“Let Mr Rimmer construct a boat if he likes. It will keep him busy, and take I daresay a couple of years. During that time we can collect a cargo of specimens, and thank our stars that we have fallen in such good quarters.”
In spite of marking down the trees and rocks where the hot springs lay, the natural darkness of night made their task by no means easy. Objects looked so different, and after they had reached the end of the ash slope, the inequalities of the surface were so great that they lost their way several times over, and at last it was decided to lie down and rest under the shelter of a huge tree, when Smith suddenly exclaimed,—
“Why, this here’s where I got some of the firewood last night.”
“Nonsense,” said Panton pettishly.
“It was somewheres here as I broke a big branch off, one as was dead.”
“If it were, you would find the stump,” said Panton.
“Course I should, sir, and here it is,” growled the man.
“What!” shouted Oliver. “Then the tent must be close by.”
“Round at the back of a big mask o’ rock, sir, as is the hardest and sharpest I ever broke my shins again. It ought to be just about where Billy Wriggs is a-lighting of his pipe.”
“Want me, matey?”