e the two white boys gave the other stockmen
their breakfast, wondering what had taken Mick off in such a hurry.

Mick Darby found the two dead horses. By their tracks they had
evidently strayed away from the others, and by other tracks it was
clear that blacks had crept upon them in the dim light of dawn and had
speared them, for the bodies were still warm. Mick always carried a
bottle of strychnine about with him, and at every camp he poisoned
little bits of meat and left them behind to kill the dingoes which
abound in cattle country. He looked at the two horses--fine, stanch
animals, both of them--and his heart became hot with anger. He put his
hand to his belt and fingered the poison pouch. It was a great
temptation. If the blacks had speared the horses for food, here was a
chance for revenge. If he poisoned the carcass and killed the blacks,
would it not be a terrible warning to the others?

But it was only for a second that the ghastly thought attracted him.
He was a true white man and would not stoop to any hidden revenge. It
is a white man's way to face his enemy in the open and under the sun,
not to kill him by putting strychnine in his food. So Mick turned away
and rode back to camp, and did not tell the boys what danger they were
in.

Next day smoke signals were all around them and very close. It gave
the boys a feeling that keen black eyes were peering at them from every
bit of cover, and that lithe forms were slinking noiselessly from tree
to tree, never turning a stone or breaking a twig to disturb the
silence of the desert.

That evening they unpacked and unsaddled the horses early, and tied
them up till after tea. Then Mick rode away with them himself, hobbled
them on an open patch of dry bush, and prepared to watch throughout the
night. He knew the native method of attack: a little, then a little
more. If two horses had been killed last night, three or four might be
speared this night. To lose their horses would leave the party at the
mercy, not only of the blacks, but also of a more terrible enemy
still--thirst. So the brave bushman was going to take no risks.

The spot he had chosen was a little plain covered with dry buck-bush
and surrounded on all sides with mulga scrub. There was plenty of feed
to keep the horses quiet all night, but Mick was obliged to ride round
them again and again and turn them back from the scrub. He was
perfectly sure that wild natives were in ambush beh