Defago, however, heard that low laughter and looked up with surprise on
his face. The two men stood, side by side, kicking the embers about
before going to bed. It was ten o'clock--a late hour for hunters to be
still awake.
"What's ticklin' yer?" he asked in his ordinary tone, yet gravely.
"I--I was thinking of our little toy woods at home, just at that
moment," stammered Simpson, coming back to what really dominated his
mind, and startled by the question, "and comparing them to--to all
this," and he swept his arm round to indicate the Bush.
A pause followed in which neither of them said anything.
"All the same I wouldn't laugh about it, if I was you," Defago added,
looking over Simpson's shoulder into the shadows. "There's places in
there nobody won't never see into--nobody knows what lives in there
either."
"Too big--too far off?" The suggestion in the guide's manner was immense
and horrible.
Defago nodded. The expression on his face was dark. He, too, felt
uneasy. The younger man understood that in a _hinterland_ of this size
there might well be depths of wood that would never in the life of the
world be known or trodden. The thought was not exactly the sort he
welcomed. In a loud voice, cheerfully, he suggested that it was time for
bed. But the guide lingered, tinkering with the fire, arranging the
stones needlessly, doing a dozen things that did not really need doing.
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