In the Musgrave Ranges Part 18

The boy pointed in a certain direction. "Me go find um nantu (horses), boss," he said. "Me tie um up 'nother side sand-hill. By'm-by sun come up, black-fella sleep, aller same dead; sleep like blazes. You bring um two fella saddle 'nother side sand-hill. Little bit tucker.

We clear out. Me know um this country." He looked round at the naked blacks, all smeared with blood and grease and dirt, and snoring in profound sleep, and laughed quietly. "Silly fella," he remarked. "All about sleep long time. My word, too much long time."

Soon afterwards Yarloo went off on the tracks of the horses, which he had had the forethought to hobble before letting them go the previous afternoon, and when Stobart was quite sure that everybody was soundly sleeping, he went over to the packs, stuffed his pockets with tucker, and carried his own and Yarloo's saddles out of sight over the sand-hill. He returned for his rifle and water-bag, for he did not know whether their lives might not depend on one or the other of these.

He did not dare to stay away too long from the sleeping blacks, for fear that one of them should wake and notice that he had gone, so he returned and lay down under a tree and waited for Yarloo.

It was nearly noon when the boy returned, and the expression on his face clearly indicated disaster.

"Nantu dead," he announced sorrowfully.

"Dead?" exclaimed Stobart. "What, all of them?"

"Yah. All about."

The drover was too much amazed to ask any more questions for a time.

The blacks had certainly made a thorough work of their first slaughter, but surely they had not killed the two horses which had been let go since friendly relations were established. He looked so perplexed that the boy started to explain.

"Nantu killed aller same cattle," he said.

"Yes, but what about Billy and Ginger?" asked the white man. (These were the horses Stobart and Yarloo had ridden the previous day.)

"Dead," said Yarloo emphatically. "Me bin see um."

"How? Speared?" asked Stobart.

The native looked round stealthily as if afraid of being heard. Then he lowered his voice and whispered: "Neh. Nantu no bin speared.

Throat bin cut this way." He poked his finger into his neck at the side of the gullet and made a cutting movement.

There was only one man in the tribe who would have done the killing in that way, and Stobart asked: "Doctor-man, eh?"

Yarloo looked again. The drover had never seen the boy look so startled. Then he pointed to his nose and indicated the decoration of the native doctor, and to his chest and drew the distinguishing marks of his calling, and nodded. He did not dare to speak. The man with the bunch of bones stuck through his nose, the man who had tried his best to stir up his companions to kill Stobart and had persistently repulsed all overtures of friendship, this man had tracked up the two horses in the night and had cut their throats. The white man was his enemy; he must not be allowed to escape, for he would sooner or later be put to death. Stobart knew that he had a powerful foe.

The drover had succeeded in making a friend of the man with the mutilated left hand, but had not been able to overcome the hatred of the most influential man in the tribe.

The upshot of the adventure was that Boss Stobart was forced to accompany the tribe of Musgrave warraguls back to their mountain fastnesses. In the ranges he found fertile valleys watered with permanent springs, game and birds in abundance, and many indications of the gold which so many daring prospectors had sought for at the price of their lives.

CHAPTER XXIV

A Prisoner

The famous drover was a prisoner. He was free to come and go when and where he liked, but he soon found that he was being closely watched, and that, until he was quite certain of success, any attempt to escape would be worse than useless. It would result in his death.

At first Stobart couldn't understand what they wanted to keep him for, and why they didn't kill him right away, but after a time he found out that Yarloo had told them so many wonderful things about his "white boss", that his captors' opinion as to his supernatural powers was confirmed. In his zeal to save his master's life, the faithful boy had gone a little too far, for the warragul tribe decided that they must keep such a marvellous man with them at all costs, and that his presence would be sure to bring them plenty of the good things of life--water, tucker, and healthy children.

As soon as possible without arousing suspicion, Stobart sent Yarloo to Oodnadatta with a note for Sax, hoping that Sergeant Scott would be able to send out a rescue party at once. But, as we have seen, the trooper was away from home and n.o.body knew when he would be back again.

The camp where the drover was obliged to live consisted of thirty or forty wurlies on the side of a little hill above a spring. The dwellings were temporary and primitive, as blacks' dwellings are: branches stuck into the ground and drawn together at the top to make a shape like an inverted bowl. Stobart could have had one of these, but as the former occupant had not left it as clean as a white man likes his home to be, he chose a small cave a few yards above the camp. This gave him the considerable advantage of being away from the dogs and smell which are inseparable from a blacks' camp.

