"It's agin the nature of things," said the Baker, who began to think Smith was mad.
"Not Australian things, my son," said Smith. "In some of the rivers here there are natural outlets on to the plains. When the river rises a certain height the water pours down a billabong. I know one out of the Lachlan, in New South Wales, which is full three hundred miles long, and ends in a swamp. There must be a big river to the north of us, and the rain we had at New Find must have been very heavy up at its head waters, wherever they are."
The Baker, after a few explanations, got hold of the main facts, which are just as Smith stated them, but he criticised the premises.
"'Ow can you be sure this is a billabong?" he asked.
Smith shrugged his shoulders.
"There's only one way to be certain, and that's to follow it down to the end. But I think a very little more might settle it."
"Then I reckon as we've come so far we'd better be sure," said the Baker, "though it will be an offul sickener to 'ave to do back tracks."
So that day, and part of the next, they still went south. By noon they found the water dwindling rapidly, as the timber got smaller and scantier, and there was little more beyond it than a boundless dry desert of scrub.
"It must vanish in this wilderness," said Smith; "it will be sucked up in another twenty miles, for dead sure. I think it's right about, Baker."
And turning, they faced the three days' journey back to the first camp, upon the billabong's banks.