ind the trees, and
that the first animal who wandered within range of a spear-cast would
become a victim. The moon was half-full in a cloudless sky, and the
drover had no difficulty in seeing, but, after an hour or two, he had
the greatest difficulty in the world to keep awake. The night was warm
and still and drowsy, and the day had been one of constant tension, and
as the drover sat with cocked rifle and with the horse's bridle looped
over his arm, he must have nodded once or twice through sheer weariness.

Suddenly he heard a stone move on another stone. He was fully awake
and alert instantly. The horses were still in the middle of the plain,
quietly feeding, but one or two of them were looking at an old tree
stump in the curious meditative way which resting animals have of
looking at things which are of no particular interest.

All at once Mick Darby sprang to his feet. He had never seen that tree
stump before. For several hours he had looked at that little plain in
the moonlight, and every bush was pictured on his memory. He was
absolutely sure that old tree had not been there when he started to nod
with weariness. Then, how had it come? Trees do not grow from the
ground, become old, and die and lose most of their branches in less
than an hour of a summer's night.

Mick put his cocked rifle to his shoulder, trained the sights on the
tree stump, and walked slowly towards it. The thing was about a
hundred and fifty yards away when he started. He had covered a third
of the distance when the tree suddenly disappeared. Remarkable as it
may appear, it is a fact. One moment he saw the thick twisted trunk of
a mulga tree with a few broken branches, standing out on an otherwise
treeless plain; the next it had gone completely. But, instead of the
tree, three wriggling black forms glided between the bushes with the
stealth of snakes, making for their lives towards the scrub. They were
three warragul blacks, who had crept out into the plain and had used
this wonderful but quite common method of concealment.

Mick fired into the air to frighten them and any of their companions
who might be lurking near. When the report had died away, the darkness
under the trees became full of little sounds like the patter of rain on
leaves, or like sheep passing over soft sand; a scarcely perceptible
sound, yet one which told of black savages creeping for safety into the
depths of the scrub.

The shot woke the two boys. T