bout for a while, I saw that he had unlaced his
left boot and was holding it out. . . . The sole had broken loose in
our scramble over the tufa rocks, and hung parted from its upper.

"'That's bad,' said I. 'Well, I stuck a ship's needle in the
tool-bag here before we started--_you_ never think of anything!
When we get down to the shore we'll see what can be done: that is, if
we don't find a cobbler.'

"'Cobbler? you funny ass!--' he began.

"'Look here,'--I stopped him. 'If you won't attend to me, attend to
Rover. What's up with that dog of yours?'--for the dog which had
been following all day pretty obediently, except for a wild dash down
to the lagoon to scatter the wild duck, had of a sudden picked up
bearings and was running forward, halting, returning, wagging his
tail, running forward again, turning, asking dumbly to be understood,
in the way all dogs have who invite you to follow a trail.

"'Here's business,' said I, and hurried after him, leaving Farrell to
limp down the hill-side in our wake. For once the dog recognised me
as more intelligent or, at any rate, prompter than his master, and
gave his whole attention to me. . . . I tumbled down the hill after
him in a haste that fairly set my temples throbbing. Once sure of
me, he played no more at backwards-and-forwards, but bounded down the
slope towards the innermost southern corner of the bay, where a grove
of coco-trees almost overhung the beach. A curtain of creepers
bunched over the low cliff at their feet and into this he plunged and
disappeared.

"But his barking still led me on; and presently, as I avoided the
undergrowth and creepers to follow the foreshore, sounded back to me
across a low spit of rock. I climbed this and came all unexpectedly
upon a diminutive creek.

"It was really but a fissure between the rocks, with deep water
between them and an abrupt, dolls'-house-beach of sand and shells
above it, terminating in a flat, overhanging ledge. And on this
ledge rested a white-painted boat, high and dry! From the
stern-sheets the dog barked at me joyously, wagging his tail, with
his fore-feet on the edge of the stern-board.

"I ran to it. Within the stern-board, in cut letters from which the
cheap paint had scaled, was a name plain to read--_Two Brothers_.
Two paddles lay in her, neatly disposed: a short mast and sail
tightly wrapped and traced up in its cordage; her rudder, with
tiller-stick, two rusty rowlocks of galvanised iron,