“Is that another hot spring, doctor?” I said, as I kept my glass fixed upon the spot; “or—”
“Our blacks’ fire,” said the doctor. “It might be either; or in addition it might be a fire lit by enemies, or at all events savages; but as it is in the direction in which we are expecting to find our camp, and there seem to be no enemies near, I am in favour of that being camp. Come: time is slipping by. Let’s start downward now.”
I nodded and turned to Jack Penny, who all this while had been resting his back by lying flat upon the ground, and that he was asleep was proved by the number of ants and other investigating insects which were making a tour all over his long body; Gyp meanwhile looking on, and sniffing at anything large, such as a beetle, with the result of chasing the visitor away.
We roused Jack and started, having to make a détour so as to secure Jimmy’s kangaroo, which he shouldered manfully, for though it offered us no temptation we knew that it would delight the men in camp.
The descent was much less laborious than the ascent, but it took a long time, and the sun was fast sinking lower, while as we approached the plains every few hundred yards seemed to bring us into a warmer stratum of air, while we kept missing the pleasant breeze of the higher ground.
If we could have made a bee-line right to where the smoke rose the task would have been comparatively easy, but we had to avoid this chasm, that piled-up mass of rocks, and, as we went lower, first thorny patches of scrub impeded our passage, and lower still there was the impenetrable forest.
I was getting fearfully tired and Jack Penny had for a long time been perfectly silent, while Jimmy, who was last, took to uttering a low groan every now and then, at times making it a sigh as he looked imploringly at me, evidently expecting me to share his heavy load.
I was too tired and selfish, I’m afraid, and I trudged on till close upon sundown, when it occurred to me that I had not heard Jimmy groan or sigh for some time, and turning to speak to him I waited till he came up, walking easily and lightly, with his spear acting as a staff.
“Why, Jimmy; where’s the kangaroo?” I said.
“Wallaby ole man, Mass Joe?” he said, nodding his head on one side like a sparrow.