As they proceeded they came across a number of watercourses and hills and valleys. They climbed to the top of high rocks, and descended again into level lands. At sundown they were tired out, and could hardly eat the supper Yacka prepared for them. No sooner had they finished their meal than they were sound asleep. But Yacka did not sleep; he stood looking down at them with his big eyes, and seemed to be in deep thought. The moonlight showed his black form standing over the two sleepers, and his attitude was one of dejection.
‘How white they are,’ he muttered, ‘and Yacka so black! but they are not as white as Enooma, and Yacka is her son.’
He sat down, and commenced to reason in his own way as to why he should be black, and the two sleepers white. He could find no satisfactory solution to the problem. Yacka knew naught of the white man’s God, but he had a wonderful amount of superstition in his nature, and a firm belief that the White Spirit watched over him. Yacka had no fear of death; he would have laughed at such a thought, and yet he did not understand what death really meant. Had the blackfellow been able to express what he really thought about death, it would have been to the effect that it was merely the White Spirit’s way of rewarding him for his work here by carrying him off to a country where he would be happy for ever. Yacka slept but little that night, but he was awake early, and ready to start again.
The ranges were passed, and they were now in more open country. On the lowlands were numerous bushes, mulga on the hills, and gum and tea tree in the creeks. Plains of salt-bush could be seen, but on to the west they descried grass-land.
For several days they tramped on, living on the simplest fare, and yet feeling strong and well, and fit for almost any exertion.
‘Where are all the blacks we heard so much about?’ said Edgar. ‘We have met none yet.’
‘We shall be in the Enooma country by sunset to-morrow,’ said Yacka; ‘then you will see men of my tribe.’
Yacka spoke truly. The next night they came across a blacks’ camp. To Edgar’s surprise there were between two and three hundred of them. As they approached Yacka made a peculiar sound like the shrill cry of a parrot, only with quite a different note, which roused the blacks, and several rushed forward to meet them.
When they saw Yacka the effect was astonishing. At first they looked at him in amazement, then an old man cried aloud, ‘Yacka! Yacka! Enooma! Enooma!’ and the whole of the blacks, surrounding him, knelt before him.
There was a proud look on Yacka’s face as he motioned them to rise. Then he spoke rapidly in the native tongue, and pointed to Edgar and Will.