“No,” he laughed; “by tracks. Cattle don’t mind blazed trees much.”
Perhaps Bob felt green now, for he said no more. Archie looked about him, but never a trail nor track could he decipher.
Yet on they rode, helter-skelter apparently, but cautiously enough for all that. Tell was full of fire and fun; for, like Verdant Green’s horse, when put at a tiny tree trunk in his way, he took a leap that would have carried him over a five-bar-gate.
There was many a storm-felled tree in the way also and many a dead trunk, half buried in ferns; there were steep stone-clad hills, difficult to climb, but worse to descend, and many a little rivulet to cross; but nothing could interfere with the progress of these hardy horses.
Although the sun was blazing hot, no one seemed to feel it much. The landscape was very wild, and very beautiful; but Archie got weary at last of its very loveliness, and was not one whit sorry when the afternoon halt was called under the pleasant shade of trees, and close by the banks of a rippling stream.
The horses were glad to drink as well as the men, then they were hobbled, and allowed to browse while all hands sat down to eat.
Only damper and beef, washed down by a billyful of the clear water, which, strange to say, was wonderfully cool.
When the sun was sinking low on the forest-clad horizon, there was a joyful but half-suppressed shout from Craig and his men. Part of the herd was in sight, quietly browsing up a creek.
Gentleman Craig pointed them out to Archie; but he had to gaze a considerable time before he could really distinguish anything that had the faintest resemblance to cattle.
“Your eye is young yet to the Bush,” said Craig, laughing, but not in any unmannerly way.