Yarra returned to Wat Ryder early in the forenoon of the following day.  The trooper the boy shot at the window was being nursed at Boobyalla, the others were away beating the scrub.  The half-caste brought with him a wild duck he had trapped, and set about cooking this in its feathers.  The two dined together shortly after mid-day, and the sun was streaming into the gully, the air was heavy with the odour of wild musk, and the Bush was as silent as if no life remained in the intense heat.  Ryder had risen, and was looking at Wallaroo standing with his nose in the shade of a gum-butt, fighting the avaricious flies with his tail.  At that instant a loud report rang along the gully, and Ryder staggered a few paces, and fell with his back to one of the boulders, stunned.  A bullet ricocheting from the rock had struck him in the neck.  Yarra threw himself forward, face downward, at a space between the boulders.  He saw a wreath of smoke in the gully and a slight movement in the thick growth, and fired twice, but the distance was too great for a revolver.  The enemy, whoever he was, was armed with a gun.  The half-caste listened for a moment, and his black eyes searched the gully.  Then he heard the beat of a horse’s hoofs.  A look of enlightenment came to his face.  There was one horseman only; he was riding at a pace which, in such country, threatened death at every stride.

The boy looked at Ryder, pointing back in the direction from which the shot had come.

‘That feller mine boss,’ he said, and fear tinged his blackness a slaty gray.

Ryder had slipped to a sitting position—­one hand held a blood-stained handkerchief to his neck, the other clutched a revolver.  He was white to the lips, but his eyes blazed with life and the passion of a wounded lion.

XXII

Ryder knew himself to be badly hurt; he realized that he was in a desperate situation, a situation from which it would require all his cunning to extricate himself.  The plans he had formed were abandoned, and even while suffering the first shock of the wound his mind was busy.  He had been attacked by one man; his enemy knew he was not alone, and was not sure of the effect of his shot, otherwise he would not have fled.  The outlaw felt that he might rely upon immunity from further attack for some time, and meanwhile all the strength and energy remaining to him must be devoted to the task of reaching another refuge.  In Macdougal be had met an enemy of a kind he had never before been called upon to deal with.  The squatter was indefatigable in pursuit of his vengeance, evidently an expert Bushman, and bent upon dealing retribution with his own hand.  Wat Ryder wasted no time in fruitless lamentation over his folly in not having made good his escape while the opportunity offered.  Already he had lost much blood.  The muscle on the right side of the neck was badly lacerated.  First of all, the wound must be dressed.  For years he had been prepared for an exigency of this sort, and was never without materials for the treatment of serious hurts.  With Yarra’s assistance, the wound was washed with a lotion, closed as well as possible, and then carefully bandaged, without the waste of a moment.