Mick fired into the air to frighten them and any of their companions who might be lurking near. When the report had died away, the darkness under the trees became full of little sounds like the patter of rain on leaves, or like sheep passing over soft sand; a scarcely perceptible sound, yet one which told of black savages creeping for safety into the depths of the scrub.

The shot woke the two boys. They turned to one another for an explanation and saw that Mick had not returned. His swag still lay where it had been tossed off the horse. They got up from their blankets and began fastening their boots. They saw Yarloo sitting up on the other side of the fire and called him to them. Yarloo always camped away from the other black boys, for he was a member of a different tribe.

"What was that shot, Yarloo?" asked Sax.

"Me can't know um," replied the boy. "Boss, him no come back. P'raps him bin shoot, eh?"

"Which way did he go?" asked Sax again. "It sounded quite close."

"Me find um all right."

"I vote we go too," said Vaughan.

Yarloo looked at him for a moment in hesitation; then he pointed to the other blacks and said: "No two fella white man go. No leave um camp quite 'lone. See?"

"He's right, Boof," said Sax. "You go with Yarloo. I'll stay," and as his friend and the black boy disappeared in the darkness, he heaped wood on the fire and blew it into a blaze.

Yarloo tracked Mick Darby with absolute certainty and found him within half a mile of the camp. The drover was surprised to see the white boy, and at once made use of Yarloo to put the horses together in a bunch and hold them for a time. He told Vaughan what had happened, for it was no good trying to keep the secret any longer. "We lost two horses last night," he said. "I told you they'd cleared out. But it wasn't that. The niggers had speared them."

"Then that's what the smoke signals meant?" asked Vaughan.

"Yes. I wasn't sure at first whether it was hunger or devilment, so I watched. They tried to get in amongst the horses again to-night."

"Did you hit anyone?" asked Vaughan.

"No. I didn't try. I fired into the air to scare them."

By this time Yarloo had walked round the horses, turning them towards the middle of the plain, and was squatting down on his haunches, watching.

"That's a real good sort of a nigger," said Mick. "He's got more sense than most of them. Seems to have taken to you boys. I wonder why."

"He used to work for Sax's father," explained Vaughan. "I thought you knew."

"I see. That explains it. Hi! Yarloo!" he called, and when the boy came up: "You go back longa camp. Watch till piccaninny daylight. No shut um eye, mind."

Yarloo grinned his understanding of the order and disappeared. Then the seasoned bushman and the new-chum white boy kept watch, turn and turn about till dawn. At least, that was the arrangement, but Vaughan found that the drover fell so soundly asleep, and seemed to be so very tired, that he did not wake him till the morning star was well above the trees and had turned from fierce red to clear pale silver in a sky which was rapidly becoming lighter.



CHAPTER VIII

First Sight of the Musgraves

Next day Mick Darby rode with cocked rifle in the lead of the plant. The white boys were not with him. They rode twenty or thirty yards in the rear of the mounted blacks, ready to give instant alarm of any danger. But for nearly a week nothing unusual happened. A few smoke signals were seen, but were so far away that they seemed to indicate that the wild blacks had taken warning and were retiring to their bush fastnesses, having been convinced that it was beyond their power to trick a watchful white man.

Night after night the horses were hobbled on the best feed that could be found, and were watched from sunset till dawn. The white boys took their turn at this work, at first together, but, as night followed night, and there was no sign of the blacks, Mick allowed them to take their watches alone. This experience did more than any other to impress them with Central Australia: its silence, its absolute loneliness, its vastness and the puny insignificance of man, who dared to pit his power against it.

As hour after hour went by, and Sax or Vaughan rode round the horses or squatted on the ground with the quietly breathing saddle-horse standing near, these lads were slowly but surely changed from school-boys to men. They felt that they were face to face with the power of untamed nature—the desert and the savage inhabitants of it—and that even they were units in an army of progress which was conquering that nature and making it minister to the needs of civilized man. Of course, these were not their actual thoughts, but that was certainly the general effect which night-watching had upon them.

Six days went by in this way and it appeared as if all danger was past. The party had been making towards a low range of hills on the western horizon, and on the seventh day the plant passed up a little valley and halted on the top for midday camp.

Through the clean sun-filled air of Central Australia the view was so clear that all sense of distance was lost, and objects many days away seemed no farther off than a few hours' ride. The character of the country was the same as that which they had travelled over since leaving Oodnadatta: masses of scanty mulga scrub standing out dark on a landscape of vast bare plains or rolling sand-hills. Far away, a pale-blue silhouette against the bright north-west sky, was a range of high mountains.

"Those are the Musgraves," said Mick, in answer to a question. "That's where those niggers come from who speared my two horses."

"Are the niggers very wild?" asked Sax, thinking of his father.

"They're the last that really are wild in this part of the country," answered the drover. "The rest have either come in and made camps near stations, or cleared right out into West Australia."

"Are there many of them?" asked Vaughan.

"Nobody really knows," replied Mick. "The Musgraves is a big slice of country, as you can see, and it stretches back for a couple of hundred miles north. They say there's plenty of water and game in those mountains. Chaps used to go there after gold, but so few of them came back that they chucked it and left the place alone. The Musgraves have got a bad name."

Mick Darby did not know that everything he said had a very personal application to one at least of his companions. The words of his father's note kept ringing in Sax's ears: "In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges," and his vivid imagination filled all sorts of details into the drover's bare statements about the dangers of the place. He noticed Yarloo looking intently at the distant peaks, and when he caught the boy's eye, a significant glance passed between them. They were both thinking of the lonely white man.

But imaginary dangers soon gave place to present interests. The saddle of the hills where they were camped was the eastern boundary of Sidcotinga Station, the run on which Mick was going to take up the duties of head stockman, and the boys were keen to note every landmark which he pointed out.

"How big is it, Mick?" asked Vaughan.

"Between six and seven thousand square miles."

"Miles! You mean acres, don't you, Mick?"

"Acres be blowed! No, miles. This isn't a cocky farmer's cow-paddock."

The extent of country amazed the boys. They were standing on a pretty high hill and could see over a vast scope of country, but Mick told them that a certain landmark near the head station was not even in sight, and that the run stretched on beyond that again for miles and miles.

"But how ever do you know when you've gone off the run?" asked Sax. "Is it fenced?"

Mick Darby laughed heartily. "Fenced!" he exclaimed. "Fenced! Oh my hat! No, lad, there's not a fence between here and glory, except round a little bit of a paddock where they keep the working horses over night. Why, d'you know that to fence Sidcotinga Station you'd need nearly four hundred miles of fencing? There's no timber for the posts in this part of the country, and as for wire—— No, they don't use fences in Central Australia."

This was such a new point of view to the boys, that during the afternoon's ride they asked innumerable questions of their kind-hearted friend. They heard that cattle are kept on any particular run because of the impossibility of their wandering more than a certain distance away from their water-hole. In fact, a run is made up of permanent waters and the area of country around them. There may be any amount of good feed on other parts of the run, but unless it is within reach of water it is absolutely useless.

The only chance that cattle have of straying is after rain, which falls very, very seldom in Central Australia. When it does fall, the stock wander off to new feeding-grounds, and may become stranded when the surface waters dry up. The stockmen are very busy at such times, tracking up cattle and bringing them back to their accustomed haunts.

All this and much more the boys learnt as they rode along, and although it seemed so new to them, there was a splendid sense that they were in it all, and that soon they would know these things from actual experience.

An experience of Central Australian life which might have ended fatally was to come to them sooner than they expected. Seeing that they were now on Sidcotinga Station country, and that they had not been molested for six days, Mick decided to let the horses go without being watched that night, taking the precaution of tying up his own saddle-horse in case of need.

Next morning all the boys had run away except Yarloo. He went out with a bridle at dawn and returned with the news that every one of the horses had been speared.



CHAPTER IX

Disaster

Breakfast was being prepared in camp when Yarloo brought in the terrible news. Mick Darby was greasing a couple of pack-girths, Vaughan was mixing a damper, and Sax was attending to the seven quart-pots near the fire and laying out the tucker on a clean bag. When Yarloo came in with his bridle in his hand, he did not say anything for a minute or two, but went over to the fire. He did not always go after the horses in the morning, for he was very useful at mending harness and doing odd jobs with the gear; therefore no one was surprised to see him back before the others. Presently Mick brought the two girths over to be warmed, so that the grease would sink right into the leather. He looked across the fire at Yarloo and saw an expression on the boy's face such as he had never seen there before. The native looked terribly scared. Mick had no idea what had upset the boy, and thought the fright was probably due to one of the many superstitions which are always liable to crop up. But he liked Yarloo, and asked him kindly: "What name, Yarloo? You see um Kadaitcha (avenging spirit), eh?"

The boy shook his head and fingered the bridle nervously.

"Which way Ranui, Ted, Teedee?" asked Mick again, noticing that the other boys had not come up and that it was getting near sunrise.

"Gone," said Yarloo.

It was not what was said so much as the tone of the boy's voice which made Mick look with sudden earnestness into Yarloo's face, and ask quickly: "Gone! What name you yabber gone? (What makes you say they've gone?)"

