“Now all take your time,” he said earnestly. “Stick together, one help the other. And I know that you can all travel in the night, so long as you go slowly, and keep together. Have no fear, for the enemy may not come before dawn—may not come then. Even if he did he would not hurry aside on the tracks of a few old women; he will be most anxious to find the tracks of our fighting men. But long before he comes you will have lost your tracks. And by then,” he added grimly, “some of us at least will be ready to keep that enemy busy. So don’t hasten and weary yourselves, but do carefully what I say. Make straight for the Porcupine Ridges but turning off to climb up to the edge of the hoop-vine scrub by the big tree of the eaglehawk’s nest. There a wallaby pad wanders deep into the scrub—you know it quite well. Once on that pad in the scrub, and your tracks are lost. It may be dark when you get there, but I know that, one behind the other, you can slowly feel your way and crawl through the scrub, with the wallaby pad to guide you. Crawl right through that first scrub, you then come out under starlight upon the porcupine grass at the foot of Big Porcupine Hill. Climb up the little way to where the black scrub starts again. Enter carefully just there. Crawl on into the blackness just a little way. You will be weary for a rest then, so sit quietly and eat. No talking above a whisper. And, of course, no fire. When you have eaten, lie down and rest, sleep if you can. And then, just as Djurrabl the evening star is gliding down to sleep over the tree-tops of Porcupine Ridge, I shall send a warrior messenger running to you to tell you further what to do. And now, farewell. And have no fear.”

And the twenty smiles, with the murmur of respect due to the second chief, warmed Burradella’s heart as the twenty old ones stepped away towards the shadowing hills as if they were young girls again.

Burradella would save these old women if he could. He knew that few enemies bothered to kill old women, considering them useless to either side, though they did kill the old men at times, for generally they were the weapon-makers for the tribe, and thus valuable to their enemy.

But—if an enemy just missed out on a prize then his rage would be ungovernable. He would club every man, woman, child, baby, he could lay his hands upon. And—Burradella smiled grimly—there would be vindictive hearts and raging heads among the enemy in the morning. For if this reported enemy really did prove to be a strong war party then they would rush a large—but abandoned camp—with the dawn. With daylight the tracks would shout up at them that they had had a large camp at their mercy. They had missed out. They would go crazy, seeking revenge on anything they could reach with spear and club.