“Quick, boys, guns—guns! Black fellows coming.”
Shanter started up into a sitting position and tried to drag out his nulla-nulla, but his eyes closed again, and he fell back heavily.
Norman tried to catch him, but he was too late, and a glance showed that there was no deceit in the matter, for the drops of agony were standing on the black’s face, and it was quite evident that he had fainted away.
He soon came to, however, and lay gazing wonderingly about him.
“Black fellow?” he whispered anxiously, as if the effort caused him a great deal of pain.
“All gone along,” cried Rifle, eagerly; and the black closed his eyes again, while the boys consulted as to what they had better do.
“That’s soon settled,” said Norman. “We can’t fetch help to him, and he can’t move, so we must stop here till he gets better. Let’s cut some sticks and drive them in the ground, tie them together at the tops, and spread a couple of blankets over them.”
This was done so as to shelter their invalid from the sun, and then they saw to their own tent and prepared for a longer stay. After this Tim and Rifle went off to try to shoot something, and Norman stopped to watch the black.
It was a weary hot day, and the boys were so long that Norman began to grow anxious and full of imaginations. Suppose the lads got bushed! He would have to strike their trail and try to find them. Suppose poor Shanter were to die before they came back! How horrible to be alone with the dead out there in that solitary place.
The sun rose to its full height, and then began to descend, but the black neither moved nor spoke, and the only companionship Norman had was that of the two horses—his own and the one which carried the pack. These cropped the grass round about the camp, their hobble chains rattling a little, and the peculiar snort a horse gives in blowing insects out of the grass he eats were the principal sounds the boy heard. It was some comfort to walk to where they grazed and pat and talk to them.