A bushmen always makes the best of a bad job, and Stobart did not see why he should not have as good a time as he possibly could while waiting for the chance to escape. He never for one moment doubted that his adventure would end successfully, and his chief sorrow was for the loss of the cattle. In the thirty years during which he had driven stock from one end of Central Australia to the other, he had never had one real disaster. Of course there had been small losses, sometimes because of drought, once by flood, and once also because of a band of marauding blacks which he had succeeded in driving off before they had done much damage; but he had never failed to deliver his charges at their destination better in condition and in greater numbers than could be expected under the circ.u.mstances. It speaks well for the man's stern sense of duty that, though he was a captive in a camp of the wildest savages in Australia, and liable to death at any time, he worried, not about his own safety, but about the lost cattle.

He became proficient with both boomerang and spear, and could soon knock over a rock wallaby or a c.o.c.katoo as neatly as any man in the tribe, and, because of his greater strength, he was more than a match for the natives at any kind of sport. He had been a good tracker for many years, but he now found that he had much to learn from these natives, who for generation after generation had hunted for their food by tracking it. Sometimes he was away from camp for days together with a hunting expedition, and in this way he became perfectly familiar with the lay of the country. By his constant a.s.sociation with the warraguls, he picked up a good deal of their speech, and was soon able to carry on conversations with them, supplying anything he did not know by gestures, which are the same all over the world.

After several weeks had gone by in this way, and he had made no attempt to escape, he started to go hunting with only a few natives instead of with a big party. The man with the mutilated left hand was always one of these, and Stobart gradually made his companions fewer and fewer, till it became quite the recognized thing for him to go off with only this one native. The man's name was a long one, and Stobart shortened it to Coiloo. At first his companion, though he very much appreciated the honour of being with his hero, was shy, and did no more than fulfil the white man's wishes faithfully and well. But Stobart had learnt how to win the confidence of blacks, and before long the man had ceased to fear his master--for so he considered the man who had saved him from death--and was devoted to him with all his heart.

Soon after this Coiloo told Stobart about the expedition which was about to set out against Mick's party travelling to Sidcotinga Station.

With the wonderful power which the blacks possess of conveying information over tremendous distances by means of smoke signals, the tribes in the Musgrave Ranges knew all about Mick Darby and his companions, and Stobart was very much concerned when he heard that two white boys were of the number. He knew at once who they were. Not twice in a man's lifetime do boys, fresh from a city school, travel up into Central Australia and leave the few little centres of civilization which are there, and strike out west into the desert; so the drover was certain that one of those white boys was his son.

He spent a whole day describing the boy to Coiloo. He only had an old photograph to guide him, and even this had been left behind in the packs near the fatal water-hole; but the father had so often pictured his son in his own mind, that the description which he gave again and again to the warragul was so good that the man had no difficulty in recognizing Sax when he saw him. Then Stobart told Coiloo to join the marauding-party and to see that the boys came to no harm. The result of the native's faithfulness is already known.

When Coiloo had gone, Stobart frequently went out alone. He was such a successful hunter, and was so willing to add the result of his prowess to the general food-supply of the camp, that n.o.body objected to his solitary expeditions. But Stobart had a more important reason for his wanderings than bringing home dead game. He was looking forward to the day when everything would be ready for a successful escape from the Musgrave Ranges, and he was determined to take away with him something more than his bare life: he meant to take the secret of the Musgrave gold.

At first, when he started to go out alone, he always returned at night, but gradually he accustomed the camp to his absence for longer periods, till he was able at last to carry out his investigations unhindered.

He found many traces of gold, but as he had no tools, and did not want to arouse any suspicions as to the real object of his journeys, he was not able to tell whether the traces lead to any larger deposits. There were little gullies which ran water in times of storm, where specks of the glittering metal could easily be seen in the sand; and quartz boulders stained with what looked like rust, here and there on a scrub-covered hill-side; and little cracks in the sheer face of a cliff where veins of dirty red ran about like the marks in marble. The Ranges were evidently a very rich "prospect", and it was no wonder that white men had braved the desert and the men who lived there, for the lure of gold is the strongest of all, and men die willingly in answering its call.

