This Bird
We Cut Into Strips Of Meat Which We Dried In The Sun.
To celebrate this addition to our larder, we held a concert that night,
and took it in turns to be the audience.
Luck had rather a good voice,
and treated me to French songs; his favourite started, "J'ai souvent
parcouru le monde, les forets et les grandes savannes - - " This was always
loudly applauded. My songs were not a great success - in fact an audience
of one is all I can manage, that is if I am stronger, or fleeter of foot
than he is. Luck was polite enough to say he enjoyed my rendering of
"The Scottish Cavalier." Then we used to read aloud to each other by the
light of the camp-fire. I did most of the reading, for my mate's English
was not as clear as it might have been.
Athletic sports, too, we used to indulge in, feats of strength, and so
forth, in most of which Luck was too good for me, but I always beat him at
cock-fighting, which was rather a sore point. In fact, considering that we
were alone and had been so for many weeks, and were a long way into the
interior, "outside the tracks" by a good many score of miles, we managed
to be fairly cheerful on the whole. I do not like writing about my
companion's crotchets, because it seems unfair, since one's own
shortcomings never find the light unless the other man writes a book too.
By freely conceding that sometimes I must have been a horrible nuisance
to him, I feel absolved in this matter. When Luck used to get sulky fits,
he really was most trying; for two or three days he wouldn't speak, and
for want of company I used to talk to the camels; at the end of that time,
when I saw signs of recovery, I used to address him thus, "Well, Bismarck,
what's it all about?" Then he would tell me how I had agreed to bake a
damper, and had gone off and done something else, leaving him to do it, or
some such trivial complaint. After telling me about it, he would regain
his usual cheerfulness. "Bismarck" was a sure draw, and made him so angry
that he had to laugh as the only way out of it without fighting someone.
Luck, you see, was from Alsace, and did not care about the Germans.
CHAPTER III
FROM MOUNT SHENTON TO MOUNT MARGARET
But to continue our journey. We left Mount Grant on May 8th, travelling
South-West, and once away from the hills came again into sand and
spinifex. From absence of feed we tied the camels down two nights running.
The second night we had a visit from a native gentleman, and by his tracks
in the morning we saw that he had been quite close to our heads at one
time.
On the 10th a great change occurred in the country, and on passing through
a thicket, we found a great wall of rock (decomposed granite) barring
further progress.
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