Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/87

 more than usual appeared to be going on. The dogs, too, were uneasy, and I could see that Old Tom appeared to be perturbed and anxious.

"I wouldn't be putting it past them black divils to be makin' a rush some night and thryin' to burn the hut on us," he said gloomily. "If we lave them there, atin' and roastin' away at shins of beef and the hoighth of good livin', as they have now, they'll think we're afraid, and there'll be no houldin' them. Ye might get the gintlemen from Dunmore, and Peter Kearney, and Joe Betts, and Mr. Craufurd, from Eumeralla, and give them a fright out of that before they rise on us in rale arnest."

"No, Tom," I said; "I should not think that just or right. I believe that they have been killing our cattle, but I must catch them in the act, and know for certain what blacks they are, before I take the law into my own hands. As to driving them away from the Rocks, it is their own country, and I will not attack them there till they have done something in my presence to deserve it."

"Take your own way," said the old man, sullenly. He lit his pipe, and said no more.

That night, about midnight, the dogs began to bark in a violent and furious manner, running out into the darkness and returning with all the appearance of having seen something hostile and unusual. We turned out promptly, and, gun in hand, went out some distance into the darkness. The night was of a pitchy Egyptian darkness, in which naught was visible a hand's breadth before one. Once we heard a low murmur as of cautious voices, but it ceased. Suddenly the black boy, Tommy, who had crept a