by Zane Grey
“Oh, Bob, how sweet of you!” cried Beryl radiantly, and all the pride and scorn of her were as if they had never been. “I’m sorry for all…that you must go. Kiss me good bye!” And giving him her hands, she leaned on him and lifted a scarlet face. Tears streamed from under her closely shut eyelids. Bligh kissed her heartily, but not on her lips. Then, releasing her, he turned to Sterl.
“Hazelton, it’s been dinkum to know you,” he said, extending his hand. “Good bye and good luck.” They shook hands.
“Red Krehl, you are the damnedest fellow, the greatest fellow I ever drove with. Put her there, as you Yankees say.”
“Wal, Bligh, I always kinda wanted to punch you on the nose,” drawled Red, gladly accepting the proffered hand. “But I was way off. I’m sorry. I reckon you’re some punkins of a fellar yoreself.”
“Thanks, Red. Good bye, Leslie. You’re one real Aussie lass. And now to part with our great boss. That’ll be hard.” He moved away from them, gazing about for Dann. Beryl averted her face and covered it with her hands. Leslie, taking her arm, led her away.
Then Bligh espied Dann, coming from his wagon, and strode to intercept him.
At that instant Red leaped like a panther. “Injuns!” he yelled fiercely. “Run! Run!”
Sterl ducked instinctively, his swift gaze taking the direction of Red’s leveling rifle. He was in time to see a magnificent naked savage in the very action of throwing a spear. He heard the tussling sound as the spear was launched. Then Red’s rifle cracked. The aborigine’s tremendous energy ceased as bluntly as if he had run into a wall. He fell back out of sight on the ridge.
Sterl heard, too, almost simultaneously, the chucking thud of that spear entering flesh. Wheeling, he saw the long shaft quivering in the middle of Bligh’s broad back. The drover emitted a mortal groan. As he swayed backward, Sterl espied the red spear point sticking out of his breast. It had passed through Bligh almost to penetrate Dann. That last stride of Bligh’s had intercepted the spear, evidently intended for the blond giant standing in the sunlight.
“Get down behind something!” Sterl yelled at the top of his lungs. He ran for the rifle leaning against the wheel of his wagon. Friday came running under the trees, his wommera held aloft. He must have thrown his spear, for he had none.
He reached the cover of the wagon just as Sterl got his rifle. The whizz of spears went by, but Sterl could not see any. Dann’s roar of rage and his thumping boots relieved Sterl’s fears for him.
“Plenty black fella…close up,” panted Friday, and pointed to the low rise of brushy ground just back of camp.
Sterl peeped over the top of the wagon, but could not see any blacks. Red’s rifle cracked again, accompanied by a hideous screech of agony.
“Friday, they better keep out of that red-head’s sight,” declared Sterl in his grim satisfaction. Then he looked around. Dann and Slyter had taken refuge behind Slyter’s wagon. The drover was hurrying the women inside it. “Lie down!” Slyter commanded. “Stanley, here’s one of my rifles. Watch sharp…along that bit of bush!”
Yells of alarm from the drovers across the river drew from Dann a booming order: “Stay over there! Hide! Abo’ attack!”
Sterl swept his glance around in search of Red. It passed over Bligh, who on the moment was lying on his side, in a last convulsive writhing. The spearhead protruded from his breast. Blood poured from his mouth. The sight recalled to Sterl the work of Comanches on the plains.
“Pard,” shouted Red from behind the dray a dozen steps away, “they sneaked up on us from the left. Bunch of big yeller devils! They’ll work back thet way ’cause it’s open below. An’ I seen Larry an’ Ben ridin’ hell-bent for the riverbank. We’ll heah them open the ball pronto. Where’s Friday?”
“He’s with me. They just missed getting him.”
Red’s rifle spoke ringingly. “Ha! These abo’s ain’t so careful as redskins.”
“Where’s Rollie?”
“To my right heah, back of thet log. But he’s only got his six-gun. Pard, put yore hat on Friday’s wommera an’ stick it up, all same old times.”
Sterl complied. The ruse drew whistling spears. One stuck the wagon seat; the other pierced Sterl’s hat and jerked it away, twenty feet beyond.
Again Red shot. “I got thet bird, pard. Seen him throw. Aw, no, these blacks cain’t throw a spear a-tall!”
