told Moongarr Bill that in England
she had seen a dowser searching for hidden springs by means of a forked
hazel twig carried in front of him which pointed downwards where there
was water and asked why Australians didn't adopt a similar method. At
which Moongarr Bill laughed derisively, and said he did not hold with
any such hanky-panky.

'Bad luck, Biddy,' McKeith said behind her. 'If there had been the
proper amount of rain in these last three or four months, we'd have had
the one thing that's wanting now to make this the ideal camp I've had
on the top of my fancy--a running creek of pure water. But never
mind--the water's there, though you can't see it.... That's got it,
Bill!'

For already the sand was darkening and moisture was oozing in the hole
Moongarr Bill had been digging, and which he widened gradually into a
respectable pool of water. When it had settled down, all the billies
were filled and the horses driven to it, whinnying for a drink.

Lady Bridget watched the evening meal being prepared between the two
fires--only watched, for she was sternly forbidden to set hand to it.

'No canned goods, nor cooked food,' McKeith said, were allowed at this
lay-out. Moongarr Bill was first-class at frying steak. He himself was
going to boil the quart-pot tea and would give Biddy a demonstration in
johnny-cakes, made bush fashion at their own camp fire. The sheet of
bark had been cut into sections--one sub-divided into small squares to
serve as plates. The inside looked clean as paint, and smelled of
Mother Nature's still-room. Colin mixed the flour and water upon the
larger sheet and worked up a stiff dough. He kneaded it, slapped it
between his broad palms, cut it and baked the cakes in the ashes; then,
butter being the only luxury permitted, he split them and buttered
them; and Lady Bridget found in due time that not even the lightest
Scotch scones taste better than bush johnny-cakes.

Quart pot tea, likewise--made also in true bush fashion. First the
boiling of the billy--Colin's own particular billy, battered and
blackened from much usage--half the battle, he explained, in brewing
bush tea. Then, regulation handfuls of tea and brown store sugar thrown
in at the precise boiling moment. Now the stirring of the frothing
liquid with a fresh gum-twig. Then the blending and the cooling of
it--pouring the beverage from one quart pot into another, and finally
into the pannikins ready for the drinking.

Proudly, roun