Sax sprang forward. He acted on the spur of the moment. With clenched fists and blazing eyes he stood between the drover and the bound man. For a moment there was silence except for the moaning of the tortured man. Mick looked at Sax and said, with a cruel smile: "Well, and who told you to interfere?"
"But, Mick," gasped the lad, surprised at his own audacity, but determined to see the matter through—"but, Mick, you can't do it. He's tied up."
"Can't do it, indeed!" shouted Mick. "Can't do it! That nigger wanted to kill me, he did. Look out. I'm going to chop that brand out of his side with this whip."
The thong whistled through the air over the drover's head and came forward. But Sax stood his ground. The falling whip coiled round his legs and jerked him off his feet, sending him backwards over the body of the bound native. Mick laughed and raised the whip again; but before it came down, the lad was on his feet and had cleared Eagle's body at a bound. The lash caught Sax's right leg. It slashed through the thin cloth of the trousers and left a bleeding cut from ankle to knee. The boy did not cry out. He grabbed at the whip and missed it, but before it could be raised again, Vaughan rushed forward and caught it. He twisted the plaited hide round his wrist and hung on. Sax joined him immediately, but they tried in vain to wrench the handle out of the infuriated man's hand. The unequal tussle was soon over. Mick was a big heavy man, and the lads were light and were not used to matching their strength against the endurance of a man. First one and then the other was thrown back. They came on again, however, till, with a sudden jerk, Mick flung the whip away from him, and faced them with his bare hands.
Sax and his friend were breathless. They stood panting beside the native on the ground, and looked at the drover.
"You young whipper-snappers!" he shouted, advancing with threatening gestures. "You young whipper-snappers! I'll teach you to mind your own business. Get out of my way."
But the exhausted boys stood firm. At all costs they meant to protect the bound man from the drover's anger. Mick hesitated for a moment. He looked at the lads who were so new to the back country and who had played the game so well. They seemed so young and small to him just then. Because of his man's strength he could easily have killed them both, but their very weakness made their obstinate resistance and pluck seem all the greater. His anger began to die slowly, and his clenched fists fell to his sides and opened. "I can thrash that nigger in the morning," he said to himself. And then his real manhood, which anger had hidden for a time, asserted itself, and he felt ashamed. "After all," he thought again, "a chap shouldn't hit a man when he's down, nigger or no nigger."
Finally he spoke aloud. "All right, you boys. I won't touch him to-night. Leave him where he is till morning. I'm going back to bed."