"Me think those three fella no come back," explained the boy. "Me track um up long way. They walk, walk. Oh my word, plenty walk." He pointed towards the distant mountains, and continued: "Me think they walk longa Musgraves."

Yarloo pronounced the word "Musgraves" in a tone of fear. It was a word to strike terror to the heart; a word which at once called to mind everything which was bad and treacherous and cruel about natives; a word which told of the last great stronghold of the blacks which white men had tried and tried again to take from them but without success. Sax and Vaughan looked at one another when the dreaded word "Musgraves" caught their ear. Yarloo saw their glance, and repeated, in a hopeless voice: "Me think they walk longa Musgraves."

"What time they go?" asked Mick, thinking that Yarloo must have made a mistake. "What time they start walk?"

The boy pointed to the western horizon and then shut his eyes, meaning that the others had started out directly it was dark after sunset last night. "Me see um track other black fella," he said. "Ranui, Ted, Teedee, they join those other black fella. Go 'way Go right 'way. Me think they no come back."

Suddenly the meaning of it all flashed into Mick's mind. "And the horses?" he asked eagerly. "What name the horses?"

Yarloo did not answer.

Mick sprang across the fire and seized the startled boy by the arm and shook him in his eagerness to hear all that had happened during that fatal night. "You yabber quickfella! quickfella! (You tell me quickly!)" he shouted. "What name horses?"

"Them bin speared."

"Speared!" The word came from Mick's lips with a yell of horror. "Speared!"

"Yah. Alabout. (All of them.)"

Mick sprang towards his own saddle-horse, which had been tied up all night. He unhitched it and was across its back before the white boys had had time to realize the meaning of the terrible news. "Show me!" he shouted, and he and Yarloo disappeared at once on the track of the horses.

The boy's report was only too true. The Musgrave blacks, who had not molested them for six nights, had done the most dastardly thing possible under the circumstances. They had stolen forward that night and speared every one of the hobbled horses. They evidently did not want food, for, as Mick and Yarloo went from one dead body to another, they saw that not a single piece of meat had been cut off. It was hate and not hunger which had actuated the deed. The poor faithful workers, some of whom had been the drover's companions for several years, were cold and stiff, showing that they must have been killed early the night before.

The tracks of bare native feet made it clear that, after completing their acts of cold-blooded murder—for it was nothing less—the warragul blacks had crept towards the drover's camp. They had approached it on the black boys' side of the fire and had thus missed seeing Mick's saddle-horse, which was tied to a tree near its master. The rest of the story was easy to read. The wild blacks had enticed the camp boys away, and Ranui, Ted, and Teedee had left everything behind them and had fled with the horse-killers through the night in the direction of the ill-famed Musgrave Ranges.

Mick's boys had actually taken no part in the killing; that was one thing in their favour. Another satisfaction, which stood out like a dull gleam of light in the grim dark tragedy, was that now there were three fewer men to share their limited supply of water. But the greatest good of all, in fact the only real ray of hope, was the fact that one horse was still left, Mick's stanch gelding, Ajax. If the drover had not fastened him up the evening before, and he had shared the fate of his companions, the outlook for the four men would have been black indeed. It was far blacker than they at first thought it to be, for one important thing was not found out till later, and when it was it took the bravest of brave hearts to stand up against such dire disaster. The marauders had taken all the water-canteens except one which had evidently escaped their notice by being near Mick's head. It contained a little over three gallons!

Eighty miles from water, in the heart of the sandy scrub-covered desert in blazing summer weather, with only a canteen half-full of water to serve four men!

It is under such circumstances as these that manhood is put to the test. All four men rose to the occasion. Sax and Vaughan, though still lads as regards their age, were in reality men. Nothing but the unconquerable spirit of man can survive in the battle against grim nature in the Central Australian desert, and these two, who had but a short time before been sitting in the classroom of a city school, had faced difficulties and had won through, by sheer pluck and resolution, and had therefore earned the right to be called men.

Yarloo showed his faithfulness on this occasion when it would have been so much easier for him to run away. Because he always slept some distance away from the other boys, he had not known of their silent departure in the night, but once he saw the terrible difficulties in which the little party had been placed, it would have been the most natural thing in the world for him to clear out and leave the three whites to their fate. He could even have stolen the horse in order to make his escape absolutely sure. He was a native, and could live and travel through the desert scrub day after day when a white man would certainly perish. He had been born and brought up to such a life, and when he threw in his lot with the three stranded white men, he was, in reality, jeopardizing his own chances of coming through the adventure alive. He chose to be faithful to his companions rather than make sure of his own safety.

Yarloo was a good boy and had therefore always been treated well by white men. He had not had many masters, and one of them stood out above all others in his primitive mind. He had been Boss Stobart's boy for years, and though he might work for other white men now and again—as in this case he was working for Mick—he remained at heart faithful to one man, first and last, and that man was Boss Stobart. Therefore it was probably not only Yarloo's naturally fine spirit which prompted him to stick to his companions when they were in trouble, but also the fact that one of them was the son of his real Boss. He felt that Sax was definitely in his own personal charge, and, though his simple mind did not know how it could possibly be brought about, he felt that some day he would be the means of reuniting father and son.

Mick Darby also proved himself equal to the occasion. In fact the sheer manhood of him rose supreme above every difficulty and triumphed over one disaster after another. There are some men whose stories are far greater than their actual achievements, and at times, when the drover had been telling yarns to the boys after sunset, they had wondered whether these things could possibly be true. It was not that they doubted their friend's veracity, but the country, the men, and therefore the happenings were so strange to the lads that they seemed to have an existence only in books and not to be possible in real life. But now Mick showed the stuff he was made of. When he had found out all there was to learn, about what the blacks had done, and exactly what position the party was left in, he stopped thinking about that part of the question and set his mind to solve the problem of the immediate future.

The first necessity was breakfast, and they ate heartily and drank sparingly, but enough to quench their thirst. Then Mick beckoned to Yarloo to sit down near him, handed his plug to the boy, and when he had broken off a pipeful, he jammed his own black brier to the brim and started to smoke. When he started to speak, he did so equally to all three men, black and white alike. Yarloo had definitely and of his own free will chosen to share whatever fate was in store for them, and had earned the right to be included in everything which they did. The boy did not presume on this unusual act of the white man; it is only a weak-spirited man who presumes.

"I reckon we're eighty miles from Sidcotinga Station. You think it, Yarloo?" asked Mick, turning to the boy.

The native faced in the direction of the station and considered, counting on his fingers. "Yah," he said at length. "Yah. Me think it two day ride, boss."

"Two days with a fresh horse, you mean," commented Mick. "Ajax hasn't had a drink for a whole day, remember.... That last water-hole's dry, and the one back of that's nearly a hundred miles from here.... So it must be Sidcotinga.... Let's see. We've got two and a half gallons of water, haven't we?"

The boys confirmed this estimate, and he went on:

"We needn't worry about tucker. We've got mobs of flour and sugar.... The question is: who's to ride ahead for water and horses. You lads don't know the way, so it's either Yarloo or me.... Yarloo's lighter on a horse than I am.... But he couldn't do as much as I could when he got there, supposing they were all out on the run.... Still, I could write a note to the cook, couldn't I?" He paused, considering, drawing in great breaths of smoke and puffing it out again on the still hot air till his head was surrounded by a cloud.

Yarloo was drawing blackfellow diagrams in the sand with a little stick, and looked as though he had made up his mind. So he had, but he waited for the white man to ask him for his opinion before giving it.

"What you think, Yarloo?" asked Mick, after a time. "You think it me or you ride Ajax longa Sidcotinga, bring um back water, horses, eh?"

Yarloo did not hesitate for a moment. "You ride, boss," he said decidedly. "You ride. Me stay here."

The tone surprised Mick, and he looked up quickly. "What name? (Why?)" he asked.

"White man drink more water nor black fella," he explained. "S'pose me stay, me drink little, little drop. Me think you drink big mob." He hesitated and dug the little stick into the ground with an embarrassed air. The boy had evidently got another reason, and his listeners wanted to hear it. He looked at Mick as if he didn't know whether he ought to say it or not, and then he blurted out: "You good white man all right, boss. You know um bush more better not big mob white men. (You know the bush better than most white men.) Yarloo know um bush much more better nor you, boss. Me bin grow up little piccaninny longa bush.... S'pose—s'pose you no come back.... S'pose you fall off horse.... S'pose you die, p'raps me find um water." He paused again, but it was clear that he had not finished.

"Good, Yarloo," said Mick encouragingly. "Go ahead."

"One time me work longa Boss Stobart," said the boy slowly and hesitatingly. "Him altogether good boss. Him plenty good quite. That one white boy," he pointed to Sax, "that one white boy, him belonga my old boss. Him belonga Boss Stobart.... Me stay, Misser Darby? You let Yarloo stay, eh?" The request was made in a voice of entreaty, as if the faithful native was asking a very great favour.

