"I'm glad I didna shoot," said Mackay; "that's the most wonderful savage I've seen. He even tried to warn us not to come further."
"That was out o' gratitood for us not shootin'," laughed Emu Bill; "but, blow me, I can't shoot a nig when he hasn't a spear or weapon o' some sort in his hand."
When they looked again, the strange aboriginal was gone.
The spirits of the little party were unusually cheerful that night, as they sat around their camp-fire and talked eagerly over their prospects on the morrow. Their objective had been reached at last, the toil and stress of the dreary journey was over, the reward—and of reward they all seemed well assured—was now about to be theirs.
"I reckon I'll give ye a hymn o' praise on the orchestra," remarked the Shadow, pulling his ear-shattering instrument from the pocket where it had lain silent since the finding of Fortunate Spring.
"If ye does," threatened Emu Bill, "I'll dump ye in that there smelling solution right over the head."
"Hang it, Bill," complained the unappreciated musician, "I ain't quite dry yet, as it is. Couldn't ye think o' some happier kind o' return for my professional services?"
"Anyhow," consoled Jack, "it wouldn't do to let the niggers know we were about; they might come for us when we were helplessly enslaved with your melody."
The Shadow grinned. "Right O," said he; "music is off."
But Mackay had not seemed at all unwilling to encourage the youth's suggestion.