“Yes,” cried Dallas; “his words were quite cheering.”
“So was the sight of that little leather sack of his, my sons. Do your foot good, Mr Wray?”
“Yes, I forgot all about it,” said Abel, eagerly. “Here, let’s make our fire.”
This was done, and the billy soon began to bubble, when the tea was thrown in and declared to be delicious, in spite of a mouldy taste consequent upon getting wet in its travels and being dried again.
“Better if we hadn’t had all our sugar spoiled,” said Dallas, as he munched his biscuit along with a very fat rusty scrap of fried bacon.
“It don’t want any sugar, my son,” said the Cornishman. “I’ve just stirred a teaspoonful of that chap’s gold-dust into it, and it has given it a wonderful flavour.”
“Yes,” said Abel, “the sight of that gold seems to have quite changed everything.”
The meal was finished, with the whole party refreshed and in the best of spirits. Then the sledges were drawn together, a few small pine-saplings bound on to make a roof, over which a couple of waterproof sheets were drawn, and there was a rough tent for a temporary home.
By that time it was evening, and lanterns were being hung out here and there, lamps lit in the shanties, and the place began to look more lively. In two tents there was the sound of music—a fiddle in one, a badly played German concertina in the other; but the result was not cheerful, for whenever they were in hearing the great shaggy sledge-dogs, of which there were scores about, set up a dismal barking and howling.
The Cornishman’s two friends had cheerfully elected to keep the camp, at a word from their big companion, and the other three started to have a look at the place and end by calling at the hotel upon their new acquaintance.