nd had a kind word for
poor mother and a kiss for little Aileen.

But if he were shot or taken, why hadn't these other men come back? We
had just ridden by their tents, and they looked as if they'd just been
left for a bit by men who were coming back at night. The dog was howling
and looked hungry. Their blankets were all thrown about. Anyhow, there
was a kettle on the fire, which was gone out; and more than that, there
was the damper that Warrigal had seen lying in the ashes all burnt to a
cinder.

Everything looked as if they'd gone off in a hurry, and never come back
at night or since. One of their horses was tied with a tether rope close
to the tent poles, and he'd been walking round and trampling down the
grass, as if he'd been there all night. We couldn't make it out.

We rode on, hardly looking at one another, but following Warrigal, who
rattled on now, hardly looking at the ground at all, like a dog with a
burning scent. All of a sudden he pulls up, and points to a dip into a
cross gully, like an old river, which we all knew.

'You see um crow? I b'leeve longa Black Gully.'

Sure enough, just above the drop down, where we used to gallop our
ponies in old times and laugh to see 'em throw up their tails, there
were half-a-dozen crows and a couple of eagle-hawks high up in the sky,
wheeling and circling over the same place.

'By George! they've got the old man,' says Jim. 'Come on, Dick. I never
thought poor old dad would be run down like this.'

'Or he's got them!' says Starlight, curling his lip in a way he had. 'I
don't believe your old governor's dead till I see him. The devil himself
couldn't grab him on his own ground.'

Chapter 38

We all pulled up at the side of the gully or dry creek, whatever it was,
and jumped off our horses, leaving Warrigal to look after them, and ran
down the rocky sides of it.

'Great God!' Starlight cries out, 'what's that?' and he pointed to a
small sloping bit of grass just underneath the bank. 'Who are they? Can
they be asleep?'

They were asleep, never to wake. As we stood side by side by the dead
men, for there were four of them, we shook so, Jim and I, that we leaned
against one another for support. We had never seen a sight before that
like it. I never want to do so again.

There they lay, four dead men. We didn't know them ourselves, but
guessed they were Hagan and his lot. How else did they come there? and
how could dad have shot them all by himself