CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
HOW MARK FOUND SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT GAME.
They had not far to go, but in a hot sun, and with the double guns, ammunition, and the heavy birds, they were panting and in a profuse perspiration.
"Can't do impossibilities, Mark, my lad," cried the major.

"We must either run for it without our game, or stop and fight for it." "Oh!" cried Mark; "we can't leave the birds." "But you can't fight," cried the major, who, as he spoke, began throwing the great birds behind a clump of rocks.
"But they have taken so much trouble to get," panted Mark.
"And I'm so hungry that I feel like a dog with a bone," snapped the major.

"I won't give 'em up without a fight.

Come in here, my boy, and I'll have a good try for it.

We've plenty of ammunition, and perhaps a peppering with small-shot will scare the blackguards away." Mark obeyed, and the next moment, with their birds, they were snugly ensconced in a little natural fortification, open to attack only on one side, the others being protected by the rocks and the dense jungle.
This movement took them out of sight of their pursuer, who was hidden now by the trees.
"Now, my boy, lay out some cartridges, and keep down out of sight.