At last Naroo said quietly, “We did not give him his target because—we are your wives now!”

In the silence he gazed from one to the other. A star shone brilliantly far, far up. His heart was singing as he turned to the fire to take off the cooked meat. How good this meat would taste! They ate hungrily, ate all that remained of the strength-giving, rich red meat. With a satisfied sigh, the girls lay back to rest.

“That middle-aged warrior was a good man,” said Red Kangaroo reflectively. “Who was he?”

For a moment the girls gazed at him from half-closed eyes.

Then Nareen murmured in her soft voice. “Yes, he was a good man, but you proved yourself a better. Perhaps it is just as well you did not know whom you were fighting, for he was Kulki, the best and bravest warrior of our Coonabarabran tribe. He is—was—the leader of all our tribal war parties, the most fearless man of all. He was the brother of our chief. Our warriors wanted him to be chief, but always he refused, answering that his brother was the best chief, for he could use his head for the good of the tribe, whereas Kulki was only good for fighting. His brother could plan for the tribe, but he could only fight for it. And now our tribe has lost its fighting leader.”

Like a dirge for a native son rose the long-drawn, mournful howl of a dingo from the hills. Far out over the low country floated that howl, rising quaveringly again like the despairing cry of a lost soul. The girls shivered, huddling fearfully together. Red Kangaroo knew then from their eyes that the slain warrior had been of the Dingo totem. And now the Dingo had taken back its own.

Stars came to make lovely the sky in clusters of golden light. A stone, dislodged by some prowling animal away up some distant hillside, came clattering down a rocky face like the tinkling of a silver bell. Abruptly, the night silence seemed listening. It came again farther away, dying out over the hills, that lone, mournful howl.

He rested them for three hours, then they hurried on under starlight. No question now but that the girls were doing their best. In anxious exultation he led them along the range, very eager to hurry down to the Mullaley Plains where they could run on all through the remainder of the night and through the dawn until they should reach his beloved tribal lands.

Next day, away across the Mullaley Plains in the lands of Gunn-e-darr, all the tribe in the main camp were squatting sullenly round the campfires or by their gunyahs, in broad daylight. Even the “Cark! Cark!” of the camp crows seemed but occasional and dispirited.

It had been so for the last three days. No one had gone out hunting. So hunger had added fuel to their perplexity and growing anger, the anger of half the tribe against the chief and elders and their supporters, the perplexity and rage of the chief against the fast-increasing animosity of the many friends of Red Kangaroo. For of Red Kangaroo there still was neither sign nor trace. And chief and elders knew positively they had not killed him, which made their anger the greater the more the people murmured their suspicions. And now warriors every here and there were fingering their weapons while the chief himself watched the camp, awaiting the first open sign of hostility that would send him in berserk rage against the hostile one.