Still, however, the boys determined not to turn back until next day; and late in the afternoon they got more fish than they could eat. They came upon a black fellow’s “fish-trap”—a kind of little mud hut, thatched with dry grass—and out of it they scooped up a score or two of black fish, and what they call trout in Australia. They were not very tasty, but the boys enjoyed the little fellows greatly when they had grilled them, though they had no soy.
When they had finished their dinner, they rowed on to find the black fellows’ camp, which they knew could not be very far off. The moon had come up again, however, before they reached it. The creek, fringed with shea-oaks with dark long leaves like lanky tassels, wriggled about there like a snake. Long before the boys got to the camp, they heard the measured tramp of feet and fierce shouts, and when they got there they saw ever so many black fellows, streaked with ochre, dancing and brandishing their boomerangs and waddies, whilst the “gins” (that’s the women) in their ’possum cloaks and blankets, squatted on the ground beating time.
Harry and Donald were not a bit afraid of black fellows. They were generally very friendly in those parts, and often came to Wonga-Wonga. But it happened that the black fellows were in a very savage mood. They had been doing a little sheep-stealing, and an overseer had fired at them, and killed one of them; and so they had made up their minds to kill the first white fellow they came across, in revenge. As soon as they saw the cot, they rushed down to the creek, shouting out, “Wah! wah! wah!” and they pulled the boys on shore, and burnt the cot on the great fire they had lighted to keep the “debil debil” away. Then they jabbered for a long time, disputing which of the boys they should kill; and Harry and Donald, brave little fellows though they were, most heartily wished themselves back at Wonga-Wonga.
“THE BLACK FELLOWS WERE IN A VERY SAVAGE MOOD.”
All of a sudden, however, a black fellow held up his finger, and then a dozen of them put their ears to the ground. It was horses’ hoofs they heard in the distance. Then they jabbered again, and all the blacks ran into the scrub, leaving the boys, but carrying off their gun. In a few minutes up galloped Mr. Lawson, and Sydney, and a stockman. The boys had been hunted far and wide, but it was only that day that the cot had been missed, and so a clue found to their whereabouts. Mr. Lawson, having heard that the up-creek blacks were “in a scot,” and fearing that the youngsters might fall into their hands, had then started with his little party in pursuit. Of course, he could not help feeling very angry with the young truants, but there was no time to tell them so then. Boomerangs and spears began to whiz out of the scrub, and there was no good in three men stopping to fight with a hundred whom they could not see. So Mr. Lawson pulled Donald on to his horse, and the stockman pulled Harry, and off they galloped; whilst Sydney brought up the rear, firing his revolver right and left into the scrub as he rode away.
III.
THE CAVE OF THE RED HAND.
Harry and Donald were not frightened out of their love for exploring by their adventure up the creek. The next expedition they went on, however, was by land. They had heard a good deal of the Cave of the Red Hand in the Bulla Bulla Mountains, about ten miles from Wonga-Wonga; and one Saturday afternoon, directly after dinner, they started in search of the cave—Harry on his own horse Cornstalk, and Donald on his own mare Flora M‘Ivor. They knew that they had to steer for a very tall blasted gum tree that stood on the top of a ridge, and that when they had “rose the ridge,” as Australians say, they would find the mouth of the cave somewhere near at hand on the other side of the gully.
When they got down into the gully they dismounted, and hobbled their horses where there was a little feed; and then they began to look about them. It was some time before they found the cave’s mouth, but, whilst they were looking for it, they saw what neither of them had ever seen alive before, though they were Australian-born; and that was one of the shy birds after which the mountains were named. They got a full view of the dingy cock-pheasant, as he stood between two clumps of scrub, with his beautiful tail up like a lyre without strings. “Bulla, bulla, bulla, bulla,” he was gurgling like a brook; but, as soon as he saw the boys, he was off like a shot.
“Here it is!” at last shouted Harry, and when Donald ran up, he found his cousin standing outside a very gloomy-looking opening in the hillside, with a moustache and whiskers of almost black brushwood about the gaping mouth. On the rocky wall at the entrance, a red hand with outstretched fingers pointed inwards; and when the boys had lighted their lantern and groped their way into the cave, they found more red hands on the walls, and white hands too—some pointing forwards and some backwards, some up and some down.