CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
HOW JACK PENNY PUT HIS FOOT IN A TRAP.
We had made our plans, but they were very elastic, for it was impossible for us to keep to any hard-and-fast line.
"No, Joe," the doctor said, "we cannot say that we will do this or that; we must be governed by circumstances.

We have one object in view--to find your father, and so far we have determined to follow the course of the first big river; when we shall be diverted from it time must prove." We slept that night under the shade of another tree, and as the mist rolled off the next morning we started once again.
It was so glorious a morning that, in spite of the serious nature of our position, it was impossible not to feel in the highest of spirits.

The way lay through dense forest, but we had fallen into a track which I at first thought was a regular pathway, and so it proved to be, but not of the kind I imagined as I eagerly called the doctor's attention to it, and the ease with which we were now getting along.
"No, Joe," he said; "this is not a path used by human beings.

Look down at the footprints." I looked down to see the hoof-marks of innumerable wild creatures, and said so.
"Yes," replied the doctor, "it is a track down to the river, followed by the animals that go to drink, and we shall not be long before we get to the water side." Our way did not seem wearisome, for there was so much to see, the birds in particular taking my attention greatly.

One moment a flock of black cockatoos would fly screaming by, then a cloud of brilliantly-coloured parroquets, and in one opening we came upon what looked at first like a gigantic beech-tree completely alive with tiny blue-and-green parrots about the size of sparrows, climbing, fluttering, chattering, and chirping, now with their heads up, now heads down, and forming one of the prettiest sights I had ever seen.
I could have shot twenty or thirty together as they sat in rows upon the bare branches, so little did they heed our presence; but it was unnecessary to destroy their little lives, and we passed on.
I was less merciful an hour later, for food was a necessity, and I was fortunate enough to bring down at the first shot a beautiful little deer that started up in our very path.
My shot seemed to alarm the whole forest and set it in an uproar: birds shrieked, monkeys chattered, and to right and left there was a rushing crackling noise, as of big creatures seeking flight.