"Why, bushes, of course," replied Sax.
"And what d"you reckon it is?" asked Peter again, turning to Vaughan.
Young Vaughan looked intently at the sand-hill where the smoke was coming from. He heard a dog bark, and then thought he saw a little black human figure crawl out of one of the bushes, followed by another and bigger figure. It was all so far away that he wasn"t sure that he had seen correctly, so he answered with hesitation; "It looks as if there were people in those bushes. They don"t live there, do they, Peter?"
"They"re not bushes," explained the man. "They"re what we call "wurlies". They"re sort of little huts the blacks live in. You"ll see quite enough of them before you"ve been in this country long, I promise you."
The boys wanted to go over at once and see, so Peter good-naturedly went with them.
The wurlies were made from branches pulled from the ragged trees which grew around, and stuck in the sand with their tops brought together.
This framework was covered with bits of old bag or blanket. The whole thing was the shape of a pudding-basin turned upside down, and was not more than three feet high in the middle or four feet wide at the bottom.
"Do they really live in there?" asked Sax.
"Sure thing," said Peter. "They crawl in through that hole and curl themselves up like dogs."
As he finished speaking, a s.h.a.ggy head appeared at one of the holes.
The hair was stuck together in greasy plaits and hung down to the man"s shoulders. He looked up at the visitors, half in and half out of the wurley, and on his hands and knees just like an animal. His face and body were black and very dirty, and his head and chest were so thickly covered with hair that the only features which stood out from the matted tangle were a pair of very bright eyes and a flat, shining nose.
Peter said something which the lads did not understand, and the man came out and stood upright. He was quite naked and very thin. His legs seemed to be the same thickness all the way up, and his knees looked like big swollen knuckles. But his whole appearance gave the impression that he could move very quickly if he wanted to, with the graceful speed of a greyhound. The woman and child whom Vaughan had seen from the distance had run away like startled rabbits as the white men came up, and the camp of six or seven wurlies seemed deserted except for this one miserable specimen of humanity. Bits of clothing, tins, pieces of decaying food, and all sorts of dirt were strewn around the camp and gave out such an unpleasant smell that the boys turned away in disgust.
"What"s the matter?" asked Peter.
"How horribly dirty he is," said Vaughan. "Aren"t some of them clean?"
"Oh yes," replied Peter. "Most boys who work on stations are made to use soap. That"s because they work with white men, or with decent chaps like Becker Singh. His boys aren"t bad. But you leave them alone for a week, and they"ll be just as bad as that old buck there.
Don"t you ever forget--" he added earnestly, "don"t you ever forget that that"s the real n.i.g.g.e.r you"ve just seen. And don"t you have too much to do with them."
"There"s not much fear of that," said Sax.
"Well, don"t you forget it, that"s all," repeated Peter. "Many a good lad has gone to the dogs through having too much to do with n.i.g.g.e.rs."
They reached the Dingo Creek on the morning of the fourth day. The bridge was a complete wreck. It was almost impossible to believe that wind could have done so much damage. The whole thing had been lifted off the stanchions, twisted as easily as if it had been a ribbon of paper, and then thrown down into the soft sand of the creek bed. The steel stanchions leaned this way and that; one of them had been torn up from its concrete foundation, and another had been screwed about till it looked like a gigantic corkscrew. The bridge must have been caught by the very centre of the tornado.
The camels did not stop at the creek. They travelled on for a couple of miles to where a railway engine and a few trucks were waiting.
These had been sent down from Oodnadatta with a break-down gang of men, and were returning next day. Peter decided to stay and help Becker with the camels as far as Oodnadatta, but, at his advice, the two boys went on by train, and so it came about that they completed their broken journey in the same way in which it had begun.
CHAPTER III
A Message from the Unknown
The sun had set several hours ago when the train finally pulled up at Oodnadatta station. A hurricane-lantern hung under a veranda, and showed a crowd of about twenty men, women, and children with eager faces, ready to welcome anyone who had completed the interrupted journey. But the two boys were the only pa.s.sengers. They stood on the platform of the carriage and looked at the crowd. It was seven years since Sax had seen his father, but he felt sure he would recognize him instantly; and, besides, it was such a rare thing for two strange lads to come up on the Far North train, that if anyone had been there to meet them, he would have had no trouble in picking them out.
