For several days after leaving the scene of Bob's adventure the travellers struggled over a most disheartening tract of country. The timber belt amid which they had discovered water proved to be but a narrow strip, extending down from the north-west; it evidently marked the course of an ancient river-bed, for immediately beyond its scope the sullen desert appeared bare of all vegetation, save for occasional clumps of saltbush and tufts of spinifex grass. Over this barren waste they forced their dogged course, starting at sunrise and halting towards noon, when the heat became too terribly oppressive both for man and beast; then in the evening they would continue the journey, sometimes marching late into the night. It was well for them that water had been found so opportunely, for assuredly none promised in the arid sands they were now encountering. The fifth day, however, brought with it the hope of better things. Away to the east the landscape took on a much more broken aspect, a feature which gradually extended right across the line of travel. Great dry gullies, starting from apparent nothingness, tore up the plain in all directions, and giant boulders of desert sandstone outcropped in prodigal profusion. And this drastic change[Pg 228] in the land surface cheered the wanderers mightily, for though in itself it offered greater obstacles to progress than the weary sand-flats, it relieved the eyes, which had become so weary of gazing at the seemingly everlasting monotonous desert, and uplifted their hearts strangely.

Another day, and several mouldering ridges surrounded them; mere hillocks of sand they were, yet, rising as they did abruptly from an even expanse, they appeared in the distance as precipitous mountain steeps, and it was hard to believe that their grandeur would fade away at a closer view. Within these guarding barriers, a beautiful white tableland lay spread, so white and pure that it glittered like marble in the sun's rays. The sight was a dazzlingly splendid one, and Jack, who had been the first to climb the gentle elevation hiding the valley from the south, had exclaimed in delight—

"What a huge lake we are coming to; it looks like a great frosted Christmas card!"

"Lake!" Mackay had answered, almost sorrowfully. "Ay, it's a lake that will give us a maist desperate thirst, instead o' quenching what we've got."

And soon the truth of this remark was borne painfully on them all, for the lake was a mass of crusted and crystallized salt, that crushed like tinder beneath their feet and showered over the heads of the voyagers in sparkling clouds of finest dust. It filled their ears and eyes and nostrils; they inhaled the minute grains with every breath; it covered their tattered clothing in a gauzy film of white.

"Well, I'm blest!" ejaculated Emu Bill, "if this ain't the cruellest joke to play on a thirsty sinner, an' nary a drink within hundreds o' miles!"

[Pg 229]

"Shut up, Bill, an' ye won't swallow so much of it," retorted Never Never Dave, unsympathetically. Then he was moved to further speech. "Bless yer soul! It's a whole brewery we'll want afore we gets through this, I'm thinking."

"I had an idea," observed Mackay, blandly, "that you two had joined the temperance party a week or so before we left, so as to get accustomed to a bit o' a drought."

"Temperance party!" stormed the unusually loquacious Never Never, "I reckon this here circus would break up any anti-thirst campaign in less'n five minutes."

He would have continued, but his companion sternly rebuked him by casting at him the words with which he had himself been silenced. After that not a word was spoken for fully ten minutes, and the camel team staggered blindly on, floundering through intervening salt wreaths like ships in a heavy sea. The lake appeared to be nearly six miles in length, which meant that at least two hours would be spent in the crossing, for their rate of travel seldom exceeded three miles an hour, and was more often considerably less. In that time, if each man satisfied his craving for water from their very limited store, there would be but little left, and by Bob's calculations they were yet about thirty miles from the location of Fortunate Spring. But though each of the little party suffered severely, not one of them made other than jocular mention of his longing, and Mackay felt proud of the fortitude and reserve they displayed. He was especially concerned for Bob and Jack, for they, not having been hardened to such experiences, must have felt the influence of their salt bath most keenly; but if they were in any way incommoded they showed no sign. Bob walked by Mackay's side,[Pg 230] talking at intervals concerning the probable geological history of interior Australia—a subject of endless interest to him. Jack and the Shadow strode at Misery's head, for now Fireworks needed no guiding hand at his nose-rope, but followed submissively in the rear of Repentance, and from snatches of their conversation, which floated to Mackay's ears, he gathered that Jack was giving his Australian comrade a description of the snows and frosts of the old country as a set-off to the blazing heat they were now experiencing.

"Yes, I reckon I'll go home with you," the Shadow was saying. "It must be a grand country, wi' no snakes nor centipedes nor other crawlers, an' nary muskittie to nibble you in your sleep."

Bob laughed. "I'm afraid the confined spaces at home would hardly suit him after this," he said. "I don't think I could stand the nature of things on the other side myself now."

"Because you're a born wanderer, Bob," smiled Mackay; "an' the world itself will soon be too small for you."

At last the end of the salt lake was reached, and cheerfully a path was forced over the encircling ridges, for all had high hopes of what might lie beyond. But disappointment again was their portion: the grim, unbroken desert stretched before them in all its hideous dreariness; the land of beau desire had not yet come.

"I remember well," said Mackay, "that Fortunate Spring was in a pretty bare sort o' country, but it certainly wasna as bad as this, although we had a hard tussle before we came to it."

On, on, they struggled; but, if anything, their course became more difficult as they proceeded. On the following[Pg 231] morning a gentle wavy outline against the sky in the northerly distance warned them of some impending change, but by this time the members of the expedition had become spied to their comfortless lot, and scarce dared hope for an improvement until they neared the portals of their goal, their shadowy land of El Dorado.

