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 pa.s.sing 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs 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 n.i.g.g.e.r," 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 c.o.c.ked 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 pa.s.sed 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: ma.s.ses 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 n.i.g.g.e.rs come from who speared my two horses."
"Are the n.i.g.g.e.rs 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.
"n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 c.o.c.ky 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.