In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

"It cannot be the boys," said Mrs. Law; "they would know it would alarm us too much."

"What about Keggs?" said Margaret, making one of those intuitive leaps at the truth which are so characteristically feminine. "You know that Yess said he owed them a grudge."

And now had come Yesslett's time for action. He certainly felt one pulsation of his old nervousness at his heart, but the new courage that came of his new strength and spirit instantly repressed it, and he himself was surprised to find how calm he felt. He was standing at the window where the moonshine fell into the room and mingled with the yellow lamp-light. His fair, fluffy hair, moved by the tiny breeze, shone like a halo where the light glowed in it. One hand rested on the low window-sill as he turned and said quickly, but in a quiet voice—

"They may be in danger. I feel sure it is the boys. I will go straight on across the paddock. Margaret, you run round by the bachelor's hut and tell any of the men that are there to follow me as quickly as possible to 'the Dip,' just beyond the end of the paddock; that's where the sound came from."

Without another word Yesslett leaped through the window, and dashing across the garden scrambled over the fence into the yard; crossing that at a run, he got into the paddock without losing time by going round to the bachelor's hut. As he entered the paddock he saw Margaret's white figure darting diagonally across the yard to the men's quarters. He hurried along at a break-neck speed over the dewy grass, the startled horses looking up and moving away as the boy dashed past. He had travelled half-way across the paddock without slackening speed, for his healthy out-door life in Australia had given him all the strength of limb he wanted when he was in England, and he now was as long winded as either of his two cousins. He was just on a level with a little patch of wooded shade, called the "Gum clump" on the station, when he saw a figure, a thin, black figure, running towards the house as swiftly as he himself was from it.

It was useless for him to attempt to hide, for he had been seen; so he stood where he was till the man came up. It was a black boy; but Yess could not tell whether it was one from the blacks' camp or a myall; he did not know Murri well enough to recognise him in the deceptive moonlight. He was not left long in doubt, for the man rushed up to him and said in the most excited voice and in so great a hurry that Yess could hardly understand him—

"Make um great haste, Missa Yessley. Come along o' me. Plenty much white fellow ride quick, cotch us. Um chewt Missa Law dead bong; um take Alec along ob um."

All this was unintelligible to Yesslett, but it sounded very terrible, and he could see that the man was in deadly earnest; so, without a second's delay, he said that he was ready to go with him. He knew, directly that the man began to speak, that he must be one of the two black fellows that had gone with Alec and George, but he could not tell which one.

Murri turned at once, and started again at a swift pace to run towards "the Dip," as it was called, at the end of the paddock. Yesslett managed with difficulty to keep up with him. They climbed over the fence together, and, straight as an arrow to its mark, Murri led the way to the charred tree trunk, across the roots of which George had fallen. Murri had had the sense to move the boy's body from the awkward position in which it had fallen, and to raise his head a little.

Yesslett darted to what seemed to be the lifeless body of his cousin. Geordie's eyes were closed as though in a heavy sleep; his face was deadly white, except where the blood that had poured from his nostrils, when he was flung to the ground, had stained it with its awful stain. At first Yesslett could detect no signs of life in the motionless body before him, but slipping his hand beneath Geordie's open shirt, and placing his hand above his heart, he thought he could detect a faint, faint fluttering there. Yes; hurrah! there was a tiny movement, and bending his cheek down to Geordie's pale lips he could just feel the lightest breathing on it.