“Pick up yor swag an’ foller me,” ordered Tom. “I’ll take yer right away.”
The elder conspirator, staggering under a heavy load, led the way.
They skirted a weedy swamp, disturbing the wild duck and ibis at their feed, and came out upon a short creek, which emptied its shallow tide into the Broadstream.
The banks of the creek were covered by a dense scrub of tangled lantana bush.
“We can’t get through this,” said Dave, as they paused at the edge of the scrub.
“I can,” he said; “stoop down, an’ foller me.”
He went on his hands and knees, and started crawling along a track made probably by paddymelons or wallabies.
The boys wormed their way through the lantana a foot at a time, dragging their swags after them, until they arrived at the edge. Here the tall water reeds rustled their leaves softly in the night wind.
“What do you think of this fer a hiding place?” ask Tom. “Kin you see the boat?”
“No,” replied Dave, peering into the darkness. “I’ll be hanged if I can. Where is she, Tom?”
For answer Tom felt with his hands along a small log, half hidden in the mud, found a rope, and began to pull it gently towards him.
The two boys bore on the painter. The reeds swayed and parted, and out of the darkness came the bow of a boat.
“By gosh!” cried Dave, “she’s a beaut. I wonder where she came from?”
“That’s got nothing to do with us,” responded Tom. “Git the swags in. She’s our boat, anyhow; I found ’er.”
“Where’s the paddles?” asked Dave. “Did she have any paddles when you found ’er?”
“Only a broken one,” replied Tom, “but I got two since. Git in!”
Tom cast loose with the air of the commander of a man-o’-war.
“I’ll pole ’er out of the creek,” he said, “and then I’ll let you pull one oar. Sit still, and don’t make no row.”
“We got to go as quiet as mice,” he explained, digging the blade of an oar in the soft black mud, and pushing the boat out gently through the high reeds into the stream. “Ere’s your oar, an’ don’t make no more nise with that rollick than you kin ’elp.”
They sculled down stream in silence, taking care to dip the oars into the water as noiselessly as they could, and keeping in under the shadow of the banks.
It was all splendidly mysterious, and exciting, and brave, and good. Overhead the skies were powdered with stars, and when they drew in their paddles and drifted, the two adventurers could see the reflections of a myriad of scintillating worlds mirrored in the dark waters of the Broadstream.