“What’ll you be?” asked Wally—“cook?”
“No, slushy,” said Harry.
“No, I’ll take you two chaps along in those billets,” grinned Jim.
“I don’t know who’d be cook,” said Norah solemnly; “but I don’t think the men would be in very good condition at the end of the trip, whichever of you it was!”
With such pleasantries they beguiled the way, until, on rounding a bend in the track, a dull roar came plainly to their ears.
“What’s that?” asked Wally, stopping to listen.
“That’s the falls, my boy,” replied Jim. “They’re really quite respectable falls—almost Niagarous! Come along, we’ll see them in a couple of minutes.”
The sound of falling water became plainer and plainer as they pushed on. At this point the track was less defined and the scrub thicker—Jim explained that the cattle did not come here much, as there was no drinking-place for them for a good distance below the falls. They might almost have imagined themselves back in the bush near the Hermit’s camp, Harry said, as they pushed their way through scrub and undergrowth, many raspberry vines adding variety, if not charm, to the scramble. The last part of the walk was up bill, and at length they came out upon a clearer patch of ground.
For some time the noise of the falls had deepened, until now it was a loud roar; but the sound had hardly prepared the boys for the sight that met their gaze. High up were rocky cliffs, sparsely clothed with vegetation, and through these the creek had cut its way, falling in one sheer mass, fifty feet or more, into the bed below, hollowed out by it during countless ages. The water curved over the top of the fall in one exquisite wave, smooth as polished marble, but half-way down a point of rock jutted suddenly out, and on this the waters dashed and split, flying off from it in a cloud of spray. At the foot the cataract roared and bubbled and seethed in one boiling mass of rapids.
But the glory of it all was the sunlight. It fell right on the mass of descending water; and in the rays the fall glittered and flashed with all the colours of the rainbow, and the flying spray was like powdered jewels. It caught the drops hanging on the ferns that fringed the water, and turned them into twinkling diamonds. The whole fall seemed to be alive in the sunbeams’ dancing light.