In the Musgrave Ranges

CHAPTER VII

Stealthy Foes

Next morning, when the horses came in, two were missing. "Which way them two horses sit down?" Mick asked one of the boys. "What for you no bring um in?"

"Him dead," was the answer.

"Dead!" exclaimed the drover. "How dead?"

"Him speared," explained Yarloo.

"Which way? You show um me." The drover saddled his horse and went away with Yarloo, while the two white boys gave the other stockmen their breakfast, wondering what had taken Mick off in such a hurry.

Mick Darby found the two dead horses. By their tracks they had evidently strayed away from the others, and by other tracks it was clear that blacks had crept upon them in the dim light of dawn and had speared them, for the bodies were still warm. Mick always carried a bottle of strychnine about with him, and at every camp he poisoned little bits of meat and left them behind to kill the dingoes which abound in cattle country. He looked at the two horses—fine, stanch animals, both of them—and his heart became hot with anger. He put his hand to his belt and fingered the poison pouch. It was a great temptation. If the blacks had speared the horses for food, here was a chance for revenge. If he poisoned the carcass and killed the blacks, would it not be a terrible warning to the others?

But it was only for a second that the ghastly thought attracted him. He was a true white man and would not stoop to any hidden revenge. It is a white man's way to face his enemy in the open and under the sun, not to kill him by putting strychnine in his food. So Mick turned away and rode back to camp, and did not tell the boys what danger they were in.

Next day smoke signals were all around them and very close. It gave the boys a feeling that keen black eyes were peering at them from every bit of cover, and that lithe forms were slinking noiselessly from tree to tree, never turning a stone or breaking a twig to disturb the silence of the desert.

That evening they unpacked and unsaddled the horses early, and tied them up till after tea. Then Mick rode away with them himself, hobbled them on an open patch of dry bush, and prepared to watch throughout the night. He knew the native method of attack: a little, then a little more. If two horses had been killed last night, three or four might be speared this night. To lose their horses would leave the party at the mercy, not only of the blacks, but also of a more terrible enemy still—thirst. So the brave bushman was going to take no risks.

The spot he had chosen was a little plain covered with dry buck-bush and surrounded on all sides with mulga scrub. There was plenty of feed to keep the horses quiet all night, but Mick was obliged to ride round them again and again and turn them back from the scrub. He was perfectly sure that wild natives were in ambush behind the trees, and that the first animal who wandered within range of a spear-cast would become a victim. The moon was half-full in a cloudless sky, and the drover had no difficulty in seeing, but, after an hour or two, he had the greatest difficulty in the world to keep awake. The night was warm and still and drowsy, and the day had been one of constant tension, and as the drover sat with cocked rifle and with the horse's bridle looped over his arm, he must have nodded once or twice through sheer weariness.

Suddenly he heard a stone move on another stone. He was fully awake and alert instantly. The horses were still in the middle of the plain, quietly feeding, but one or two of them were looking at an old tree stump in the curious meditative way which resting animals have of looking at things which are of no particular interest.

All at once Mick Darby sprang to his feet. He had never seen that tree stump before. For several hours he had looked at that little plain in the moonlight, and every bush was pictured on his memory. He was absolutely sure that old tree had not been there when he started to nod with weariness. Then, how had it come? Trees do not grow from the ground, become old, and die and lose most of their branches in less than an hour of a summer's night.

Mick put his cocked rifle to his shoulder, trained the sights on the tree stump, and walked slowly towards it. The thing was about a hundred and fifty yards away when he started. He had covered a third of the distance when the tree suddenly disappeared. Remarkable as it may appear, it is a fact. One moment he saw the thick twisted trunk of a mulga tree with a few broken branches, standing out on an otherwise treeless plain; the next it had gone completely. But, instead of the tree, three wriggling black forms glided between the bushes with the stealth of snakes, making for their lives towards the scrub. They were three warragul blacks, who had crept out into the plain and had used this wonderful but quite common method of concealment.

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."