"A little of both," said Smith, lying down on a pile of dirty gunny sacks. "I've been out facing the Earth-destroyer and the Drier-up of water, and I wanted to get blind."
"Why are you back?" asked Tom. "I came in and saw the Baker yonder, and I found Hicks, too, so I just lay down. You had a bad time?"
The men he spoke of were at the far end of the hut; one was in an old bush bed made of stakes and sticks, and stretched sacking, while the other sat at the table, and scraped grease from it with a clasp knife.
"We funked it," said Smith. "There's no other word for it. Oh—blazes! I can't lie still."
He rose and went to the table, and sat opposite to Hicks. Reaching over, he borrowed the other man's knife without ceremony, and scratched his name in big capital letters in the wood. When he had finished SMITH, he jabbed the knife into the I of his name, and went on talking.
"We got sixty miles out across the sand, the mulga, and the porcupine grass; yes, sixty miles into the desert, and we saw its red rim dance, and its scrub crackle, and the water bags looked mean betting against the sun. So we put our tails between our legs, and crawled back sick, and ready to rot here. But when the rain comes, we're there, we're there."
"Why didn't you take camels?" asked Tom.
Smith smiled.
"Why didn't we organise an expedition? Camels and Afghans cost money. And I don't like their ways. Horses are good enough for me. You wait till the rain comes."
But another chipped into the talk.