In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

And Alec said, "I would sooner take Geordie than any man on the station. He rides and climbs better than any one of them, and nothing tires him. And now, mother, good-night. Don't sit up for me; you have had an anxious, sad day. I am going down to the gunyahs" (huts) "to get a couple of boys to go with us, and to glean as much information as I can about the country. I shall be back in an hour or two. Good-night, youngster; good-night, Margaret."

Kissing his mother, he took up his hat from a side table, and without another word left the room.

As he passed the bachelors' hut on his way to the paddock, he noticed that one of the hands, a man named Keggs, whom they had only engaged a short time before, was leaning against the door-post smoking a short black pipe. He was not a prepossessing person, for his face, which was of an unwholesome pink, was deeply marked with small-pox, and his pale-coloured shifty eyes were inflamed-looking and unshaded by any eye-lashes. Alec had not liked the appearance of the man, but, thinking it a shame to be prejudiced by mere looks, he had engaged him, and, not knowing his capabilities, had employed him about the head station. He had several times noticed him prying into things with which he had no concern, but thinking the man was inquisitive he had said nothing. Alec observed that Keggs glanced keenly at him as he passed the hut, and turning round some little time afterwards he could see, by the light of the moon, that the man had followed him for a short distance to watch where he was going. When Keggs saw that he was observed, he turned and shrank back to the shadow of the hut.

Stepping out with the free, springy stride that speaks of perfect health and muscular strength, Alec reached, in about half an hour, the squalid gunyahs that formed the camp of a few native families that were allowed to remain on the run. One or two naked, bushy-haired fellows were crouching over the hot embers of a wood fire, on which they were cooking great lumps of kangaroo or wallaby flesh. They sprang up in alarm and seized their heavy nullah-nullahs (clubs), which lay by their sides, when they heard Alec's quick footstep, which they did from a great distance, and in an instant were prepared for defence. But they knew Alec's voice directly he called out, and putting down their weapons they advanced to meet him. They aroused the old gin, Ippai, from her sleep, when Alec told them who it was he wished to see, and a moment afterwards she joined them at the fire, still wrapped in the opossum rug she had been lying in.

Sitting down on a log by the side of the fire, Alec was for the next hour deep in talk with the natives. They readily answered his questions, but it was difficult for him to arrive at the facts of the case, as the Australian aborigines have an entire disregard for the truth, and say anything that first enters their poor childish brains, and anything that they think will please their questioner. It was only by going over the same ground time after time, and with different members of the party, that Alec succeeded in sifting out the truth from what they told him.

At last, when the Southern Cross was high in the sky, he thought that he could learn nothing more from them, and rose to go. He arranged that two young men, Prince Tom and Murri, fine specimens of the aboriginal black native, should accompany him. He knew them both as excellent guides and hunters, and, knowing their love of sport and wandering, he felt sure that they would keep their promise of being up at the head station before sunrise.

The night was very dark when he left the camp, for the moon had set, but he knew every inch of that part of the run, and could have found his way about with his eyes shut. The hard, dry earth was covered in all directions with sheep tracks, which looked like paths, and which would have puzzled any stranger; but Alec bore straight along over the little dry watercourse that intersected his route in one place, and through the strips of scrub that lay between him and the house. He was thinking too deeply to notice the plaintive cry, like the wail of a child, of the little native bear in the great trees of the gully, or the howls of the dingoes that every now and then disturbed so weirdly the silence of the night. He saw the dim outlines of the horses move away into the darkness as he came across the paddock, and he could hear the quick sound of their cropping, but everything else was still.

As Alec lightly vaulted over the gate between the paddock and the yard, he violently struck against a man who was standing in the shadow of the cart-shed, and who had evidently stationed himself there to watch Alec's movements.

"What are you doing here?" said Alec, angrily, for his temper was not absolutely angelic, and it annoyed him beyond measure to be watched in this manner.

"I ain't a doin' nothink," answered Keggs, for it was he.