As far as the eye could reach upon either hand naught could be seen but an unbroken expanse of plain.
It was a dreary and desolate sight.
For a whole day this sort of thing was encountered. Then at night a small lake was sighted.
“Begorra!” cried Barney. “We’ll ’ave a dhrink av that water anyway!”
So the Celt alighted from the wagon when the shores of the lake were reached, and bending down applied his lips to the water.
He took a deep draught of the liquid, and the next moment he wished he had not done so.
With a gasping cry he leaped to his feet.
“Bad luck to the same!” he howled. “Shure it’s the divil’s own kind av stuff. It’s nigh burned the mouth off me.”
“Why, of course, you silly fellow,” cried Frank. “Don’t you know that the water in all of the lakes in this part of the country is salt.”
“Shure I know it now, to me sorrow,” cried Barney, holding on to his mug.