"Be good boys," cried Long Tom, as we prepared to move off after breakfast.
"There is a willy-willy coming soon, so watch where you camp," warned Dead-broke Peter; and without more ado we plunged into a clump of gidgyas, and in a few minutes burst out on the ironshot plain. Neither George nor Charlie was inclined to waste his wisdom on the desert air, and even Mac found it advisable to keep his mouth closed when the fine clouds of sand began to rise. For hours we headed due west, dining at noon, in the open, on a piece of damper and some cold mutton, washed down with an extremely sparing amount of muddy fluid from our water-bags, and then going on again. Before sundown we reached a dried-up creek, where, after scraping in the sand among the roots of a solitary lime-tree, we found sufficient liquid for the horses, which we then hobbled and went into camp, fully forty miles from our starting-point. The sun was now racing down on the western horizon, and the desert around seemed like a sea of gold. The day had been oppressively hot, and consequently we expected that night would be kept lively by the many pests. Nor were we mistaken. Just as our surroundings became blurred in the shadows of night a dingo's dismal howl broke the strange stillness, and then the blood-curdling shrieks of some laughing-jackasses in the tree above irritated us almost beyond endurance. The mosquitoes next joined in, sinking their sawlike suckers deep into our sun-blistered skin; and when the mournful "morepork" added its depressing note, the desert orchestra was completed.
"I reckon there's a storm comin'," remarked George, as he assisted a small death-adder into the fire.
"For onysake let it come, then," growled Mac. "A dinna see what ye've got to complain aboot. Da—— darn it!!"
"Is ye bit, Scottie?" inquired Charlie. "Lor'! there's a centipede on your neck. It feels like red-hot coal, doesn't it?" he added sympathetically.
"No," groaned Mac; "it's a rale cooling sensation; but, here, feel for yersel'." He poised the creature on a twig as he spoke, and skilfully landed it on Charlie's back, and the yell that followed might have awakened a Bunyip, had there been such a monster within five miles.
"Shut up! darn ye, Charlie!" roared George, lifting a nicely browned damper from the ashes; "ye has set the black fellows' ghosts off again. Lor'! just listen to 'em."
"Hurry up with that damper, George," I interrupted—"that is, if there's no snakes in it."
"There's many things worse than snakes, boss," innocently replied George; "they is prime, if ye roast 'em an' has got any salt——"