Grainger pulled off his knee boots, and threw them up on the bank, and then he and Jacky short-hobbled the horses, and let them feed. The blackboy had stripped himself of every article of clothing, except the remnants of his shirt, which he had tied round his loins; over it was strapped his leather belt with its cartridge pouch.
“Come on, boss,” and then instead of crossing the creek as Grainger had imagined he would, he led the way along the same side, explaining that the myalls, expecting—but not fearing—pursuit, would do all that they could to make the pursuers believe that they had walked up through the creek for a certain distance, and then crossed over to the opposite side. The gins{***} and picaninnies, he said, were not with the party that had seized Sheila, neither were there any dogs with them.
* “White Mary”—A white woman.
** Wife.
*** Gins. Synonymous with lubra—i.e., a wife.
“And you will see, boss,” he said, as, after they had come a mile and a half, he pointed to a sandbank on the side of the creek, deeply imprinted with footmarks, “we will find them eating fish in their camp. Look there.”
Grainger saw that on the sandbank were a number of dead fish which had been swept down the creek from pools higher up. That many more had been left stranded, and then taken away, was very evident by the disturbed state of the sand and the numerous footmarks.
Suddenly a harsh sound of many voices fell upon their ears, and Jacky came to a dead stop.
Motioning to Grainger to lie down and await his return, he slipped quietly away, his lithe, black body gliding like a snake through the dense jungle which clothed the banks of the creek.
A quarter of an hour later he came back, his black eyes rolling with subdued excitement.
“Come on, boss; it is all right. They are camped in an old boora {*} ground, and Sandy and Daylight are going to fight for Missie. I saw Missie.”
* A place which the Australian aborigines use for their
corroborées and certein religious rites.