cattle-pads which stretched away into the silent desert, when the
half-moon looked down on the motionless and soundless world, a dark
face peeped over the top of the sandhill above the sleeping stockmen.
The man's naked body lay flat as a snake on the sand and wriggled
forward with movements like the waving of a shadow on a wall, till the
native could gain a clear view of the place where his unconscious enemy
lay.

It was Eagle.

He had come to kill.

The T.D.3 brand, which still throbbed on his flank, was to him a mark
of shame, and he knew only one way of washing that shame away--with the
life-blood of the man who had put it there.

Slowly he raised his head and looked, remaining for a minute or two
without any sign of life at all, not even the blinking of an eyelid.
If everybody on the camp had been awake and had chanced to look that
way, they would not have been able to distinguish the black-fellow's
head from the scraggy bushes which grew here and there on the
sand-hill. But all the men were asleep, and after Eagle had noted
carefully where Mick was lying, he ducked down again behind the
sand-hill and worked his way round till he was directly above the
sleeping white man.

Just to one side of Mick's swag was a row of pack-saddles and bags, and
leaning against one of the saddles was the axe which had been used to
chop wood for the branding fire that afternoon. In fact Eagle had been
the one who had chiefly used it. He was now going to use that axe
again, but for a purpose more dear to his savage heart than cutting
dead branches: he was going to cut the live body of a hated white man,
and cut it again and again till no semblance of humanity remained.

He crept forward down the slope inch by inch. No snake in the grass is
more silent and no fox is more stealthily alert than a black-fellow
creeping on an enemy. The body is held tense for instant action, and
the limbs move slowly and are put forward just a little bit at a time
with that slinking movement which is known only to beasts of prey and
to savage men. He reached the packs at last and lay down flat, not
moving for fully five minutes. Gradually a black hand stretched out
and a supple arm glided silently over the sand.

He grasped the axe. He did not drag it. Even that slight noise might
spoil the night's work. He lifted and rose gently on his knees and one
hand, and held the axe close to his body with the other.

Eagle is six yards from Mick.