I looked triumphantly at Jack Penny, but he only held his head higher in the air and gave a sniff, lowering his crest directly after to attend to his feet, for we were now in a complete wilderness of rocks and stones, thrown in all directions, and at times we had regularly to climb.
“It is useless to bring the men this way,” the doctor said, after a couple of hours’ labour; but as he spoke Ti-hi called a halt and pointed in a different direction, at right angles to that which we had so far followed, as being the one we should now take.
The sun had suddenly become unbearable, for we were hemmed in by piled-up stones, and its heat was reflected from the brightly glistening masses, some of which were too hot even to be touched without pain, while the glare was almost blinding wherever the rocks were crystalline and white.
“I say, is that a cloud?” said Jack Penny, drawing our attention to a fleecy mass that could be seen rising between a couple of masses of rock.
“Yes!” cried the doctor eagerly, as he shaded his eyes from the sun’s glare; “a cloud of spray. The falls are there!”
“Or is it the wind you can see in the trees?” I said, with a look at Jack Penny.
“Get out!” retorted that gentleman. “I didn’t say I was sure, and doctor isn’t sure now.”
“No, not sure, Penny,” he said; “but I think I can take you to where water is coming down.”
We felt no temptation to go on then, and willingly followed our guides, who pointed out a huge mass of overhanging rock right in the side of the ravine, and here we gladly halted, in the comparatively cool shade, to sit and partake of some of the buffalo strips, my eyes wandering dreamily to right and left along the narrow valley so filled with stones.
I was roused from my thoughts about the strangeness of the place we were in and the absence of trees and thick bush by the doctor proposing a bit of a look round.