who had been fidgeting uneasily. He had glimpsed a tell-tale movement in the scrub.
That second spears whizzed!
With his split-second of warning, Sam was able to plunge sidewise, slapping down his palm in a fast draw almost as good as he had been capable of in Texas days.
His revolver crashed—once, twice, thrice—and then as he ducked a spear, a fourth time. He had the hot satisfaction of seeing two cortorted and hideously painted black faces, suddenly disappear. A third leapt upward with a howl, then fell back at Sam's last shot.
The scrub shook frenziedly as one survivor—possibly wounded—left the scene as fast as his legs would carry him. The attack was over.
Restraining the impulse to dash in pursuit, Sam turned to his companion. Goelitz was down on hands and knees, half-fainting from pain. An obsidian lance had transfixed his right thigh from the rear.
"Just let me alone—one minute. Then—help!" gasped Goelitz.
Sam nodded, understanding. Swiftly reloading his revolver, he went cautiously into the scrub. Nothing seemed to move there now.
But at that moment something whizzed up from the ground, aimed at his head! A stone-weighted waddy!
It was thonged to the wrist of a blackfellow who lay there, frothing blood from a chest wound, but malignant to the last.
Sam dodged, managing to throw up his left arm and deflect the blow which otherwise might have brained him. Leaping back, he aimed the revolver—but did not fire. That one effort had been the last for the aborigine. Now he shuffled his skinny legs in the leaves, shuddered all over twice, and lay still.
There was a second white-striped body spread-eagled across a bush, which bent under the weight. And two yards further a third blackfellow with yellow circles painted on his cheeks sat with head slumped forward to his chest, and both arms clasped about his mid-section.
Varney went back to his wounded chief. "Three of 'em accounted for," he reported, "and I think I tagged a fourth. Ready for me to cut off that spearhead and pull it out of the hole?" He opened his keen-bladed jackknife.
"Go ahead. It can't hurt worse 'n it does!" bade Goelitz, white-lipped. He gripped his thigh with both hands to squeeze the nerves. "Wish to hell I had a spot of wheat whiskey!"
Sam, knowing a little of range surgery, was careful and deft. Just the same, Goelitz fainted when the spear was pulled out. By the time he returned to consciousness, Sam had the wounds bound tightly, and was riding the rump of the inspector's camel, leading two more, and holding Goelitz in the saddle before him.
Thus they reached Goelitz's own comfortable cabin, and that night the inspector told Sam that he was to take over this length of mulga and gidgie in place of the dead Morrison.
Chapter V
Molongo Corroborree
The recruit cameleer had cooked himself ten kettles of soup from the tails of young kangaroos, and was well on his way to becoming a seasoned rider before he had another encounter with the blackfellows. Aruntas and Parrabarras roamed this region, and until this year they had been friendly enough—if troublesome as thieves.
