vening before, and he had shared
the fate of his companions, the outlook for the four men would have
been black indeed. It was far blacker than they at first thought it to
be, for one important thing was not found out till later, and when it
was it took the bravest of brave hearts to stand up against such dire
disaster. The marauders had taken all the water-canteens except one
which had evidently escaped their notice by being near Mick's head. It
contained a little over three gallons!

Eighty miles from water, in the heart of the sandy scrub-covered desert
in blazing summer weather, with only a canteen half-full of water to
serve four men!

It is under such circumstances as these that manhood is put to the
test. All four men rose to the occasion. Sax and Vaughan, though
still lads as regards their age, were in reality men. Nothing but the
unconquerable spirit of man can survive in the battle against grim
nature in the Central Australian desert, and these two, who had but a
short time before been sitting in the classroom of a city school, had
faced difficulties and had won through, by sheer pluck and resolution,
and had therefore earned the right to be called men.

Yarloo showed his faithfulness on this occasion when it would have been
so much easier for him to run away. Because he always slept some
distance away from the other boys, he had not known of their silent
departure in the night, but once he saw the terrible difficulties in
which the little party had been placed, it would have been the most
natural thing in the world for him to clear out and leave the three
whites to their fate. He could even have stolen the horse in order to
make his escape absolutely sure. He was a native, and could live and
travel through the desert scrub day after day when a white man would
certainly perish. He had been born and brought up to such a life, and
when he threw in his lot with the three stranded white men, he was, in
reality, jeopardizing his own chances of coming through the adventure
alive. He chose to be faithful to his companions rather than make sure
of his own safety.

Yarloo was a good boy and had therefore always been treated well by
white men. He had not had many masters, and one of them stood out
above all others in his primitive mind. He had been Boss Stobart's boy
for years, and though he might work for other white men now and
again--as in this case he was working for Mick--he remained at heart
fait