Page:Du Faur - The Conquest of Mount Cook.djvu/186

146 to lie outside on the grass covered with our sleeping-bags till midnight. The only drawback to our happiness was the keas. About half a dozen of the birds were apparently consumed with curiosity as to why two young women should invade their solitude. Their interest soon became altogether too personal for comfort; one would gravely sit down opposite us and stare steadily for a few minutes with his head on one side and an air of incredible wisdom. Then he would advance with ridiculous sideling hops and make a dig at the nails in our boots, whose brightness no doubt attracted him. Not content with our boots, he would hop right on to us if we lay still and pluck at anything with his strong, sharp beak. It soon ceased to be a joke; we found it impossible to do more than scare the birds a couple of yards away, and then they always returned as soon as we lay quiet. To open your eyes suddenly and stare into the inscrutable face of a parrot who is sitting only about a foot from you, and apparently wondering which is the softest spot to dig in his falcon-like beak, is most uncanny. At last it got to a point when we were scared to go to sleep both at once, so took it in turn to keep an eye on Mr. Kea. It sounds ridiculous, but any one knowing the strength and impudence of the birds, especially young ones that have hardly ever seen a human being, will sympathize as well as grin. At last they routed us completely and we crawled into our little tent and reluctantly tied over the flaps, shutting out fresh air, moonlight, and our tormentors.

When we awoke in the morning we went off to a not far distant tarn for a bath. I being dressed first went back to the tent, and taking our billy walked over to the lake to fill it for breakfast. As I stooped a black soggy mass, half in, half out of the water, caught my eye. I could hardly believe my senses, but the truth was beyond dispute: the mischievous birds, determined to get some fun out of our presence, had dragged my camera from under the rock where I had placed it. This was a hole where a few tinned