“You’re worse,” Robin assured him.
“Couldn’t be!”
Their faces were almost unrecognizable with heat and dirt and the brown dust of fern-seed. Their clothes, torn in a hundred places, hung about them in soiled tatters: long, bleeding scratches showed beneath many of the rents. They looked at each other, panting, and laughed.
“At least we can have a drink and a wash,” Robin said. “What a comfort to think we needn’t mind getting wet!” She knelt down in the nearest pool, and as the stone on which she had chosen to kneel decided to turn completely round, she fell sideways into the water with a yelp and a stupendous splash. Barry shouted with laughter. She emerged, dripping, with an air of pained surprise.
“I said I didn’t mind getting wet, but this is wetter than I meant,” Robin said. “Oh, well, I’ll dry soon, and it’s very refreshing.” They scrubbed their hands and faces, dipping their heads under the hurrying water, and coming up with gasps of satisfaction; then they rubbed wet earth into their burning nettle-stings, already showing like angry weals upon the skin. Then, for they dared not linger, they set off upon the toilsome journey down the creek.
It was as well that they had shortened it by keeping to the track above, for their feet were still sore from the wading of the morning, and from being all day in soaked boots; and each step was soon a torment. They had not time to pick their way: the thought of the three whom they had left in the lonely camp whipped them forward, so that they plunged recklessly over the slippery stones, often losing their footing altogether. They had joked over it in the morning, but there was no joking now: it was hard enough to keep from wincing or crying out as the stones pinched and bruised their swollen feet, while their bodies ached with the perpetual effort to retain their balance.
“I think it’s nearly over,” said Robin, as she saw Barry lurch sideways, biting his lip to restrain an exclamation of pain. “Buck up, old chap—I believe we’re almost at the tree where we took to the creek first this morning.”
“Jolly good thing,” said the boy, trying to speak lightly. “You must be pretty sick of it, Robin—your boots are lighter than mine.” He forced a grin. “Wouldn’t this be great country for an aeroplane!”
“Rather—except when you wanted to land.” She looked ahead, and gave a joyful whistle. “There’s our tree!”
“Well, they say all things come to an end, but I was beginning to think that stretch of creek had no finish,” said Barry, as they climbed thankfully up the bank. “It’s all plain sailing now.”