Mick at once complied with hearty good will. "Of course you stay, Yarloo. You stay all right. You look after white boy real good." Yarloo's face lit up with satisfaction and his expression assured the drover that the white boys would be perfectly safe in his hands.

Soon after coming to this decision, Mick Darby set out on Ajax for Sidcotinga Station. He knew that he would strike no water before reaching the homestead well, and that it was not at all certain whether the already thirsty horse could travel those eighty desert miles without a drink. He did not tell the boys of his fear, but started away with a cheery good-bye, carrying only a quart-pot of water for himself as well as a little damper and dried meat.

Fortune favoured the brave man. On the very first night, after he had travelled his tired horse on past sunset as long as he dared, he found a big patch of parakelia. This extraordinary plant sends up thick moisture-filled leaves in the middle of the most arid desert. The juice, which can be easily squeezed from parakelia leaves, tastes bitter and is not at all pleasant, but it has saved the life of many a bold adventurer in Central Australia. Stock can live on it for weeks at a time without a drink of water, and once Ajax got a mouthful of these cool succulent leaves, he did not move more than a few yards all night, but satisfied his thirst and hunger and then lay down.

Mick Darby watched all night. He was taking no more chances. No doubt he fell asleep from time to time, but at the slightest movement anywhere near, he was instantly and fully awake. Next day he rode a thoroughly rested horse and reached Sidcotinga Station the same night, after having covered sixty-three miles. Such a distance would not be at all unusual in good country, but in the desert, with the sun blazing down out of a cloudless sky on mile after mile of soft sand, it was a ride which none but the best of horses and the hardiest of men could have accomplished.

The drover had advised the boys to stay just where they were till he returned, and not exhaust themselves by walking. Yarloo therefore built them a rough sun-shelter of mulga boughs and they rested under this all day, doing nothing which would create thirst. In spite of every care, however, their mouths were clammy and their throats calling out for water long before sunset. Once a real thirst is created, it takes more water to quench it than it does to keep the thirst away, so they each had a drink at tea-time and felt all the better for it.

Soon after tea, Yarloo, who had gone away, came in with a bundle of sticks. "Whatever's that for?" asked Sax. Neither of the boys had got into the way of addressing the natives in broken English. "You're surely not going to make a fire, are you?"

Yarloo had to think for a minute or two before he understood what the white boy had said, and then he nodded his head. "Yah," he replied. "Me make um fire. S'pose um bad black-fella come up."

"But how about us?" objected Vaughan. "We'll be roasted alive."

The native did not catch the meaning of this remark, but he answered the question which Vaughan had in his mind. "By'm bye when it cool," Yarloo pointed to the sky, "we walk little bit."

"But Mick told us to stay here," said Vaughan again.

"Me think bad black-fella come up to-night," explained Yarloo, with great patience. "S'pose him see um fire, him think: 'White man sleep'. Then him creep up, spear-um, spear-um. S'pose we light fire then walk, bad black-fella throw um spear, no good, no good at all. White man go 'way." Yarloo grinned both at the thought of the safety of the party and of the discomfiture of the blacks.

The lads saw the force of Yarloo's argument. A big fire was lit, as if in preparation for spending the night, and then the three men took the precious water, a little tucker, and as few personal belongings as possible, and set out in the direction of Sidcotinga Station, lead by the unerring instinct of their black companion. It was well that they did so. During the hours of moonlight, a small band of Musgrave niggers crept round the camp and remained in hiding. But directly the moon set, they advanced towards the dying fire, with spears poised and boomerangs ready for instant and deadly use. What would have happened if any hated white man had been asleep in that camp can be better imagined than described. No one would have been left alive. But, finding their prey had escaped, the would-be murderers vented their rage upon the saddles and pack-bags, tore them to shreds and threw them into the flames, and scattered into the fire as much of the provisions as was left after they had gorged themselves. They did not attempt to follow the three white men in the dark, and next day the little marauding band went after their fellows and joined them on the way to the Musgrave Ranges. All except one, and we will hear more of him later.



CHAPTER X

A Sandstorm

By Yarloo's faithfulness and forethought the little party had escaped death at the hands of wild savages, but a more deadly peril was waiting for them. It is one thing to fight with a human enemy, but quite another to fight with one which is not human. The lads were soon to see that the most terrible disasters of the desert are caused, not by wild and fiendishly cruel natives who follow silently day after day and then wreak their hatred on the traveller in the most unexpected way, but by grim Nature herself. Nature was their greatest, their most merciless, their most unconquerable enemy. They were soon to have an illustration of her power.

On the night when their camp was raided, the three men walked till the moon set and then lay down to sleep. They did not light a fire for fear of showing the blacks where they were, but just scooped hollows in the warm sand and stretched themselves out with a camp-sheet as their only bed-clothes, for they had left everything else behind them. The white boys were soon asleep, but Yarloo kept himself awake all night to watch. It was one of the hardest things the boy had ever done, for he was very tired and the heavy warm night made him drowsy. His simple mind fixed itself on one thing with all the determination of his nature; he had one purpose and one purpose only in life just then, and that was to preserve Boss Stobart's son from death, and he kept himself awake by sheer will-power. But when the morning star rose above the eastern horizon, red and throbbing, the tired-out black-fellow knew that his weary watch was over. He flopped down on the sand and was instantly asleep.

The close night was followed by a sultry dawn. Instead of the sparklingly clear pale sky in the east which usually heralds the rising of the sun, a dull haze made everything appear heavy and listless. The air was warm and still, but not light and dry as it generally is in the desert, and it was so heavy that every breath was an effort, and the slightest movement caused perspiration to break out all over the body.

The boys woke up with a most uncomfortable feeling of oppression. They were hot and thirsty, yet they dared not touch the canteen of water. Although the sun had not risen, the heat seemed to be greater than they had ever known it before in the open air, and they lay and fanned their faces and fought the flies which were swarming around them.

When the sun rose, it showed a few little white clouds like puffs of steam, low down in the northern sky, and hiding the distant Musgrave Ranges from view. The sight of clouds is so unusual in Central Australia that the boys remarked about it to one another, and were amazed to see the difference which occurred in less than half an hour. The clouds had indeed risen and increased greatly during that short time. Instead of a few separate clouds, a big solid bank was now spreading all over the horizon, and huge pillars of white were stretching out from the main mass, far up into the sky.

Yarloo slept late, but when he woke up, he too stood and watched the rising clouds. He evidently did not like the look of things, for he shook his head, and, in reply to a question from Sax, replied:

"Me no like it. Me think it storm come up."

To the hot and thirsty white boys the word "storm" had only one meaning, and they uttered it together: "Rain!"

Yarloo smiled. "Neh," he replied. "Rain no come up. Me think it wind. P'raps sand. Me no like it." He set about building a little fire for breakfast, and though his companions were not in the least bit hungry, they followed his example and ate some damper and dried meat. Each man was allowed half a quart-pot of tea. Sax and Vaughan drank theirs with the meal, but Yarloo took a few sips and then put his quart-pot away in a safe place.

There was nothing to do all morning. Yarloo again made a little sun-shelter, but this became unnecessary after about ten o'clock, because by that time the rising clouds had covered the face of the sun. With every succeeding hour the oppressive heat seemed to get more and more unbearable. There was not a breath of wind. It was as if a lot of thick blankets were slowly smothering every living creature on the earth. The clouds were no longer white, except at the front edges and in places where a few great puffs bulged out. The rest was grey, getting darker and darker till it was near the horizon, and then it turned to brown. This brown looked like a huge curtain hung from the sky and trailing over the earth. Now and again it was lit up by flashes of lurid red, for all the world as if a furnace were roaring behind that curtain.

The air was absolutely still, deathlike still, and a sound which was exactly like the roaring of a furnace came out of the north, with an occasional louder boom when the pent-up fury of the storm burst through the brown cloud. In reality, the sound was made by millions of particles of sand being hurtled through the air by an electric storm.

The sound came nearer. The clouds were completely overhead now, from north to south, from east to west. There was not a patch of blue to be seen. The panting earth waited in abject fear. A puff of wind came, hot and stifling, as if an oven door had suddenly been opened. It passed over the mulgas, making them sigh and moan, and then was gone again, leaving the same breathless stillness. Another puff, this time cool and fresh. It also passed away and left the men with dread in their hearts—the dread of an unknown, unseen foe.

The storm was very near. Sax was watching it so intently that he jumped round suddenly when Yarloo touched him on the arm. The black-fellow was pointing to the canteen. "Drink, little drop," he said, and pointed to the approaching curtain of brown sand. He evidently meant that the boys would be better able to stand against the storm if they had a drink beforehand, so Sax motioned to Vaughan and poured a little water out into the two pannikins. Neither of them spoke. They were overawed by the might, the majesty, the mystery of Nature.

Vaughan drank his water and lay down under the shelter. Sax did not screw the top on the canteen for a moment, intending to pour a few drops back again when he had finished. He held his hand over the hole in the canteen and started to drink from his pannikin.

