Conrad H. Sayce

“ Just after midnight, when everything was still, and the last of the cattle had ceased to splash in the water-hole and had gone out on one or another of the long cattle-pads which stretched away into the silent desert, when the half-moon looked down on the motionless and soundless world, a dark face peeped over the top of the sandhill above the sleeping stockmen. The man's naked body lay flat as a snake on the sand and wriggled forward with movements like the waving of a shadow on a wall, till the native could gain a clear view of the place where his unconscious enemy lay. ”

“ He had heard no sound and seen no sign of the running man, yet he knew that he was close upon him when he was forced to give up the chase, and, as if to confirm this opinion, when Stobart finally stood still and looked at the great boulders above him, hoping to see a black human form flit from one to another, a stone came out of the silence, hurled with deadly force and aim. Years of danger with wild cattle had made the drover's actions as quick as lightning. ”

“ This man must be a devil. At once every spear was raised, poised in the woomera, and directed, not at the white man, but at the native who had dared to pit his strength against a supernatural power. Stobart understood the situation immediately, and so did the unfortunate black, who hunched his shoulders ready for death.
Suddenly one of those reckless impulses came to the drover which come only to great men, and which are often the turning-points of their lives. He jabbed spurs into his horse's flanks and wheeled it like a flash between the cringing native and his would-be murderers. ”

“ During the exciting scenes at the yards, Sax and Vaughan had come out from the shelter of the tank, wholly absorbed in the wild life they were now witnessing for the first time. With the keen delight which every healthy-minded boy has in adventure, they followed every twist and turn, wishing with all their hearts that they were in the thick of it and not mere lookers-on.
When the cattle broke, the drover dashed out on their side of the mob and waved a warning to them. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Bellow followed bellow. He set his feet firmly in the sand and would not budge. Down went his head, and he tossed clouds of sand into the air.
"Let 'em have it. Let 'em have it," shouted the drover. "Force 'em up there. Force 'em up." He stood in his stirrups and plied his whip, cracking it back and front, and shouting at the top of his voice. The blacks did the same, till it seemed as if they would force the cattle into the yard by sheer energy.
But no. The leading bullock stood firm. Something had to give way. No single animal could withstand the pressure of all the others from behind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For half a mile they approached the camp in this way, noiselessly, and completely hidden by the rocks. They saw no sign of natives.
All at once a thin, high, quavering sound rose just ahead of them. Others joined it like a pack of dingoes howling in the night. Then the note trembled and came down, getting louder as it descended the scale till it was a deep muttering of great anguish. It started again and again. Every native of the little party shivered. It was a death-wail.
Yarloo turned to Mick, and said hoarsely: "Old man bin die. We hurry, I think." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A terrible struggle ensues. Over and over they roll. Now the black is on top, now the white, but Mick never relaxes his hold on the man's throat. Gradually the native's struggles weaken. The white stockman digs deeper with his thumbs into the neck of the gasping man and waits the inevitable end. Finally all resistance ceases. The black body grows limp and the head falls back.
The green-hide ropes are lying near. Mick reaches for them and binds his captive more securely than any clean-skin cattle have ever been bound. Then he looks up and meets the startled gaze of Sax and Vaughan. ”

“ Everybody looked up when Stobart came into the firelight. One or two of the men saw the irna and called out, and at once the whole tribe was on its feet in alarm. Arrkroo saw it also and shook with fear. The white man was indeed a devil, for how else could he have found a little bone stuck in the sand on a dark night? In an instant the fire was deserted. The frightened natives crouched behind wurlies and breakwinds, dreading least the white man should point that deadly bone at them. But Stobart swung it by its hair string till it was over the hottest part of the fire and then let it drop. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At one end was a hole through which passed a string made of native women's hair. The thing was a luringa—a bull-roarer—a sacred charm, the most precious object which Eagle could possibly give to his white friend. With this luringa the white boy could travel unharmed amongst the most savage tribes of the desert, and could even enter the wildest of the Musgrave fastnesses and return, a thing which no white man had ever yet done. ”

