Not until this moment did the young hunter realise his position. "Must be miles and miles off the track," muttered he as he took a brief survey of his surroundings. "I'll have to make tracks with a vengeance! Won't do to be nipped here. Let's see; yes, the way back is across that flat for a certainty, and then over yon stony ridge. Beyond that we bend to the right till we reach a rocky creek." In this way the hunter strove to recall the innumerable bends and curves taken in the chase. "Ah, here's the moon rising: good old moon!"
Joe had plenty of heart, nerve, and resource. His good spirits were proverbial. Yet the situation was not at all inviting. Fourteen miles or so from home on the eve of night. A complete stranger to this rough and trackless region, and his horse badly used up! These were things calculated to try the nerves and tax the courage of the benighted youth.
He made small bones of these, however, and started off at a slow pace on his return. The dog had recovered sufficiently to drag himself along at the horse's heels. The boy eagerly scanned the country for signs of water for this would afford the greatest relief to man and beasts: all of whom felt an intolerable thirst. At last they dropped across a small pool in a stony creek, to their great delight.
Both horse and dog drank as if they would never stop. This, the boy felt, would be bad for the animals, and he sought to stay them. He with difficulty checked the horse, but the dog would not quit lapping until he was as tight as the proverbial drum. Joe himself drank sparingly, and then moved onward. The dog soon began to vomit, and appeared to be on the verge of collapse. So after vain waiting and entreaty the lad was forced to leave it behind, in the hope that it would recover during the night, when he had small doubt as to its ability to find its way home. The horse went easier, now that she had assuaged her thirst. All light had vanished save that of the moon, which shed an uncertain light, making puzzling shadows on the rough ground.
"It's time I was at the head of the long gully," muttered the lad. "From there it's only a mile or so to the home track. Get up Jill, and moosey along. The other chaps are home by this time I expect, and they're wondering what's become of me."
Strange to say, the long gully refused to appear, until it dawned on Joe at last that he was off the track. None but those who have experienced it can understand the weird feeling that possesses one in the dawn of that consciousness. To be in the lonely Australian bush, where the silence is an oppression, is something like being cast adrift in mid-ocean on a raft, with nothing in sight save the wild waste of waters.
That he had lost his bearings became increasingly evident to the wanderer as he moved along. He became a prey to disquieting qualms and the creeping chill of apprehension. Gruesome accounts of the fate of lost travellers had often been related at the home fireside, and these memories awoke in his mind.
"I'm off the track all right; still, I'm sure to cut across the Razorback trail; it'll lie over in that direction." After a pause he determined to adhere to the way that he had been pursuing for some little while. On then "breast forward." There is no semblance of a track, and presently the lad gets into very difficult country. It would be bad enough to travel through in daylight, but now the trouble is accentuated; yet the boy, with strong faith in his ultimate emergence from this chaos, bravely faces the situation. Up hill, down dale, across gullies, forcing the patches of scrub, slithering down ridges, going on hands and knees, ever and anon, to feel for the hoof-prints on what appeared to be the longed-for track—an unceasing march goes on.
At last the mare, completely done up, comes to grief over a tree root, and tumbles to mother earth. The rider rises, unhurt; not so the mare, who has strained her fetlock. What is to be done now? It is a serious mischance, and the boy feels the gravity of the situation. The only thing to be done is to relieve his steed of saddle and bridle, cache his accoutrements, and trudge along on foot.
"Might have been worse," sighed the philosophic lad. "Poor Jill! I don't like leaving you; but it won't be for long, my beauty. Your master will send some one to look after you to-morrow. To-morrow!—Why, it must be past midnight now! Good-bye, Jill."