Suddenly the storm burst on them. Sax heard a terrific rushing sound and looked round quickly. He was at once blinded as completely as if an actual thick brown curtain had been blown around his head. At the same time, some tremendous force caught him, nearly lifted him off the ground, and threw him down sprawling on the sand several yards away. The pannikin was wrenched from his hand, and the canteen—what of the canteen?

Sax lay stunned for a moment, and then his first and only thought was the canteen. He tried to crawl, but every effort on his part only gave the enormous pressure of wind opportunity to drive him back, for as soon as he lifted his head, it was caught and twisted as if some soft strangling folds of cloth were being pulled around it from behind.

The light of the sun was blotted out completely, and it was as dark as a starless midnight. A screaming sound filled the boy's ears: the yelling of the storm, the laughter of the furies, the shrill shouts of fiends. He had to shield his mouth in order to breathe, and even then a fine dust choked his throat, and he would have coughed and vomited up his very life if he had not turned his back to the storm. Enormous quantities of sand were crowding the gale.

Have you ever stood under a waterfall and let a solid column of water fall on you from a height? You can stand there only for a moment, because the power of even a liquid is greater than the strength of man. But here, in the desert, three exhausted men were fighting for their lives with sand; sand, as solid as it could possibly be without being actually fixed; sand, as hard as it could possibly be, and yet be driven by the wind. The electric gale of wind had scooped the surface off a thousand miles of desert, and was flinging it at three puny human beings.

It was impossible to face the onslaught. Sax turned against the storm and tried to crawl backwards. At all costs he must find the canteen. He had no thought but this: the canteen! the canteen! Three lives depended on those drops of precious liquid. Were they safe? He crawled backwards inch by inch. But he had lost all sense of direction. The stinging, stifling sand, the shrill-screaming wind, the pitch-black whirling darkness; how could a man possibly tell where he was going?

Stobart's senses were all numb with the buffeting of the storm, but he suddenly felt that one of his legs was being held. He tried to kick free but was pulled backwards, and then something flapped and covered him. There was instant peace. He had found a shelter. Outside this unknown something which covered him the gale raged past in impotent fury. He was safe. An arm gripped his body and held him close.

The sudden reaction from fighting for his life to this secure peace was too much for the overwrought boy. He did not bother to find out who or what had saved him; he sank down, down, down into unconsciousness, and as the peaceful darkness closed over his mind, he muttered the words: "Canteen, canteen, canteen."

No one heard. No one could possibly hear in such a storm, not even the man who was holding him so closely. It was Yarloo. The boy had found his master's son, and had covered his head with a coat, and was now holding the unconscious form in his arms, while Sax drew long, unhindered breaths.

The storm passed. It had come upon them suddenly, and it went away in the same manner. There was very little lessening of its fury to tell of the approaching end, but the air grew lighter all at once, the sounds got fainter quickly, and there was now no longer any stinging sand. The brown curtain passed on, trailing its fringe over the desert, and the back of it could be seen as distinctly as the front had been a short half-hour before.

A short half-hour before? Yes. The sandstorm had lasted barely thirty minutes. It was so local, that Mick, riding along towards Sidcotinga Station only forty miles away, knew nothing about it. Such tremendous fury as these electric storms display is possible only when they concentrate their power on a very small area. This one had probably swept across a thousand miles of desert, and might go on for a thousand more before it spent itself. It had come across the great tableland behind the Musgrave Ranges, had been brought to a narrow point down one of the gorges in the mountains, and had hurled itself at the three defenceless men. It was a messenger of death from the Musgrave Ranges, the mysterious, dreaded, fascinating Musgrave Ranges.

The air behind the storm was cool and bright and clean. Not a spot of rain had fallen, but there was the same new-washed freshness about everything which comes after a sudden summer shower. The blue of the sky seemed clearer and more flawless than it had ever seemed before, in contrast with the depressing sultriness of the morning, and even the sun, shining down without the thinnest veil to lessen its fiery strength, seemed to look with a less unfriendly eye than usual.

And what did it see? Vaughan had been under the sun-shelter when the storm broke. The first gust had blown the flimsy structure down flat, and the weight of sand, which poured immediately on to it, prevented it from being blown away. The frightened white boy had been pinned under the fallen boughs and had been unable to get free while the storm lasted. It had been a fortunate accident for him, for he was compelled to lie still, in perfect safety, while the gale surged over him, instead of trying, as his friend Sax had done, to match his puny strength against it.

Poor Sax had been absolutely winded. In his anxiety to find the canteen, he had exhausted his strength in fighting the storm, and had no power left to breathe in such a stifling atmosphere. He might easily have been choked if Yarloo had not found him.

The native was desert born and bred, and knew how to act in every contingency that could possibly occur in the bush. He had seen Sax blown down with the first effort of the storm, and though he himself could neither see nor hear, because of the sand and wind, he had gradually forced his way towards his master's son, with a sure instinct which did not stop to wonder what he was doing or why he was doing it. He had found him at last, and had held his unconscious body tight, shielding it with his coat and with his own body till the gale should pass over.

A few minutes afterwards, while Vaughan was fighting his way out of the broken-down sun-shelter, and Yarloo was bending over the still body of the other white boy, Sax opened his eyes.

"The canteen," he mumbled. "The canteen."

His friends thought that he wanted a drink, and Vaughan looked round for the canteen. It was nowhere to be seen. Sax was not really hurt, and his anxiety restored him to full consciousness in a minute or two. He sat up and watched Vaughan hunting round for their most precious possession, the canteen. At last he staggered to his feet, tottered about for a step or two because his head was so dizzy, and then began to help in the search. He did not dare to tell the others what he feared, but when he finally stumbled against it, half buried in the sand about twenty yards away from camp, he found that the worst had happened.

The canteen was empty.

Sax had not screwed down the metal cap when the water-carrier had been caught by the wind and hurled along the ground. For several minutes its own smoothness had kept it moving, and had prevented it from lodging against anything and being buried, but each roll and jolt had spilt some of the water, till finally every drop had been wasted on the parched sand. Then, when all the harm which was possible had been done, the useless thing had jammed up against a dead mulga root and had been slowly covered with sand.

When the truth fully dawned upon them, the two boys sat down on the ground and stared hopelessly in front of them. Although they had been in the North only for a brief period, they knew that they were face to face with one of the most terrible things which could have happened to them in the desert. A man can go without food for several days, but water is an absolute daily necessity. The sandstorm had left the white boys weak, and as they had already stinted themselves of water for the last day and a half, they were in no condition to meet this new calamity.

Gradually the sun exerted its old sway over the earth, and the boys were obliged to seek some shade. They helped Yarloo rebuild the old shelter, and sat down under it, with their only possessions—one pannikin, one badly torn camp-sheet, and an empty canteen. Everything else had been blown away or absolutely spoilt.

Towards the middle of the afternoon, when, nearly sixty miles to the west of them, Mick was drawing near Sidcotinga Station, Yarloo went out from the shelter for a few minutes. He had been very thoughtful for the last hour, and had evidently just made up his mind on some important matter. When he returned he was carrying his quart-pot, which was a little more than a quarter full of tea. The boy had jammed the pannikin lid on tight that morning and had hidden it in the sand, and the storm had not done it any harm. He showed the tea to his companions, but did not give the pot into their eager hands till he had explained what he intended to do.

"Me go 'way," he said.

The white boys did not pay any attention to this remark. Here was something to drink, and they were parched with thirst.

"Me go 'way," repeated Yarloo. "Me come back by'm bye.... P'raps me find um water ... p'raps me find um parakelia."

His companions did not reply. What did it matter? Why this "perhaps, perhaps" when here was the certainty of at least a mouthful of tea for each? But Yarloo waited for a moment or two, and then went on patiently:

"Me come back to-morrow 'bout same time.... White boy stay here ... no go 'way. No go 'way, mind.... Sax," he said timidly, using the name for the first time, "Sax, you no go 'way, eh?"

"No. No. Of course we won't go away, Yarloo," was the impatient answer. "But how long are you going to keep hold of that quart-pot?"

"Me come back to-morrow 'bout same time," said Yarloo slowly. "S'pose me give it quart-pot, you no drink um till to-morrow sunrise? ... to-morrow sunrise, eh?"

His meaning was perfectly clear. He was going to leave them the tea on condition that they didn't touch it till sunrise next day. The boys became angry at what they considered a foolish idea.

"What's the good of that to us?" asked Vaughan hastily.

"Yes," agreed Sax. "Whatever's the good of such a fool idea? ... Besides, you've got no right to tell us when we're to have a drink and when we're not to have a drink. I'm thirsty. I'm going to have my share now.... Here, Yarloo, give me that quart-pot."

He held out his hand, but Yarloo stepped back. "Quart-pot belonga me," he said quietly.

The boy's statement was undoubtedly true. The tea was his, saved from his fair breakfast allowance, and, if he was good enough to part with it for the sake of the white boys, surely he had a right to dictate his own terms. Sax and Vaughan at once saw their mistake and began to feel a little foolish because of the attitude they had tried to take up. Yarloo was evidently in grim earnest, for he repeated his former question:

"S'pose me gib it quart-pot, you no drink um till to-morrow sunrise, eh?"

