The next day, in spite of the assurances of the confident geographer, the little party found great difficulty in crossing the mountains. They were forced to advance at a venture, and descend into deep and narrow gorges that, for aught they knew, might end in a wall of rock. Ayrton would doubtless have been eventually nonplused had they not, after an hour's climbing, caught sight of a tavern on one of the paths of the mountain.
"Well!" said Paganel, as they reached the hostelry, "the proprietor of this inn cannot make a great fortune in such a place. Of what use can he be?"
"To give us the information we need for our journey," replied Glenarvan. "Let us go in."
Glenarvan, followed by Ayrton, entered the tavern. The landlord of "Bush Inn" was a coarse man, of forbidding appearance, who had to consider himself as the principal customer for the gin, brandy, and whisky of his tavern, and scarcely ever saw any one but squatters or herdsmen.
He replied in an ill-humored way to the questions that were addressed him; but his answers sufficed to determine Ayrton upon his course. Glenarvan, however, remunerated the tavern-keeper for the little trouble they had given him, and was about to leave the inn, when a placard, affixed to the wall, attracted his attention. It was a notice of the colonial police, detailing the escape of the convicts from Perth, and setting a price upon the head of Ben Joyce—a hundred pounds sterling to any one who should deliver him up.
"Indeed," said Glenarvan, "that is a rascal worth hanging."
"And especially worth taking," replied Ayrton. "A hundred pounds! What a sum! He is not worth it."
"As for the inn-keeper," added Glenarvan, as he left the room, "I scarcely put faith in him, despite his placard."
"Nor I either," said Ayrton.
Glenarvan and the quartermaster rejoined the party, and they all proceeded to where a narrow pass wound across the chain. Here they began the ascent.