Chapter 4

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 appeared a little brown stain. It caught the eye because the horizon had no cloud on it or anything to break the clear line except that patch of brown.

Sax was idly watching it, wondering what in the world he could do to help his father, when the cloud seemed to get bigger and clearer. "Look, Boof," he said. "D'you see that thing over there? It looks like a cloud, but it's brown."

He pointed it out to his friend and they watched it together. It was certainly getting bigger. "Looks like dust," said Vaughan.

"But whatever could be kicking up all that dust?" asked Sax. "It's coming this way. Look, it's covering those trees over there now."

The cloud of dust got bigger and of a more distinct brown. Objects such as trees, which at one time stood out in front of it, were hidden one after another, till it spread out like heavy brown smoke from a damp fire. The air was very clear and still. All at once Sax gripped his friend's arm. He had heard a sound--a sound which was like his own native tongue to the drover's son--the crack of a stock-whip.

"I'm sure I heard a whip," he exclaimed excitedly. "I'm dead sure I