"That must be the valley down under the wattles."
"I knew we'd find it."
"It only shows that one should never give in."
"If we hadn't fallen down that slope last night...."
"If I hadn't kept going when you all wanted to turn back, you mean."
"It's found now and that's the best part of it."
I must confess that I lost my head just as the others did. I should have known better, I suppose, than to go yelling out our discovery at the top of my lungs, but knowing's one thing and doing's altogether different. I've seen miners on the Lakekamu shouting themselves hoarse over even less of a discovery, seasoned men who knew how and when to hold their tongues. Could tyros like ourselves be blamed for what we did? I don't think so.
"That's the funnel right enough," Cumshaw said. "There can't possibly be two of the same kind in the same district. I'm sure this is the one; it's been described too often to me for there to be any mistake about it. But what's puzzling me is the valley. There doesn't seem to be much of one here. All I can see is wattles, wattles whichever way I look."
"There's one way to settle it," I said in an aside to him, and I looked at Moira.
He gathered from my warning glance that I had something to say I didn't want her to hear, so he shifted out of earshot with me.