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Yarloo followed the Musgrave native's tracks for about half a mile in a nearly south direction, and then came upon a stony plain with a few large bushes growing at one end of it. He gave a yell of delight. They were needle-bushes. The party was saved. Here was water, stored by nature right in the middle of an arid desert.
Then a hoof struck a stone. Such sounds in the desert meant one thing and one thing only, white men. Yarloo stood up and gave the call: "Ca a a w ay!" It was answered by a white man's voice out of the gathering darkness: "Hul lo uh!" In a few minutes Mick Darby rode up. He saw Yarloo, and the smouldering needle-bush, and knew that something was wrong. "What name?" he asked.
They helped Yarloo rebuild the old shelter, and sat down under it, with their only possessions one pannikin, one badly torn camp-sheet, and an empty canteen. Everything else had been blown away or absolutely spoilt. Towards the middle of the afternoon, when, nearly sixty miles to the west of them, Mick was drawing near Sidcotinga Station, Yarloo went out from the shelter for a few minutes.
"Me see um track other black fella," he said. "Ranui, Ted, Teedee, they join those other black fella. Go 'way Go right 'way. Me think they no come back." Suddenly the meaning of it all flashed into Mick's mind. "And the horses?" he asked eagerly. "What name the horses?" Yarloo did not answer.
Then he chopped off one or two of them and set the pieces upright in the quart-pot. A thin dark liquid began to drain out of the roots and collect in the pot till it was half-full. Yarloo took a drink and chopped up some more roots, and when the quart-pot was full he returned to camp.
Mick had no idea what had upset the boy, and thought the fright was probably due to one of the many superstitions which are always liable to crop up. But he liked Yarloo, and asked him kindly: "What name, Yarloo? The boy shook his head and fingered the bridle nervously.
"Me track um up long way. They walk, walk. Oh my word, plenty walk." He pointed towards the distant mountains, and continued: "Me think they walk longa Musgraves." Yarloo pronounced the word "Musgraves" in a tone of fear.
They did not take the whole plant with them. Each man of the advance party had two good saddle-horses; there was one all ready saddled and bridled for Boss Stobart; and a swift pack-horse, lightly loaded, carried all the tucker and water they would need. There were Mick and the two white boys, Yarloo, Poona, Calcoo, and Jack Johnson, all mounted on the best horses in the plant.
He told his tale. Mick and the boys listened attentively. The drover had trusted Yarloo from the very first day he had engaged him, and he had never had cause to regret it. So, after making sure of all the necessary facts of the case, he responded to the boy's appeal for help immediately and fully. He cut two thick slabs of damper, put a chunk of meat between them, and handed it to Yarloo.
He did not bother to find out who or what had saved him; he sank down, down, down into unconsciousness, and as the peaceful darkness closed over his mind, he muttered the words: "Canteen, canteen, canteen." No one heard. No one could possibly hear in such a storm, not even the man who was holding him so closely. It was Yarloo.
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