The next day another highly trained warrior would put these boys through a quite different test. And so it would go on until finally they passed through the dreaded Bora rites and become fully initiated warriors like Red Kangaroo and Giluram, Guru, Keri, Duri, Kerran, and those others of the envied Kubara, the lads who had gone through this year’s Bora ceremonies and were now entitled to wear the Bor, belt of manhood—until in time to come they, too, would be doing their share in training the boys of the tribe.

V

THE LONE LOOK-OUT

Long since, nine miles eastward across the Namoi, Red Kangaroo and his warrior lads, one now with a wallaby over his shoulder, had climbed the big hill and scaled the windy summit of Ydire and been welcomed by the look-out band awaiting relief.

Having reported no sign of an enemy, these lads gleefully picked up their weapons and, yelling carefree war-cries, clambered down the great rock, then “kangaroo-hopped”, leapt, and ran down the hill to cross the river and hunt their happy-go-lucky way back to the tribe.

This look-out post of the Gunn-e-darr tribe, a landmark far and wide, was situated upon an isolated spur of the Nandewar Range.⁷ Along most of the range the valleys and foothills were beautiful under forests of cypress pine, while many of the ridges were densely clothed under dark-green masses of hoop-vine and other scrubs. The great rock of Ydire, which white men call Nobby Rock, stands out boldly by the summit of one of the highest peaks on its southern side of the Nandewars, towering like a gigantic lighthouse upon an island peak. It was named Ydire because away down the spur grew a prized forest of Ydire or gidgee-trees, from which particular timber the tribe made its boomerangs. And, because of a “something” in the soil, the boomerangs fashioned from this particular grove of timber were prized far and wide.

From the summit of Ydire Red Kangaroo could spy away out over the valley of the Namoi as it flowed northward, out over far distance of the great plains, could see solitary scattered peaks near and far, could spy out over hill and silvery watercourses, over forest and dark scrub and sunlit bushlands towards ranges hazy under distance. But the greatest advantage of this particular look-out post was that it overlooked distant tracts of quite open country, long, broad, open spaces every here and there separating the scrubby patches from the timbered lands. Any enemy incautiously crossing any such open space by day would be seen by the eagle-eyed watchers upon Ydire. In the same way another large area was overlooked from the towering height of Booroobil Rock some miles distant. If enemies were seen, a signal smoke from either look-out would warn the tribe wherever they might be. By night a hollow tree would be set ablaze, a flaming beacon in the sky.

Other look-outs, such as Carrowreer,⁸ overlooking country that was destined to be called the Black Jack, offered more localized protection to favourite camping grounds. The towering look-outs on the Nandewar Range had saved the nomadic tribe from surprise many a time, but Red Kangaroo knew that in the legendary past cunning enemies had occasionally outwitted the watchers on the mountains by sleeping through daylight within sheltering scrubs, then crossing the open country by night. And he believed that such enemies would try again, that they were only awaiting a cunning leader to come in large numbers and strike when least expected.