"Stewart, you red-heided rascal, you've knocked the wind clean oot o' me," replied Mackay, sternly, shaking his aggressor's hand nevertheless with hearty warmth. "I might have known that nothing could have killed you."
Two others now pressed up, their sun-tanned and bearded features fairly glowing with delight. They were Phil, the geologist, and Pioneer Bill, the bushman of Bentley's party, and their joy at seeing their lost comrade again was affecting in its sincerity.
Emu Bill was the next to approach. "I knew you wouldn't be long after me, Mac," he said, "but I'm blowed if I expected you to bounce through so sudden. Bentley, here, mesmerized the nigs that scooped me in, or I should have been dead meat by this time. They seemed mighty unwilling to let me go, all the same, an' I was a bit anxious 'bout your reception, I was."
Meanwhile Bob stood a little way apart, his heart filled with gladness at the happy reunion. Jack and the Shadow were calmly leaning on their rifles, and keeping a watchful glance on the old chief, who in turn was eyeing the boys with a smile on his wrinkled countenance. About a hundred yards behind him his massed warriors stood, silent and grim.
"I reckon we should go an' wash the filthy black off our faces," said the Shadow to Jack; "it feels mighty uncomfortable, it does." Then he gazed at his companion in surprise. "Why," he cried, "you're face is marked like the bars o' a cage. What has you been doin' to it?"
Jack laughed. "I had forgotten that we ought to be black," said he, "or I could have told you that yours was like the moon under partial eclipse."
"And how about mine?" asked Bob.
"Clean washed off," answered Jack. "But look at Mackay; isn't his a treat? It's striped like the zebra in a circus."
Mackay heard the remark, and put up his hand to his cheek. "Well, well," he said, in disgust, "here I was fancyin' myself to be black as the ace o' spades. No wonder the niggers thought there was something no' right about our get-up. It must have been the water dripping from the roof o' the passage." Then he turned to Bob. "It's a good thing we passed that last batch inside the tunnel, Bob."
Bob nodded gravely, then discarded his cumbersome robe, and straightened out his sinewy form with a sigh of relief.