And now it began to seem to Tom, and to Hicks, who was influenced by the condition of his horse, that they had gone out into the Big Impossible without much chance of doing anything. What had they to go on in estimating their chances? A heavy lump of gold mixed with quartz, a quantity of fevered talk streaked with a possible vein of real consciousness.
"How can we know he had his senses, even when he talked most sensibly?" asked Hicks. "I daresay, the fever invented it for him."
"It didn't h'invent the gold," urged the Baker.
Hicks grinned.
"Yes; but he might have got that anywhere. And, who's to know, now I come to think of it, that he didn't get it and the tip from another chap?"
This damped them a little.
"But it's all the same if he did," said Smith; "and with water and a bit of grass I'm for going on. I'll go by myself."
"Not you," said Mandeville.
"I will, by the Powers," cried Smith; but, recognising what the Baker meant, he reached out his hand to his faithful chum.
"If you go, I go," said the Baker, with tears in his eyes.