The fire-house a
limp ruin, the camp bed I have been thinking fondly of for the past
hour a water cistern. I tilt the water out of it, and say a few
words to it regarding its hide-bound idiocy in obeying its military
instructions to be waterproof; and then, while the others are
putting up the fire-house, Head man and I get out the hidden
demijohn of rum, and the beef and rice, and I serve out a tot of rum
each to the boys, who are shivering dreadfully, waiting for Cook to
get the fire. He soon does this, and then I have my hot tea and the
men their hot food, for now we have returned to the luxury of two
cooking pots.
Their education in bush is evidently progressing, for they make
themselves a big screen with boughs and spare blankets, between the
wind and the fire-house, and I get Xenia to cut some branches, and
place them on the top of my waterproof sheet shelter, and we are
fairly comfortable again, and the boys quite merry and very well
satisfied with themselves.
Unfortunately the subject of their nightly debating society is human
conduct, a subject ever fraught with dangerous elements of
differences of opinion. They are busy discussing, with their mouths
full of rice and beef, the conduct of an absent friend, who it seems
is generally regarded by them as a spendthrift.
