“No,” he panted, “not them; I’ve seen two or three of them other birds with the green and yellow and blue cocked-up tails, same as I saw before and you couldn’t find.”
“Where are they?” I cried eagerly, for it was evident that he had seen something new in the way of birds.
“Down below in the path we cut away to get to the water. They’re behind the low bushes, three or four of ’em, and I could see their tails cocking up over the top. Guns, quick, ’fore they’re gone and you say I was dreaming again.”
I uttered a low chirruping signal which brought my uncle and Cross to hear the news, and the next minute we had seized our guns.
None too soon, for we were hardly ready before Pete pointed triumphantly downward towards a clump of ferns some twenty yards away, where I distinctly saw something move.
“Now, aren’t there no birds with tails like that?” he whispered, and I saw plainly in three places just such feathers as he had described rise into sight; but they were not the tails of birds, being the fantastic feather tiaras of Indians, whose dark faces rose now full in our view.
The next moment we saw that they were armed with bows, and I had hardly realised this when there was a twanging sound, the whizz of arrows, and I uttered a cry of pain.
It was as if a red-hot iron had passed through my shoulder, and my cry was echoed by an Indian yell.