"All right, Yarloo," agreed Sax. "We'll not drink it till sunrise to-morrow.... But, look here," he exclaimed suddenly, realizing for the first time the tremendous sacrifice the black-fellow was making. "Look here! We mustn't take your tea. It's yours, Yarloo. Yours," he repeated, in order to make his meaning clear.

But Yarloo had already begun to scrape a hole in the sand. When it was deep enough, he put the precious quart-pot into it so that it could not be spilt. "You belonga Boss Stobart," he said slowly. "Boss Stobart good fella longa me."

He stood up when he had finished and looked at the two boys. "Goo-bye," he said, and was turning to go, when something prompted Sax to hold out his hand. Yarloo took it instantly and then shook Vaughan's hand also,[1] and, in another minute, he was almost out of sight amongst the ragged scrub.



[1] Blacks do not shake hands when they are in their wild state, but they quickly pick up the habit from the white man.



CHAPTER XI

Thirst

Sax and Vaughan were very thirsty. For several days they had been compelled to drink sparingly, and for the last two they had taken only enough liquid to keep them just alive. They were now entirely without drink of any kind save for that little drop of tea in a dirty and battered quart-pot, half buried in the sand. Is it any wonder that their longing eyes and thoughts were almost constantly fixed on the pot, which they had promised not to touch till sunrise next day.

While Yarloo had been with them, the white boys had kept up a good appearance of courage, and had pretended that they were not so thirsty as they really were, for no man likes to give in before a member of an inferior race; but when Yarloo went away it became harder and harder for them to keep up their pluck. For thirst is the most terrible of all forms of torture. The pain comes on slowly but surely, and increases till it seems impossible that the human body can stand any more. Yet the body is such a marvellous thing that it does stand even the terrible pain of thirst, till it gets beyond endurance and the man goes mad. The thirst which kills men in the desert is not the same as being thirsty. Down-country, it is quite pleasant to be thirsty, for it makes a drink taste so nice; but desert thirst—or "perishing", as it is called—is caused by the drying up of the moisture of the body till the organs inside actually cease to work, and the blood clogs in the arteries because it is not liquid enough.

It was such terrible thirst that Sax and Vaughan were experiencing. In appearance, Sax was of slighter build than his thick-set friend, Boof, but the drover's son had inherited from his father a natural toughness and an ability to endure privation and hardship which Vaughan, although he was quite as plucky, did not possess. It happened, therefore, that though Sax was just able to keep control of himself throughout the terrible night which followed Yarloo's departure, Vaughan lost consciousness and became delirious about half an hour before sunset.

The first signs which he gave that he was not in his right senses were when he began to undress. Sax was feeling so desperately ill himself that he did not pay much attention to what his friend was doing till he saw him throw his shirt outside, and then start to pull off his trousers. The poor lad's tongue was swollen in his mouth and was starting to stick out from between his teeth. He got his trousers off, and began fumbling at his boots, but was so weak that he couldn't untie the knots. His eyes had a peculiar look in them, something like those of a man who walks in his sleep, and when his friend spoke to him he took absolutely no notice at all.

Both lads had been lying stretched out on the sand all the afternoon, too exhausted to do anything, but, seeing his companion behaving in such a strange way, Sax tried to sit up. But he could not do it at first. As soon as he lifted himself, sharp pains stabbed him in the back and stomach, and his head throbbed so violently that he nearly fainted. He tried again and again, very gradually, till he was able to sit up at last. Vaughan had managed to drag one boot off by this time, and was feverishly busy with the other; the rest of his body was naked. Sax called out again, but the effort at sitting up had so much exhausted the little strength which remained, that his voice was so weak he hardly heard it himself. Stobart didn't understand the serious state his friend was in, but he knew that something must be done at once, and as there was nobody to do it but himself, he prepared for a supreme effort.

After several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to stand up, and when the dizziness in his head had died down a little, he tottered over towards Vaughan. He touched him on the arm. Vaughan took no notice, but wrenched at the second boot, pulling it off at last, and scrambling to his feet like a drunken man. He seemed to have far more strength than Sax had, but when he started to stagger out from under the bough-shelter, his friend suddenly remembered a yarn which Mick had told them one night, about a perishing man who pulled off all his clothes and walked away into the scrub to die a most terrible death. Sax was afraid that his companion was going to do the same thing, and that he wouldn't have the strength to prevent him.

Sax had to put his feet down very carefully or he would have fallen through sheer weakness, but he caught hold of Vaughan and clung to him. This forced the delirious lad to look at his companion, but there was no spark of intelligence in his eyes; he did not recognize who it was; he only felt something holding him back from what he had determined to do. With extraordinary strength, considering his condition, he shook himself free, and started to walk away. Sax fell, but as he did so he stretched out his hands. They touched the other's bare legs. Sax clutched the legs and hung on with all his power, and Vaughan tripped and came down with a crash.

The sun sank below the horizon and left two perishing white boys panting in the sand in the fading light.

Sax remembered nothing more for several hours. When he came to himself again he was alone. His fall had rendered him unconscious for a moment, and this state had been immediately followed by a deep sleep. The night was cool, and though his thirst was still raging, it did not seem so bad as it had done under the blazing sun; his sleep also had refreshed him. On Central Australian nights it is never too dark to see the objects around, for the light of the stars comes through the clear dry air of the desert more brilliantly than it does in any other part of the world. Consequently it needed only a hurried glance to tell Sax that Vaughan was not in the camp. His clothes were still lying where he had thrown them, and the boy soon found the tracks of bare feet leading away from the camp into the scrub.

Vaughan had gone away to die.

Sax listened. The absolute stillness of death was around him on all sides. Not a leaf moved on any of the scraggy mulgas standing near. Even the star in the deep, deep blue of the night sky seemed to stare down at him with unblinking eyes. What did they care for one white boy dying in delirium in the desert, and another white boy who had to keep tight hold of his mind to save it from slipping out of his control, and who would also die of thirst, if not to-day, then surely to-morrow? There is nothing so unpitying, so absolutely unconcerned, as the desert is to a perishing man.

Sax was a boy of unusual courage. He was the son of a pioneer, a member of that race of men who have opened up the centre of the Australian continent, and have laid the foundations of the future Australian nation. Though he had been reared in the comfort of cities, the cattle-plains, the scrub, and the desert were his true home, and he now showed the stuff he was made of by determining to follow after his friend. He did not stop to wonder what he would do when he found him; he only knew that he could not bear to leave him out there to die without making an effort to save him.

Suddenly he remembered the quart-pot and its precious contents. He had made up his mind to find Vaughan before he remembered the tea, and now this sudden glad thought seemed to confirm his decision, and filled him with hope. He would have something to give to the perishing lad when he found him. Sax could hardly walk. The whole middle part of his body felt as if it was dried up, and when he moved, such terrible pains shot through him that he could hardly keep from crying out; but he set his teeth and went over to the quart-pot and dug it out.

Only those who have actually been in the same circumstances as Sax was that night can have any idea of the temptation it was for him to drink some of that tea. The very sound of it swishing about inside the smoke-blackened pot nearly drove him mad with thirst. He dared not open the lid and look in, for, after all, he was so frantically thirsty that the sight of the liquid might make him forget everything but his own desire for it. Never again in his life was he to be called upon to exercise such supreme self-control as he was that night.

Clutching the precious quart-pot to his breast, he staggered off into the night, very slowly because of his weakness, and very slowly also because it was hard for him to read the tracks in the dim light.

Less than half an hour after Sax left the camp to search for his dying friend, a black form stole silently through the scrub and paused within sight of the bough-shelter. If anybody had been lying there awake, he would not have known how near a fellow human being was to him, for the native was absolutely motionless, even to the eyelids. The only part of hint which moved was the chest, which was so thickly covered with black hair that its slow rising and falling could not possibly have attracted attention at night. Even if any man who might have been in the shelter had turned and looked straight at the black-fellow, he would not have distinguished him from the trees, for, with that wonderful power of imitation known only to the scrub natives of Australia, the man was standing in such a way that he looked very much like an old dead mulga stump.

But nobody was in the bough-shelter, and when the man had made quite sure of this, he stepped out from his hiding. He was quite naked, and carried a couple of long spears with stone heads, a woomera (spear-thrower), a spiked boomerang, and a wooden shield. His long hair was plastered up into a bunch at the back, and was kept in place by rings of rope made of his mother's hair. He stood for a moment and looked intently at the shelter, then he stooped and examined the marks in the sand, following them this way and that till he knew as much about the tragedy as if he had actually watched it happen. He was particularly interested in Yarloo's tracks, and finally stuck a spear into the middle of one of them and laid his other weapons beside it.

Having rid himself of all encumbrances, he set out on the tracks of the two white boys. But what a difference between his methods and theirs! Instead of the hesitating scrutiny of each footprint which Sax had been obliged to make, the native walked quickly with his eyes several yards ahead and did not pause once, though the star-light was dim and treacherous.

