with one of our tomahawks, while it took a
day with one of their own stone ones.

'And so the time passed very pleasantly.
We worked away. The young men and gins
worked for us. The chiefs adorned
themselves with the trinkets and clothes we gave
them, and fished and hunted, and admired
themselves in the river.

' Dick never trusted them; he stuck to his
cattle; he warned us not to trust them, and
the overseer called him a bloodthirsty
murdering blackguard for his pains.

' One day, the whole party were at work,
chopping and trimming weather-boards for
the hut; the Blacks helping as usual. I was
turning the grindstone for Charley Anvils,
and Dick was coming up to the dray to get
some tea, but there was a brow of a hill
between him and us; the muskets were all piled
in one corner. I heard a howl, and then a
scream—our camp was full of armed Blacks.
When I raised my head, I saw the chief,
Captain Jack we called him, with a broad
axe in his hand, and the next minute he had
chopped the overseer's head clean off; in two
minutes all my mates were on the ground.
Three or four came running up to us; one
threw a spear at me, which I half parried
with a pannikin I was using to wet the grindstone,
but it fixed deep in my hip, and part of
it I believe is there still. Charley Anvils had
an axe in his hand, and cut down the first
two fellows that came up to him, but he was
floored in a minute with twenty wounds.
They were so eager to kill me, that one of
them, luckily, or I should not have been alive
now, cut the spear in my hip short off. Another,
a young lad I had sharpened a tomahawk for
a few days before, chopped me across the
head; you can see the white hair. Down I
fell, and nothing could have saved us, but the
other savages had got the tarpaulin off, and
were screaming with delight, plundering the
drays, which called my enemies off. Just
then, Dick came in sight. He saw what was
the matter; but although there were more
than a hundred black devils, all armed,
painted, bloody, and yelling, he never stopped
or hesitated, but rode slap through the camp,
fired bang among them, killing two, and
knocking out the brains of another. As he
passed by a top rail, where an axe was sticking,
he caught it up. The men in the camp
were dead enough; the chief warriors had
made the rush there, and every one was
pierced with several spears, or cut down from
close behind by axes in the hands of the
chiefs. We, being further off, had been
attacked by the boys only. Dick turned
towards us, and shouted my name; I could
not answer, but I managed to sit up an
instant; he turned towards me, leaned down,
caught me by the jacket, and dragged me
on before him like a log. Just then Charley,
who had crept under the grindstone, cried
"Oh, Dick, don't leave me! " As he said
that, a lot of them came running down,
for they had seen enough to know that,
unless they killed us all, their job would not be
half-done. As Dick turned to face them,
they gave way and flung spears, but they could
not hurt him; they managed to get between
us and poor Charley. Dick rode back a
circuit, and dropped me among some bushes
on a hill, where I could see all. Four times
he charged through and through a whole
mob, with an axe in one hand and his short
musket in the other. He cut them down
right and left, as if he had been mowing; he
scared the wretches, although the old women
kept screeching and urging them on, as they
always do. At length, by help of his stirrup
leather, he managed to get Charley up behind
him. He never could have done it, but his
mare fought, and bit, and turned when he bid
her, so he threw the bridle on her neck, and
could use that terrible left arm of his. Well,
he came up to the hill and lifted me on, and
away we went for three or four miles, but we
knew the mare could not stand it long, so
Dick got off and walked. When the Blacks
had pulled the drays' loads to pieces, they
began to follow us, but Dick never lost heart'—

' Nay, mate,' interrupted Dick, ' once I did;
I shall never forget it, when I came to put my
last bullet in, it was too big.'

' Good heavens,' I exclaimed, ' what did
you do? '

' Why, I put the bullet in my mouth, and
kept chawing and chawing it, and threatening
the black devils all the while until at last
it was small enough, and then I rammed it
down, and dropped on my knee and waited
until they came within twenty yards, and then
I picked off Captain Jack, the biggest villain
of them all.'

Here Dick, being warmed, continued the
story:—' We could not stop; we marched all
evening and all night, and when the two poor
creturs cried for water, as they did most of
the night, as often as I could I filled my boots,
and gave them to drink. I led the horse, and
travelled seventy miles without halting for
more than a minute or two. Toward the last
they were as helpless as worn-out sheep. I
tied them on. We had the luck to fall in
with a party travelling just when the old mare
was about giving in, and then we must all
have died for want of water. Charley Anvils
had eighteen wounds, but, except losing two
fingers, is none the worse. Poor Jemmy, there,
will never be fit for anything but a hut-keeper;
as for me, I had some scratches—nothing to
hurt; and the old mare lost an ear. I went
back afterwards with the police, and squared
accounts with the Blacks.

' And so you see, Stranger, the old woman
thinks I saved her old man's life, although I
would have done as much for any one; but I
believe there are some gentlemen in Sydney
think I ought to have been hung for what I
did. Anyhow, since that scrimmage in the
Bush, they always call me " TWO-HANDED
DICK."