“Can you talk their language, Billy?”
“No, boss, but there was two runaway boys with them. One, he come from down Boulia way,” the speaker waves his black arm towards the south-west. “This boy speak my language a bit, and I bin mining with the doctor in his country and know his——” the speaker hesitates for want of a word, and then gives a number of flourishes with his hands, to express to Claude the masonic-like manual signs by means of which the members of some tribes are able to communicate with each other, to a great extent, without speaking.
“Well, get these boys if you can,” interrupts Claude; “but don’t you think you can do without them?”
“No, I think it good to get the boys,” replies Billy quietly but firmly.
“How long will you be away,” asks young Angland, slightly expressing by the tones of his voice the annoyance he feels at this fresh detention.
“I come back with boys to-night or to-morrow. ’Spose you camp next water-hole—’bout twenty miles. I tell Joe all ’bout it last night. He knows place; he bin there.”
“But, Billy!” exclaims Angland, as a thought suddenly strikes him. “Look here, if white fellow send ‘boys’ to track us they will see your track up to village. You’ll get your friends up there into trouble if you don’t mind what you’re about.”
“All right, boss,” replies Billy, smiling a smile of superior wisdom; “you see it bime-by.”
Both men have for the last half-hour been cantering after the rest of the party, who, with the pack-horses, are on in front. Presently Claude’s companion signifies his desire that they should proceed less quickly, and then, pulling his horse into a walking pace, Billy throws his reins over his steed’s head, and holds them out to Claude. Our hero takes them, and looks on in silence, wondering what the black youth is about to do. Sitting sideways on the quiet animal he is riding, Billy next proceeds to divest himself of his boots and hat, which he fixes firmly to the dees of his saddle, and then producing a pair of queer, mitten-like objects made of emu-feathers, he fastens them securely upon his feet. He now motions Claude to lead his horse under a big gum-tree that stretches its great branches over the cattle track they are following, and suddenly rising into a kneeling position upon his saddle, he clutches a branch above his head, and lifts himself clear of his horse into mid-air.
“Me leave no track into bush this way,” the black cries from his perch, his dark face covered with a big, oily, triumphant smile, and Claude, turning his head as he rides on, sees Billy swinging from tree to tree, like some great anthropomorphic ape, into the heart of the dark forest on his right.