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Stobart trusted Yarloo implicitly, and also felt sure that Coiloo was doing his best to carry out the white man's wishes. Therefore he knew that it would be foolish to vent his rage at this particular time, and perhaps spoil what the two faithful natives were doing for him. So he picked up his weapons again, took his share of the horse-flesh, and went up to his cave. He was very down-hearted.
Sax was now carrying the rifle and he kept in the rear of the party, and prevented Coiloo from throwing that second spear. Fierce shouting at the camp urged them to their greatest efforts. The Musgrave blacks had got over their scare. They found Arrkroo's dead body lying beside the corpse of Wuntoo.
Then Stobart told Coiloo to join the marauding-party and to see that the boys came to no harm. The result of the native's faithfulness is already known. When Coiloo had gone, Stobart frequently went out alone. He was such a successful hunter, and was so willing to add the result of his prowess to the general food-supply of the camp, that nobody objected to his solitary expeditions.
They need not have taken these precautions. Every warragul of the tribe was engaged at the camp, where death-wails rose and fell. Suddenly a Musgrave native confronted the rescue party. He lifted his left hand and signed to them to stop. There were only two fingers and a thumb on that hand. It was Coiloo. He was armed with spears and boomerangs and a shield.
They vowed terrible vengeance against the white man who had done this; against all white men; against Stobart who was at their mercy. If Coiloo himself had not prevented them they would have rushed off immediately to the cave and carried out their designs while the heat of the moment gave them courage.
Mick raised his rifle, but Yarloo leaped in front of it. A shot at this time would warn the camp and spoil any chance of success. It was more important to rescue Stobart than to settle a private quarrel. Coiloo cast a look of deadly hatred towards Mick. He longed to hurl one of these slender spears of his at his enemy, and bury the poisonous head deep in the white man's heart.
His act saved Mick's life, for, as the white boy stooped to pick up the rifle, he saw Coiloo standing behind the rock with another spear ready to throw. Sax jumped in front of his friend and the native paused. Mick was badly wounded, but when he too saw the ambushed nigger, he pulled himself together and dashed ahead after his companions.
Soon after this Coiloo told Stobart about the expedition which was about to set out against Mick's party travelling to Sidcotinga Station.
Not twice in a man's lifetime do boys, fresh from a city school, travel up into Central Australia and leave the few little centres of civilization which are there, and strike out west into the desert; so the drover was certain that one of those white boys was his son. He spent a whole day describing the boy to Coiloo.
The lad would have dashed across the open space at once, but Coiloo pulled him behind a rock. A terrible tragedy was about to be enacted in front of that cluster of sordid wurlies. The dead body of Wuntoo lay out naked on the sand. At the head of it stood Stobart, bound hand and foot, and clad in nothing but his tattered trousers. He was about to die.
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