Jerrabri had thrown to split the shield!

A moment’s silence, then a deep sigh seemed to rise from the earth. It rose to a muttering growl, ceasing as the angry chief fitted the second spear to his wommera. Red Kangaroo gritted his teeth in a derisive grin; already he had learnt that anger can cause even an expert to miss his aim. Tensely, though, he watched the chief.

The next spear came apparently straight for Red Kangaroo’s shoulder, but he guessed the deceptive throw and leapt back and upwards with legs thrust apart as the spear sped viciously between them.

A roar of acclaim from the crowd, for had Red Kangaroo stood and tried to shield his shoulder the spear would have pierced down into his thigh. The chief was now so fuming with rage that Red Kangaroo easily dodged his third spear. But the final boomerang came within an inch of breaking his ankle.

At the throwing of the last boomerang the tribe jumped up with cries of praise and relief and hurried back to the cooking fires where they squatted down for the evening meal. Red Kangaroo was shaken by his ordeal as Giluram and his friends crowded round him. In subdued excitement they walked to the camp while the furious chief rejoined his council and friends.

II

AN UNEASY CAMP

All knew that the three elders and the chief had tried to maim the warrior lad, if not actually to kill him. There was a worried frown on the face of his paternal uncle, Tulumi, an angry scowl on the face of his friend the warrior Burradella, violently disapproving grunts from deep down in the big bingy of old Bungadoon—rumblings that were only prevented from breaking out into a hoarse bellow of accusations by the warning frown of Burradella and the urgent head-shaking of uneasy Tulumi as he glanced at the beetle-browed Boobuk. The warrior Boobuk was a mighty man with his weapons, but was considered to be a little light in the head. He and old Bungadoon were liable to seize their weapons and leap up and start anything, any time. And the time was not ripe.

A troubled silence, or indignant mutterings from others of the lad’s friends. A shrill protesting from some among the women, barely silenced by their menfolk.

Walcha the sun was sinking to rest, shadows merging into evening. Small fires now crackled brightly, laughing voices of the younger children chasing one another round the gunyahs, Kerior¹ tripping his yelling sister and belting her over the head with a carpet snake, the snake that mother had brought home for breakfast. A young girl’s voice calling to her friend, a burst of shrill accusation from Kapota’s gunyah—and the whole tribe knew again that big Boobuk had done again something he should not have done, or much more likely had not done something he should have done. Exasperated growls from Boobuk as he scratched his shaggy chest. Rumbling growls, too, still coming from old Bungadoon squatting by his fire while his placid wife Pumbul² chided him gently and, as always, in vain. Bungadoon was never afraid of making a noise, whether right or wrong, and he did not care who heard him. All the same Bungadoon’s gunyah was known as Keringle, which means “happy home”. Any stranger would have thought Bedlam a better name just then, for added to Bungadoon’s growls were the yells of eight children of all ages urging him on, while wrestling with one another right to the very coals of the cooking fire. Bungadoon and Pumbul had no children, so long since they had insisted upon adopting the tribe’s orphans. Many was the kindly joke at the expense of stout old Pumbul and Bungadoon, some declaring they had had more children than all the rest of the tribe put together. Not only did Keringle have a dozen squabbling children to feed and shelter, but numbers of the young women and men had cause for grateful memory of that same Keringle.