The Red Chief by Ion Idriess

Author:Ion Idriess [Idriess, Ion]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781925416251
Publisher: ETT Imprint
Published: 2017-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

XIX

RUNAWAYS IN THE NIGHT

Red Kangaroo fitted the dilly-bags round the girls’ shoulders and picked up his weapons. A lizard scuttled away in alarm.

“We keep moving,” he growled. “Follow me and climb down.”

He undid the thongs on their ankles, keeping a wary eye lest they loose a stone upon his head as they climbed down the steep rock-face. But their attention was fully taken up in saving themselves from a fall, for their wrists were still bound, though loosely.

They set out along the foothills parallel with the big old range, Red Kangaroo’s heart singing as he pointed with his wommera away out towards his own country.

“Home!” he growled. “And hasten!”

Travelling swiftly, they had less chance to leave a heavy imprint on softer ground, snap a dead twig, or kick over a pebble here and there.

“You will only stub your toes,” he snarled at Naroo as swiftly she tried to overturn a stone in passing, “and if you break your toe I shall thrash you and hurry you all the more. Try that trick just once again and I’ll clout you across the head with this nulla—you can make yourself sore all over if you want to!” Savagely then he jabbed Nareen in the buttock with his spear point. She leapt ahead with arched back and a startled gurgle. He laughed maliciously.

“A jab like that for every leaf you drop from that bush you’re hiding in your hands. I’ll jab your tail so full of holes you won’t be able to sit down for a full moon!”

Nareen, her teeth clenching into the gag, dropped the bush and stepped out like a cat on hot bricks. In spite of her tied hands she had surreptitiously snapped off the top of a densely leafed bush, hoping to pinch off the tiny leaves and drop them one by one, leaving a trail that eagle-eyed pursuers could follow almost at the run.

Long shadows from the mountains brought the coolness of evening. Red Kangaroo urged them on until the darkness slowed them down. This rough country was intersected by scrubby creeks and steep gullies, and there was danger now that the girls, handicapped by tied hands, might stumble over a fallen log or slip down a rocky slope and break a leg. This possibility terrified the girls, for each knew that with a broken leg she would be abandoned to the bush and the night. From away up on the range floated the blood-curdling howl of a dingo.

“Watch your step,” warned Red Kangaroo, “but if you want to break a leg or stake yourself, then do so. After all, one girl would do me, and remember, I can travel faster and more easily and safely with one than with two. No dawdling! Ah!”

They turned at his exclamation, anxious eyes gleaming.

From far behind them, but away out on the low country, rose a quivering pencil of fire above the tree-tops, climbing swiftly, a crimson finger apparently piercing the sky.

“So your friends have only just found our tracks,” he

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