He did not have far to go. The burst of strength which delirium had given to Vaughan had not lasted for more than three-quarters of a mile, and he had then fallen at the foot of a dead mulga. Sax had come up on him there, a pitiful object whom the desert was claiming as its own, his naked body showing up plainly in the dark. He had forced the tea, all of it, upon the unconscious lad, with no perceptible result, for most of it had been spilt because Vaughan's tongue was too swollen to allow any but a few drops to go down his throat.

It was absolutely certain that, before another sunset, two corpses would have been lying in the desert scrub if the wild black had not found the boys when he did. Sax was still conscious, but was too far gone to take any interest even in such an unusual sight as the sudden appearance of a strange naked black-fellow. Death was claiming him, anyhow; it did not matter much to him whether it came by a spear-thrust or by the more lingering method of thirst.

The savage stooped down and looked intently into the face of first one boy and then the other. He happened to look at Vaughan first and grunted his disapproval, but a close scrutiny of Sax's features seemed to yield him great satisfaction, for he drew himself up straight, and, with a broad grin of delight, pronounced a word which caught the boy's dulling ear:

"Bor—s Stoo—bar," he said, in long-drawn tones. "Bor—s Stoo—bar."

A familiar sound will penetrate to an intelligence which has become too dull to perceive through sight or touch, and Sax heard this word and looked up, thinking that his imagination must be playing him a trick. The man was encouraged to try again, this time adding to the name of the drover the single word "Musgrave ". It was a word he had evidently used before, for it was pronounced quite clearly.

"Bor—s Stoo—bar.... Mus—grave."

The strange coupling of his father's name with that of the mysterious range of mountains roused sufficient interest in Sax to make him wish to reply. He tried to speak, but couldn't. His tongue was too swollen and his throat too dry. The native watched him, and the boy felt that the man was friendly, for he continued to stretch out his black arm towards the distant ranges. Finding that he could not make any sound, Sax waited till the man again said the words, "Bor—s Stoo—bar," and then he pointed to himself several times and nodded, and then waved his hand to the Musgraves. The native grinned his understanding and again looked very closely into the white boy's face. Sax did not know if he was like his father or not, but felt that a great deal depended on whether the black stranger decided that he was indeed the son of the famous Boss Stobart.

The man was quite satisfied at last. He first of all held his left hand close to Sax's face; it had been terribly mutilated, and the two middle fingers were missing. The native evidently wished to impress that crippled hand on the boy's memory, for he put it on his hairy chest and then in front of Sax's face again and again. He did not say anything, for his knowledge of English was apparently limited to the name of the drover and the name of the mountain range. In spite of his exhausted condition, Sax could not help remembering that black left hand, and he had reason to recall it in future days under the most exciting circumstances. Then the man lifted Vaughan's limp body on his shoulders and walked away back to the shelter. Stobart was not left alone for long, before he also was carried back to camp.

By this time the sun was just showing over the eastern rim of the land, and the few trees were casting long shadows on the sand. The native gathered up Vaughan's clothes, but did not know how to put them on the lad; so he covered him over with them. He had been careful not to leave the quart-pot behind, and as soon as the boys were safely under the shelter again, the man took the quart-pot and started off.

He was evidently going for water. In a few minutes, however, he came running back to camp at top speed. He was very excited and only stayed long enough to put the quart-pot down on the ground, before he grabbed his weapons and disappeared into the scrub in the opposite direction, running as hard as he could, yet making no more noise than a cat.

He had not returned the quart-pot exactly as he had found it. When he took it away, it was empty, but now it contained a sprig of sharply-pointed leaves.

Yarloo came on the scene almost as soon as the other black was out of sight, and was probably the cause of the first man's sudden disappearance, Yarloo was carrying a small bunch of parakelia leaves. The first things he noticed were the new tracks, and he stopped dead. From where he stood, he could not see into the bough-shelter, and so he waited for a couple of minutes to see if the man who had made the tracks was anywhere about. There was absolute silence; the only things which moved were the shadows, which got shorter very very slowly as the sun rose. With minute care Yarloo examined the marks of the stranger. At first he was upset to find from the tracks that the man was a wild Musgrave black, but as soon as he came to the place where the warragul had set up his spear, he smiled and felt no more anxiety, for it is a sign of perfect goodwill towards a man to dig a spear in his track. (To find a spear or a boomerang on your track means that the owner of them likes you so well that he gives you his weapons, because there is no need for him to carry them when he meets you.)

As soon as Yarloo knew that the stranger native was friendly, he went over to the shelter. The two white boys were lying on their backs in the sand, one of them unconscious and gasping, with his tongue swollen so much that it was too big for his mouth; the other gasping also, but still in possession of his senses. Sax's eyes opened, and a glimmer of intelligence showed in them, but he couldn't speak, and was too weak to move. Yarloo looked down at them, but particularly at Sax, the son of his master. Then his glance wandered to the quart-pot, and suddenly everything else was forgotten.

No prospector who has toiled for years without any luck, and then comes upon a nugget of gold quite unexpectedly, could have been more glad than Yarloo was at sight of that little sprig of leaves. He took it up and looked at it with huge satisfaction. The stem was woody and each leaf was grey, narrow, and not more than half an inch long. The peculiarity about them was, however, that each little leaf ended in a spike. The black-fellow felt the spikes and grinned to feel the pricks of pain, for the leaves had only recently been pulled from the tree. Then he dropped his handful of parakelia and grabbed the quart-pot and started to run, tracking the other native to find the tree from which that sprig of leaves had been picked.

On the discovery of that tree rested the salvation of the white boys' lives. It was the famous needle-bush.



CHAPTER XII

The Rescue

Yarloo followed the Musgrave native's tracks for about half a mile in a nearly south direction, and then came upon a stony plain with a few large bushes growing at one end of it. He gave a yell of delight. They were needle-bushes. The party was saved. Here was water, stored by nature right in the middle of an arid desert.

The trees were all about five or six feet high, though some were much bushier than others. Yarloo chose one which was very wide-spreading, and began piling dry bark and twigs and anything which would burn quickly and easily, right in the middle of the tree, all among the branches. He went on till the needle-bush was carrying as big a load as it possibly could.

Then he made fire. He pulled two pieces of wood out of his hair; one was the size of a man's palm, a flat piece of soft bean-wood with a little hollow in the middle of it; the other was a stick about as thick as a pencil but nearly twice as long, of hard mulga wood. He squatted down and set the soft piece on the ground and held it in place with his toes, and teased out a few pieces of very dry bark till they were like tinder, and put it near the hollow. Then he took the long piece of mulga and twirled it with his two hands in the hollow. He did this faster than any white man could possibly twirl it, and in a couple of minutes a coil of smoke came up from the pile of bark. Yarloo blew this into a flame and made a little fire. When it was burning well, he threw the blazing sticks into the needle-bush. There was a crackling sound for a moment or two and then a roar, as the flames licked up the dry fuel, till in a very short time the needle-bush was a blazing bonfire.

The black-fellow waited till the flames had died down, and then started to dig around the roots a few feet away from the tree. He was so skilful at this that he soon exposed the main roots. Then he chopped off one or two of them and set the pieces upright in the quart-pot. A thin dark liquid began to drain out of the roots and collect in the pot till it was half-full. Yarloo took a drink and chopped up some more roots, and when the quart-pot was full he returned to camp.

It needed great care and patience to minister to the perishing white boys, and not many natives would have done what Yarloo did for Sax and Vaughan during that blazing day. He made trip after trip to the stony plain where the needle-bushes were growing, and, with the water obtained in this way, he gradually revived his two friends. Sax was his first care, and after he had softened the boy's tongue so that drops of liquid could trickle down his throat, the drover's son quickly revived sufficiently to help Yarloo with the more serious case of Vaughan. The powers of recovery which a healthy lad possesses are wonderful, and before nightfall both lads were sitting up under the shelter, with their thirst quite quenched, and actually feeling hungry.

Yarloo went away for the last time to get another quart-pot of water from the needle-bushes. To do this, he had to fire another tree. It was about half an hour after sunset and nearly dark, and the bonfire lit up the plain and could be seen for miles.

Mick Darby saw it as he rode along at the end of a very tiring day. When he had reached Sidcotinga Station, late the evening before, the yards had been full of working horses ready to set out on a big cattle-muster the next morning. He could not have struck a more favourable time. Before he went to bed that night, he and the manager drafted off a plant of six good horses, stocked a set of pack-gear with cooked tucker, and filled two big canteens with water all ready for an early start the following day. Mick could easily have slept late the next morning, but when he woke up, as he always did, at the rising of the morning star, he did not turn over and go to sleep again, but roused himself, had a drink of tea and a chunk of bread and meat, and started out back on his tracks, accompanied by a station black-boy whom the Sidcotinga manager had lent him. The horses were fresh; they had just come in from a six months' spell and would be turned out again directly they returned. So Mick did not hesitate to ride hard. He rode to such good purpose that he did not expect to pull up till he had reached the camp where he had left the boys, and was riding along, with seven miles still to go, when he saw the blazing needle-bush.

