"May I go this time?" said Charlie.
"You go north, and I'll go and crack stones at the new reef," returned Brown.
So it was settled, and they spent a lazy afternoon.
In the morning the two started in opposite directions, and Brown went off to inspect the new find.
Charlie, having been strictly cautioned to trust to his compass only, went due north, and for ten or twelve miles was surrounded by scrub. Then he emerged in a strip of open country, and to his great joy saw creek timber ahead. This water-course was quite different to the one they had been on—it was more like a chain of shallow lagoons, but all were dry and parched. Charlie followed it for some distance, but there was no sign of moisture, and, elated at having something to report, he made his way back to the spring. Strange to say, when Morton came in he too had found a similar creek to the south, but also waterless. Brown worked out the courses on a bit of paper.
"It strikes me," he said, "that these two creeks, if they run on as they were running where you struck them, must junction in with the creek I was on, not many miles below where I camped."
"Supposing we split up," said Morton. "Say you and Charlie, with half the spare horses, follow down the creek he found, and I and the boys will follow down the one I found, with the rest of the horses. We shall meet at the junction, if your theory is correct. The party who gets there first to wait for the others."
"But supposing there is no water in either of the creeks?"
"We can get back here."
"If your creek junctions in above ours, or vice versa, how is the party who arrives at the lower junction to know that the other party is waiting at the upper one?"