“This seems like home,” he said. “It’s just like Shantytown in Californy, where I worked three months last year. I say, boys, how do you like it?”
“I shouldn’t like to live here very long,” said Harry.
“I like shipboard better,” said Jack.
“I agree with you, boys,” said Obed, “but it’ll suit me well enough if I can find enough gold here. When I’ve made my pile, Australy won’t hold me long. I shall make tracks for home.”
“But you have Indians,” retorted the police captain, who did not quite relish the strictures upon the colony of which he was an official. “I would rather be captured by a bushranger than scalped by an Indian.”
“I agree with you, captain, but the Indians won’t scalp you unless you go where they are. I never saw one till I was past twenty-one.”
“Indeed!” said the captain, in evident surprise. “I thought they were all over the country. Why, one of your countrymen told me they would sometimes surprise families within ten miles of your great city of New York, and scalp them all. He said he was brought up—raised, he called it—twenty miles away, and was obliged to barricade the doors and windows every night, and keep a supply of loaded muskets by the side of his bed, to resist the Indians in case they made a night attack.”
Obed laughed till the tears came to his eyes, and the two boys also looked amused.
“Did you believe all this, captain?” he asked.
“Why not?” asked the captain, looking offended. “My informant was a countryman of yours.”