He loosened his revolver and rode over at once to investigate. It was fortunate that he did so, for he would have reached the old camp and found it, not only deserted, but also wrecked, with torn gear and evidences of wanton destruction all over the place. He would naturally have thought that his former companions had either been killed or carried off, and as the sandstorm had covered up all tracks, he would not have known which way to follow them.

Yarloo was squatting down, watching the roots drain the precious liquid into the quart-pot, when he heard the sound of hobble-rings striking one another as they hung from the neck of a horse. Then a hoof struck a stone. Such sounds in the desert meant one thing and one thing only, white men. Yarloo stood up and gave the call: "Ca—a—a—w—ay!" (not coo-ee, as is usually supposed).

It was answered by a white man's voice out of the gathering darkness: "Hul—lo—uh!"

In a few minutes Mick Darby rode up. He saw Yarloo, and the smouldering needle-bush, and knew that something was wrong.

"What name?" he asked.

"White boy close up finish," replied Yarloo, still taking care of the quart-pot of dark water.

"Close up finish?" echoed Mick in surprise. "What name you no sit down longa that camp same as me yabber (as I told you)?"

Yarloo tried to explain, but his vocabulary of white man's words was too small. He broke off at last and said: "White boy, they yabber (they'll tell you)."

"But white boy close up finish," objected the drover.

"No finish now," grinned Yarloo, pointing to the other burnt needle-bushes near. "No finish now. Him good fella now, quite."

This relieved Mick's mind greatly, and he set off at once, guided by Yarloo, to the bough-shelter where Sax and Vaughan were sitting. It was a very happy reunion. The boys were still weak, but the thirst, which would have killed them if the stranger black-fellow had not put that sprig of needle-bush in the quart-pot, was quite gone. They were very hungry. A fire was soon lit, and neither of the lads had ever enjoyed a meal so much as they did that one. The food was plain, though much better than what they had been having for the past weeks. The bread had been made with yeast, which makes it far nicer than baking-powder damper, and the Sidcotinga cook had included a few currant buns with the tucker. The story of their adventures was told at length and gone over more than once, for each boy supplied what the other did not remember, and there had been many hours during which Vaughan's memory had recorded nothing.

One thing, however, remained a secret. Only Sax knew about it, and he obeyed his father's injunction not to tell anybody of his whereabouts. He did not tell Mick that the strange nigger who had saved their lives had mentioned the name Boss Stobart.

Yarloo came in for his share of praise, and richly did he deserve it. The black-boy sat down with the white men after tea and listened to what was said without making any remarks, and with a stolid expression. But when, just before they all turned in for the night, Mick handed him a new pipe, a box of matches, and—greatest luxury of all—a tin of cut-up tobacco, he beamed all over his honest black face and grunted his supreme satisfaction with the gift. He did not think that he had done anything heroic; he had acted so towards the white boys because a certain white man had treated him well in the past, but these simple signs of Mick's approval made him the happiest black-fellow in all Central Australia.



CHAPTER XIII

Sidcotinga Station

The morning after Mick Darby had returned to them with water and food, both Sax and Vaughan felt so much better that they wanted to set out for Sidcotinga Station right away. But the drover would not hear of such a thing. He knew, better than the boys did, that it would be some time before even their strong young bodies recovered from the "perish", and they all stayed where they were for three full days, and made themselves comfortable by building a more substantial shelter from sun and wind. They could have stayed longer if they had wanted to do so, for Dan Collins, the Sidcotinga manager, had told Mick of a well not more than six miles away to the north, and the black boys drove the horses there every day and also renewed the supply of water in the canteens. It was evidently from this well that the fierce Musgrave niggers who had attacked them had obtained water.

On the fourth morning the horses were brought in early, and the party set out west after breakfast, on its interrupted journey, travelling by easy stages, and taking three days over a distance which Mick had accomplished in one.

The cook was the only white man on the station when they reached Sidcotinga, and he made them welcome with the genuine rough hospitality for which the back country is famous. The resources of a desert cattle-station are very limited, but everything which was possible was done for the two white boys, and they spent a very restful and enjoyable week and a half, loafing round the homestead. It was not much of a place to look at, but Sax and his friend thought it was wonderful. They had travelled across the desert for a month in order to reach that little collection of buildings, and during that time they had not seen a fence or a roof of any kind, and the only sign of civilization had been an artesian bore two days out from Oodnadatta. Though the iron sheds and strong bough-shelters which comprised the homestead were very rough, there was a workmanlike air about the place which seemed to say that white men had taken possession of the wilderness and meant to stay there.

There was an iron hut divided into two rooms where the manager and the white stockman lived. Such a building as this is known throughout the length and breadth of Australia's cattle-country as "Government House". A few yards away was the "cook-house", also made of iron, where meals for the white men were served. Then there was a store, in which enough personal and station requirements were stocked to last at least a year, for the string of camels, which came out from the head of the railway with loading for Sidcotinga Station, only came once in every twelve months and was sometimes late. The horse-gear room was a fascinating place to these two lovers of horses, and though it was rather empty when they reached the station, because every available man was out mustering on the run, they found enough in it to interest them for many hours. The blacksmith's shop also came in for its share of attention, the more so perhaps because neither of the lads knew anything about blacksmith's work. Dan Collins, the manager, prided himself on his blacksmith's shop, and rightly so, for there was no metal work—other than actual castings—which he could not manage to make or repair for station use.

Dominating the homestead, by reason of its height, was a large iron wind-mill mounted on a tall stand, with a huge water-tank raised on a staging near it. The mill pumped water from a hundred-foot well into this tank, which supplied, not only the cattle-troughs, but also the dwellings, for there were taps outside Government House, the cook-house, and the blacksmith's shop—a very unusual convenience on such an outlying station.

It was not the buildings, however, which interested the boys most; it was the stock-yards. The whole station seemed to centre in these yards, and indeed they were of chief importance, and were the real reason for everything else being there. At first the mass of yards, races, pounds, wings, and gates seemed just like a maze to the new-chums, but they were soon to learn how perfectly everything about that rough strong stock-yard was arranged for the quick handling of cattle.

One morning, a couple of days after their arrival at Sidcotinga Station, the white boys were sitting in the sand with their backs against the wall of the horse-gear room, which threw a narrow patch of shade over them, when Yarloo came up. They had been so interested in all the novel sights and sounds around them since coming to the station, that they had almost forgotten the faithful black-fellow; but they looked up now with pleasure, and greeted him with a friendly "Hullo, Yarloo!"

"Goo-day," he said, with a grin of delight at being noticed; but he at once became serious, and continued, speaking especially to Sax: "Me go 'way.... Me come back by'm by."

"Going away?" asked Sax. "Whatever for?"

"Me walk longa Musgraves.... Me come back by'm by," he repeated.

"But what'll Mick say?" asked Vaughan.

"Mick good fella," said the native simply. "Him real good fella, quite.... Him only little time boss longa me. Boss alday longa me (my real boss) sit down over dere," he pointed to the Musgrave Range. "Me yabber Boss Stobart." He said the name with pride.

"I'll go with you," said Sax, starting up as if he meant to set out immediately. "I'll go with you to find my father."

"By'm by," replied Yarloo. "White boy come by'm by. No come now. S'pose white boy come now, Boss Stobart, rouse like blazes (would be very angry). White boy sit down little time. Me come back by'm by."

"Well, at any rate, I'll send Father a note," said Sax, and he ran to Government House to get a pencil and some paper. He found an old diary, and tore a sheet out of it and wrote: "We're at Sidcotinga Station. I wanted to come out to you, but Yarloo would not let me. Tell him that we may come out. Love from Sax."

He ran back to the horse-gear room, but Yarloo had gone. The boy had evidently not understood what Sax meant and had already started out for the Musgrave Ranges. It was a great disappointment to the boys not to be allowed to go straight away and find the white drover, yet they had already experienced enough, both of the hatred of the Musgrave tribes and of the power of the desert, to convince them that they had better take the advice of those who knew the conditions so much better than they did. They talked a lot about the ranges which appeared to be so near, seen through the clear dry air, and they went over and over again the message which they had received in Oodnadatta from Boss Stobart, trying to find an explanation for the mystery.

"In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but no one else. He'll understand. Boy quite reliable. Don't worry. Get a job somewhere. "STOBART."

Sax and Vaughan had been at Sidcotinga for eleven days, and were not only feeling recovered from their "perish", but were also beginning to wish that they had something to do, when the musterers returned one afternoon with well over a thousand head of cattle. It was a still day, and Sax had climbed up the mill tower, and was sitting on the platform near the big wind-wheel, looking over the barren landscape, when he saw what looked like a brown stain on the southern sky near the horizon. He remembered having seen something similar to that at Oodnadatta, and he knew at once that it was caused by a big moving mob of stock. Vaughan was near the troughs, vainly trying to entice a galah (a cockatoo with rose-coloured breast and grey wings and back) to eat bread out of his hand, when Sax startled both him and the bird by shouting: "They're coming, Boof! They're coming!"

Vaughan looked up and saw that his venturesome friend had climbed even higher than the platform, and was standing right on top of the main casting, and was waving his arms towards the south.

