"Is it that one you'd be putting on old Sergeant, now?" he demanded. "Yerra, ye might do worse than take him on as horsebreaker!"
"I might, indeed," laughed Mr. Warner. "Oh, Merle, aren't you easily taken in!"
But Merle had disappeared. Endurance, for her, ended when Dick put Agility at the big log; she turned and scurried indoors, her heart hot with shame and disgust. She had been made to look and feel a fool—and it was Dick Lester's fault! Dick, who was always in her way. She hid her burning face in her room, and did not reappear until all the party had mounted, and her father was shouting for her with angry impatience. It was the final touch that she passed old Sergeant, hastily let go, and slumberously cropping the grass; while Mr. Downes, on a fresh horse, capered airily in the distance beside Agility, to whose back Dick was still glued.
Nobody bothered about Merle. Bobby was as close as he could get to Dick, while Mr. Warner and Mr. Lester were riding beside Mrs. Lester. There was nothing for Merle to do but fall in behind them, where she had the doubtful pleasure of hearing her father tell the story of the morning, and of his careful plans for Dick. It was Mrs. Lester who looked round after a time and took pity on the unhappy face, checking her mare that she might ride beside her. The charm of her voice chased away some of Merle's ill-humour; but the sting of the morning remained.
They passed a number of young blacks from the tribe, coming in after a night's hunting, laden with game—wallaby, 'possum, bandicoot and gerboa, all speared or killed with the throwing stick. One man had got three or four bright-coloured parrots with his boomerang, as well as a beautiful black cockatoo. Mr. Warner stopped to talk to them, complimenting them on their good luck, and one opened a skin bag and showed him other prizes in the shape of a fat, stumpy-tailed lizard, a young iguana, and—greatest delicacy of all—half a dozen of the big tree grubs that the black will go far out of his way to secure.
"People say they're quite good—but I don't feel like experimenting on them," remarked Mrs. Lester, wrinkling her pretty nose as she looked at the plump insects.
"I've been very glad to eat them when I ran short of tucker in the bush," Mr. Warner said. "They're really good, too—if you grill them they're very like chicken. But I'll admit that their appearance is against them."
The blacks were in a hurry to get back to camp; it was long since they had brought with them such promise of solid feasting. They said good-bye, and set off with their long, noiseless stride—ball of the foot down first and then the heel, as is the way of natives nearly all the world over.
"Those fellows could go through the bush, with dead leaves and bark and dry sticks lying all over the place, and you'd never hear them," Mr. Warner said. "I've watched 'em sometimes stalking musk duck in the lagoons. They tie a bundle of rushes over their heads and faces, and wade neck-deep in the water, zig-zagging here and there, perhaps taking half an hour to cover fifty yards. Sometimes they get near enough to grab the ducks under water. Sometimes they have to straighten up in a hurry and get them with the throwing stick. But it's mighty seldom they fail to get them."
"Do they supply you with game?" Mr. Lester asked.