Emu Bill proceeded deftly to obey the instruction, annoyed with himself because of having overlooked the defect.
"I'll swear the cunning brute has shrunk hissel' on purpose," he growled. "I pulled him in as tight as a windlass barrel just a second ago. Woah, Fireworks, woah! ye cantankerous son o' a gun."
But Fireworks was intent on creating a diversion. For some time he had been allowed to roam the desert at his own sweet will, and probably his memory of pack-saddles and such like encumbrances had faded into happy oblivion, but now that he felt the old galling weight on his back his vicious temper was aroused to fury, and he stood waving his weird-looking head about in savage sweeps, and ever and again essayed to roll over, pack-saddle and all. When Emu Bill approached him now, the recalcitrant animal suddenly began a series of frisky antics, pulling wildly at the nose rope which the Shadow clutched firmly, and twisting its huge bulk into all sorts of contortions.
"Woah, hang ye!" shouted Bill, again striving to get near.
In reply Fireworks snorted defiance, then bent himself almost double; a sharp crack sounded out as the girths burst, and in a moment the sand was strewn with his load.
"So that was your little trick, was it? ye measly old quadrooped!" cried Emu Bill, in disgust. "Well, I reckon you kin try it over again."
He gathered up the saddle for another effort, but Mackay intervened.
"It won't do, Bill," he said. "We'll just have the circus repeated. We'd better postpone the start until the morning, an' meanwhile we'll put Fireworks through his paces. I didna think the beastie would be so obstreperous."
And, indeed, to look at the animal now, no one would have thought that such a fiery temper lurked in that cumbrous body. Fireworks, after his unruly performance, stood gazing meekly at the wreckage he had created, the very picture of innocence. Yet it was a wise policy to break him in to a more fitting tolerance with his burden before venturing into the great desert, where mishaps would cause more vexatious delays, and probably occasion damage which could not then be easily rectified.