“ In fact, Sax did not bother to wipe the blood off his leg where the whip had cut it.
All the men were soon asleep except one. Eagle, the bound and tortured warragul, was wide awake. For the first time in his life he was helpless. Those supple limbs of his had never been bound before, and he tugged and tugged to be free till he cut his skin against the hard, unyielding bull-hide ropes. It was no good. Mick was too old a cattle-man to leave a rope so that it could be loosened by pulling. ”

“ Stobart left the cattle which they had collected in charge of Yarloo and galloped ahead. He met other cattle, dead or dying, but was not prepared for what he saw when he topped the rise just above the water-hole where the camp had been.
A crowd of about fifty blacks squatted round a fire. Their naked bodies were smeared with red ochre and clay in fantastic designs, and many of them had feathers or grass or the claws of large birds in their bunched-up hair. Great bleeding chunks of meat and entrails were smoking and sizzling in the fire, and all around them were the carcasses of dead cattle. ”

“ At the name Yarloo, Sax looked up quickly. Surely that was the name given by the messenger who handed Boss Stobart's note to the boy in the middle of the night. The blacks laughed at the drover's question, and one of them pointed towards the troughs. "Him tummel aller same kangaroo," he said, with a grin, making movements with his body like a man being flung off a horse. "Him come down cropper, I think," and he rubbed the back of his head and made grimaces which caused the others to laugh heartily. A black-fellow is always highly amused at an accident. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Towards the end of a long hot day, a shabby mixed train stopped at one of the most wonderful townships in the world, Hergott Springs, the first of the great cattle-trucking depots of Central Australia. It was dark, but a hurricane lantern, swung under a veranda, showed that the men who were waiting for the train were not ordinary men. They were men of the desert. Most of them were tall, thin, weather-beaten Australians, in shirt sleeves and strong trousers worn smooth inside the leg with much riding. ”

“ The noise had now increased to the continuous rumbling bellow of a great mob of restless cattle. Already the shouts of men could be heard, and the cracks of whips came very sharp and clear. Dim forms could be seen for a moment now and again on the outskirts of the cloud of dust, as mounted men wheeled here and there and everywhere in their efforts to keep the cattle together. ”

“ He remembered all the hard years between, the trips on which he had only just come through alive, the terrors of thirst, the slow torment of being out of tucker, the scraps with blacks, the dreary homeless monotony of the desert, and he said earnestly: "I'm not urging you to come, mind. I know what you're in for; you don't. But if you want to be men, now's your chance."
Vaughan's riding test next day was a severe one. "It's not that I want to make a fool of you," explained Mick, as they lead the horses out of Archer's yard. "But there's not a properly quiet horse in my plant. ”

“ Leaving the clean-skins in charge of three boys, with instructions to keep them from straying, Mick and the other stockmen drove the branded cattle right away and let them go, and then rode back to camp for dinner. A fire was lit, the nine quart-pots put in the blaze, the damper and bag of meat brought out, and soon everybody was munching the hard tucker with a relish which can be gained only by a vigorous life in the open air. ”

“ The lash caught Sax's right leg. It slashed through the thin cloth of the trousers and left a bleeding cut from ankle to knee. The boy did not cry out. He grabbed at the whip and missed it, but before it could be raised again, Vaughan rushed forward and caught it. He twisted the plaited hide round his wrist and hung on. Sax joined him immediately, but they tried in vain to wrench the handle out of the infuriated man's hand. The unequal tussle was soon over. Mick was a big heavy man, and the lads were light and were not used to matching their strength against the endurance of a man. ”

“ There is no pain worse than burning. A man will draw his hand away from fire at all costs. Several parts of the man's body were actually in the fire, but he endured it all and steeled himself to fight back the greater agony which throbbed at his wrists. The fire touched the green-hide and singed the white bull hair, giving off a pungent smell. Eagle sniffed it greedily. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It wheeled quickly, and in so doing twisted the rope, which Vaughan was still holding, round the boy's body. He could not escape. He was at the mercy of a wild steer.
The sudden and unexpected rescue of Saxon Stobart had roused the white men, so that when the bull turned on its helpless victim, they were ready. But what could they do? What could a mere man possibly do against a full-grown steer? It would take too long to set the boy free, for the hard unyielding rope was hitched tight round him. There was only one thing to do, and Dan Collins did it. ”