Jooragong looked very much like a trapped dingo, but he could not refuse the old man’s challenge. A party of the blacks started under his guidance to make sure of the death of the white wizard, and the son of Kaludie went with them. At last Jooragong stopped and said,
“The white wizard lies dead under that tree,” pointing to one in the distance; but when they came to the tree, there was no corpse there. “He is gone—he is a wizard,” said Jooragong.
“Let Jooragong show me the white wizard’s tracks,” answered the old warrior.
“He burrows like the wombat,” said Jooragong.
“Then Jooragong, who is young, but braver than the old men, has not speared the wombat,” sneered the old man. “We will go back, and the gins shall sing of Jooragong—‘Jooragong is young. Jooragong is brave. His enemies are dried up before him like water. We look for the enemies whom he hath speared, but we find them not. When dead they still fear Jooragong, who is braver than the old men.’”
The son of Kaludie, however, did not go back to camp. Jooragong had led the party of searchers within sight of the station buildings, and Harry determined to make a bolt for them, if he died for it. He found it easier work than he had expected to get away. The rest of the blacks were so busy jabbering jibes at Jooragong that Harry was not noticed when he lagged behind, and in a few minutes he was able to slip behind a tree, and thence make a slant for the station. When he had once ventured to begin to run, he kept on running as if he was racing Death. He tumbled to the ground dead-beat, but panting like a steam-engine just about to blow up, when he had almost reached the huts. Donald ran out, and then looked half inclined to run away again.
“Harry,” he said, “are ye sure it’s yoursel’, of your wraith? Hech, man, ye’re a sicht for sair een,” Donald went on, with the tears gushing up into his own generally hard-looking grey eyes, like water oozing from a rock. “We thocht ye’d been deid, an’ buried inside the blacks this long while.”
After Harry’s escape the blacks again made very audacious descents on the station buildings. For one thing, they wanted to recapture the son of Kaludie; for another, they wanted to kill the white wizard, who, instead of having been speared by Jooragong, had made the braggart dodge from tree to tree before his gun. For a third thing the black fellows had a great relish for the white fellows’ stores, to which every now and then they found a scrambling chance of helping themselves. More fighting took place, and every now and then a black was shot. Still the blacks came down upon the homestead. As it was impossible to guess when they would come, the place could not be efficiently guarded unless the whole of the little garrison always stayed at home—and in that case how was the work of the station to be done?
“Ah tell thee whet ’tis, Mester Sydney,” said Jawing Jim (who up in the bush had almost begun to merit his sobriquet); “if tha wan’t poiason the warmin, tha moost skeer ’em. Me an’ Boab’ll do it for thee. Boab ain’t mooch fit for nawthing else nowa, poor lahd!”
This was the stratagem the men contrived: They cut off the head of a dead black fellow, and put it into a full flour-cask, the top of which was left open. Then leaving the store door unlocked, and the flour-cask just behind it, all the pioneers left the buildings; the boys, however, returning by a roundabout route, and “planting” in some scrub not far off to witness what might happen. They had to wait some time, but at last the blacks made their appearance. Even their keen eyes detecting no trace of the presence of any whites, they soon swarmed up boldly to the store. Jooragong, bravest of the brave when there was nothing to be feared, rolled out the cask that stood so conveniently near and open, and began to scoop out the flour with both hands. But presently they brought up his countryman’s head. The other blacks raised a wild howl and fled, but Jooragong stood stock-still, gaping, with eyes starting from his head at his hideous handful. The firing of the boys’ guns broke the spell. Off Jooragong bounded also, dropping the floury head out of his floury hands back into the cask; and so long as Harry and Donald stayed at Pigeon Park, the blacks never again ventured within gunshot of the store.