It proved an exciting chase they had commenced. The thief knew he
need expect no mercy if caught, and rode desperately. He knew the
country better than Edgar and Will, which gave him a decided advantage;
moreover, he had a good horse, probably stolen, and knew how to ride.
‘He is gaining on us,’ said Edgar. ‘I am afraid we shall lose him.
There is no chance of hitting either man or horse from this distance.’
Mile after mile was traversed, and still the chase went on. The
riderless horse stuck close to his companion, but when he began to flag
the man took hold of the bridle and urged him on. Edgar took no heed
where they were going, nor did Will. They were too excited to take much
notice of the country they passed through. At last the fugitive turned
his horse to the left, and plunged into a much more difficult country
to travel. The undergrowth became denser and tangled, and it was with
difficulty the horses could be forced to go through it. It was not long
before they lost sight of the man they were in pursuit of.
‘Where can he have got to?’ said Will. ‘He would never hide here with
two of us after him.’
‘We must ride on,’ replied Edgar. ‘It is easy to miss a man and come
across his track again in a very short time.’
They rode on at a slow pace, and presently came to a narrow opening
in the scrub. Here they halted and found recent tracks of horses, so
they determined to follow in this direction. The tracks led them in a
roundabout way, and presently they came to the conclusion the man had
doubled back.
‘He must be heading for our camp again,’ said Edgar. ‘Strange he should
do this unless he fancies we are put off the scent, and he is riding
back to rescue his mate.’
‘If that is his game,’ said Will, ‘we must follow him hard. He might
shoot Yacka before we arrive.’
It was, however, difficult for them to find their way. They were not
experienced bushmen, and had failed to notice certain signs by which
they would know they were on the right track. They saw no signs of
the man, nor could they now observe in which direction the horses had
gone. To ride on and trust to chance was their only hope. It was quite
light now, and this aided them. As time passed they became anxious,
and wondered what would become of Yacka if they did not arrive on the
scene in time, for they had not the least doubt now that their man was
heading for the camp to rescue his mate.
‘This chase he has led us has been a blind,’ said Edgar. ‘If we had
taken ordinary precautions we ought to have found out he was doubling
back.’
‘Only a bushman would have found that out,’ said Will. ‘I do not see
how we can blame ourselves.’
‘We have had enough experience the last few months to have found that
out,’ said Edgar. ‘By Jove! there he is, I believe.’
There was a horseman in front of them, but they could not see the
second horse. They rode on faster now, but did not gain much ground. A
rise in the land hid the man from view, and soon after he disappeared
they heard a shot. This made them ride all the faster, and they
quickly reached the top of the rise, and had a good view of the plain
beyond.
‘He fired that shot to warn his mate,’ said Will. ‘We cannot be far
from the camp now.’
‘I’ll fire,’ said Edgar; ‘and if Yacka hears the two shots he will
probably divine we are in pursuit.’
He fired a shot from his revolver as they rode on.
‘There’s the place we camped at,’ said Edgar, pointing to two or three
tall trees: ‘but I see nothing of Yacka or the other men.’
They rode up to the place, and found the camp deserted. There was blood
upon the ground and signs of a struggle, but they imagined this must
have been caused by Yacka dragging the wounded man along. Edgar called
out ‘Yacka!’ and gave a loud ‘cooee,’ and after waiting a few moments
they heard a faint response. They rode in the direction of the sound,
and, rounding a clump of trees on a mound, came upon a strange sight.
Stretched on the ground was one of the robbers, the man they supposed
they had left with Yacka. This man had been strangled, and was dead.
Near him sat Yacka with a strange expression on his face. When the
black saw them he gave a faint moan, and pressed his hand to his side.
‘Good God! he’s shot!’ said Edgar, dismounting and running to the
black. He found blood streaming from a deep wound in his side evidently
inflicted with a knife. ‘How did this happen?’ asked Edgar, as he
endeavoured to stanch the flow of blood with a neckerchief he had
rapidly pulled off.
Yacka pointed to the dead man, and Will, who had come up, exclaimed:
‘This is not the fellow we left with Yacka. It is the man we have been
chasing all this time.’
‘Where is the other man?’ asked Edgar, who could hardly believe his
eyes.
‘I killed him,’ said Yacka faintly.
‘Where is he?’ asked Will.
Yacka pointed to some bushes, and Will went across and found the body
of the man they had left with Yacka. This man had also been strangled.
They managed to stop the flow of blood from the deep wound in Yacka’s
side, but it was some hours before he had sufficiently recovered
strength to relate what had happened.
When Yacka heard the shot fired, he at once thought the man’s mate had
doubled back to rescue him, and had given Edgar and Will the slip. He
knew how easily it could be done by an old hand, and his surmise was
confirmed by the expression on the man’s face when he heard the shot.
In a moment Yacka had made up his mind how to act. He had no gun, for
he found that all three had been taken, instead of only those belonging
to Edgar and Will. He seized his prisoner by the throat, and strangled
him. Then he propped the dead man up with his back to a tree, and tied
him to it with one of the tethering ropes. He hid himself behind the
tree and waited, and in a short time the other robber came on to the
scene. When this man saw his mate bound to the tree, he dismounted and
came towards him, evidently thinking Yacka had made him fast, that he
had fallen asleep, and Yacka had gone away.
