In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

"Not yet, I haven't had time; I've been too busy with you. Now don't you excite yourself, or you will be ill again."

"Excite myself! I should think I will. If you don't instantly take your shirt off and let me see if you are badly hurt, I'll get up, and jump about and shout. What a selfish beast I have been to lie here comfortably insensible whilst you were in such pain. Now then, off with that shirt."

Alec did as he was bidden, for although George's voice was weak, there was the old resolute tone about it, and Alec knew that he would do what he threatened. He was glad, now that he came to think of himself, to get the shirt off, for his shoulder felt very stiff and sore. Murri had to help him, for he could not lift his left arm above his head. The myall's nullah-nullah had made a terrible bruise, which had already turned black and blue, and in one place, where the flesh had been cut, the shirt adhered to the wound. But it was nothing of any great importance, and the hardy fellow scarcely felt anything of it beyond the stiffness, and a certain amount of pain. Cold water and a little bandage soon put it all right.

The next day George said that he felt well, and was quite fit to go on, but Alec utterly refused to do so. He said that a day's rest would do none of them any harm, and that he thought they might stay there with comparative safety, as the natives, after securing their dead, seemed to have gone away. There was plenty of feed for the horses too, which they might not get again in such abundance on the dry and parched-up plains between that place and the mountains. George consented to his brother's plan, though he chafed a little at the delay, for he felt really well enough to go on. It was wonderful to see the difference that a night's rest and coolness had made in him. Except that he was a trifle pale, and that his head was bound up, he looked the same strong cheery fellow as ever. He had a most wonderful vitality, and his health being perfect and his constitution sound and strong, he was able to throw off an illness that would have prostrated another man.

He was up before daylight, and, regardless of Alec's injunctions to "sit still" and "be quiet," he would insist on doing his share of the work.

"Fiddlesticks, Alec," was his polite remark to his brother when he asked him not to get up. "I'm all right and jolly as possible, and if you think I'm going to let you and Murri do all the work you are mistaken."

"You want your breakfast," said Alec, with a laugh. "You are hungry, and think us slow. Don't do the virtuous and pretend it is anything else—I know better. Well, here you are then, youngster; take this wood and make the fire up. I'll go and fill the 'billy.'"

After their breakfast, at which George certainly did not behave much like an invalid, they saw that all the horses were close to, and then they walked off with Murri to the entrance of the glen, near to which they were encamped. Across an enormous plain of sand and spinifex and tangled mulga scrub, that was marked here and there with long dark lines of bush where the creaks and watercourses ran, lay the great blue mountains, towering high into the lambent sky, amongst which was hidden the golden treasure that they sought. It was a glorious sight, for not a cloud obscured the sky, and in that marvellous atmosphere every ridge and azure peak stood out as clearly and sharply defined as though no sixty miles of air lay between the mountain range and the place where the boys stood.

Whilst the lads were looking at this noble view, which lay spread before them like a grand panorama, Murri, who did not care to waste his time in any such unpractical proceedings, was carefully examining the great trees, under whose shade they stood, to see if he could find traces of opossum in them. Signs that any one but a native would completely ignore were all that he had to guide him, and his quickness of vision in detecting these traces was wonderful. Murri would saunter to a tree that he thought looked promising, and if an opossum had climbed it he would instantly detect the little scratches the animal had made in ascending. He quickly found a massive tree which bore on its bark the toe-holes of an opossum; he then sought for one of these that had a little earth still sticking to it. When he had found it he softly blew on the earth to see if it held together. It did not; it was dry, and crumbled away at once, telling him by its so doing that the marks were not very recent ones. If the opossum had climbed the tree that morning the earth would have been damp, and would have held together when he blew on it.

"Bail potchum" (no 'possum) "on um tree. Must go catch kangaroo, you mil-mil" (see); "clever fellow, Murri."