“How?”
“Get somebody who knows the way to tell us, and then walk on a few miles every day. It can’t be very difficult to find if we keep along the river bank.”
“Along the towing-path, eh?”
“Yes, if there is one,” I said, eagerly.
“Towing-path! Why, you young innocent,” he cried, angrily, “don’t you know that it’s a fierce wild mountain-torrent, running through canons, and in deep mountain valleys, with vast forests wherever trees can grow, all packed closely together—sometimes so close that you can hardly force your way through?”
“I did not know it was like that,” I said; “but we must make the best of it, I suppose. If we can’t go twenty miles a day we must go fifteen.”
“Or ten, or five, or one,” he cried, with a contemptuous laugh. “Why, Mayne, my lad, that last will often be the extent of your journey.”
I looked at him in dismay.
“You have no friends then at Victoria—no introductions?”
I shook my head.