ver had been
forced out of the route he had intended to travel by difficulties with
feed and water, and that he might be very late arriving at his
destination. That he would finally arrive, they never doubted for a
moment. With this assurance, they once more blew out the light, and it
was not long before they were both fast asleep.

If they could have known the terrible danger which Drover Stobart was
in at that very time, it is certain that sleep would have been
impossible to them. He was as near death, a hideous death, as any man
can possibly be who lives to tell the tale.

CHAPTER IV

Wild Cattle

The boys woke late on their first morning in the Far North. Sax's
thoughts immediately turned to his father's letter. He groped under
his pillow and pulled it out and read it again:

"In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta
trooper, but _no one else_. He'll understand.
Boy quite reliable. Don't worry. Get a job somewhere.

"STOBART."

It was a characteristic note, for the drover never wrote long letters,
but the shakiness of the writing, and the mysterious way in which it
had been delivered, gave Sax a feeling of great uneasiness. If, as Joe
Archer the storekeeper had suggested, Stobart had been forced to take a
westerly track from Horseshoe Bend in order to find water and feed for
the cattle, he could easily have sent word to Oodnadatta by the
ordinary camel mail which passed the Bend once a month.

Sax looked up and saw that his friend was awake. "What d'you reckon we
ought to do, Boofy?" he asked, getting out of bed.

Vaughan took the letter and read it before replying. "It says 'Tell
Oodnadatta trooper'," he remarked. "I reckon we ought to do that
first, Sax, don't you?"

When breakfast was over, the boys asked the way to the trooper's house,
and were told that Sergeant Scott had gone away after some blacks who
had been spearing cattle. No one had any idea when he was likely to
return. "You see--" said the man who was telling them about it, "you
see, he may get the niggers easy and bring them in at once. Or they
may clear out and make him chase them for days and days. He'll get
them in the end, though, you bet. Old Scotty's not the one to be
beaten by niggers."

The boys sat down outside the trooper's house on a little hill and
looked over the desolate landscape. They seemed to be baulked at every
turn.

Presently, away above the northern rim of the land a