ick Darby's party, had returned. They were in high spirits
and reported that they had killed all the horses of the plant, and that
a white man and two white boys had been left to perish. Stobart did
not hear the whole story at once, for, as soon as he walked into camp,
the excitement died down, and nobody cared to tell this white man that
three other white men had just met the most lingering of all deaths in
the desert scrub. But blacks are like children and cannot keep a
secret, and Stobart soon knew all that he wanted to know.

The light of his life went out. The drover was devoted to his son. He
was one of those splendid men who do things as well as they possibly
can in order to satisfy their own stanch sense of honour; but there can
be no doubt that one of the main springs of Boss Stobart's life was the
thought that he would one day share it with his son. And now Sax was
dead! Just when he had found the object of his search, just when the
time of his escape had almost come and he was only waiting for the
return of the faithful Yarloo, just when hope was highest, these fiends
had killed his son.

He looked round at their savage black faces. He caught sight of
Arrkroo, the man who hated him. He saw the naked women and children,
he noticed the dogs and the filth on all sides, and his hand tightened
on the huge boomerang which he held. Why shouldn't he rush in amongst
these men and deal out death, right, left, in front, behind. His anger
was rising to madness. He felt that he could overcome the whole tribe
of them. And if he failed, what matter? At least he would have had
his revenge.

He dropped his spears and got ready. A fire was burning in front of
him. With a few lighted sticks he could set the camp ablaze. He
imagined the wurlies roaring up to heaven, while he, a captive white
man, mad with rage, ran shouting through the crowd, dealing out death
with every blow of his boomerang.

Not one of the natives suspected what he was going to do. He had
already chosen a suitable blazing stick, and was stooping to pick it
out of the fire, when he heard Coiloo's name mentioned. He waited for
a moment and listened. The men were saying that Coiloo had not come
back. Nobody seemed to know what had become of him, and it struck
Stobart as strange that Yarloo was not referred to as being one of the
party, till he remembered that the boy would be riding a horse and
would therefore leave no tracks which his f