"Yes, it makes me shudder to think of our carelessness; for we ought to have remembered there was danger to be expected from them."
When it fell dark they found themselves still some three miles from home, and the darkness somewhat retarded them in the scrub. Suddenly, when nearing the mountain, a rifle-shot was heard ahead, followed soon after by a different report, like that of a shot-gun.
"Good God! what can be up?" exclaimed Morton.
Both men fired their revolvers as a signal that they were near, and pushed on as hastily as they could. As soon as the open country was reached they galloped straight for the camp. Everything appeared peaceful enough, and Charlie seemed surprised at their hasty approach.
"What were you firing at?" asked Morton, rather crossly, for no man likes to be flurried by a false alarm.
"Well, I don't know exactly," replied Charlie. "I had given you up for to-night, and was sitting out here with Billy, when he called out that there was something moving on the rocks over there. I looked, and could indistinctly make out some dark figure moving about, so I challenged; getting no answer, I fired my rifle in the air. Whatever it was they started away, but in a few minutes came back again, so I fired the shot-gun at them and they departed. Billy called out they were 'Jinkarras!' and covered his head with the blanket, and I expect he has it there now."
"What were they like?" asked Brown.
"It was too dark to see, but they were certainly not natives, unless we have run across a race of dwarfs."
Billy, on being induced to take his head from underneath the blanket, asserted stoutly that they were Jinkarras they had seen; that he ought to know, as when he was a child he had been carried off by one in the night.
"How did you get back, Billy?" asked Morton.