“Well, I never did,” admitted Guy; “you are as plucky a little beggar as I ever saw of your age, white or black.”
For three days they pursued their course through the interminable scrub, occasionally suffering for want of water, and at other times rendered anxious by the idea that they had mistaken their course, and perhaps struck the barren, waterless thicket at a point where it was broader than they had imagined, in which case they might be a week or even a fortnight before they threaded its ofttimes fatal maze. On the fourth day they sent Doorival ahead to see if he could find any indication of a change of landscape, which would fortify them in the idea that they had not been mistaken in their calculations.
To their great joy their messenger returned before sunset with the welcome intelligence that he had seen open country ahead, and they would reach it early next morning.
A small supply of water being discovered, the little party camped, full of sanguine anticipation of the morrow, looking upon the worst of the journey as past, and already fancying themselves restored to civilization and free to enter upon the first stage of their successful discovery.
Their camp-fire was rather larger than usual that night. Some of the minor precautions were dispensed with. No sign of native trails had been seen lately, and after their repulse of the Raak army they felt themselves equal to any ordinary skirmishing party.
The partners talked long as they sat and smoked by the fire. Guy was unusually excited with the confirmation of their reckoning and the expectation of a trip to the metropolis for the presentation of their tenders, in the names of Redgrave and Waldron, for so many blocks upon either bank of the river Marion, with others, including, of course, Lake Maud and Mount Stangrove.
“It’s full of magnificent sensations, this rôle of successful explorer, Redgrave,” he said. “Nothing comes up to it that I ever felt before, especially when you see plainly before you the unmistakable profits and advantages. It comprehends so much beside discovery; it’s the creation, as it were, of a colony of one’s very own.”
“It’s a grand thing in its way,” agreed Jack, with less enthusiasm, recalling one great enterprise which had looked as fair and yet failed so fatally. “But, as I said before, many things have to be done yet; and I’m getting old enough, I fear, to dread the proverbial slip.”
“I know,” interrupted Guy, with eager scorn; “but there can’t be a break-down in our case—it’s morally impossible. They must accept our tenders. We can’t have any difficulty in selling some of our spare blocks for cash enough to put on store cattle. How glorious it will be to see them pitching into that lovely saltbush by the lake! I know my governor would send me out two or three thousand pounds if he knew I had a real partner and a real station—a country-side of my own.”
“It all looks very well, old fellow,” said Jack, “and I feel with you that nothing in the ordinary run of events can prevent our forming a fine property out of our discovery, which is entirely confined to our own knowledge. You had better go straight in with the tenders as soon as we reach the region of her Majesty’s mails, and I will stay at any convenient township till I hear from you.”