undertaken. The cart sank up to the hubs in a bog, and the oxen stood
still in patient despair.

"Well, if this don't beat all creation!" ejaculated Obed. "I've been in
the Western States, and I thought I knew something about mud, but
Australy's ahead. I say, Fletcher, is there much of this that we've got
to go through?"

"Mud's the rule, and dry land the exception," answered Fletcher coolly.

"Well, that's comfortin'!" remarked Stackpole, drawing a deep breath. "I
s'pose people do get through after a while."

"Yes, generally. I was six weeks getting to the Ovens once."

"I wish we had some ovens to bake this mud," said Obed, with a grim
smile at his joke. "It would take a powerful large one."

There was nothing for it but dogged perseverance. It took an hour to get
the oxen and cart through a bog a hundred feet across, and the
appearance of the party, when they finally reached the other side, was
more picturesque than attractive.

"How would Clinton get along here?" suggested Harry. "I can imagine the
poor fellow's despair."

"His trousers would suffer some," said Jack. "I think it would break his
heart. The sea is much nicer. If we could only go by water," and the
young sailor looked down at his mud-bedraggled clothes, and his shoes
caked thickly over with the tenacious mud.

"Yes, the sea would be cleaner at any rate. I agree with you there,
Jack."

Arrived on the other side of the bog, they were obliged to give the
tired cattle a rest. Indeed, they needed rest themselves.

At the end of the day they made an encampment. As well as they could
judge, they were about eight miles from Melbourne.

"Eight miles; and how far is the whole distance?" asked Harry.

"About a hundred miles," answered Fletcher.

"At this rate, we can go through in twelve or thirteen days, then."

"You mustn't expect this rate of speed," said Fletcher. "We shan't
average over five miles."

"Well, I hope we'll get paid for it," said Obed. "If we don't I'd better
have stayed in Californy. We haven't any such mines as this in that
country."

"You'd better have stayed there," said Fletcher dryly, and he evidently
wished that his companion had done so.

"'Variety's the spice of life,' as my old schoolmaster used to say,"
responded Obed. "I kinder want to see what Australy is like. All the
same I don't want to stump through to the other side of the globe."

The travellers encamped for the night in a dry spot among a group of
gu