CHAPTER X An Awkward Predicament
The first halt was made at noon when little more than eight miles had been traversed. The country encountered from the start had been a soft powdery sand formation, with occasional belts of dwarfed eucalypti, which intervened from the north. Progress was necessarily slow at this early stage of the journey, for it was advisable to allow the camels to harden to their work gradually.
Mackay had so far led the march, steering an approximate course by the sun, but immediately they stopped, he called Bob aside for a conference.
"You see," he said, "when we went out before we started from a more northerly latitude, an' I calculate we should hit our old track in another hundred and eighty miles if we keep angling in a wee bit north o' east. I've got a copy o' the log up to pretty near the—the finish, an' here's where I think we ought to join on to Bentley's route." He unfolded a long track chart which he carried in his hand; it was made up of several sheets of ordinary note-paper, gummed laterally together, and on its much faded surface several inky hieroglyphics stood out bravely. He pointed to a besmeared cross nearly halfway over the chart, and Bob, looking closely, read the printed lettering beside it: "Fortunate Spring, lat. 28° 17´ 5´´, long. 125° 19´ 6´´."
"HE UNFOLDED A LONG TRACK CHART WHICH
HE CARRIED IN HIS HAND"
"We are somewhere under the twenty-fifth parallel just now," reflected Bob. "That means we are about 120 miles south of your old track. I'd better draw out our present position on my own chart and mark a compass course for Fortunate Spring."