Friday touched Sterl and pointed. It was evident that he sighted an aborigine, but Sterl could not discern any color save green. He did see the brush move, and he fired low under that place. The shot brought results in shape of a wild yell. Then the drovers across the river entered the engagement, and, following a volley from them, Larry and Benson began to shoot from behind the bank down the river below camp.
“They must be slopin’, pard, but I cain’t see any,” called Red. “Coupla of our outfit acrost the river climbed up trees, which was a helluva good idee. I heerd lead hittin’ flesh. You know thet sound.”
The firing ceased, and there followed a period, tense and watchful. One of the drovers across the river hailed Dann: “Boss!”
“Hello,” yelled Dann.
“They broke and ran. About a hundred or so.”
“Which way?”
“Back over the downs, toward that big strip of bush where we saw smoke signals.”
“You drovers take advantage of that,” yelled Dann. “Clear out! Bligh’s done for!”
“Right-o. Good luck!”
After a moment, Slyter called: “Blacks can’t stand rifle fire. But wait…Hazelton, send Friday out to make sure they’re gone.”
But Friday had anticipated such an important move and appeared, darting from tree to tree, until he disappeared. Sterl waited anxiously. Red came running to join Sterl.
“All over ’most before it started,” he said. “Did you bore one, pard?”
“I’m afraid not. But I made one yell.”
“Wal, I made up for thet. They was great, tall fellers, Sterl, wonderful built, an’ not black a-tall. Kinda a cross between brown and yeller. Wild? Holy Mackeli!”
“Can you see Friday?”
“Shore. He’s comin’ back from the ridge there. Gosh! He’s heeled, too. Packin’ spears an’ wommera. So we must have bored a few.”
Presently the black strode back into camp. The cowboys met him, and Slyter and Dann followed in haste. Rollie was next to arrive.
“Black fella run alonga here,” said Friday. “All guns. Come back bimeby.”
“We must not lose a moment,” boomed the leader.
Red gazed down at the dead drover: “My Gawd, ain’t thet tough? Jest a second quicker an’ I’d have saved him! I saw some-thin’ out of the corner of my eye. Too late.”
“Bligh stepped in front of me in time to save my life,” rolled Dann tragically. “That black was after me! I saw him rear back and throw. Paralyzed me!”
“Damn sad, boss. But not for us. We was losin’ Bligh anyhow. I reckon we oughta slope pronto.”
Larry and Benson came panting up on foot. They stared in horror at Bligh. It had appeared they were eager to speak, but sight of the speared drover inhibited them for the moment.
“Slyter, we must muster and drove out of here in double-quick time,” declared Dann.
“Right-o. They might track us. But maybe not.”
“Friday, will those aborigines track us?” queried Dann.
“Might be. Pretty cheeky.”
“Let me see,” pondered the leader. “The horses are close. We’ll abandon another wagon. Pack…Hazelton, you and Krehl go with Larry Benson. Drove the mob up the river. We’ll follow behind the horses…Slyter, you and Friday help me bury this poor fellow who had to say good bye to me…which saved me and cost him his life.”
Riding out with the drovers, the cowboys had a look at the several dead aborigines. There were evidences that the fleeing natives had taken their wounded with them. Sterl rode straight to the place where he had fired at one through the foliage. He found blood, b
ut no body.
The savage who had murdered Bligh lay in the grass on the open ridge where Red had espied him. The aborigine did not resemble Friday in any particular. He was taller, more slender, more marvelously formed. The color appeared to be a cast between brown and red. Perhaps the thin red hair covering the body accounted for that tinge of color. The matted mop of hair had a tinge of red in its black. His visage was brutish and wild, scarcely human.
“Wal, I shore didn’t hit the bastard where I aimed, but I bored him all right,” declared Red. “Gosh, he’s long-laiged! Reckon I don’t want one like him chasin’ me on foot. I’d be a gone goslin’”
Only the physical signs about that aborigine appeared to interest the cowboy. He was, however, tremendously wrathful over the fine horse the aborigines had slaughtered and cut up. “Hossmeat eaters! When there was daid beef for the takin’!”
