Great congratulations greeted them from the resident partners, and much curiosity was expressed as to the nature of the supplies which they had brought with them, as well as of those which were to follow on, with the machinery, and all the component parts of the up-to-date plant, which were even now on the road. As the prospectors and shareholders in the Reward Claim, they were objects of respectful admiration, and praised in the local newspapers for endurance, high intelligence, courage, all sorts of heroic qualities—the whole finished off with the golden crown of success, which never fails to irradiate the wearer and his surroundings.
Awaking from his humble but not uncomfortable couch in the tent, which had been pitched without loss of time, Arnold Banneret gazed around the wide expanse with grateful and, indeed, enviable feelings. Here was, if not the goal of his ambition, a near approach to it. He had neared the winning-post, and though the trophy had not as yet been placed in his hands, there was no moral doubt that he would shortly be in possession of the coveted prize—and what a prize it would be! Well worth the toil, the risk, the anxiety which he had gone through, the years of hard work—sometimes indeed pressing closely upon his powers of mind and body. With but a moderate income, he had cheerfully faced the task of providing for the wants of a large family. They had been fed and clothed, educated and prepared for their station in life as gentlefolk. At times there had been but the narrowest margin—at times painful doubt, depressing anxiety.
But the parents had never despaired. A gleam of hope—a ray of sunshine even when skies were darkest—had never failed to illumine the path. One of the partners in the social-personal-national enterprise (it is unnecessary to inquire which) had never faltered or swerved from the solemn contract; and now, after years of doubt and struggle, the goal was won. Success was assured—it was almost a moral certainty,—a life-long provision for him and his, an assured position, a name and fame, even distinction, for all their future life. As he stood before his tent door and watched the red-gold sun invade the unclouded firmament, when the morning mists, unlike the heavier masses of more favoured climes, made haste to disperse and disappear, he could have fancied himself an Arab sheikh. There were no Bedouins within sight, a fact on which he congratulated himself. But a long line of camels with their turbaned drivers, coming ‘up from the under world,’ supplied proof that the desert conditions were not wholly, absolutely non-existent.