"They're coming, Boof!" he shouted again. "It's cattle." To Vaughan's relief—for Sax had got used to doing things on the mill which Vaughan was too scared even to attempt—his friend began climbing down, but he went so fast that his neck and limbs were in danger every moment. When he reached the ground, he ran off to Government House to find Mick, who was lying on his back reading a three-months old copy of Pals.

The boys expected their drover friend to be as excited as they were, but he had seen cattle yarded so many hundreds of times that he took things very coolly. He first made sure that the troughs were full of water, and that the valves were working properly, and then fixed the stock-yard gates ready for receiving the cattle.

The cloud of dust came nearer, and the lowing of cattle and the cracking of whips could soon be heard, and the voices of men rose above the din. From out of the dust a few leading cattle appeared, then others and others still, till the astonished white boys saw a bigger mob of cattle than they had ever seen before. Sax was on the platform of the mill again, and Vaughan was about half-way up, so they both got a good view of what was going on below them.

The thirsty animals smelt the water and tried to rush, but well-mounted black boys wheeled here, there, and everywhere, checking the restless cattle, and allowing them to come on slowly without any chance of a break. The big voice of a white man on a black horse in the rear was heard from time to time giving orders which were at once obeyed. Presently the four long lines of troughing were hidden from sight by drinking cattle, and the sucking of their lips, the gushing of water through the valves, and the grumbling of the tired animals all blended together, and seemed to be part of the dust which rose from the trampling feet and settled on everything till men and stock were alike brown.

Mick Darby was keeping the trough-valves at full pressure, and the manager rode over to him. The white boys followed the mounted man with their eyes. This was to be their boss; that is, if he would take them. They were evidently the subject of conversation, for Mick pointed up at the mill, and Dan Collins looked up also. They could not see his face, and he made no sign, but went off again to keep the waiting cattle rounded up.

It takes a long time to water a thousand head of cattle, and by the time the Sidcotinga troughs were full, with no cattle drinking at them, the sun had just set. Gradually the animals were worked away from the water towards the wing of the yard. Probably both Sax and his friend were hoping that there would be a break, for there is nothing more exciting to watch—or to be in—than a cattle-rush; but these men were on their own country, and at their own stock-yards. They eased the big mob of animals slowly up to the yards, then sat back and let them have a spell, just holding them within the compass of the wings. The leading bullocks nosed the stock-yard rails, went up to the gates and smelt the air, gave one or two inquiring bellows, and then walked through. Finding space on the other side of the gates, they went right into the yards. Others followed, till soon the whole mob was filing through the gates. Then came the shouting of men, the racket of stock-whips, the prancing of horses, and the protesting roar of cattle, as they were jammed up tight. At last the gates were swung to and fastened with a chain.



CHAPTER XIV

A Mad Bull

The Sidcotinga stock-yards presented a very lively scene next morning. Sax and Vaughan were there with the rest, heartily glad to have something to do. Mick Darby had introduced his young friends to the manager the night before, and to their earnest request that he would "take them on at the station" he had replied: "We'll talk about that to-morrow night. There's a long day in the yards between now and then. We'll see how you shape." Dan Collins looked at them very sternly when he was speaking. He had been on cattle-stations all his life, and was used to judging men by what they could do and not by what they could say. He liked both the appearance of the boys and the report which Mick had given of how they had "shaped" on the way out, but his weather-beaten face did not relax at all, and the boys thought he was a hard man. They were wrong, however. Dan Collins was a strong man, and through dealing for many years with blacks, he had come to hide his thoughts behind an unyielding expression of face, though many a man knew how kind a heart beat in his big rough body.

So the boys were on their mettle. There were no other white men in the yard except Mick and the manager; the rest were blacks.

An hour or two before dawn, as soon as it was light enough to distinguish one beast from another, all hands went down to the yards for drafting. Sax and Vaughan were each given a gate to open and shut when their particular call came, and they found that it needed every bit of their attention to do even this simple job well. By the time breakfast was announced by the cook, who summoned all hands to the meal by beating the back of a frying-pan with a wooden spoon, the thousand cattle had been divided into three lots: about a hundred and twenty cleanskins (unbranded cattle), over a hundred three-year-old bullocks which would soon be ready to send to town, and the rest, which were to be allowed to go bush again.

Breakfast and "Smoke-o" were got over quickly, and everybody was again at the yards as soon as possible. A fire was lit outside the rails, and a half-dozen T.D.3 brands, and as many number brands, were put in the blaze to get hot. Green-hide ropes were coiled ready and knives sharpened. The cleanskins were attended to first. Most of them were about a year old and could be scruffed, which means that one or another of the black-fellows would watch his opportunity, catch the calf, and throw it on the ground with a dexterous twist. As soon as it was down, he would hook one of its front legs behind its horns and hold it there till the brand was applied. Sometimes four calves were being scruffed at the same time, and the work went on very quickly. Blacks always work well in a yard. Not only is there the personal and sometimes risky struggle with the animals, which appeals strongly to their savage minds, but the emulation amongst themselves, each being very anxious to do better than his fellows. There is usually a good deal of laughter and joking talk in a stock-yard, and a good deal of hard, strenuous, skilful work as well.

The two white boys kept out of the way while scruffing was going on. They would only have been a hindrance, so they sat together on the stock-yard fence and looked on, never missing a twist or a turn, and learning, learning, learning all the time.

At last all young calves had been branded and had rejoined their mothers. There still remained about thirty unbranded steers which were too big to scruff. One or two of them were nearly four years old, wild creatures which had refused to be mustered year after year until now. The ropes were brought into use for these cattle. The big cleanskins were driven out of the branding yard into an adjoining one, and admitted back again one by one. As soon as a beast rushed through the gate a green-hide lasso was thrown. The loop fell over its horns or neck. Four or five strong niggers were holding the end of the lasso outside the yard, and they pulled the captured animal up to the rails. Front and back leg ropes were flung on and hitched round posts, and the beast fell helplessly in the sand. After a couple had been done in this way, Dan Collins signalled to the white boys to lend a hand. Their job sounded simple, but it needed all their strength and watchfulness to do it properly. If they failed at any point, the prostrate animal would be free, and the work would have to be done all over again.

The cleanskin was lassoed and pulled to the rails, the leg ropes were fixed and hitched, and then the front rope was handed to Sax and the back one to Vaughan. They had to hang on and keep the ropes tight; that was all, but only those who have worked in stock-yards, hour after hour, know how difficult such an apparently simple task really is.

The work went on. The hard green-hide ropes blistered the unaccustomed hands of the new-chum white boys, but they set their teeth and held on. Beast after beast fell with a bellowing roar, the red-hot T.D.3 was pressed on its near-side shoulder till the mark was seared right into the skin, so that it could never wear out. Then the ropes were pulled off and the dazed animal scrambled to its feet and was hustled out of the yard, while another one was being caught and thrown.

A big roan-coloured steer was being saved till last. He was a fully matured animal, very powerful and wild. His bellow had been heard all night, and he had been more difficult to draft than any other animal in the yards. Everybody was looking forward to dealing with this fellow; it would be a good finish to a good run of work.

He came through the gate with a rush. Mick Darby had the lasso this time, and flung it faultlessly over the animal's horns. There was a shout of excitement and the blacks outside the rails pulled for all they were worth. But no power of man could make such a creature stir unless it wanted to. It braced its fore legs and stood immovable, then shook its mighty head till the lasso twanged like a fiddle-string, but did not give an inch. Finally the steer caught sight of its tormentors outside the yard, and rushed. At once the rope became slack and the watchful men pulled it tight again, and soon the great beast was jammed up against the fence, using all its strength to try and break the green-hide rope. But the lasso was made out of the hide of a bull and could have held any steer that was ever calved. Leg ropes were thrown, hitched, and drawn tight, and the steer fell, roaring and plunging for a moment, and then lying still, but never relaxing the tremendous strain for a moment.

Dan Collins was branding, and called out: "Brand-o!" The red-hot iron was handed through the rails and pressed on the quivering shoulder.

Now came the great test. Pain added the final ounce to the steer's strength. He struggled. The front leg rope broke. Through being constantly hitched round a rough post it had become a little bit frayed, and this final strain was too much for it. It snapped and sprang apart like a collapsed spring. The chest of the steer was now free, but the head rope still held it down. The knowledge that it had broken one of its bonds gave the animal heart, and it lifted its curl-crowned head. The lasso quivered and stretched, quivered and stretched. There was a crack! Had that bull-hide rope broken? No. Another crack. One of the steer's horns broke off at the skull. With an agonized bellow it slipped the stump of a horn through the loop and rose to its fore feet, free except for the back leg rope which Vaughan was holding. All the animal's strength, raised to its highest pitch by the pain of the broken horn, was centred in its captive hind leg. Vaughan held on manfully, but the rope was gradually pulled through his hands, tearing the skin till he could not possibly hold it any longer. With a roar, the steer rose from the ground; but just as it struggled to its feet, Vaughan seized the rope again and twisted it round his wrist.