r a good swim, to come out ready to dry themselves in the
sun, and, after dressing, enjoying the sensation of being freed from the
dust and salt which had clung to their skins.

"I say, bother the old gold!" said Ned again, as they stood gazing at
the mountains half bidden by the delicate clouds of mist curling about
their sides and clinging to the great peak which had formed their guide.
"Isn't it lovely! Why can't we live here?"

"Because we've got something else to do," said Chris grimly. "Besides,
how could we live?"

"Live? Why, the same as we did at the plantation. I believe that
everything would grow here and that we could raise abundance of fruit."

"And who should we sell it to?"

"Bother! Never mind about selling it," cried Ned contemptuously. "Eat
it ourselves."

"Live on oranges, eh? What stuff you talk! Ask your father what he
thinks."

"But there'd be plenty of other things here to eat. We could grow corn,
and graze cattle, and keep poultry. I dare say we shall come across
buffaloes and deer. Then there are abundance of birds, and I dare say
these fish in the pools would be good, without reckoning on the salmon."

"What salmon?" said Chris grimly.

"The salmon in the rivers that come down from the mountains over there."

"Of course!" cried Chris mockingly. "Here, let's go salmon-fishing this
morning. We've got hooks and lines packed up somewhere, and I don't
suppose it will take us long to find a salmon-river."

Ned stared wide-eyed at his comrade, who burst out laughing.

"Oh I say, Ned, what a baby you are! I shall tell them over our
breakfast everything you--Oh! I say! Smell that?"

"Yes," cried Ned eagerly. "Coffee."

"No, no; that other smell. I know! old Griggs is frying something for
breakfast. Come on."

The scene around was glorious; there was the blue sunlit sky, in the
distance the purple mist and the glistening silver of pool after pool,
while all else was golden green--tree, bush, and waving reed, rush and
grass. To a couple of boys whose eyes had been smarting for days in the
dusty glare, the country around seemed perfect in its beauty. But
though they had been revelling therein, and enjoyed it to the full, now
that they were refreshed by their bath all seemed as nothing compared
with the film of grey smoke that arose from close by the heap of packs
beyond which the ponies and mules were grazing, half-hidden by the lush
rich grass which brushed their fla