The plan being arranged, we returned to the train, and, verging to the right, moved towards the gap my father had discovered. We reached one end of the lake which we had seen in the morning, and as the sun had already disappeared over the mountains, a halt was called, and we encamped in our usual fashion. We chose a spot with the lake to the south; on one side a rocky height rose precipitously out of the water, on the other was a thick wood; we had thus two sides of the camp strongly defended by nature, and by throwing up a breastwork round the other two sides the camp might be made as strong as could be required. Although an enemy might climb to the top of the rock, yet by posting a couple of men there with rifles, it might be defended against a whole host of foes. The wood being but a short distance off from which the timber required could be obtained, all hands setting to work, before dark the camp was as strongly fortified as we thought requisite. It was the first time for many days that we had enjoyed a feeling of perfect security. Dio had lighted a fire a little apart from that of the men, that its smoke might keep off the flies, which were inclined to be troublesome. To utilise it, he had hung up one of our pots to boil. Kathleen, being somewhat tired, was asleep in our waggon, while my mother and Lily were seated on the ground near it. Boxer and Toby lay a short distance off, as Lily said, looking at themselves in the lake, into which the oxen, having taken their fill of the luscious grass growing on the bank, had come down to drink. My father, accompanied by Dan and me, having made a circuit of the camp, to see that all was right, had just joined my mother. Dio, who had been attending to the pot, drew my father aside, to propound some knotty point with regard to the waggon which was under his especial charge, while Dan threw himself down by our mother, to have a game of play with Lily, Rose and Biddy being at a little distance off, busily washing clothes in the lake and singing at the top of their voices, the one a negro, the other an Irish melody, the result, as may be supposed, far from melodious, each stopping, however, every now and then to exchange jokes with the men who happened to be passing near them. That evening-scene in our camp near the mountains made an impression on me, which is as vivid at the present day as then, and I describe it more perhaps for my own gratification than for any it may afford the readers of my journal.