Jean, Our Little Australian Cousin

She dropped asleep after eating and did not waken until almost time for supper, when she found that Kadok had been sleeping too.

"Foot very much better, think we go find Mother to-morrow," he said, as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Little Missa not cry, be good Missa. We be all right. Time to eat again."

"I'm not very hungry," she said, "but I want some fresh water to drink."

"Little Missa not go to the spring. Kadok not like," he said so earnestly that she said,

"Well, never mind, I can drink the old water and chew some hibiscus leaves."

"Think I can go for Missa," said Kadok as he rose and tried his foot. "Not very bad."

"Oh, never mind," she said, but he took the billy and his stick and limped through the bushes. He was gone only a moment or two when she felt a strange feeling as of some one looking at her, and she raised her head to see, staring through the bushes, the same savage eyes which had frightened her the day before.

"Kadok!" she screamed, but the Black reached forth a long arm and tried to catch her. She drew back into the cave and screamed again. She had no weapon, but she grasped the dead snake by the tail and with all the strength she could muster threw it straight into the Black's face. The man gave a loud "Wouf!" as the reptile struck his face, and darted back just as Kadok came up behind and struck him on the head with his waddy. Attacked before and behind, the black man thought his enemies were many and he fled through the bushes as fast as he could go. Fear lent him wings and he did not stop until far from the scene of his terror. Kadok limped into the cave.

"Little Missa hurt?" he asked anxiously.

"No, but I was dreadfully frightened. It was the same Black I saw yesterday."

"What little Missa do?" asked the boy.

"I hadn't anything else, so I hit him with your snake and he ran away," she said simply. The boy looked at her in astonishment and then laughed loud and long.

"Baiame teach little Missa to be good Bush girl," he said. "One thing very much scare Black is snake in the face. Missa do just right thing."

"I didn't know just what to do, but I had to do something," she said. "What shall we do now, Kadok?"

"Not know," he said, frowning. "Think best eat, rest to-night. Go long early in morning before Black come back. Missa make eat, then sleep. Not be afraid. Kadok watch."

CHAPTER X

DANDY SAVES THE DAY

It was early in the morning when the two set out and the stars were still shining.

"I never saw so many stars in all my life," said Jean. "It seems to me there are more in Australia than I ever saw in Scotland."

"Think great plenty, maybe eighty-eight,"[20 - The Blacks can count only as high as their ten fingers. Anything above this they call always "eighty-eight," though no one knows why.] said Kadok.

Their way lay through a less beautiful part of the country than any Jean had seen before. It was a wild and lonely land, close to the edge of the scrub, beyond them only sand and spinifex. A fire had swept over the wood and left the trees gaunt and bare. They waved and tossed their gray branches like demons, and Jean shuddered, as on every side the ghostly trees seemed to hem her in.

They came to a clearing where the trees had been cut down, and these, bleached and white, lay on the ground in a thousand gnarled and twisted shapes, their interlacing branches seeming like writhing serpents. Many of the gum trees had been killed, for the cuts in the bark had been made too deep, and the bark hung down in long strips.

No friendly animals or piping forest songsters chirruped a cheerful welcome to this scene of desolation. Only the solitary "widow bird" hopped about hunting for insects and piping her mournful little note. Then the sound of a curlew, like the gasp of a dying child, came to them through the dawn, as the sun rose, red and pitiless, over the sands. Beyond these were the mountains, rising straight up against the sky. Huge gray boulders made a wall at the base of the ridge and the whole place seemed so strange and eerie that Jean cried out,

"Oh, Kadok, we don't have to cross these sands, do we? I'm afraid."

"No, Missa," said Kadok wearily. His foot was hurting him cruelly and he felt discouraged. "We go another way, all through the wood. Missa not feel 'fraid. Where Missa's Baiame? Take care of black boy, not take care of white child?"

"Yes, indeed He will," said Jean, feeling ashamed that the black boy should preach to her. "But I can't help being afraid. It seems as if we would never get to mother."

"Little Missa get there some day, but Kadok not know how soon. Think best way now to hunt for road and Missa go long quick for herself. Kadok foot not let him go very fast."