CHAPTER XXV

The Outpost of Death

One day Stobart set out in a new direction. His only articles of dress were a pair of trousers, so ragged and torn that they did not reach below his knees, and an old felt hat. His shirt had been torn up into strips to bandage his bleeding feet before they had become accustomed to walking without boots. He carried two spears, a woomera, and a boomerang, while an appliance for making fire hung at his belt.

He walked till it was nearly dark that day, then made a fire near a rock-hole, cooked and ate a lizard, and went to sleep. When he awoke the sun had not yet risen. The surrounding mountains were clearly outlined against the pale early morning sky, and when the white man had stooped to drink and had made up the fire, he sat down and looked idly around him, waiting for it to be light enough for him to hunt for his breakfast.

It was a strange position for a white man to be in, and if Stobart had not had a stout heart he would have given way to despair, and either "gone bush" entirely, as some white men have done, and become a full member of the warragul tribe, or he would have committed suicide. But Boss Stobart did not give up hope. The unaccustomed food was beginning to tell upon his superb health and strength, and as he sat by the little flame which seemed to get fainter and fainter as daylight increased, he knew that he could not afford to put off his bid for freedom much longer.

All at once his listless gaze was arrested. He leaned forward eagerly and stared at one of the rocky peaks. From where he was sitting, its outline against the light eastern sky looked exactly like the nose of a man lying down. It was so perfectly clear that Stobart laughed. But he was not laughing at its striking resemblance to a man's nose; certain words of the old Irishman who had been murdered by the blacks came to him. Pat Dorrity had talked in his sleep a great deal the first night after the drover had saved him from perishing. The man was feverish, and the sentences had been jumbled up and meaningless at the time, but Stobart's memory now recalled certain words which he had scarcely noticed at the time.

"Man's nose. Man's nose," the old fellow had muttered. "Man's nose seen looking east. Waterhole on other side. Look out! Look out!"

Then he had become very excited, and such words as blacks and spears and gold and skulls had been mixed up in hopeless confusion.

The peak which Stobart was now looking at was certainly exactly like a man's nose, and he was also looking east. One direction was as good as another to him that morning, and, as his curiosity was aroused, he forgot about his breakfast and began to climb the hill-side towards the rocky top. Before he was half-way up the sun shone over the rim of the mountains, and he was very hot and thirsty when he finally reached the ma.s.s of rock on the summit. He looked down on the other side for the expected water-hole, but the valley was covered with dense scrub, and he saw nothing to give him hope of a drink. However, the ranges were so well watered that he started at once to go down the hill, hoping to find a spring or rock-hole somewhere in the valley.

He was disappointed for some time. The trees thinned as he reached the bottom of the hill and gave place to a broad stretch of sand. This surface showed no sign of water whatever, which was strange, for there had been several storms in the hills since Stobart had been taken prisoner, and the steep rocky slopes of the valley would certainly run off most of the rain which fell upon them. The drover had come across instances of the same thing in the Macdonnel Ranges, away to the north, and he knew that the rain soaked in at the extreme edges of the valley and ran away in a stream many feet below the surface, and never disturbed the sand on top. There is usually a water-hole at the head of such a valley as this, and Stobart was on his way up to look for it, when he received such a shock that he dropped his weapons and stood staring at the sand, his mouth and eyes wide open with amazement. He did not believe his sight. He rubbed his hand over his eyes and looked away, but when his gaze came back again, there was the same sign in the sand.

The tracks of a shod horse!

It was impossible to tell how old the marks were. There were only three or four of them, and they ran up a little strip of clay which the wind had blown clear of sand. They had evidently been made when the clay was soft during rain, and the imprints had been baked hard by the sun and would remain clear for a very long time.

Stobart gazed with utter astonishment at those few prints of a shod horse. They meant one thing, one thing supremely, a white man--a gold prospector most likely, one of the dauntless pioneers who had crossed the desert and had not returned.

The tracks led up the valley. Stobart picked up his weapons and hurried on. Soon he came to a natural embankment of sand which stretched across from one rocky slope to another. He climbed it. The other side was clear of timber. A glint of water caught his eye. The sun had just penetrated the cool shade of that silent place and was striking keen light from a water-hole at the foot of a boulder-strewn knoll right in the middle of the valley.

The white man's thirst was now so great that he was about to start running down to the water which lay so invitingly some twenty yards away, when something white caught his eye.

It looked like the Southern Cross worked out in perfectly white stones on the surface of the sand near the water-hole. Stobart did not run.