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Updated: June 27, 2025
We encamped in a cattle-pen, the camel-men making themselves a capital house with floors, walls, and sides of the thick mats of the camels. These mats are really like hard mattresses, nearly 1 inch thick, and very stiff, about 1 yard long by 2 feet wide. We always tried to encamp in a field if we could, as then we were sure of some earth for the tent-pegs.
It was a well-watered and sheltered nook, and the ground was so rich that there was always a mouthful of grass to be had there. It was a rare thing to see it without a fire; and the empty jam-tins, bottles, bits of bag, paper, tent-pegs, and fish-tins to be found there would have loaded a dozen waggons.
The trenches that had been cut round the tents were still perfect, and the marks of the fire-places distinguishable; while the trees in the neighbourhood had been felled, and round about them the staves of some casks and a few tent-pegs were scattered. Mr. Oxley had selected a place at some distance from the river, in consequence of its then swollen state.
Left alone, the man by the reedy lake stood watching them until they were out of view. The song came back to him, echoing across the waters: "O come, let us camp on the North Trail together, With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down."
He could not dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp, sweet, evening air: "Oh, where did you get them, the bonny, bonny roses That blossom in your cheeks, and the morning in your eyes? 'I got them on the North Trail, the road that never closes, That widens to the seven gold gates of paradise. 'Oh, come, let us camp in the North Trail together, With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down."
"And I've walked until my feet are wet." "And the fire is out!" "I don't mind wet feet," she hurried to assure him. Old Donald was already at work pulling the tent-pegs. Joanne came close to Aldous, and he saw again that deep and wonderful light in her eyes. This time he knew that she meant he should see it, and words which he had determined not to speak fell softly from his lips.
Farmer Wilson and a set of the Ipley men whom age had sagaciously instructed to prefer stratagem to force, had slipped outside, and were labouring as busily as their comrades within: stooping to the tent-pegs, sending emissaries to the tent-poles. "Drunk!" roared Will Burdock.
Below us lay two leaky scows, and eight men from Sati, on the other side of the Shayok, are pledged to the Government to ferry travellers; but no amount of shouting and yelling, or burning of brushwood, or even firing, brought them to the rescue, though their pleasant lights were only a mile off. Snow fell, the wind was strong and keen, and our tent-pegs were only kept down by heavy stones.
Mile after mile they journeyed, a troop of interested people coming after; the sun and the clear, sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home; the forest now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a blank wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle and scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle of birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl.
The excessive vegetation produced by the stirred-up soil had covered and hidden the empty tin cans, broken boxes, and fragments of clothing which usually heaped and littered the tent-pegs of the pioneer. Nature's own profusion had thrust them into obscurity.
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