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Updated: June 8, 2025
The two men rode up the gully to the top, crossed over the spur, dipped down into a larger gully, and struck out south-west for a plain stretching towards Oodnadatta which Yarloo remembered, where there were one or two good water-holes and plenty of cattle-feed for many days.
He unhitched it and was across its back before the white boys had had time to realize the meaning of the terrible news. "Show me!" he shouted, and he and Yarloo disappeared at once on the track of the horses. The boy's report was only too true. The Musgrave blacks, who had not molested them for six nights, had done the most dastardly thing possible under the circumstances.
The trees were all about five or six feet high, though some were much bushier than others. Yarloo chose one which was very wide-spreading, and began piling dry bark and twigs and anything which would burn quickly and easily, right in the middle of the tree, all among the branches. He went on till the needle-bush was carrying as big a load as it possibly could. Then he made fire.
They did not light a fire for fear of showing the blacks where they were, but just scooped hollows in the warm sand and stretched themselves out with a camp-sheet as their only bed-clothes, for they had left everything else behind them. The white boys were soon asleep, but Yarloo kept himself awake all night to watch.
He returned for his rifle and water-bag, for he did not know whether their lives might not depend on one or the other of these. He did not dare to stay away too long from the sleeping blacks, for fear that one of them should wake and notice that he had gone, so he returned and lay down under a tree and waited for Yarloo.
Seems to have taken to you boys. I wonder why." "He used to work for Sax's father," explained Vaughan. "I thought you knew." "I see. That explains it. Hi! Yarloo!" he called, and when the boy came up: "You go back longa camp. Watch till piccaninny daylight. No shut um eye, mind." Yarloo grinned his understanding of the order and disappeared.
Yarloo came on the scene almost as soon as the other black was out of sight, and was probably the cause of the first man's sudden disappearance, Yarloo was carrying a small bunch of parakelia leaves. The first things he noticed were the new tracks, and he stopped dead.
It began to twitch. The eyes rolled round and then fixed their gaze on Stobart. Strength returned quickly to the native and he staggered to his feet. For a moment he faced the white man, swaying unsteadily, then he turned and went away to his wurley, leaving the drover victor on the field where he had so nearly met his death. Conclusion That night Yarloo returned to camp.
It needed great care and patience to minister to the perishing white boys, and not many natives would have done what Yarloo did for Sax and Vaughan during that blazing day. He made trip after trip to the stony plain where the needle-bushes were growing, and, with the water obtained in this way, he gradually revived his two friends.
Yarloo had definitely and of his own free will chosen to share whatever fate was in store for them, and had earned the right to be included in everything which they did. The boy did not presume on this unusual act of the white man; it is only a weak-spirited man who presumes. "I reckon we're eighty miles from Sidcotinga Station. You think it, Yarloo?" asked Mick, turning to the boy.
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