But no one came forward. In vain did the drover"s son compare the picture of his father which he had in his mind, with one after the other of the men under the veranda. Men, tall, thin, and bearded there certainly were, and more than one had that stamp of the desert on his face, which never wears off.
"Can"t you see him, Sax?" asked his companion anxiously.
"Not yet. He"s somewhere at the back, most likely. We"ll wait a tick and see."
So they waited, and in those minutes the lads felt more lonely than they had ever done in their lives before. The thought would insist on presenting itself:
"Suppose he doesn"t come! What then?" The nearest person they really knew was five days away. In front of them was a little crowd of people who knew each other well, but who had never seen the boys before, and all around was the vast unsympathetic silence of the desert which came in and oppressed the boys even in the dark.
Presently a man in badly creased white trousers and very thin shirt, open all the way down, came past. He stopped and looked up at the boys. "Waiting for somebody?" he asked pleasantly.
"Yes, we are," said Sax, who was usually the spokesman of the pair when strangers were concerned. "Can you tell me, please, if Mr. Stobart is about?"
"Stobart? If it"s Boss Stobart you"re waiting for, I"m afraid you"ll be disappointed."
"Why?" Both boys uttered the word of dismay at the same time.
"Well, you see," went on the man, "we expected him the day before yesterday. He"s never late, so I wired up the road. I"m his agent, you know. They haven"t heard of him south of Horseshoe Bend."
"What! Is he lost, then?" asked Sax in an incredulous voice. His hero, his father, lost? Impossible!
"Bless you, no. He"s never lost. He must have taken a fresh track at the Bend, that"s all. Feed and water and that sort of thing. By the way, who are you?"
"I"m his son," said Sax, simply and proudly, "and this is my friend.
Father said he"d meet this train."
"His son, are you? Oh, well, you may depend upon it, he"s not far away if he said he"d meet you. But he didn"t come in to-day. I know that for a cert. You"d better come over to the hotel and let me fix you up for the night. My name"s Archer--Joe Archer. I"ve got a store here and manage your father"s business at this end."
The kind-hearted storekeeper handed the boys over to the care of the hotel-keeper"s wife, who soon set a meal of boiled goat and potatoes before them. Their intense disappointment at not meeting Mr. Stobart had not lessened their appet.i.tes, and they a.s.sured one another that they would see him in a few days, probably on the very next morning.
After their tea they went straight to their room, a little box of a place with a window looking out over a yard where a horse was standing perfectly still and breathing heavily, fast asleep. The friends talked for a time and then blew out the candle.
Scarcely had they done so, when they heard a tapping on the window.
They took no notice. It came again. Tap--tap--tap. It could not possibly have been an accident.
"What"s that, Sax?" whispered Vaughan.
"Blest if I know," answered his companion from the other bed. "Shall I light the candle again?"
"Let"s wait a bit and see," suggested Boof.
The taps came again, this time louder, and were followed by a cough.
Sax struck a match. His hand shook so much that he could hardly light the candle, but whether it was from fear or from excitement cannot be told. The light flared up, went down again, and then burned bright and steady.
Suddenly a man"s head and shoulders appeared at the window. It was a n.i.g.g.e.r. For a moment both lads stared at the apparition with startled eyes. But the man did not do anything. He was just waiting till their surprise died down. His face was not at all as forbidding as the one they had seen at Coward Springs. He was wearing an old felt hat and a dirty shirt, and though he had hair all over his face, there was something about him which proclaimed him to be a young man.
After a few moments of absolute stillness and silence, they saw the hair on his face move, and a row of beautiful white teeth showed in a most engaging smile. Then came the words: "Which one Stobart?"
The lads had never heard an aboriginal speak before. The sound was guttural, but there was no mistaking the words: "Which one Stobart?"
Sax started forward and the black seemed to scrutinize his features intently. "You Stobart?" he asked.