By this time the sun was just showing over the eastern rim of the land, and the few trees were casting long shadows on the sand. The native gathered up Vaughan's clothes, but did not know how to put them on the lad; so he covered him over with them. He had been careful not to leave the quart-pot behind, and as soon as the boys were safely under the shelter again, the man took the quart-pot and started off.
He was evidently going for water. In a few minutes, however, he came running back to camp at top speed. He was very excited and only stayed long enough to put the quart-pot down on the ground, before he grabbed his weapons and disappeared into the scrub in the opposite direction, running as hard as he could, yet making no more noise than a cat.
He had not returned the quart-pot exactly as he had found it. When he took it away, it was empty, but now it contained a sprig of sharply-pointed leaves.
Yarloo came on the scene almost as soon as the other black was out of sight, and was probably the cause of the first man's sudden disappearance, Yarloo was carrying a small bunch of parakelia leaves. The first things he noticed were the new tracks, and he stopped dead. From where he stood, he could not see into the bough-shelter, and so he waited for a couple of minutes to see if the man who had made the tracks was anywhere about. There was absolute silence; the only things which moved were the shadows, which got shorter very very slowly as the sun rose. With minute care Yarloo examined the marks of the stranger. At first he was upset to find from the tracks that the man was a wild Musgrave black, but as soon as he came to the place where the warragul had set up his spear, he smiled and felt no more anxiety, for it is a sign of perfect goodwill towards a man to dig a spear in his track. (To find a spear or a boomerang on your track means that the owner of them likes you so well that he gives you his weapons, because there is no need for him to carry them when he meets you.)
As soon as Yarloo knew that the stranger native was friendly, he went over to the shelter. The two white boys were lying on their backs in the sand, one of them unconscious and gasping, with his tongue swollen so much that it was too big for his mouth; the other gasping also, but still in possession of his senses. Sax's eyes opened, and a glimmer of intelligence showed in them, but he couldn't speak, and was too weak to move. Yarloo looked down at them, but particularly at Sax, the son of his master. Then his glance wandered to the quart-pot, and suddenly everything else was forgotten.
No prospector who has toiled for years without any luck, and then comes upon a nugget of gold quite unexpectedly, could have been more glad than Yarloo was at sight of that little sprig of leaves. He took it up and looked at it with huge satisfaction. The stem was woody and each leaf was grey, narrow, and not more than half an inch long. The peculiarity about them was, however, that each little leaf ended in a spike. The black-fellow felt the spikes and grinned to feel the pricks of pain, for the leaves had only recently been pulled from the tree. Then he dropped his handful of parakelia and grabbed the quart-pot and started to run, tracking the other native to find the tree from which that sprig of leaves had been picked.
On the discovery of that tree rested the salvation of the white boys' lives. It was the famous needle-bush.