"Well, I think I won't," said Jean indignantly. "Do you suppose I'd do that when you have been so good to me? We'll go as slowly as you have to and I'll take care of your foot. I'm terribly hungry, Kadok, can we eat now?"

"Not eat here," said Kadok, who liked the place as little as she did. "Walk little more round edge of sand, there find water-hole in the woods and eat."

So they trudged on in silence for another hour, gradually leaving behind them the sandy scrub and coming to a pleasant wood where a carpet of maiden-hair and coral fern reached knee-deep in tenderest green. Velvet-brown tree ferns rose in the air, wearing a feathery coronet of fronds, and above them grew the sassafras and the myrtle. A thousand sweet scents were wafted through the air and a bubbling stream surprised them by gushing forth from a clump of bushes.

"Little Missa rest and eat here," said Kadok. "Plenty water," as he explored the banks.

"Oh, Kadok, how lovely it looks," she cried. "I'd like to bathe in that water, it's so clear and nice."

"Very good thing," said the boy. "Kadok make eat, Little Missa go to the bushes let water run all over self. Keep her from being thirsty all day while we walk."

So Jean splashed in the cool water and enjoyed her bath like a little nymph behind the thick screen of bushes. She smoothed up her hair and came forth refreshed and rested to find Kadok had made fresh damper and toasted some bits of meat, gathering also some of the sassafras leaves, making a kind of tea which was very good. She ate and rested while Kadok bathed his foot and filled his water bottle, and then they started off again, tramping this time over a hilly country. They had to take a long rest in the middle of the day while the sun was hot and both were very tired. There was nothing to eat but damper and some roots Kadok had found, and the delay and the scanty meal did not make Jean feel any more cheerful. The day seemed the longest she had ever spent and when twilight fell and they found no shelter, no friendly cave nor deserted hut, the little girl felt more forlorn than she had ever felt in her life. She tried hard not to show Kadok for she saw that the boy was suffering far worse than he would admit.

"What are we going to have for supper?" she asked.

"Not much eat," said he. "Damper all gone, no more flour. No meat."

"There's plenty of water, anyway," said Jean, for they had followed the course of the stream all day and now camped beside its silvery ripples. As she spoke, a stir in the water caught her eye.

"Oh, Kadok," she exclaimed, "why can't we have fish?"

"No can catch," said the boy wearily. "Too bad foot to go hunt."

"Watch me catch a fish," said Jean sturdily. "I used to catch trout at home. Let me see, what can I use for a line?" She thought a minute, then clapped her hands. "I know, you just rest, Kadok, and see what a good fisherman I am!"

She took a pin from her belt, bent it and tied to it a strip of cotton torn from her skirt. This line she tied to a branch from which she stripped the leaves; on them she found some fuzzy caterpillars, one of which she used for bait. Then she threw her line and sat down where the stream turned at right angles and made a deep, quiet pool. She waited a long time. Three or four times she had a bite and failed to land her fish, but just as she was growing discouraged there was a jerk, then a long, steady pull at her line.

"Come help me land him," she called to Kadok, and the boy hastened to her aid. Between them they pulled in their fish, a fine, speckled fellow which Kadok cleaned and roasted on a flat stone heated red hot. The fish was delicious, and there was plenty for both of them, so that they felt far more cheerful as they rolled up their blankets to sleep.

It was Jean's first trial of sleeping in the open, and it was long before she could rest. She lay and watched the stars, of only a few of which she knew the names, though Orion seemed like an old friend and the cloudy path of the Milky Way a broad road to Heaven.

"Little Missa not sleep," said Kadok. "Her 'fraid Debill-debill?"

"No, Kadok, I'm not afraid," she answered.

"Peruna heeal very good spirit, he big man spirit, lives 'bove clouds. He not let Debil-debil loose to-night. Too many twinkle lights. Debil-debil likes darkness. Missa try sleep."

Toward morning Jean was awakened by a crackling in the bushes. "Kadok," she whispered. "Wake up."

"Kadok not asleep, little Missa," he whispered in return.

"I hear something in the bushes," she said. "Is it one of those bad Blacks like I saw at the cave?"

"Too far away for bad Black, think ghost, maybe," said the black boy, who, with all his courage, had the Black's fear of ghosts.