Page:The Native Tribes of South Australia (1879).djvu/65

 CHARACTERISTIC ANECDOTES. 7 time after, he was just awaking from sleep at the dawn of the morning, and as he opened his eyes he saw the same native standing by his bedside with an axe in his hand as if about to strike. At once the trooper’s hand silently moved towards the pistol under his pillow, and the clear click-click as he cocked it was heard. With the greatest coolness the native said in an indifferent tone, " Whitefellow, why do you leave your axe outside?by-andby somebody will steal it;" and, depositing the weapon by the bed, he made his exit from the hut. The trooper was careful the next night to see that there was such a fastening to his door as would prevent another visit under such extremely suspicious circumstances. Another story occurs to me, which, with the reader’s permission, I will tell. A rather notorious blackfellow had been sheep-stealing. Two police officers set off on horseback in pursuit of him. As they came round the side of a steep hill by the Lakes they saw their man down by the shore. Knowing that horses would be of no use in the swamp they tied their steeds to a tree, and, taking their weapons, pursued on foot. Rushing amongst the polygonum bushes, one of them came suddenly on the native, who rushed at the trooper and knocked him down. The officer, as he lay on his back, tried to kick him off, so as get a thrust at him with his sabre, which he held in his hand; but, in doing so, stuck the point of the weapon into the top of his own boot, and could not extricate it. While this was going on, the other trooper, hearing the call of his comrade, clambered over the dense polygonums, and just at this juncture came up behind the native. He shouted at the blackfellow, and he left his first antagonist and turned to meet the other. A horse-pistol was presented, the trigger pulled, and off it went, the fire scorching the native’s breast; but he did not fall and die as might have been expected, so the trooper seized him and led him to the spot where their horses were tied. There it was found that the bullet which ought to have killed the native had been shaken out of the pistol by the jolting of the horse, and was discovered in the bottom of the holster.