THE WOULDBEGOODS
over in these criss-cross tears which are considered so hard to darn.
We did not follow the stream any more. It was only a trickle now, so we knew we had tracked it to its source. And we got hotter and hotter and hotter, and the dews of agony stood in beads on our brows and rolled down our noses and off our chins. And the flies buzzed and the gnats stung, and Oswald bravely sought to keep up Dicky's courage, when he tripped on a snag and came down on a bramble-bush, by saying:
"You see it is the source of the Nile we've discovered. What price north poles now?"
Alice said, "Ah, but think of ices! I expect Oswald wishes it had been the pole, anyway—"
Oswald is naturally the leader, especially when following up what is his own idea, but he knows that leaders have other duties besides just leading. One is to assist weak or wounded members of the expedition, whether polar or equatorish.
So the others had got a bit ahead through Oswald lending the tottering Denny a hand over the rough places. Denny's feet hurt him, because when he was a beaver his stockings had dropped out of his pocket, and boots without stockings are not a bed of luxuriousness. And he is often unlucky with his feet.
Presently we came to a pond, and Denny said:
"Let's paddle."
Oswald likes Denny to have ideas; he knows it is healthy for the boy, and generally he backs
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