The Argosy, Vol. XXIV No. 2 — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

tees THE TRACK OF MIDNIGHT. you at Billah when you can ride over, and there’s only one bit of advice I can give you—if you see any niggers about, shoot them on sight. ‘They come round sometimes, and if you don’t shoot them they’ll spear you or aad cattle ; so don’t waste time over it.’’ After he had ridden away, Wilton went inside the hut to see what had be- come of Worrigal. He walked over to the pile of stores and looked behind it, but no black fellow was there ; he glanced round the place and peered into every nook and cranny where the man could hide, but all in vain. He called out his name, first softly and then loudly, but received no answer. Warrigal had disappeared. He came back to the doorway and stood musing. ‘The black had not passed out through the door, he was certain, for either Giles or himself must have seen him. The hut was a small structure and its interior formed only one room, the door and a small window being the only openings for light, ventilation or traffic that the builder had thought worth while making. How. then had Warrigal escaped ? Glancing round over his shoulder, Wilton looked at the fireplace and its big wide chimney. He had not thought of that before, and crossing over the floor, he stooped and looked up the wide open space to the sky. There was ample room for a man to get up if he were as agile and nimble asa monkey, and Wilton knew that a black had both qualifications to perfection. He went outside the hut and searched for any signs there might be which would confirm his suspicions. ‘There may have been plenty, but Wilton was not skilled enough to read them, and he returned to the doorway feeling baffled andangry. ‘The spears that Warrigal had placed in his hand had also vanished, and the words Giles had said to him came again to his mind and he felt that he had been in error in allowing his kindly sympathies to get the better of him when he turned to get his rifle and shoot the black who had threatened him. ‘“ But he was such a fine looking chap,’’ he mused. ‘‘It would have been downright murder to kill a man like that and in cold blood.”’ {t never occurred to him to regard the black’s disappearance otherwise than as a token of treachery. The anxiety he expressed in all his movements when he first heard the horse was ignored by the superior intelligence of the white man, who condemned merely because he could not understand. ‘The readiness with which all his questions had been answered and the information he wanted given to him by Warrigal was also overlooked now that he had come across a course of behavior which did not quite recommend itself to him. It was the usual result when white met black. All that the white man expected the black never did, while he would do what no white man would ever dream of doing, nor could ever understand. And the result was a firm conviction of the innate treachery of the black and the necessity, as Giles had said, to shoot on sight, unless the white man wanted to be speared. The same line of ideas occurred to Wilton as he stood musing at his door. He had allowed the black to see that he was the only man about the place, and had also exposed the stores which were inside the hut. It only required a touch of nervousness to make Wilton believe, at once, that the black had Eomicboo S (E(0)