"It is terrible, isn't it? We were quite happy before."
"Yes, and shall be again when we have got this business off our minds. I don't want heaps of money; all I wish for is to find enough to clear off the debt from Wandaroo, and start again a free man, owing no one anything."
"What a nuisance money is after all. Look at Murri there, sound asleep again already, without a penny to bless himself with, and yet perfectly happy and free from care."
"Yes, a noble sight! A thoughtless savage, without a care for to-morrow, and snoring like a hog."
"And I vote we follow his example as quickly as possible. So good-night, old miser."
"Good-night, young avarice."
Pulling their blankets up to their ears, and settling their heads more comfortably on their saddles, they fell asleep again, and this time they slumbered on till dawn without disturbance.
The descent on the other side of the pass, although difficult enough, presented none of the dangers that the ascent had done the day before, and the little party accomplished it quite early in the day. They now found themselves in a strange land of mountains and valleys, little narrow gullies of rock without a tree or shrub about them, and hills covered so thickly with luxuriant bush and tropical vegetation as to be quite impassable for the horses. Everything was so different from the country round Wandaroo, that they might have been dropped down in another world.
It was evident that the terrible drought which the whole country had suffered from on the other side the mountains had not prevailed here, for trees and bushes, grasses, ferns, and flowers, were green and flourishing, and were running wild with that wanton luxuriance that a tropical sun engenders in a land where rain is frequent. Down some of the valleys little streams were flowing, a rare sight for Australia, and in one or two places the boys saw, for the first time in their lives, silvery cascades of water dashing and tumbling from the heights above to the clear basins below, into which their waters poured.
It was by the side of one of these streams that they had made their mid-day halt, and had cooked in his skin the young bandicoot that Alec had shot in the morning. The boys were now so excited at the thought that at last they were approaching the scene of their labours that they did not make so long a halt as usual. This did not so much matter, as the feed for the horses by the side of the stream was plentiful and good. At last, in the early afternoon, they made their way through a chaotic mass of rocks at the foot of a great grey mountain, and rounding his grand shoulder, that for some time had shut out their view of what was in front, Murri sang out—