seems to have gone right into me from my wet
clothes."

"The same here," said Chris, after a glance over his shoulder to see if
his pony was keeping to the return trail, and being convinced that he
was. "I could talk like you, for I never felt so ill before. I say,
how one's things are drying in the sunshine! I've quite done dripping."

"Yes; but, Chris, I haven't told you all I was going to say."

"And you needn't. You were going to say that I might have your German
silver pocket-comb too."

"I wasn't," said Ned reproachfully. "But you may, and everything else
I've got, for I shall never want them again."

"Yes, you will, stupid. Oh, I say, don't be such a Molly."

Ned shook his head.

"Won't you listen to me?" he said piteously.

"Why, of course I will, old chap. I'm only talking like this because I
want you to be plucky. Ned, you're not going to lie down and die. You
can't--you shan't. I've felt like this for the last half-hour, but I
won't let myself believe that it's all through the despair and misery we
feel."

"But it is, Chris. I'm glad I came with you, though," said the poor
fellow sadly.

"So am I, and it was very jolly and chummy of you. Just like you, Ned.
We've often had rows, but we always made it up again, and I never liked
you any the less. Never half so much as I did when you came trotting
after me to look for this water."

"I like to hear you say that," said Ned, smiling faintly. "If you