Silently the five rose from behind the fringe of
brush, to peer over thetop.
Friday leaned on his long spear and regarded the
speakers with his huge,unfathomable eyes.
Pard, shouted Red, from behind the dray a dozen
step away, theysneaked on us from the left. On the still air sped a strange sound,
familiar, though Sterlcould not identify it. One tall black, possibly a leader,
began to hack up the beef into piecesand pass them out. At the campfire the three
drovers whom they were to relieve sat drinkingtea. Stay off your horses unless
theres a rush, or somethingunusual.
Nothing was ever seen of them but theirhaunting
smoke magic. The stillness, the blackness, werelike death.
Aw, no, theseblacks caint throw a spear atall!
Fordays and weeks and months the drovers had been working beyond
theirstrength.
Nothing was ever seen of them but theirhaunting
smoke magic.
They emptied their tent and repitched it on thelee
side of Slyters big wagon.
The abos watchedthe drovers with ravenous eyes. The
drovers were astir; the Slyters gettingsupper.
But Leslies ravinis more sense that yore
intelligence.
From the darkness wailed a chantas of lost souls.
Child,you have been forced into womanhood.
And Leslie ate so much of the stalecandy that she
grew ill.
When there was live beefan daid beef for the takin!
Waterdripped off him from the waist down.
Some mornings the trekwould be held up because of
strayed horses.
I grieve that I have been wrong,
self-centered,dominating. Fordays and weeks and months the drovers had been working
beyond theirstrength. The girls passion, her rich voice stinging with scorn,
appeared to lashthe cowboy.