Yacka awaited his coming, crouching down behind the tree. No sooner did
the man see his mate was dead than he realized that a trap had been set
for him, and ran back to the horses. Yacka was quickly after him, and
before the man could reach the horses had caught him up. Finding Yacka
at such close quarters, the man drew his knife instead of his revolver,
no doubt thinking it would be more effective. A desperate struggle
ensued, which Yacka described graphically.
‘We rolled over and over,’ said Yacka. ‘I had no knife, and he was a
powerful man. I caught him by the throat, and he lost the grip of his
knife. I clung to him with both hands, and he managed to get his knife
and stuck it in my side. I did not let go my hold. I became fainter and
fainter, but clung to his throat. Then I fell across him, and when I
came to my senses again, which could not have been long, he was dead.
It was their lives or mine, and they were not fit to live.’
As they listened to Yacka’s story of this terrible struggle and awful
end of the thieves, they wondered if many men would have had the
courage to act as he had done.
‘The horses will not have gone far,’ said Yacka. ‘They were dead
tired, I could see, when the man dismounted.’
While Will attended to Yacka, Edgar went in search of the two stray
horses, and found them about a couple of miles away, quietly cropping
the scanty herbage. He secured them without trouble, and was glad to
see their precious treasure was safe, and also their guns.
They had to remain in this spot for a week before Yacka was fit to be
removed, and during that time they buried the bodies of the robbers as
well as they were able with the primitive means at hand.
Their progress was slow, because Yacka could not ride far, and had to
be helped off one of the horses at different times to rest. It was
lucky for them they had the two captured horses in addition to their
own. Yacka guided them, and seemed to take a delight in hiding from
them how far they were from Yanda.
‘Surely we must be somewhere near Yanda by this time,’ said Edgar. ‘I
almost fancy I can recognise the country.’
‘You ought to,’ said Yacka, ‘for we are on Yanda Station now, and we
shall reach the homestead to-night.’
They could not suppress their feelings, and gave a loud hurrah.
Yacka had spoken correctly, for towards sundown the familiar homestead
came in sight.
Yacka wished them to gallop on and leave him, but this they declined to
do, saying he had done so much for them, it was only making a small
return to remain with him.
As they neared the homestead they noticed several figures moving about,
evidently in an excited way, on the veranda.
‘There’s Ben Brody!’ said Edgar eagerly. ‘He has recognised us. What a
time we shall have to-night!’
Ben Brody was standing leaning against the door-post when he saw
something moving across the plain in front of him. He went inside for
his glasses, and, after looking through them for several minutes, he
gave a loud shout.
It was such an unusual thing for Ben Brody to shout, except when
issuing orders, or expressing his feelings to some unfortunate
new-chum, that the hands about the place fancied the homestead must
have caught fire. Several of them rushed round to the front, and found
Ben Brody executing a kind of war-dance on the veranda.
‘What’s up now?’ asked Will Henton. ‘Something stinging you?’
‘No, you fool,’ roared Brody. ‘Do you think I’m as tender as you? It’s
them lads coming back!’
‘Not Foster and Brown?’ asked Will.
‘That’s just it, you bet,’ said Brody.
Off ran Will Henton, and in a few moments Harry Noke, Jim Lee, and two
or three more came round.
‘Give me the glasses,’ said Noke.
‘No need for that,’ said Jim Lee. ‘I can spot ’em from here.’
‘We must go and meet them,’ said Will Henton.
‘Right you are,’ said Brody. ‘Boys, we’ll have a terrible night of it.’
They mounted their horses, and in less time than it takes to write it
down were galloping towards the home-comers.
The scene was one to be remembered. They sprang from their horses,
and pulled Edgar and Will out of their saddles, and shook them by the
hands, cheered and hallooed until the plain rang with their hearty
shouts. Yacka stood quietly looking on, and when they had almost wrung
Edgar’s and Will’s hands off they tackled him.
‘Don’t handle Yacka as roughly as you have handled us,’ laughed Edgar;
‘he’s got a bad wound.’
Then came a string of questions as to how Yacka received his wound, and
who had given it him. Such a rain of questions was showered at them
that at last Ben Brody said:
‘Give them breathing-time, lads. We shall hear all about their
adventures later on. We’re right glad to see you back again safe and
sound.’
A general chorus of assent followed this remark.
‘Expect you have not come back loaded with wealth?’ said Will Henton.
‘Wait and see,’ said Edgar. ‘I rather fancy we have a surprise in store
for you.’
‘Have you had a good time?’ said Ben Brody.
‘It has been a wonderful time, and we have seen many strange things,
and gone through a good deal of hard work. I’m heartily glad to see
Yanda again, but I would not have missed our experiences for the world.’
‘Same here,’ said Will Brown, ‘but I never wish to go through such a
time again.’
Yacka rode quietly behind, a lonely black figure, the pain in his face
showing how he still suffered. He was glad to see this hearty welcome,
but it made him feel lonely. He had no friends such as these men at
Yanda were. He was a wanderer, an outcast, a black, a despised native
of the country these white men had taken from his people. But Yacka
was, through all this, white enough at heart to know it was all for
the best. His people could never become like these people, and the
country in the hands of blacks, he knew, would still have been wild and
desolate.