"Boss Stobart, him say, you walk longa Oodnadatta. You find um my son. You give 'im paper yabber. Him good fella, Boss Stobart, so I go. My name Yarloo."
The words came slowly, as if the man were repeating something he had said over and over in his mind. But the words were quite distinct.
He handed the "paper yabber" to Sax, and disappeared. The two friends came close together round the candle and looked at the paper which had come to them from the unknown by such a strange hand. For a few moments Sax was too excited to open it. What was the news it contained? Good or bad? It was not addressed, or, if it ever had been, the handling to which it had been subjected had worn any writing completely off the outside.
At last the lad opened it. It was a sheet torn from a common note-book ruled with lines and columns for figures, the sort of thing on which a rough man would keep his rough accounts. It contained writing in pencil by a hand which Sax at once recognized as his father's; but it was uneven as if it had been written in the dark. The words were:
"In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges. Tell Oodnadatta trooper, but _no one else_." (These last three words were underlined several times.) "He'll understand. Boy quite reliable. Don't worry. Get a job somewhere. "STOBART."
The friends read it to themselves, and then Sax read it out loud.
"'In difficulties'," said Vaughan. "What does that mean?"
"Blest if I know. With the cattle, I expect. I wonder where the Musgrave Ranges are."
"But why does he say 'tell the trooper and no one else'?" asked Vaughan again. "Yet he wouldn't say 'don't worry' if anything was up, would he?"
"Oh, nothing's really up," said Sax with conviction. "He means he's a bit late, that's all. P'raps the trooper's expecting him or something. Of course he wouldn't want anybody else to know. You see, he's got a name here," said the lad proudly. "They call him Boss Stobart. Even the nigger did that."
"But he'll be a long time, Sax. He won't be in for a week or so at any rate, or else he wouldn't tell us to get a job, would he?"
The boys discussed the news from every possible point of view, and finally arrived at the conclusion that the famous drover had been forced out of the route he had intended to travel by difficulties with feed and water, and that he might be very late arriving at his destination. That he would finally arrive, they never doubted for a moment. With this assurance, they once more blew out the light, and it was not long before they were both fast asleep.