To celebrate this addition to our larder, we held a concert that night, and took it in turns to be the audience.  Luck had rather a good voice, and treated me to French songs; his favourite started, “J’ai souvent parcouru le monde, les forets et les grandes savannes——­” This was always loudly applauded.  My songs were not a great success—­in fact an audience of one is all I can manage, that is if I am stronger, or fleeter of foot than he is.  Luck was polite enough to say he enjoyed my rendering of “The Scottish Cavalier.”  Then we used to read aloud to each other by the light of the camp-fire.  I did most of the reading, for my mate’s English was not as clear as it might have been.

Athletic sports, too, we used to indulge in, feats of strength, and so forth, in most of which Luck was too good for me, but I always beat him at cock-fighting, which was rather a sore point.  In fact, considering that we were alone and had been so for many weeks, and were a long way into the interior, “outside the tracks” by a good many score of miles, we managed to be fairly cheerful on the whole.  I do not like writing about my companion’s crotchets, because it seems unfair, since one’s own shortcomings never find the light unless the other man writes a book too.  By freely conceding that sometimes I must have been a horrible nuisance to him, I feel absolved in this matter.  When Luck used to get sulky fits, he really was most trying; for two or three days he wouldn’t speak, and for want of company I used to talk to the camels; at the end of that time, when I saw signs of recovery, I used to address him thus, “Well, Bismarck, what’s it all about?” Then he would tell me how I had agreed to bake a damper, and had gone off and done something else, leaving him to do it, or some such trivial complaint.  After telling me about it, he would regain his usual cheerfulness.  “Bismarck” was a sure draw, and made him so angry that he had to laugh as the only way out of it without fighting someone.  Luck, you see, was from Alsace, and did not care about the Germans.

CHAPTER III

FROM MOUNT SHENTON TO MOUNT MARGARET

But to continue our journey.  We left Mount Grant on May 8th, travelling South-West, and once away from the hills came again into sand and spinifex.  From absence of feed we tied the camels down two nights running.  The second night we had a visit from a native gentleman, and by his tracks in the morning we saw that he had been quite close to our heads at one time.

On the 10th a great change occurred in the country, and on passing through a thicket, we found a great wall of rock (decomposed granite) barring further progress.  Following along the wall we came upon a gap, and, entering, reached a nice little plain of saltbush, surrounded by rocks and cliffs.  This remarkable gap in the apparently extensive wall of rock we christened the “Desert’s Gate,” for we hourly expected to see better country.