ets, so did Denny, but we would not
let him and H. O. wet theirs. Then the brave Oswald advanced warily to
the end of the burning rails and put his wet jacket over the end bit,
like a linseed poultice on the throat of a suffering invalid who has got
bronchitis. The burning wood hissed and smouldered, and Oswald fell
back, almost choked with the smoke. But at once he caught up the other
wet jacket and put it on another place, and of course it did the trick,
as he had known it would do. But it was a long job, and the smoke in his
eyes made the young hero obliged to let Dicky and Denny take a turn as
they had bothered to do from the first. At last all was safe; the
devouring element was conquered. We covered up the beastly bonfire with
clay to keep it from getting into mischief again, and then Alice said:

"Now we must go and tell."

"Of course," Oswald said, shortly. He had meant to tell all the time.

So we went to the farmer who has the Moat House Farm, and we went at
once, because if you have any news like that to tell it only makes it
worse if you wait about. When we had told him he said:

"You little----" I shall not say what he said besides that, because I am
sure he must have been sorry for it next Sunday when he went to church,
if not before.

We did not take any notice of what he said, but just kept on saying how
sorry we were; and he did not take our apology like a man, but only said
he dare said, just like a woman does. Then he went to look at his
bridge, and we went in to our tea. The jackets were never quite the same
again.

Really great explorers would never be discouraged by the dare saying of
a farmer, still less by his calling them names he ought not to. Albert's
uncle was away, so we got no double slating; and next day we started
again to discover the source of the river of cataracts (or the region of
mountain-like icebergs).

We set out heavily provisioned with a large cake Daisy and Dora had
made themselves and six bottles of ginger-beer. I think real explorers
most likely have their ginger-beer in something lighter to carry than
stone bottles. Perhaps they have it by the cask, which would come
cheaper; and you could make the girls carry it on their back, like in
pictures of the daughters of regiments.

We passed the scene of the devouring conflagration, and the thought of
the fire made us so thirsty we decided to drink the ginger-beer and
leave the bottles in a place of concealment. Then we w