For two days longer they travelled on before they got amongst the low bush-covered hills that formed the spurs of the great mountain range. The time had not appeared long or dull to them, for they had been too fully occupied in surmounting the difficulties of the journey for the hours to hang heavily on their hands. Sometimes a series of intricate and winding creeks and gullies would intercept their path, and in leading their horses up and down the steep sides, and in making a crossing for them over otherwise impassable places, hours would be spent. At other times a long line of mulga scrub would stop them, through which, with the greatest damage to their skin and clothes, they had to force a way. In passing these difficult pieces of scrub they always made Murri come last in the line, that he might have the benefit of the opening made by the other riders, and so save his naked body from many scratches and painful little wounds.
It certainly was not easy travelling, but they all were accustomed to the bush, and none of them were afraid of a little hard work, though they may have liked it no better than other people. One or other of the lads would perhaps indulge in a boyish growl at the heat, or the thorns, or the weight of the rocks they had sometimes to move aside for their horses to pass along these narrow gullies, but the other would cheer him on by reminding him of the object for which he was working, and the grumble would end in a laugh.
They rested one night at the edge of the great dim forest that clothed the lower hills, and next morning began the labour of climbing among these giant mountains. The work would be continuous until they reached the Whanga valley, which Murri said was in the very heart of the range, over the first great spur that lay, a gigantic barrier, before them.
In the early light of the coming day, when the shades of night still seemed struggling with the dream of dawn that crept so palely along the valleys and among the rocks, the mountains looked doubly grand and majestic. So black, so unconquerable and vast they loomed against the scarcely lighter sky, that to Geordie's impressionable nature they almost seemed an effectual bar to their progress. Although it was still too dark to see to catch their horses, the boys and Murri were astir, for they had a long climb and a hard day's work before them.
"If I did not well know, Alec, that you and I will let nothing stop us, I should almost have said that those dim awful mountains might have been too much for us."
The boy spoke in a hushed, low voice, for in that great stillness before daybreak, when as yet all birds and living things are mute, and when the very air, before the breath of morning stirs it, appears to sleep, it seems a sacrilege to break the solemn silence that, like a mantle, lies about the earth.
"Nothing that man can conquer shall stop us, mountain or river," said Alec, resolutely; who sometimes, as now, failed to read his brother's finer meaning.
"Oh, no, I know that. I don't think you quite understand. Of course we shall get over. I'd dig the mountains down with my own hands before I let them beat me. It isn't that; it was only a feeling. And now it is gone," said he, suddenly, as a warm flush of rosy light flooded the eastern sky, and was reflected on the white crags of the higher summits. A flute-voiced organ magpie burst into glorious song the moment that the daylight came, and its cheerful music banished the last trace of mystery and awe from George's mind.
A few minutes before they started, just at sunrise, Murri said that they had better take some food with them besides their own dried provisions, as they might be unable to catch anything on the higher parts of the mountains they would have to cross.
"Bail kangaroo, bail wallaby, up along o' there," said Murri, pointing to the mountains. "Mine go catch um bird, bail chewt um, Missa Law; boomerang plenty much kill."