A Seasonable Supply.—Visitors in the Night.—Captivity.—An Old Acquaintance.—The Ranger's Settlement.—An Embassy to Daisy Grange.—Jack in a New Office.—The Grateful Native Woman.—Davy's Compunction.—Bush-ranging Life.
Next morning, when the broiled fish was ready for breakfast, Gerald and Hugh were missing. With some uneasiness the rest watched and waited for an hour, when a shout announced the approach of the wanderers, and Arthur and Jack set out to meet them, and were glad to assist them in dragging in a kangaroo.
"It is the same impudent fellow that defied me last night," said Gerald. "I tracked his curious boundings to a wood three miles from here; and then Hugh and I beat the bushes and shouted till we drove him out of cover; but he cost us lots of arrows and spears before we could dispatch him; and a weighty drag he has been for us this winter morning of June, when the sun is as hot as it is in our summer June at home. Now, Wilkins, help to skin him; we mean to have all our boots mended with his hide."
"But, Arthur, we must tell you," said Hugh, "that when we were in the wood we saw a smoke at a considerable distance to the south-west. Do you think it could possibly be from some station? Gerald wished much to go on and ascertain whence it arose, but I persuaded him to wait till we consulted you; besides, I knew you would be all uneasy if we were long absent. Have we got so near the squatters, Wilkins?"
"Not a bit of chance on 't, Master Hugh," replied he. "We're far enough from t' squatters yet. Depend on 't it's just another lot of them good-to-nought black rogues. They'll be thick enough here where there's aught to get, I'se warrant 'em."
"It is most natural and just, Wilkins," said Mr. Mayburn, "that the true proprietors of the soil should participate in its fruits. I fear it is we who are, in fact, the rogues, robbing the wretched aborigines of their game, and grudging them even a settlement in their own land."
"But we have not robbed them, papa," said Hugh. "Kangaroos and pigeons abound here enough for all; and we do not wish to hurt the poor wretches if they would not annoy us. Here is Margaret quite ready to open a school for them, if they would come and be taught."
"Margaret has done more good than any of us," said Mr. Mayburn; "she has labored incessantly to instruct Baldabella and her child, and to open to them the way of salvation. It is thus by scattered seeds that the great work of diffusing the truth is to be accomplished; and I fear, Hugh, we have been too much engrossed with the cares of this life to think seriously."
"Now, boys," said Arthur, "we had better not linger; the kangaroo is skinned, and the meat is cut up into convenient portions for carriage; let us walk on briskly till we are hungry enough to enjoy it."
Onward they moved over the extensive grassy plains, recognizing with pleasure various tall trees of the varieties of Eucalyptus, the Grass-tree with its long weeping branches, the Pandanus with its slender palm-like stem, and the Fig-tree with its spreading roots. Beneath one of these trees they encamped to cook kangaroo steaks, and to enjoy once more what Wilkins called "a decent, nat'ral dinner." There, with strips of skin for thread and a fish-bone for a needle, Wilkins repaired the worn and tattered boots, while Margaret and Baldabella made netted bags of the stringy bark, and Jenny and Ruth bruised the wild oats which the young men had cut down as they came along.