"I've gone and roven a hole in my boot," sobbed she, "and I don't know how ever I'se to git it mended."
The boys laughed at the small distress of Ruth; but, after all, it was no laughing matter for her. To walk over the brush-covered plain, or among the dry reeds, was a trying exertion even for the well-shod, and Margaret was dismayed when she considered how this could be accomplished when their boots should fail. "Yet why dare I doubt?" she said. "See, Ruth; Baldabella, and even little Nakinna, walk as well as we do, and they are barefooted. We must not shrink from such small trials as this."
Just then a pair of the splendid bronze pigeons, so unequalled in beauty by any of their race, winged their flight from the water above the heads of the travellers; and though they no longer had the means of obtaining these birds, as delicious in taste as they are lovely in plumage, they were satisfied to see there were animals in the waste around them.
"These thin bamboos would make capital arrows," said Hugh; "and I have no doubt we can bend one of these tall canes for a bow, if we had but the means of stringing it."
"We might, at all events, sharpen some of the canes for spears," said Arthur, "not only for defence in need, but to be useful if we should be so fortunate as to encounter a kangaroo, or meet with the burrows of the wombats."
"What has become of our raft?" asked Margaret "You had there a good stock of bamboos ready cut."
"With all my nails in them," exclaimed Jack. "What a fool I was not to remember that in time; now it will be far enough down the river."
It was too true: the raft had already been carried away by the stream out of their sight; and all deeply regretted their negligence, as they moved slowly through the entangled scrub, frequently compelled to walk actually over the low bushes. On the opposite shore of the river they could still discover the wild flames flying down before the wind, and leaving behind a black smoking surface.
When wearied with the excitement and toil of the day, they were compelled to seek rest among the comfortless reeds, they sat down and looked at each other for some time rather sorrowfully, for the pressure of hunger had fallen on all. It was Baldabella who first relieved their distress; with untired energy she went to the river with her spear, and returned very soon with a large river-cod, and an apron filled with the fresh-water mussels, now truly prized for their useful shells. A fire was soon made, the fish was spitted on a sharpened reed, and while it was roasting, Hugh, with Wilkins's invaluable knife, cut a number of short thin reeds into chopsticks, as he called them, to enable them to convey the roasted fish from the reeds on which it was dished to their mouths. Rude as the contrivance was, and laughable as were the failures made in using their new utensils, they managed to make a satisfactory supper, and were content to sleep among the reeds in the open air, though the nights now felt exceedingly cold.
For several days they continued to toil on along the reedy banks of the river, over the same cheerless bush, and subsisting on the same unvarying fish diet. Then the banks became rocky and precipitous, and the river so difficult of access that it was only at rare openings they were able to obtain water or fish. But soon after the landscape was enlivened once more by tall trees. Their path was over the grassy plains, which were even now, in the winter of the year, gay with bright flowers. More than once they remarked with thankfulness the track of the kangaroo, and the chattering of birds gave them hopes of new food, and they anxiously sought the means of obtaining them.