The mob had moved away of its own volition, but as the direction was upriver, the drovers were gratified about it. They caught up in short order and were again on the trek. The ground was hard and level, the grass luxuriant, and clumps of brushland widened away to the north. Sterl kept looking back for the wagons, and, while doing so, he could not help seeing the smoke signals in the distance. The cattle were fresh, restless, and eager to hurry along, although part of the mob grazed intermittently.
“Hosses comin’, pard,” Red said over his shoulder. “Leslie an’ Friday herdin’ them. Two wagons an’ a dray behind! If you ask me, we’re an outfit shore smothered with luck.”
“Bad or good?” queried Sterl.
“Good, you locoed gent!”
“But we’re lost. Too many cattle and horses. Too few men.”
“Bet you we get along better.”
“It’s a bet.”
Sterl looked back. The sky was black with circling, drooping birds of prey. What a relief to get away from the stench! The larger gum trees were white with birds. Beyond them the smoke signals thinned out. Ahead of the mob, kangaroos dotted the rippling downs. In the west only faint shadowy lines of clouds or ranges hovered in the air.
The horses came trooping up in two bunches, one large on the left, and that on Sterl’s side numbering perhaps a hundred. These were Slyter’s horses, and included the five Thoroughbreds that were left of Leslie’s band. But she rode Lady Jane, and Red was on Duke, and Sterl on King. Considering everything, it was a remarkable achievement of Slyter’s to have still nine-tenths of the horses he had started with. Once behind the mob, the horses slowed down to their leisurely grazing gait. Leslie kept behind them. The wagons caught up, then slowed to a walk. Sterl espied Beryl, sitting beside her father. Mrs. Slyter was with her husband. Friday shifted over to Sterl’s side. There was a tomahawk stuck in a belt round his waist, and he carried two wommeras and a bundle of spears. Rollie brought up the rear.
The trek was on again. Sterl hardly realized it. He felt the old instinctive reactions tugging at his tragic mood. Brief as the last few days had been, they were crowded with so much stern labor and so many incidents that they seemed to cover a long period.
Friday gazed often back over his shoulder. It must have been to read the smoke signals, not to see any signs of pursuit. But it was not possible to believe they had seen the last of this strange and war-like tribe of aborigines. According to Slyter, a daylight attack was extremely rare. The earliest dawn hour had always been the most favorable for the blacks to attack, and perhaps the worst for the drovers. Tired guards were likely to fall asleep at the last. Sterl hoped for the best, but his fears could not simmer down.
At intervals the trek crossed small, fresh-water streams that showed no evidence of tides. The line of travel was a mile or thereabouts from the bush that lined the river. Toward sundown Slyter left his wife to drive his wagon, and, mounting a horse, he rode ahead, obviously to pick out a campsite. Besides grass, water, firewood, there was now imperative need of a camp which the aborigines could not approach under cover.
Sunset had come when Slyter finally called a halt. Three gum trees marked the spot. One of them was teak and would supply the necessary firewood. A running stream was adjacent. Off toward the river a hundred rods grew a dense copse fringed by isolated bushes. The rest was level, grassy downs. All of these features had figured in Slyter’s selection.
“From now on everyone does two men’s work,” boomed Dann. “Missus Slyter and the girls take charge of rations and cooking. We men will all take turns at supplying firewood and washing up after the meals.”
An anxious, hurried, mostly silent attack upon camp tasks followed. Supper was disposed of while there was still daylight. The level downs shone gold, apparently clear to where the sun set.
“An important thing now is to sleep away from the fire and the wagons,” asserted Slyter. “It is good to keep a fire burning all night. Blacks often spear men while they are asleep. That’s why we must all hide.”
“Old stuff for me an’ Sterl, boss,” drawled Red. “We’re used to sleepin’ with one eye open. An’ heah, why we can heah a grass hopper scratch his nose.”
But none of the trekkers laughed any more, nor smiled. That climax at Doré’s Bush had been like a great mace, beating into them a final sense of the fatal chances against them. Even Stanley Dann saw at last the futility of relying solely upon hope, faith, courage. These would help, especially the last, but the issue depended upon sight and hearing, and the instinct to fight. Red Krehl was throwing a bluff. It was well known to Sterl that the narrower a margin of safety, the cooler and more deadly nonchalant this Texas cowboy grew. For himself, Sterl could only gird up his loins and set himself bitterly against catastrophe.
