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No less than Webster himself first time he had been in the hut since it was built, the chaps told me afterward. He had a leaf of a memorandum-book in his hand; and says he: "'Child lost in the scrub on Goolumbulla. Dan O'Connell's little girl five or six years old. Anybody know where there's any blackfellows? "Nobody knew. "'Well, raise horses wherever you can, and clear at once, says he.
If the dingoes and blackfellows had been content with one sheep at a time to allay the pangs of hunger, they could not have been blamed very much; but after killing one they went on killing as many more as they could, and thus wasted much mutton to gratify their thirst for blood. Joe and the shepherd were each provided with a musket and bayonet for self-defence.
No wonder Papa laughed. It's much funnier than squatting, I can tell you. There's nothing to laugh at in being a squatter. They're as rich as What's- his-name. Some of them are millionaires. I wish Papa was a squatter but he would be no use on a sheep-run; you've got to be in the saddle all day, and keep your eyes skinned for blackfellows half the night. John Smith looked the very chap for it.
Appearances indicated that the commencement of the ranges was a favourite resort of the "Blackfellows."
He had observed the sign of an anchor, or broad-arrow, cut into a tree with a stone tomahawk, and which he supposed had been done, either by a shipwrecked sailor, or by a runaway convict from Moreton Bay, when it was a penal settlement: the neighbouring trees were variously marked by Blackfellows.
The trees bore numerous marks of the mogo or stone hatchet, the use of which distinguishes the barbarous from the civil blackfellows, who all use iron tomahawks. Although Mr. Brown made the woods echo with his cooeys their inhabitants remained silent and concealed, a circumstance which seemed to distress him very much.
By this time the sight of a gun was a sufficient warning to the blackfellows to keep at a safe distance; the discharge of the nine-pounder had proved to them that the white man possessed mysterious powers of mischief, and it was a long time before they could recover courage enough to approach within view of the camp at the Old Port.
For a few seconds it hesitated to make the attack, and looked back down the slope, to see if the other dogs were coming to help; but they were only just beginning the ascent, and the shouting Blackfellows were further off still. Then the dog could no longer control its savage nature.
After tramping some three miles he reached a spur, running out from the main ridge. At the extreme end of this, under some gum-trees, was a little mound of earth, barely defined in the grass, and indented in the centre as all blackfellows' graves were. He set to work to dig it up, and sure enough, in about half an hour he bottomed on payable dirt.
The day being far advanced, and their camp a good way off, they left us, after inviting us to accompany them: but this I declined. About 10 o'clock at night, three lads came to us with Allamurr; but they were very near suffering for their kindness and confidence, as the alarm of "blackfellows" at night was a call to immediate and desperate defence.
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