But, has the half-breed been doing nothing save holding on, meanwhile?
With incredible difficulty, owing to the mad career of the horse over the wilds, Yellow Billy has managed to pass his whip thong twice round the brute's neck. This, knotted together, forms just the sort of hold-fast the boy has been accustomed to on his steer rides. The grip gives him a great advantage.
But the horse is now scrambling up a gully, which becomes sharper and steeper as he advances, merging into a deep gorge at last, with precipitous sides and frowning, unscalable face. A cul-de-sac, indeed! Even this the indomitable warrigal essays. Again and again does he rush the battlements, and mount some distance; only to tumble back with sobbing breath but dauntless energy.
Cannot Yellow Billy now dismount in safety?
As easily, oh, reader, as one might slip off a rocking-horse.
Why not, then, fling himself off; abandon the desperado, and be thankful for life and limb?
What! Billy show the white feather? Billy throw away his chance of the honour and glory of capture thus? Not for all the wealth of Australia! This is the most ecstatic moment of his existence.
Foiled in his attempt to scale the heights, Bucephalus begins to think more seriously of the foe upon his back. Were he dislodged, what might not become possible? Here then!
So began the battle royal between these well-mated antagonists, to be fought to a finish, there, on that small patch of earth in the rocky fastness; with none in the arena to interfere or to applaud. None, indeed, to witness, save the rock wallaby perched high on a beetling crag, who may have moralised on the unwonted spectacle of the whirling grey-and-brown mass of flesh and blood below. Higher still, wheeling in mid-air, is an eagle hawk, who keenly watches the solitary duel down there, with unwinking eyes of insatiable greed; caring not a doit which wins the mastership, so that the issue may provide a fit object for tearing talons and lacerating beak.
But below there!