Sudden silence of that war-cry—screams of pierced men, then gasps, and the thud of falling bodies clawing at the grass. Those unhurt wheeled round in shocked terror, open-mouthed, amazed eyes, hands trembling at their weapons as another shower of spears came viciously biting into them. To agonized yells those still unhurt leapt amongst the clattering weapons back towards the mouth of the Trap. But from there came a roar as the gigantic figure of the Red Chief appeared, followed by his leaping men howling the Gunn-e-darr war-cry. The Cassilis men turned and raced blindly down the Trap. The roar of the Red Chief stopped his excited men in their tracks.

“Quick! Pull out your spears! Burradella, remain by the mouth of the Trap and kill any who run to get by—I’ll deal with those who’ve run down to the end!”

The warriors leapt to pull their spears from the dead and dying, then the Red Chief’s men ran with him down to the end of the Trap from which the enemy, bewildered by the yells of the boys and a flight of spears, were sneaking back to be again met by the howling charge of the Red Chief. They wheeled in despair to crash their way into the scrub at the end of the Trap. Three were speared here before they disappeared, with Red Kangaroo’s men exultantly following the noise of their going. Burradella’s men had run back to the Trap entrance, but, meeting no enemy, ran back down the Trap to beat their way to the Red Chief. Burradella had swiftly counted thirty-four dead and dying enemy within the first sixty yards of the Trap, with six badly wounded. And three more killed by the Red Chief’s men where the enemy had rushed into the scrub at the Trap end. Forty-three enemy warriors already accounted for and not one Gunn-e-darr man yet lost! Burradella’s men howled exultantly as they hurried into the scrub seeking sight or sound of enemy, but met no one coming against them from the direction of the Mullibah camp, nor did any enemy break out of the scrub to run across the open forest down the Porcupine Ridges. But presently war-cries of Gunn-e-darr and Cassilis warriors set them hurrying towards the east side of the Black Hill.

The Red Chief’s men had kept hot on the sounds of seventeen warriors who had escaped the Trap and were pushing through the scrub in desperate haste. It turned out that they were trying to break through to join twenty-one warriors whom their chief had early sent round to the south of the Black Hill to cut off the escape of the women and children when he attacked the sleeping camp. The rally cries of the fleeing men attracted this party of twenty-one, who had hurried into the scrub to meet them, shouting their whereabouts. Now came Burradella’s shouts, answering to the shouts of the Red Chief. As the enemy parties combined they turned back to attack the Red Chief, who fell back with his sixteen men, shouting to Burradella to hurry to attack from the rear.