And Inspector Puttis knows what he is talking about, and is not bragging when he declares himself superior to the irritations occasioned wilfully at times by settlers. There were not wanting instances where imprudent scrub-farmers and others had suddenly lost horses and cattle; had found their cottages burned to the ground on a temporary absence in the bush; had left their crops safe over night, to wake cornless and hayless next morning; and yet no trace of the ravagers and thieves was to be found when the aid of the Black Police trackers had been called in to help to discover the aggressors. And as such invisible pirates, it was noticed, apparently only attacked the holdings of the few persons who were publicly at enmity with the Black Police, ugly stories got about that pointed to the N. M. “boys” as having played the rôle of midnight marauding Myalls (wild aborigines) “at the special request” of the officers of their troop.
Inspector Puttis now proceeds to bid his host adieu, and before he goes arranges for the neighbouring mission station to be watched for the arrival of Billy.
It is growing dark when Miss Mundella’s fiancé leaves the barracks, and he rides with loose rein at an easy canter towards his camp. The black “boy,” Inspector Puttis’s aide-de-camp, follows some hundred yards behind. After a couple of miles along the red clay banks of a dried-up mountain torrent, the track leads up a small ridge into an outlying portion of the dense “scrub,” or jungle, that covers the high ranges on either hand. Here the way becomes far more difficult to travel, and the riders allow their clever steeds to slowly pick their own path. The clay surface of the treacherous road, worn into wave-like corrugations, a foot or more in depth, from the passing trains of pack-mules from the distant tin-mines, and ever moist with the dews of the dense tropical growth on either hand, is quite dark with the overhanging branches of buttressed fig-trees of gigantic growth, of graceful palms and pendent ferns and creepers, whilst dangerous stinging-trees and lawyer-vines to right and left render caution necessary. But the other side of the patch of scrub is safely reached, and the inspector is just about to urge his horse into another canter, when that animal suddenly snorts and bounds to the other side of the track. This impromptu action probably saved its rider’s life, for as it does so, phut! and a long kangaroo spear flies harmlessly past the inspector’s body, and goes clattering down upon the stony bottom of the watercourse in front.
Puttis, although a perfectly fearless man, is one of those persons who never throws a chance away, and, knowing what good cause the aborigines of the district have to wish for his destruction, always carries a revolver in his hand when out late in the scrub. Almost before the spear has touched the ground, certainly before it is motionless, the active little man has swung round in his saddle, and fired a snap-shot at his cowardly assailant, whose dusky form can just be seen, as he stands, paralyzed for an instant at the escape of his victim, upon a fallen tree trunk by the wayside. A sparkling burst of flame, a crashing echo, half drowned with a yell of agony, and the inspector’s horse becomes unmanageable, and bolts with him down the track into the open land beyond.
When Puttis can prevail on his horse to return into the scrub, he finds his attendant native constable standing by the side of the prostrate body of the would-be murderer, examining him by the light of a wax match he has just struck. The wounded savage, who is desperately hurt in the region of the right lung, scowls up at his enemies as they lean over him. He is quite naked, and lies on the road on his left side. The necklace of joints of yellow grass that he wears, shows him to be in mourning for a relative.
“What name this beggar, Yegerie?” inquires Puttis of his constable, meaning, “Who is this?”
“Malle beggar, Marmie. Him bin long a ’tation, mine think it” (Bad fellow, master, has been a station-hand, I think), pointing to some half-healed scars on the man’s shoulder-blades that demonstrate to the experienced eyes looking down on him that he has recently received a flogging.
“Any more black fellows about?”
“No more black beggar, Marmie. This one sit down long his self,” replies the trained black, in whose wonderful powers of hearing, seeing, and deduction his officer has perfect confidence.