“Suppose we leave this series of red-hot rocks, boys, and go down towards the water. From the appearance of the country over yonder I fancy that the stream widens out into a lake.”
“How do you know, father?” asked Dick.
“From the character of the trees and other growth. Don’t you see how much more leafy and luxuriant it looks. Keep your eyes well opened and your pieces ready. I dare say we may meet with a rare bird or two, perhaps some kind of water-buck—ready for the camp to-morrow!”
As Mr Rogers had predicted, a couple of miles walking brought them to what in parts was quite a marsh full of canes and reeds; but every here and there were beautiful pools of breeze-rippled water, spread with lovely lilies and other water-plants, while the edges were fringed with willow-like wands and waving sedges.
So beautiful was the scene where the little river widened, and wound through the low ground, that as they wandered about amongst the firmer ground they forbore to shoot, but paused from time to time to watch the lovely plumage of the various ducks and cranes that made the lagoons their home.
Not a shot then had been fired, and as they wandered in and out they found plenty to take their attention. Every here and there Chicory found for them some nest in amongst the reeds—the nursery of duck or crane. But the most interesting thing that they saw in the shape of nests was that of a kind of sociable grossbeak, a flock of which had built a town in a large tree, quite a hundred nests being together in common; while in another tree, whose branches drooped over the water, there were suspended dozens of a curiously woven bottle-shaped nest, with its entrance below, to keep the young birds from the attack of snakes.
“What’s that noise?” said Jack, suddenly, as he was on about a quarter of a mile ahead with his brother, Mr Rogers being busily transferring some water-beetles to Chicory’s spirit-bottle, which escaped breaking after all from the toughness of the wire.
“I don’t know,” replied Dick. “It sounds like some animal. And there’s a scuffling noise as well.
“It’s just like a cow moaning, a very long way off. I wonder what it is?”
“I don’t think it’s a long way off. It seems to me to be pretty close.”