ack_, after his retreating enemy.

"Don't be a fool, comrade," he said at last. "He can't hear you. Poor
old Job Tipsy! He always said me and the governor were just like a
couple of schoolboys with our games and larks, and I suppose he was
right. Poor old Bully Bounce! But I do wish he was here now to help us
two out of this hole, and a dozen of our chaps at his back, for it's
rather a different sort of game to what it used to be when we got found
out. Here's poor Mister Archie lying down below badly hurt, and me
stretched on the top of this attap roof, pinned out like a jolly old
cock butterfly meant for a specimen. Think of it," he muttered, as he
sat up and began feeling down his leg. "Shied a spear at me. It hurts,
too. Good job it didn't hit me in the middle. It's a bit wet, but it
can't be bad. Scratted a bit, and then it went through the leg of my
trousers. Well, I call that a narrow escape."

As he muttered to himself he began tugging at the spear-shaft, only
about two feet of which stood out above the cloth; and from his cramped
position the young private found that, tug as he would, the weapon was
too deeply buried in the thick thatch for him to draw it out.

"Well, this 'ere's a nice game," said the lad softly. "Won't come out,
won't you? All right! More ways of killing a cat than hanging it. Go
in, then;" and reaching upward with both hands, he began to press upon
the butt of the spear, and drove it a little farther in. "If you can't
pull a spear or a harrer out, the best thing to do is to shove it
through. That's what I'm a-doing; only, as you may say, I'm walking off
it." As he spoke he raised his leg up, holding on to the attap roof the
while, gave two or three sharp kicks, and threw his leg off the
spear-shaft and let it fall free upon the slope, where he lay now upon
his back shaking with laughter.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" he said. "What a game! Pinned down like a
specimen! I can't stop it. Just like it's often been when we have been
on the march, feeling half-starved and empty, and I have made the lads
turn savage, and bang me on the back, and call me all the fools they
could lay their tongues to, as they kept telling me to leave off, when I
couldn't. Pinned down like a cockchafer! 'Tention! Oh, I say," he
gasped out excitedly, "I never thought of that! Here was I wondering
how I was to get hold of another spear, and it's come flying at me.
Where are you?"

He felt about t