Abruptly he reached down and picked up Giluram’s shield. For quite a time he experimented, Giluram’s shield in his left hand, his own in his right, striking the two together as in a duel, trying to remember exactly how he had held his shield and what he had done against Giluram’s shield as it came smashing at his face. Presently his piercing black eyes began to shine, boyish pleasure upon his face.

“I have it!” he exclaimed. “Look! Giluram’s own shield by the manner of his attack helped direct mine and added force to the blow.” He used the two shields to illustrate his words. “See, I was warding off Giluram’s blows while seeking a chance to strike his throat lightly with the bottom end of the shield. It couldn’t be done; the end is still far too thick and rounded—until Giluram sprang upwards at me, at the same time striking with his shield in a downward blow to batter my shield against my face. But my shield thrust against his while his downward blow added weight to mine, and at the same time drove the shield downward and inward—outward from me—because I thrust against him, helping drive my shield in the right direction, straight in at his throat. As he was springing upward his neck was thrust out, and the end of my shield caught him on the throat! Yes that’s it! Come on, we’ll prove it!” And he leapt up eagerly.

They laughed sarcastically.

“So you’d cut our heads off, one by one,” said Kerran.

“No, no, I couldn’t, for the end is not nearly narrow enough yet, or nearly sharp enough. No. Just let us stand and slowly move the shields against one another, exactly as Giluram struck at me and I warded off his blow. Just to find out the right movement. Come on,” he added coaxingly. “Come on, Kerran.”

None too keenly Kerran picked up shield and nulla. In slow movement they tried to recapture those two lightning-quick movements, watched with puzzled interest by the others. And presently, to his delight, Red Kangaroo felt that his surmise had been correct. But Kerran and the other boys, though they humoured their mate, felt sure that the blow that had stretched Giluram flat was merely a fluke, just one of those things that happen.

“Well, you’ve got what you want,” said Kerran, “and this work is too hot for me.” He broke away and joined the other boys squatting on the sun-warmed rock.

“We have only to carve the correct shape upon the lower end of our shields,” Red Kangaroo declared enthusiastically, “then practice the holding of it and those few movements to watch for, and seize the opportunity—and we have a terrible new weapon, one that an enemy will never suspect.”

His comrades smiled and winked, except the still sick Giluram, propped up against a rock listening with watery eyes, not feeling like joking at all.

But in time to come that blow was to be known and dreaded far and wide as the “death-blow of the Red Chief”, and was to do its part in helping to save the tribe.