You lie here and guard the hut while I am away.

Not that you are likely to have any strangers to call in my absence." The dog rose and stretched himself, and followed his master down the path until it terminated at the edge of the water.

Here he gave a low whimper as the lad stepped in and waded through the water; then turning he walked back to the hut and threw himself down at the door.

The boy proceeded for some thirty or forty yards through the water, then paused and pushed aside the wall of rushes which bordered the passage, and pulled out a boat which was floating among them.
It was constructed of osier rods neatly woven together into a sort of basket-work, and covered with an untanned hide with the hairy side in.
It was nearly oval in shape, and resembled a great bowl some three feet and a half wide and a foot longer.

A broad paddle with a long handle lay in it, and the boy, getting into it and standing erect in the middle paddled down the strip of water which a hundred yards further opened out into a broad half a mile long and four or five hundred yards wide.