Gradually the sinuous curves on the horizon loomed up plainer to the view, and lo! as they crested an intervening sand hillock, a strange sight met their gaze. As far as the eye could reach west or north, a sea of undulating sand ridges appeared, rolling down like gigantic breakers from the dim north-west, the mighty valleys between each swelling sand-wave being over a hundred yards apart and fully thirty feet deep. Capping these wonderful billows regular rows of saltbush and spinifex, so regularly spread, indeed, that in the rosy morning light the whole scene was like some Brobdingnagian field, with furrows bearing luxurious vegetation.

"I reckon we has struck the land o' Goschen at last," said the Shadow, joyously.

"It does look pretty," Jack allowed hesitatingly, as they stood to take in the view, and waited for the others to come up. Indeed, so unaccustomed had they grown to seeing such close array of even the wiry desert growths that for the moment all imagined they looked upon a wildering forest. The saltbush was by the fantasy of mirage exalted to lordly proportions, and the spiky spinifex patches drooped in the sun's rays like the spreading fronds of the stately palm.

Mackay dispelled the illusion; he of all the party seemed ill at ease.

"I didna think the sand-waves extended so far back,"[Pg 232] he muttered, half to himself. Then he added, aloud, "It's no' a land o' promise you're lookin' at, boys; it's a deceiving land o' misery an' dispair, where many a good man has lost his life."

"But what about the beautiful trees and shrubs?" asked Bob, in wonderment. "They seem to stretch back for miles and miles."

"It's only another case where distance lends enchantment, as the poet says, my lad. Your trees are only saltbush, and instead o' growin' closely, there's over fifty yards between each o' them; it's those behind that fill in the gaps. The eye can never understand the perspective o' this country, the air is so clear that distant objects almost blend wi' what is close at hand."

He spoke truly. When they forced their way at a difficult angle across the vast undulations, they discovered to their sorrow that only the sparsest of vegetation found root on the hill crests, while the long interstices were absolutely barren. Not only this, but the sand on the inclines and declivities was so loosely packed that the camels sank to the knees in their strenuous efforts to scale them, and had to be pulled over the barring obstacles by sheer force.

"A day of this will just about finish Remorse," said Mackay, noting how that meek yet willing animal was labouring under its load. "I think, Bob, we'd better keep in the trough o' these confounded waves until we run oot o' them, I ken we must be near the edge as it is, for I mind that Fortunate Spring was a good day's travel past their eastern limit. That was why the chief called it by that name. We were vera nearly lost on those same ridges; we didna find a drop o' water for over a[Pg 233] hundred miles, and we were just about dead beat when we came upon it."

"How far do they run towards the north?" questioned Bob.

"Well, Carnegie, who was one o' the finest explorers that ever handled a sextant, calculated they covered nearly three hundred miles o' West Australia. What their area is God only knows, yet it must be over fifty thousand square miles."

"I should think this would be nearly as bad as the Sahara," said Jack, as he tugged at Misery's rope. "I haven't seen a drop of water since we started, unless that which Bob fell into."

"The Sahara?" echoed Mackay. "Why, we wouldn't ca' it a desert at all. It's only because it's so near the old country that it is considered to be anything extraordinary. This country, Jack, wouldna be an explorer's preserve if it contained as much water as the Sahara. It would be overrun in every direction by gold-miners."

Then Jack was silent, marvelling greatly that in his earlier youth at school he had learned so little concerning the vast sandy wastes of Australia. Soon, as they kept on their altered course, the retarding undulations began to grow less and less high, and by late afternoon they had merged into the monotonous plains, now welcome indeed to the travellers after their encounter with the formidable sand-ridges. But their progress that day had barely totalled ten miles, and the camels were well-nigh exhausted after their extreme exertions. The poor brutes had had a severe experience from the beginning, and the rough usage was telling heavily upon their strength. That night they could scarcely muster up sufficient[Pg 234] spirit to chew their usual meal of saltbush tips, and, after a few weak efforts, Remorse and Repentance lay down in the sand, while Misery and Fireworks gazed at the little group around the camp-fire with mute, appealing eyes.

"I hope we don't have any trouble finding that spring," said Mackay, anxiously, and instinctively they all turned to Bob with a questioning look. The young navigator winced as he took out his notebook and hurriedly checked his previous calculations.

"We were in latitude 28° 24′ 7′′ at noon to-day," he said quietly; "that should make us about seven miles only from the location of Fortunate Spring, allowing we made five miles since lunch."

"But the longitude, Bob?" asked Mackay. "How do we stand for that?"

Bob again examined his log-book. "I have it marked at 125° 11′ 17′′," he answered, "but we came a good bit easterly since that. I'll try it again in the morning, though I think we're almost on the correct line now, and should hit the Spring by going due north."

He handed the book to Mackay, who glanced at the figures and mentally checked the simpler calculations, but he did not ask for Bob's table of logarithms, and the young man felt satisfied. Bob, indeed, was sure of his positions; they had been worked out with painful exactitude, but he could not help feeling anxious about the morrow. The country in the vicinity seemed so utterly arid and barren. Could the original figures he received be correct? Might not possibly some mistake have crept into Bentley's estimates? He shuddered at the thought, then was immediately sorry for the passing doubt. Who[Pg 235] was he who dared question the accuracy of an old and tried explorer's chart? Yet Bob went to sleep that night feeling vaguely uneasy, and by early sunrise he was up taking altitudes, Jack and the Shadow attending him to mark the time of his observations. It was nearly nine o'clock before they were ready to move out that morning; the camels had for a long time refused to be loaded, and when loaded they could not be prevailed upon to ar............