"Come on," he said. "I'm going your way. Shake up that beast of yours. I don't want to be all night."
He turned the mare's head to Pelican Pool, and she started the journey, walking fast. The other horse kept company at a jog-trot. Gregory began a rough ride. But he held his attention to the whisky bottle, and had spilled a big part of it before they were a mile on the way. The empty bottle was thrown grandly to the ground. As time went by he turned very friendly.
"I'll be showing you something in a mile or two—my oath! yes—the best copper show in the Gulf, or in Queensland for that matter. There's a fortune there, I say. D'yer hear me? I'll be driving my buggy and pair yet. I'll be buying more grog in a day than that cove at the pub sells in a year. No more blanky shovelling for me, you make no error. I'll have all the buyers in the country there 'fore the week's out. Old Neville down at Surprise, he'll be on his knees prayin' me to sell it him. 'Ear me?"
"I hear you," Power said. And with the last bit of good temper left he added, "Are you far down?"
"Matter o' thirty foot, and ore all the way. I tell yer I'll be the richest man this side of Brisbane. 'Ear wot I say?"
With spells of talk and spells of silence, they made the rest of the journey. Gregory was more master of himself on a horse than on the ground, and at the hour's end the travelling was done. Where they approached it the river ran in the rains with a two-mile span; but now the bed was dry and filled with stones and sand. Many mean trees grew in this country. Over stones and sand the riders passed, and under trees bearing in their branches the rubbish of forgotten floods. As they went on, the timber became dense and grew to a noble size; and presently here and there among distant laced branches showed the surface of Pelican Pool. The water was lit by the light of the moon. The Pool was shrinking every day; but it still covered a mile of country, and its breadth was a fair swimmer's journey.
"Where's the camp?" Power said.
"By the castor-oil bush."
Thereupon they inclined to the right hand. Large reaches of the Pool were now plainly to be seen—very fair they showed in the moonlight, with weeds trailing about the water, and here and there a large white lily a-bloom. Small fishes leaped in the shallows. Trees leaned patiently over both banks, spreading knotted arms. Now the camp came out of the trees. Two tents were rigged side by side; and not very far off had been built a room of poles and hessian. About an open-air fireplace were the ashes of the day's fire. A dog tied near the tents uncurled at their coming, and fell to barking with great good will.
"We're here," Gregory said. "The old woman must have turned in."