“That’s better,” pronounced Tarrant, having got outside the invigorating brew. “Wonder if there are any crocs in these water puddles, Moseley? I’m going to tub.”
“Tub? Man alive, we’re just ready to start. What on earth do you want to tub now for?”
“I thought you said Hollingworth had a pretty wife,” tranquilly rejoined the other, digging into his kitbag for a towel. “You can’t make acquaintance with a pretty woman when you’re in an untubbed state, you know.”
Moseley roared.
“Oh, skittles!” he said. “You can tub when you get there.”
“I believe you’re right; and the water looks dashed cold at this time of day.”
“And I thought you said you wouldn’t go there.”
“Did I? Oh, well, I suppose I must if you do. It wouldn’t look well, would it?”
“Why, of course not. Hurry up now. The boys want to load up your kit.”
The pack-donkeys had been driven up, and the horses stood ready saddled. In an incredibly short space of time all personal baggage and camp impedimenta had been removed and stowed upon the backs of the patient little Neddies—in the long run and the land of horse-sickness and “fly,” perhaps more serviceable all round than that noble animal the horse. And then, as the first arrowy gleams of the sun began to warm the world, they started from their night’s camp.