“Kuribri,” said the Red Chief quietly, “tell me what that smoke talks to you!”

“ ‘Enemies!’ ” answered Kuribri. “ ‘On Namoi crossing. Come quickly. Secret camp. Burradella.’ ”

“Ah!” grunted the Red Chief.

He waited until the signal again was being repeated then said, “Tell me what the smoke talks to you, Yuluma.”³⁶

And Yuluma slowly read practically the same message.

“And it talks so to me, too,” said the Red Chief definitely. “Our people are in danger, we hurry straight to the Secret Camp. Leave the meat, carry only your weapons. I shall stay here long enough to signal Boobuk and his men—luckily they will be able to see a smoke from here, flat country though it is. You nine run for the Secret Camp—I shall catch you up.”

And he kicked one of the fires into a blaze and hurried to pull armfuls of grass, both dry and green. He ran to dip some into the Mooki so that it would give off denser smoke. He hurried then to pull armfuls of reeds for the different smokes they would give out. Soon his smoke signals were rising swiftly up.

He waited, then to his relief a smoke rose up miles away across the plain. Boobuk and his twenty-nine warriors had answered his signal to swiftly rejoin him. With a laugh the Red Chief picked up his weapons and commenced running after the nine. And now he gloried in his long, effortless strides, his tireless endurance. He caught up the running nine within four miles. Running beside them, he ordered them not to pause until they reached the Secret Camp. He would meet them there or, if he had to act sooner, he would leave a message for them where to follow on. Then he began to spurt ahead, his powerful legs carrying him swiftly on and on until he vanished among the timber.

But the Red Chief had been too hasty when he laughed to the answering signal of Boobuk. It was not Boobuk and his twenty-nine men at all who answered, it was Tulumi, his uncle, answering Boobuk’s hunting signal.

Boobuk had divided his men, sending Tulumi with a party on a wide detour. Thus several mobs of kangaroos had gradually been driven to coverage together. When the time was ready Boobuk had sent up a smoke to Tulumi to rejoin him quickly. And it was this signal which the Red Chief in his haste had naturally concluded was the immediate reply to his own. He had run off without attempting to verify it. Boobuk and his men, intent on the hunt and not dreaming of danger, especially now that the Red Chief was returning to Camp, had not noticed either the signals from either the distant look-outs or the Red Chief on the low plain country.

Hours later when the Red Chief waited in vain for the warrior Boobuk and his twenty-nine men his heart grew cold with a feeling of disaster, but events were to prove that it was a happy chance indeed that Boobuk had not seen that signal.