s life, for, as the white boy stooped to pick
up the rifle, he saw Coiloo standing behind the rock with another spear
ready to throw. Sax jumped in front of his friend and the native
paused. Mick was badly wounded, but when he too saw the ambushed
nigger, he pulled himself together and dashed ahead after his
companions. Sax was now carrying the rifle and he kept in the rear of
the party, and prevented Coiloo from throwing that second spear.

Fierce shouting at the camp urged them to their greatest efforts. The
Musgrave blacks had got over their scare. They found Arrkroo's dead
body lying beside the corpse of Wuntoo. They thirsted for revenge and
started in pursuit, not a hundred yards behind the escaping white men.

Stobart and his friends reached the clump of timber. Sax looked back.
The pursuit had been checked for a few moments. Coiloo was standing in
the narrow gap, holding it against a hundred of his fellow tribesmen.
Spears whizzed around him on all sides, but for a time he dexterously
escaped death. At last one struck him and he fell, but not before his
purpose was accomplished. He had attempted to revenge himself on Mick,
and, failing this, he held up the chase long enough to give Stobart,
the man who had saved his life, a good chance of escaping.

His gallant death was not in vain. Before the Musgrave blacks reached
the trees the rescue party was galloping across the plains. Mick's
wound was troublesome for several days, but the man's perfect health
stood him in good stead. One night in camp he was bewailing the fact
that they had not been able to make a stand against the blacks, but had
been forced to beat an ignominious retreat. "I'd like to go back and
have a real good scrap," he said.

Boss Stobart looked at him with a peculiar smile for a moment or two,
and then took an old black pipe from his belt. It was smeared with
clay. Mick and the two white boys looked on with great curiosity. The
drover made a little hole in the clay and poured out a few grains of
golden sand into his palm.

"Look at this," he said, holding out his hand to Mick. "If you'd care
to go back to the Musgrave Ranges with me for some more of this stuff,
I can promise you as many scraps with the niggers as you want."

The gold was handed round. "I'm with you," said Mick. "I'm with you,
Boss Stobart, whether its gold or niggers you're after."

"And so am I if you'll let me," said Vaughan. "I want to buy back my
f