Mackay looked relieved. "Be vera exact wi' your calculations, my lad," he said earnestly, as he walked away.
Bob took the sun's altitude three times while a hasty lunch was being prepared, and laboriously checked each result to five places of decimals, then he carefully marked their temporary camp's position on his still bare chart, and drew a dotted line thence to the location of Fortunate Spring.
"We'll have to travel nor'-east half north to make it," said he.
Mackay nodded cheerfully. "I hope we are lucky in strikin' water," he observed. "About ten days is our stretch without it, for the camels can't stand more, and they can't stand that often either."
"We'll hit it right enough," commented Emu Bill, hopefully.
"If it's in the country, you kin bet I'll smell it," grunted Never Never. "I'm strong at nosin' out water, I am."
"Oh, after that one hundred and eighty miles, I'll know where we are," said Mackay; "but there's always some little uncertainty as we understood from the first, an' it won't be outside o' our calculations if we do go thirsty a bit."
"Not a blessed fraction!" cried the Shadow, decanting the boiling tea from the billy into the enamelled cups. "Who says sugar? You, Emu? Well, there ain't none; have a try at saccharine, an' be happy." He gulped down his own portion hurriedly, then ran off to round up Fireworks, which was beginning to stray too far from his neighbours, and ten minutes later the expedition was once more on the move.
The next several days passed uneventfully; the same uninspiring desert sands prevailed, and the intense heat haze radiating from its shimmering surface affected the eyes of the travellers, causing them to quiver and blink painfully, while overhead the sun stared down from a cloudless sky. Not a trace of moisture was visible anywhere, certainly no water could exist amid these barren wastes, and all hoped most anxiously that a change in the monotonous landscape might soon take place.