“Ned Davis knows a lot, it seems.” “Don’t be so confounded smart and hippy. See? I know all your plans. I know all you can do, and all you’re going to try to do. And I know exactly where you’ll go wrong.” “Then we shan’t have the trouble of telling you.” “What d’you say to going up the river after Springer’s little city? Eh? There might be something in that.” “I met a power of clever men in my time,” said Cammock. “I don’t say men of learning and that. I mean clever fellers. I been up rivers with ’em.” “Looking for cities?” “Cities sometimes. Sometimes it was gold mines. Then again it’d be Indians. Boys to spear fish and that. Or perhaps it was only a snatching-raid. The clever fellers was never any good at it. But, hear ’em talk. My.” “I gather your intellect is trying to express the fact that you dislike me. I think I trace so much. I see your brain floundering towards it.” “Huh,” said Cammock, snorting. “I think I see you floundering towards that little city. Man alive. Good heart alive. D’ye know what sort one of them rivers is, to go up? You’ve neither skill nor sense of it. You lie there bilged in your bunk like a barge at low tide, and you come the funny nigger, trying to get a raise. I’ll tell you what them rivers is like. See here, now. Listen to me. I’ll perhaps give you some idea of the land you’re bound for.” “Really? I don’t know that I want to hear you.” “No. But I want you to hear me, Mr. Stukeley. I’ll tell you where the golden city is.” “Now you’re talking business.” “I’m glad to hear it. Well. When you come in from the Samballoes, you’ll see the land ahead of you, like a wall of green. Just like a wall. Think. Dense. Then you come to two rivers, about thirty yards across. They’re the two mouths of the Conception River. You try to go up one of them in your boat. First thing you know is a thundering big bar. You’d be surprised how ugly them little bars get. Well. Suppose you get across. What’s next? D’ye know what a snag is?” “A branch of alder or willow, fallen into the river.”