At daylight they started, and for three days rode through the
wilderness, camping out at night, while the horses with bells and
hobbles grazed round the camp. Tommy Prince steered a course by
instinct, guided as unerringly as the Israelites by their pillar
of fire.
By miles of trackless, worthless wilderness, by rolling open plains,
by rocky ranges and stony passes, they pushed out and ever further
out, till at last, one day, Tommy said, "They ought to be hereabouts,
some place." So saying, he dropped a lighted match into a big patch
of grass, and in a few seconds a line of fire half a mile wide was
roaring across the plain; above it rose smoke as of a burning city.
"They'll see that," said Tommy, "without the buff'loes have got
'em." So they camped for the day under a huge banyan-fig tree and
awaited developments. About evening, away on the horizon, there
arose an answering cloud of smoke, connecting earth and sky, like
a waterspout.
"That's them," said Tommy. They climbed once more into their saddles,
and set out. Just as the sun was setting, they saw a singular
procession coming towards them. In front rode two small, wiry,
hard-featured, inexpressibly dirty men on big well-formed horses.
They wore dungaree trousers, which had once been blue, but were
now begrimed and bloodstained to a dull neutral colour. Their
shirts--once coloured, but now nearly black--were worn outside the
trousers, like a countryman's smock frock, and were drawn in at
the waist by broad leathern belts full of cartridges. Their faces
were half-hidden by stubbly beards, and their bright alert eyes
looked out from under the brims of two as dilapidated felt hats
as ever graced head of man. Each carried a carbine between thigh
and saddle. These were the buffalo shooters.
Behind them rode an elderly, grizzled man, whom Hugh had no
difficulty in recognising as Keogh, or Considine. Following him
were some seven or eight packhorses, all heavily laden with hides.
And behind the packhorses rode three or four naked blacks and a
Chinaman.
Hugh's guide at once made himself welcome in his happy-go-lucky
style. He introduced Hugh as Mr. Lambton, from New South Wales.
The buffalo shooters made him welcome after the fashion of their
kind; but Considine was obviously uneasy, and avoided him, riding
with Tommy Prince for a while, and evidently trying to find out
what Hugh had come for.
That night, when they got to the buffalo shooters' camp, Hugh
opened fire on Considine. The veteran was in a cheerful mood after
his meal, and Hugh wanted to start diplomatically, thinking he
might persuade him. If that failed he would give him the summons;
but he would start with the suaviter in modo. When it came to the
point, however, he forgot his diplomacy, and plunged straight into
trouble.