"I only hope Trenholm's with 'em when they come!" said Sam Varney grimly.
"No hope. He just eggs 'em on to raid, then sits back and watches the trouble. Crazy as a bedbug, of course."
This time there was no thought of allowing any work of destruction. The armed men met the gins, when they came from corroborree, and fired a volley over their heads. Disappointed in their hope of lifting another great length of wire, they fled with wailing cries.
But the skeleton-striped blackfellows, when they came, evidently had been fired with Trenholm's frenzy to a point where the threat of guns and determined white men could not scare. Howling, flourishing their waddies, spears, and hurling boomerangs, they swarmed to attack the whites between them and the wire.
The latter, just finished with the aduous fence repair, were merciless. The repeating rifles and small arms kept thundering, and fully twenty-five of the attackers died without ever getting close enough to kill a single white. Several of the fence men had minor spear wounds, and one had been knocked senseless by a glancing boomerang. But that was all. The black survivors finally realized that it was no use, and fled.
"That's all!" cried Inspector Harris. "Lord, aren't they gluttons for punishment!"
"Well, we'll press right along then," said Goelitz. "I think you've got this situation under control now."
As Sam rode his camel northward, however, a word of Harris's had started a train of speculations in his mind—golden speculations, tied up with dim, wondering thoughts of a girl who had freckles on her nose.
Gluttons! The reward for a suggestion which would end the rabbit plague in Australia! Claire Smith!
Sam had recalled with a thrill, tales told by one of his uncles who had been in the Klondike from '98 to 1901. The uncle had brought back little gold, but one of the stories he told now seemed to Sam extremely pertinent. It concerned a little animal of the north country which went around killing rabbits for the sheer fun of it!
This was the Canadian glutton—or wolverene, as some named it! Why should not Australia import a number of these small but ferocious killers, and let them loose to murder rabbits?
The very first chance he got, some days later, Sam put this idea in form of a letter, and sent it south by Afghan courier. Like all contestants for prizes the world over, then he dreamed of what he meant to do with $150,000 and five square miles of land. Naturally enough, most of those dreams had something to do with a girl who had blue eyes and freckles on her nose.
The next day saw a distinct change in the vegetation, as they pressed on toward the sections of Smith and Doremus. The mulga scrub thinned out and vanished. Its place was taken by beefwood, baobabs and kashew trees, and over the rolling plain small bolsons of kangaroo grass made the feeding of the camels easier.
Three more days, and they entered the section of Inspector Randall Smith. Goelitz kept scanning the northward horizon, and a frown corrugated his brows.
