.

CHAPTER VI

Smoke Signals

Travelling across country in Central Australia is usually very
monotonous. The same routine is gone through day after day, and there
is not even the relief of meeting new faces, for one's companions are
often the only human beings met with during the whole of a trip of many
weeks.

For the first few days of journeying towards the Musgraves, young
Stobart and Vaughan found everything new and intensely interesting. At
piccaninny daylight--which is the bush term for the rising of the
morning star--Mick Darby turned over on his swag and sat up, and called
out "Daylight! Daylight!"

The drover was so punctual with this call that it seemed to the boys as
if he must have been awake for hours, watching for the star to rise
blood-red above the eastern horizon. But years of bush travel, of
watching restless cattle, and of sleeping under the threat of danger
from prowling blacks had made the man respond immediately to any noise
or unusual sight. There was no period of stretching or yawning. Mick
was asleep one instant, and fully awake the next and shouting
"Daylight". The black boys were also light sleepers, trained out of
their native laziness by association with alert whites. There was
Yarloo, who had come in from the west with Boss Stobart's message and
had joined the white man's plant at once; and Ranui, a tall fine man
from North Queensland, who showed both in his build and name a trace of
Malay blood; and Ted and Teedee, two boys who had been with Mick since
they were "little fellas".

As soon as the morning call sounded, the black stockmen rolled out of
their camp-sheets, picked up their bridles, and went off in the grey
light on the tracks of the hobbled horses. Their skill in tracking was
a constant source of wonder to the boys. The type of country didn't
seem to matter at all; soft sand or hard stony tableland was all the
same to them; they tracked the wandering horses with as much careless
certainty as if they could actually see them, though on some nights
they had strayed, in search of feed, several miles away from camp.

When the black boys had gone, Sax and Vaughan collected wood for the
morning fire, raked last night's ashes together, and made a blaze.
Then they filled the seven quart-pots with water and set them near the
flame to boil for breakfast.

The drover was always busy in the early hours. There was probably a
piece of horse-gear to mend, a broken or