umped off his horse and motioned to his master to do the same.

"Them fellow myall have gone into water, boss, and walk along up," he
said placidly, as he took out his pipe, filled and lit it. Then he added
that they had better take the saddles off the horses, short-hobble them,
and let them feed.

"You don't think, Jacky, that they" (he meant the blacks) "might get on
too far ahead of us?" he asked, as he dismounted.

"No, boss, they are camped now, 'bout a mile or two mile farther
up creek. We can't take horses there--country too rough, and myall
blackfellow can smell horse long way off--all same horse or bullock can
smell myall blackfellow long way off."

Grainger knew that this was perfectly true--cattle and horses can always
scent wild blacks at a great distance, and at once show their alarm. And
that the country was too rough for Jacky and him to go any further
with the horses was quite evident. However, he knew that as soon as his
companion had taken a few pulls at his pipe he would learn from him what
his plans were.

The weapon that the black boy usually carried was a Snider carbine, but
he had left that at the camp, and taken the spare Winchester--the one
Sheila had dropped in the tent: and he was now carefully throwing back
the lever, and ejecting the cartridges, and seeing that it was in good
order ere he re-loaded it.

"Your rifle all right, boss?" he asked.

"All right, Jacky; and my revolver too."

Jacky grunted--somewhat contemptuously--at the mention of the revolver.
"You won't get chance with rewolber, boss. Rifle best for you an' me
this time, I think it. Rewolber right enough when you ride after myall
in flat country."

"Very well, Jacky," said Grainger, "I'll leave the revolver behind. What
are we going to do?"

"First, short-hobble horses, and let 'em feed--plenty grass 'bout here.
Then you follow me. I think it that them fellow myall camp" (rest)
"'bout two mile up creek."

"How many are there, Jacky?"

"'Bout twenty, boss--perhaps thirty. And I think it that some feller
runaway policeman with them--Sandy or Daylight, I beleeb."

"What makes you think that?" said Grainger, instantly remembering that
Lamington had said that he meant to try and head off Sandy and his
myalls down into the spinifex country.

"Come here, boss."

Grainger followed him to the margin of the creek, which although at dawn
had been running half bank high, owing to the tremendous downpour of
rain, was now