“Don’t know the danger, I suppose,” said Norman. “I say, boys, how long could we hold out?”
“Always,” said Rifle. “Or till we had eaten all the cattle.”
“If the blacks don’t spear them and drive them away.”
As the afternoon wore on the conversation grew less frequent, and all waited, wondering whether the blacks would attack them or try to drive off the cattle. Guns were laid ready; ammunition was to hand, and the captain seemed to have quite thrown aside his suspicions of the black, who, on his side, had apparently forgotten the cut across his shoulder, though a great weal was plainly to be seen.
In spite of bad appetites there had been two meals prepared.
“Men can’t fight on nothing, wife,” the captain said; and then seeing the frightened looks of Mrs Bedford and the girls, he added with a merry laugh: “If they have to fight. Bah! if the black scoundrels come on, it only means a few charges of swan-shot to scatter them, and give them a lesson they will never forget.”
Soon after this the captain and Uncle Jack went outside with the glass to sweep the edge of the scrub and the ridge, as well as every patch of trees, leaving the boys alone in the back part of the house to keep watch there.
“I say,” said Rifle, in a low tone, “it’s all very well for father to talk like that to them, but he doesn’t think a charge of swan-shot will scatter the blacks, or else he wouldn’t have the bullets ready.”
“No,” replied Norman, quietly. “He looks very serious about it all.”
“Enough to make him,” said Tim; “after getting all this place so beautiful, to have a pack of savages coming and interfering.—I say, Shanter, think the savages are gone?”