Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/236

 a bullock takes the place of the heart of a man. Who cares? If we hadn't found the track yesterday we might have lain and rotted in that lignum, and no one been any the wiser―or sorrier―who knows? Somebody might have found us in the end, but it mightn't have been worth his while to go out of his way and report us. Damn the world, say I!'

He smoked for awhile in savage silence; then he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, felt for his tobacco with a sigh, and said:

'Well, I am a bit out of sorts to-night. I've been thinking.…I think we'd best turn in, old man; we've got a long, dry stretch before us to-morrow.'

They rolled out their swags on the sand, lay down, and wrapped themselves in their blankets. Mitchell covered his face with a piece of calico, because the moonlight and wind kept him awake.