Down in the abandoned camp Giluram and Kubado watched the scouts warily appearing among the timber. They stopped, while two crept on in a wide semicircle to crawl into the silent camp from opposite sides. Seeing and hearing no sign of life, they suddenly leapt up and ran through the camp towards one another. No spear, no cry of alarm greeted them from this apparently abandoned camp. One held back his head and trumpeted like a brolga. Their eight friends leapt up and came racing into camp from scattered points. They sped among the gunyahs, peering in with spears poised. Several found tracks of the women and children and guards leading from camp and around these they yabbered excitedly. Three ran the tracks for a short distance out into the open country until convinced the tracks were leading towards the Mooki. As they were in danger of being seen out in the open they raced back to the empty camp and reported. Five of them then set off in a fast run back towards Burrell Lagoon, while their five friends scattered and hid in the myall thickets on the west and south sides of the camp.

Silence fell but for the quiet bush sounds of advancing sunset. In hiding almost within the camp, Giluram and Kubado waited.

The sun was setting behind the ridges to the west when sixty Cassilis warriors came jog-trotting into camp, the five scouts jumping out from the myall thickets to join them in eager talk. The chief held out his arm with an upthrust of the chin and three scouts dashed away on the women’s tracks while the warriors divided into three separate groups to squat down amongst the gunyahs. They lit no fires. Should any Gunn-e-darr men come strolling into the camp now they would walk into spear and club. In the gathering gloom Giluram squirmed close up to one group, Kubado snaked his way towards another, listening for snatches of the guttural conversation.

“Where can their new camp be?” wondered one. “Just where are all those tracks of the women and children going to?”

“Oh, they’re not far away,” replied a scout. “Their tracks are heading straight for the Mooki—it’s barely two miles away, alive with fish. Our scouts will soon bring news that they can see their campfires.”

“Ah, then our chief will take us fishing at dawn!” said a warrior, grinning. “Big fish we’ll catch—two legged ones.”

“I know the ones you’ll try to catch,” answered his mate, “and it won’t be the big ones!”

With a guttural chuckle one said, “If the Gunn-e-darr girls can run as well as they say the men can fight, they’ll take some catching!”

“Catch the men first,” growled a sour old veteran, “or the only fish you’ll catch will be what feed on your carcass.”

This reminder of the sterner job on hand brought a scowl from the amorously inclined ones.

Within half an hour the scouts came running back to report no sign of campfires along the Mooki, nor gleam of fires upon the ridges to the south.