In the Musgrave Ranges Part 3

"Yes. My name's Stobart," answered Sax. "What d'you want?"

The black fellow smiled again, groped in his s.h.i.+rt, and pulled out a dirty piece of folded paper. He held it in his hand and again looked at the lad as if to make quite sure he was not being deceived.

"Boss Stobart, him say, you walk longa Oodnadatta. You find um my son.

You give 'im paper yabber. Him good fella, Boss Stobart, so I go. My name Yarloo."

The words came slowly, as if the man were repeating something he had said over and over in his mind. But the words were quite distinct.

He handed the "paper yabber" to Sax, and disappeared. The two friends came close together round the candle and looked at the paper which had come to them from the unknown by such a strange hand. For a few moments Sax was too excited to open it. What was the news it contained? Good or bad? It was not addressed, or, if it ever had been, the handling to which it had been subjected had worn any writing completely off the outside.

At last the lad opened it. It was a sheet torn from a common note-book ruled with lines and columns for figures, the sort of thing on which a rough man would keep his rough accounts. It contained writing in pencil by a hand which Sax at once recognized as his father's; but it was uneven as if it had been written in the dark. The words were:

"In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but _no one else_." (These last three words were underlined several times.) "He'll understand. Boy quite reliable. Don't worry.

Get a job somewhere. "STOBART."

The friends read it to themselves, and then Sax read it out loud.

"'In difficulties'," said Vaughan. "What does that mean?"

"Blest if I know. With the cattle, I expect. I wonder where the Musgrave Ranges are."

"But why does he say 'tell the trooper and no one else'?" asked Vaughan again. "Yet he wouldn't say 'don't worry' if anything was up, would he?"

"Oh, nothing's really up," said Sax with conviction. "He means he's a bit late, that's all. P'raps the trooper's expecting him or something.

Of course he wouldn't want anybody else to know. You see, he's got a name here," said the lad proudly. "They call him Boss Stobart. Even the n.i.g.g.e.r did that."

"But he'll be a long time, Sax. He won't be in for a week or so at any rate, or else he wouldn't tell us to get a job, would he?"

The boys discussed the news from every possible point of view, and finally arrived at the conclusion that the famous drover had been forced out of the route he had intended to travel by difficulties with feed and water, and that he might be very late arriving at his destination. That he would finally arrive, they never doubted for a moment. With this a.s.surance, they once more blew out the light, and it was not long before they were both fast asleep.

If they could have known the terrible danger which Drover Stobart was in at that very time, it is certain that sleep would have been impossible to them. He was as near death, a hideous death, as any man can possibly be who lives to tell the tale.

CHAPTER IV

Wild Cattle

The boys woke late on their first morning in the Far North. Sax's thoughts immediately turned to his father's letter. He groped under his pillow and pulled it out and read it again:

"In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but _no one else_. He'll understand.

Boy quite reliable. Don't worry. Get a job somewhere.

"STOBART."

It was a characteristic note, for the drover never wrote long letters, but the shakiness of the writing, and the mysterious way in which it had been delivered, gave Sax a feeling of great uneasiness. If, as Joe Archer the storekeeper had suggested, Stobart had been forced to take a westerly track from Horseshoe Bend in order to find water and feed for the cattle, he could easily have sent word to Oodnadatta by the ordinary camel mail which pa.s.sed the Bend once a month.

Sax looked up and saw that his friend was awake. "What d'you reckon we ought to do, Boofy?" he asked, getting out of bed.

Vaughan took the letter and read it before replying. "It says 'Tell Oodnadatta trooper'," he remarked. "I reckon we ought to do that first, Sax, don't you?"

When breakfast was over, the boys asked the way to the trooper's house, and were told that Sergeant Scott had gone away after some blacks who had been spearing cattle. No one had any idea when he was likely to return. "You see--" said the man who was telling them about it, "you see, he may get the n.i.g.g.e.rs easy and bring them in at once. Or they may clear out and make him chase them for days and days. He'll get them in the end, though, you bet. Old Scotty's not the one to be beaten by n.i.g.g.e.rs."

The boys sat down outside the trooper's house on a little hill and looked over the desolate landscape. They seemed to be baulked at every turn.

Presently, away above the northern rim of the land appeared a little brown stain. It caught the eye because the horizon had no cloud on it or anything to break the clear line except that patch of brown.

Sax was idly watching it, wondering what in the world he could do to help his father, when the cloud seemed to get bigger and clearer.

"Look, Boof," he said. "D'you see that thing over there? It looks like a cloud, but it's brown."

He pointed it out to his friend and they watched it together. It was certainly getting bigger. "Looks like dust," said Vaughan.

"But whatever could be kicking up all that dust?" asked Sax. "It's coming this way. Look, it's covering those trees over there now."

The cloud of dust got bigger and of a more distinct brown. Objects such as trees, which at one time stood out in front of it, were hidden one after another, till it spread out like heavy brown smoke from a damp fire. The air was very clear and still. All at once Sax gripped his friend's arm. He had heard a sound--a sound which was like his own native tongue to the drover's son--the crack of a stock-whip.

"I'm sure I heard a whip," he exclaimed excitedly. "I'm dead sure I did. Hark!"

Both boys sprang to their feet and listened intently. From out that advancing ma.s.s of brown dust sounds could be heard. At first they were just a confused murmur, a sort of deep grumbling very far away; but now and again came a sharper sound, half like the crack of a pistol and half like two flat boards being banged together.

"Yes. I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it. It's whips. I bet you it's whips. And that dust is kicked up by cattle. I _know_ it is. Oh, Boofy, Boofy! P'raps it's my father."

"Let's go and meet him," suggested Vaughan, and the boy would have started out right away to meet the cattle if his friend had not prevented him. Sax had never seen a mob of bush cattle, at least not that he could remember, though his father had often carried him on the pommel of his saddle when he was a tiny baby. But he knew instinctively that it would be dangerous to face wild cattle on foot.

"Let's wait and see what happens," he said. "They won't be long."

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. The animals had never seen a town before, and were frightened at the glitter of iron roofs in the sun.

Suddenly a figure on a horse shot out in front and cantered ahead. The boys became tense with excitement. Was it Mr. Stobart? At first they could not distinguish him except that he rode a grey horse and sat it with the perfect ease of a Central Australian. The animal did not want to leave its companions and started to "play up". But nothing it could do made any difference to the superb rider; he just sat as if he were part of the horse, as if he were indeed its brain, forcing it to obey his will. When he came past the little hill where the lads were standing he was about a hundred yards away from them, and they could see him clearly.

"Is it, Sax?" asked Vaughan excitedly. "Is it your pater?"

The drover's son shook his head. "No chance," he said sadly. "My father's taller than that man. But can't he just ride, Boof?"

The rider had by this time reached a set of troughs which spread out on the ground and were filled by a bore about half a mile behind the town.

He dismounted, had a good look round to see that everything was right, and then started to ride back again. But instead of going straight back to the cattle, he rode up to the boys.

"Good-day," he said, reining in his horse. "Come out to see the cattle?"

"Yes," replied Sax. "And we were wondering whether Boss Stobart"--he said the name proudly--"whether Boss Stobart was with them."

The man shook his head. "No. Didn't he come in a week ago? He started ahead of me. These are T.D.3 cattle."