Mr. Learmonth had taken up Ettrick and Ellangowan, a few miles higher up on the same creek, about the same time that I "sat down" on the Lower Eumeralla. This gentleman, since an officer of high rank in the volunteer force, had lately come from Tasmania, whence he brought some valuable blood mares, with which he founded a stud in after years. The cattle run comprised a good deal of lava country. It was there that Bradbury, the civilised aboriginal before mentioned, met his death. All the land that lay between Eumeralla proper and the sea, a tract of country of some twenty or thirty miles square, had been probably from time immemorial a great hunting-ground and rendezvous for the surrounding tribes. It was no doubt eminently fitted for such a purpose. It swarmed with game, and in the spring was one immense preserve of every kind of wild fowl and wild animal that the country owned.

Among the Rocks there were innumerable caves, depressions, and hiding-places of all kinds, in which the natives had been used to find secure retreat and[Pg 64] safe hiding in days gone by. Whether they could not bear to surrender to the white man these cherished solitudes, or whether it was the shortsighted, childish anxiety to possess our goods and chattels, can hardly ever be told. Whatever the motive, it was sufficient, as on all sides at once came tales of wrong-doing and violence, of maimed and slaughtered stock, of homicide or murder.

Next day we saw the greater part of the cattle, but those particular ones that Old Tom had missed were not to be found anywhere. We were turning our horses' heads homewards when I noticed the eaglehawks circling around and above a circular clump of ti-tree scrub in a marsh. While we looked a crow flew straight up from the midst of the clump, and we heard the harsh cry of others. The same thought evidently was in all our minds, as we rode straight for the place, and forced our horses between the thick-growing, slender, feathery points. In the centre, amid the tall tussac grass, lay the yellow heifer with the white flank, stone dead. A spear-hole was visible beneath the back ribs. Exactly on the corresponding portion of the other side was another, proving that, strange as it may seem, a spear had been driven right through her body. After Old Tom had concluded his exclamations and imprecations, which were of a most comprehensive nature, we agreed that the campaign had been opened in earnest, and that we knew what we had to expect. "We'll find more to-morrow," said the old man. "Onest they'll begin like this, they'll never lave off till thim villains, Jupiter and Cocknose, is shot, anyway."

[Pg 65]

These strangely-named individuals had been familiar to our ears ever since our arrival. "Jupiter" was supposed to have a title to the head chieftainship of the tribe which specially affected the Rocks and the neighbourhood of the extinct volcano. Cocknose had been named by the early settlers from the highly unclassical shape of the facial appendage. He was known to be a restless, malevolent savage. Again on the war trail next morning, we tried beating up and down among the paths by which the cattle went to water, at the lower portion of the great marsh. It may be explained that the summer of 1844 was exceptionally dry, and much of the surface water having disappeared, the cattle were compelled to walk in Indian file through the ti-tree, in many places more than ten feet in height, to the deeper portion of the marsh, where water was still visible.

Here Joe Burge hit off a trail, which seemed likely to solve the mystery. "Here they've been back and forward, and pretty thick too," he said, getting off and pointing to the track of native feet, plain enough in the swamp mud.

"Cattle been here," said the old stockman, "and running too. Look at thim deep tracks. The thieves of the world, my heavy curse on them!"

As we followed on the trail grew broader and more plain. A few head of cattle had evidently been surrounded—two or more bullocks, we agreed, and several cows and calves, heading now in this direction, now in that. Presently half of a broken spear was picked up. We followed the track to a thick brake of reeds nearly opposite to a jutting cape of the lava[Pg 66] country. There we halted. A new character was legible in the cipher we had been puzzling out.

"They've thrown him here," said the old man. "Here's where he fell down. There's blood on that tuft of grass; and here's the mark of the side of him in the mud. They've cut him up and carried him away into the Rocks, bit by bit—hide and horns, bones and mate. The divil resave the bit of Magpie ever we'll see again. There's where they wint in."

Sure enough we saw a plainly-marked track, with a fragment of flesh, or a blood-stain, showing the path by which they had carried in a slaughtered animal. Further we could not follow them, as the lava downs were at this spot too rough for horses, and we might also have been taken at a disadvantage. So, on the second evening, we rode home, having found what we went out to seek, certainly, but not elated by the discovery.

It now became a serious question how to bear ourselves in the face of the new state of matters. If the blacks persisted in a guerilla warfare, besides killing many of the best of our cattle, they would scatter and terrify the remainder, so that they would hardly stay on the run; besides which, they held us at a disadvantage. They could watch our movements, and from time to time make sorties from the Rocks, and attack our homesteads or cut us off in detail. In the winter season much of the forest land became so deep and boggy that, even on horseback, if surprised and overmatched in numbers, there would be very little chance of getting away. By this time the owners of the neighbouring stations were fully aroused to the necessity of concerted action.[Pg 67] We had reached the point when "something must be done." We could not permit our cattle to be harried, our servants to be killed, and ourselves to be hunted out of the good land we had occupied by a few savages.

Our difficulty was heightened by its being necessary to behave in a quasi-legal manner. Shooting blacks, except in manifest self-defence, had been always held to be murder in the Supreme Courts of the land, and occasionally punished as such.

Now, there were obstacles in the way of taking out warrants and apprehending Jupiter and Cocknose, or any of their marauding braves, in the act. The Queen's writ, as in certain historic portions of the west of Ireland, did not run in those parts. Like all guerillas, moreover, their act of outrage took place sometimes in one part of a large district, sometimes in another, the actors vanishing meanwhile, and reappearing with puzzling rapidity.

We went now well armed. We were well mounted and vigilantly on guard. The Children of the Rocks were occasionally met with, when collisions, not all bloodless, took place.

Their most flagrant robbery was committed on Mr. John Cox's Mount Napier station, whence a flock of maiden ewes was driven, and the shepherd maltreated. These young sheep were worth nearly two pounds per head, besides being impossible to replace. Mr. Cox told me himself that they constituted about a third of his stock in sheep at the time. He therefore armed a few retainers and followed hot on the trail.

[Pg 68]

He had unusual facilities for making successful pursuit. In his house lived a tame aboriginal named Sou'wester, who had a strong personal attachment for Mr. Cox. Like most of his race, he had the true bloodhound faculty when a man-hunt was in question. He led the armed party, following easily the trampling of the flock in the long grass until they reached the edge of the Rocks.

Into this rugged region the flock had been driven. Before long Sou'wester's piercing eye discovered signs of their having been forced along the rocky paths at the point of the spear.............