As it was evident, from the amount of work they had before them, that their stay in the valley would be of some duration, the boys determined to make more extensive preparations for camping than they usually did. It was almost too late that night to do anything, but they devoted the next day to building themselves a sort of little hut, which would not only shelter them from the heat by day and from the heavy dews of night, but would serve as some sort of protection if they were again attacked by _myalls_.
The one great danger in travelling in the wild parts of Queensland is the probability of being attacked by the fierce black natives, and every traveller in that little known country should be constantly on his guard. It is only natural that the native black races should retaliate upon the white intruders, at whose hands they have suffered so much; and as they have not the courage, or indeed the weapons, to enable them to attack a well-peopled station, they wait until they have a chance of murdering a solitary shepherd, or surrounding and surprising a small party when travelling away from civilised parts.
It was the thought of their exposed situation in case of an attack that guided Alec in his choice of a position for their camp. After examining the gully on both sides, he found a place that he thought admirably suited to his purpose. On the opposite side of the stream from that on which they had first encamped, there was a little opening in the side of the ravine. It was only a sort of wide crack in the rock, down which perhaps in times of heavy rain a little waterfall might flow. The width of it across the opening was about ten feet, and it was about the same, or a little more, in depth, at which distance the two walls of rock met at an angle.
Alec, who was a practical fellow, saw that this would give him two sides to his house, and, that if he built a wall of some sort across the front of it, he would have the shell of a comfortable, although triangular, shelter. Without waste of further time he and George set to work to collect a number of the large stones that were scattered thickly along all the edge of the stream and in it. With these they slowly (for the work was none of the easiest beneath a blazing tropical sun) built a wall about four feet high across the front of the little opening. They knew, from the previous day's experience, that they could not expect much of that sort of work from Murri, so they set him to chop down a good big pile of brushwood from the scrub that grew a little way down the gully. To this kind of labour Murri was much more accustomed, as the natives build their _gunyahs_ of boughs of trees and brushwood. He could use a hatchet quite as expertly as the boys, and in a short time had cut quite as much as they would want for their purpose.