The cowboys helped Dann and Slyter carry ground cloths, blankets, and nets over to the fringe of brush near the copse. That appeared to be an impenetrable thorny brush—A favorable place, thought Sterl. Beds were laid under the brush. The three women were to sleep between Dann and Slyter. The mosquitoes were terrible, but they had become a secondary trial. Presently Red came over, escorting the girls, who were frightened.
“Do you really think the aborigines will come tonight?” asked Beryl apprehensively.
“Wal, there’s no tellin’. Let’s expect the wust. An’ it might not come.”
Leslie said: “Oh, I’d just as lief be speared by aborigines as speared by those mosquitoes!”
“Crawl in, both of you,” ordered Slyter. “Don’t take off even your shoes. There! Now, Red, tuck that net around their heads, but not flat.”
While Red carefully arranged the net, Beryl gazed up at him with eyes unnaturally large and dark in the starlight.
“Just to think, Red, I could have escaped all this…if I had married one of those nice Sydney boys, or even a Downsville merchant!” she exclaimed wonderingly, yet not without subtlety.
“Shore you could, you darn little fool,” drawled Red. “I told you that the day I met you.”
“If I remember rightly, you did not,” she retorted.
“Sterl, we’re supposed to sleep…and lie quiet, no matter what happens?” asked Leslie.
“We’ll be reasonably safe here,” interposed Slyter. “Come on, Mum, get in next to the girls. I’ll be along presently. Go to sleep. If you should hear aboriginal yells, gunshots, or anything…don’t be unduly frightened.”
The men returned to the fire. Friday was splitting quantities of wood.
“It will be bright moonlight presently,” Dann said. “That’s in our favor. Benson, take Larry and Roland on guard. I needn’t tell you to be vigilant. Don’t be separated for more than a moment at a time. Stay off your horses unless there’s a rush, or something unusual. Come in after midnight to wake Hazelton and Krehl.”
“Hazelton, where will you sleep?” asked Benson.
“What do you say, Red?” returned Sterl.
“Something pretty close to these trees…on the side away from the open. We’ll heah you, when you call.”
No more was said. The drovers led their horses away toward Dann’s band to change
to fresh mounts. Slyter went out to have a look at his band, in plain sight under the rising moon. Dann tramped off to bed. Friday dropped his axe to replenish the fire.
“I’m not sleepy a-tall,” said Red, rolling a cigarette. “Air you, pard?”
“Nope.”
The hungry horde of mosquitoes were outwitted so long as the net was away from his face. The dew fell almost like mist. Waterfowl winged swift flight over the downs. A heavy splash attested to some creature that was not a bird. The moon shone so brightly that Sterl had to turn his eyes away from it. He wished the night was over. To wait, to listen, to be in suspense seemed harder than actual combat. No sound from horses or mob. He was listening when he went to sleep.
When a gentle hand fell on his shoulder and Friday’s voice followed, Sterl felt that he had not had his eyes closed longer than a moment.
“All well, Friday?” he asked.
“Everything good. But bimeby bad,” replied the black.
Red had sat up, putting on the coat he had used for a pillow. Everything was wet with dew. The moon had soared beyond the zenith and blazed down with supernatural whiteness. The downs resembled a snowy range. A ghastly stillness reigned over the wilderness. Even the mosquitoes had gone.
At the refreshed campfire the three drovers were drinking tea.
“How is tricks, Ben?” asked Red.
“Mob bedded down. Horse quite quiet. Not a move. Not a sound. It was as if we were in another world.”
“Boys, have another cup of tea while I muster your horses,” said Larry.
“Heah comes Slyter,” added Red.
The drover appeared, a dark blot against the moon-blanched grass. He asked anxiously about the horses, and then the mob.
“Lucky it’s so bright. Almost like day,” he replied in relief. “Roland, give me a cup…Let’s see, it’s half after midnight. Boys, look sharp for three hours…then sharper.”
The cowboys left camp, leading their horses, accompanied by Friday.
The mob could be seen for a long distance. It was like a checkerboard on the silvery downs. They passed the two herds of horses, the larger of which—Dann’s—were grouped between the cattle and the camp.
