"Like the dingo. Well, we were getting along finely, when we got to rather a steep gradient and had to go slower up it. Near the top one of us suddenly caught sight of something unusual to the left of the line. It looked like a huge cowering figure, wide but not tall. Whether four-legged or two-legged it was impossible to say because of the gloom. It wasn't a nice feeling to have this thing silently waiting for one. We all boo'd and shoo'd first, thinking that if it were a beast of any sort it would scoot at the noise; but it didn't stir an inch or make a sound. We felt pretty creepy by then, for black-fellow tales were even commoner in those days than they are now. From the size of it we guessed it might have been a group of three men. Then we shouted, 'Hands up and declare yourself, or we fire!' But still the creature didn't move or speak."
"My hat!" exclaimed Eustace sympathetically.
"We had got to get past it somehow to reach home, for it wasn't likely we could stay there all night. We gave it two more chances, and then we fired for all we were worth. There were instantly shrieks, groans, and such horrible sounds that we waited for nothing more, but pushing our stakes into the ground, sent the trolley flying past the awful spot and down the next hill. How we didn't turn over and get killed down that incline I don't know—it was the one nearest home, you know, where one has to be so fearfully careful about putting on a brake as a rule. However, we got in all right, and gave a detailed account of our adventure. Every one was interested and puzzled. Father was a little inclined to laugh; he said it was probably the stump of a tree, but of course we had evidence against that in the genuine shrieks and groans following our shots. 'Well, we must just go first thing to-morrow,' father said, 'and look into the matter by daylight.'"
"And did you?" asked Eustace eagerly.
"Rather! I should just think we did—father, a friend of his who was staying with us, and the two boys I had been out with. We rode, and when we got to the spot the first thing we saw was the huge stump of a newly-felled tree, right in the very place we had seen the gruesome object."
Eustace whistled.
"But a tree couldn't shriek and groan," he objected.
"So we said when father began minutely examining the bark; and to our satisfaction there wasn't a single shot mark in the tree, though we must have fired half a dozen between us. 'We can't have seen this,' I said, feeling rather cock-a-hoopy; 'it must have been something nearer.' We were just all puzzling our heads over the matter when a Chinkee came running towards us from a group of huts not very far off. He was gesticulating and making a fearful fuss. We followed him in a fine state of excitement, and he led us to a little low shed with a railing before it. We looked in, and there lay two dead pigs!"
"Two dead pigs!" cried Eustace.
"Yes. It was pretty humiliating, for it just proved we had aimed at the tree and missed it. Instead, we shot the Chinkee's inoffensive pigs. It was many a long day before that joke was forgotten against us. Moreover, amongst us we had to scrape a pound together to pay the Chinaman for his loss. I never felt so small in my life."