Reuben and some of the settlers rode over to the spot to which the tracker pointed.
"Confound them!" Blount exclaimed. "Look there! There are at least twenty heads."
"So there are," Reuben said. "There must have been a lot of natives."
"Yes, there must have been a good many," the settler agreed, "but not so many, perhaps, as you would think. Nobody has ever found out, yet, how much these blacks can eat when they make up their mind to it; but two could certainly devour a sheep. They will eat till they can't sit upright."
"They would hardly eat as much as that, with a long journey before them," Reuben said; "but allow only three to a sheep, there must be sixty of them. My man said there were a good many more than the trackers put it down at."
"So much the better. I only hope they will show fight."
After five minutes halt, the ride was continued for the next three hours. Then three dead sheep were passed. This time the flesh had not been devoured, but the poor beasts had, in every case, been speared.
"Savage brutes!" Reuben exclaimed. "They might at least have given the sheep a chance of life, when they could go no further, instead of wantonly slaughtering them."
"That's their way, always," Mr. Blount said. "They kill from pure mischief and love of slaughter, even when they don't want the meat. But I don't suppose it makes much difference. I expect the sheep have dropped as much from thirst as from fatigue, and they would probably have never been got up again, after they once fell. I fancy we shall come upon a stream, before long. I have never been out as far as this before, but I know that there is a branch of the Nammo crosses the bush here, somewhere."
Another five miles, and they came upon the river. The wet season was only just over, and the river was full from bank to bank. It was some thirty yards wide, and from two to three feet deep. A score of sheep lay dead in the water. They had apparently rushed headlong in, to quench their thirst; and had either drunk till they fell, or had been trampled under water, by their companions pressing upon them from behind.