"Now, as it was Dick's business to tail (follow) the cattle, five hundred head, I advised him to have his musket sawed off in the barrel, so as to be a more handy size for using on horseback. He took my advice; and Charley Anvils made a very good job of it, so that he could bring it under his arm when hanging at his back from a rope sling, and fire with one hand. It was lucky I thought of it, as it turned out.
"At length the overseer fixed on a spot for the station. It was very well for water and grass, and a very pretty view, as he said, but it was too near a thicket where the blacks would lie in ambush, for safety. The old bushmen wanted it planted on a neck of land, where the waters protected it all but one side, and there a row of fence would have made it secure.
"Well, we set to work, and soon had a lot of tall trees down. Charley put up his forge and his grindstone, to keep the ax sharp, and I staid with him. Dick went tailing the cattle, and the overseer sat on a log, and looked on. The second day a mob of blacks came down on the opposite side of the river. They were quite wild, regular myals, but some of our men with green branches, went and made peace with them. They liked our bread and sugar; and after a short time we had a lot of them helping to draw rails, fishing for us, bringing wild honey, kangaroos, rats, and firewood, in return for butter and food, so we began to be less careful about our arms. We gave them iron tomahawks, and they soon found out that they could cut out an opossum from a hollow in half-an-hour with one of our tomahawks, while it took a day with one of their own stone ones.
"And so the time passed very pleasantly. We worked away. The young men and gins worked for us. The chiefs adorned themselves with the trinkets and clothes we gave them, and fished and hunted, and admired themselves in the river.
"Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his cattle; he warned us not to trust them, and the overseer called him a blood-thirsty, murdering blackguard for his pains.
"One day, the whole party were at work, chopping and trimming weather-boards for the hut; the blacks helping as usual. I was turning the grindstone for Charley Anvils, and Dick was coming up to the dray to get some tea, but there was a brow of a hill between him and us: the muskets were all piled in one corner. I heard a howl, and then a scream—our camp was full of armed blacks. When I raised my head, I saw the chief, Captain Jack, we called him, with a broad ax in his hand, and the next minute he had chopped the overseer's head clean off; in two minutes all my mates were on the ground. Three or four came running up to us; one threw a spear at me, which I half parried with a pannikin I was using to wet the grindstone, but it fixed deep in my hip, and part of it I believe is there still. Charley Anvils had an ax in his hand, and cut down the first two fellows that came up to him, but he was floored in a minute with twenty wounds. They were so eager to kill me, that one of them, luckily, or I should not have been alive now, cut the spear in my hip short off. Another, a young lad I had sharpened a tomahawk for a few days before, chopped me across the head; you can see the white hair. Down I fell, and nothing could have saved us, but the other savages had got the tarpaulin off, and were screaming with delight, plundering the drays, which called my enemies off. Just then, Dick came in sight. He saw what was the matter; but although there were more than a hundred black devils, all armed, painted, bloody, and yelling, he never stopped or hesitated, but rode slap through the camp, fired bang among them, killing two, and knocking out the brains of another. As he passed by a top rail, where an ax was sticking, he caught it up. The men in the camp were dead enough; the chief warriors had made the rush there, and every one was pierced with several spears, or cut down from close behind by axes in the hands of the chiefs. We, being further off, had been attacked by the boys only. Dick turned toward us, and shouted my name, I could not answer, but I managed to sit up an instant; he turned toward me, leaned down, caught me by the jacket, and dragged me on before him like a log. Just then Charley, who had crept under the grindstone, cried, 'Oh, Dick, don't leave me!' As he said that, a lot of them came running down, for they had seen enough to know that, unless they killed us all, their job would not be half done. As Dick turned to face them, they gave way, and flung spears, but they could not hurt him: they managed to get between us and poor Charley. Dick rode back a circuit, and dropped me among some bushes on a hill, where I could see all. Four times he charged through and through a whole mob, with an ax in one hand, and his short musket in the other. He cut them down right and left, as if he had been mowing; he scared the wretches, although the old women kept screeching and urging them on, as they always do. At length, by help of his stirrup leather, he managed to get Charley up behind him. He never could have done it, but his mare fought, and bit, and turned when he bid her, so he threw the bridle on her neck, and could use that terrible left arm of his. Well, he came up to the hill, and lifted me on, and away we went for three or four miles, but we knew the mare could not stand it long, so Dick got off, and walked. When the blacks had pulled the drays' loads to pieces, they began to follow us, but Dick never lost heart—"
"Nay, mate," interrupted Dick, "once I did; shall never forget it, when I came to put my last bullet in, it was too big."
"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "what did you do?"
"Why, I put the bullet in my mouth, and kept chawing and chawing it, and threatening the black devils all the while, until at last it was small enough, and then I rammed it down, and dropped on my knee, and waited until they came within twenty yards, and then I picked off Captain Jack, the biggest villain of them all."
Here Dick, being warmed, continued the story: "We could not stop; we marched all evening and all night, and when the two poor creturs cried for water, as they did most of the night, as often as I could I filled my boots, and gave them to drink. I led the horse, and traveled seventy miles without halting for more than a minute or two. Toward the last they were as helpless as worn-out sheep. I tied them on. We had the luck to fall in with a party traveling just when the old mare was about giving in, and then we must all have died for want of water. Charley Anvils had eighteen wounds, but, except losing two fingers, is none the worse. Poor Jemmy, there, will never be fit for any thing but a hut-keeper; as for me, I had some scratches—nothing to hurt; and the old mare lost an ear. I went back afterward with the police, and squared accounts with the blacks.