indeed; but underlying it, I fear, were treacherous designs, for the game
of Samson and Delilah has been played with success more than once by the
wily aboriginal.

We took but little notice of the natives, as obtaining water was of
greater interest at that moment than the prosecution of ethnological
studies. Charlie worked away down the well with perfect unconcern, while
the rest of us were occupied in hauling up the sand from below and
keeping the blacks at a distance. Wonderfully cunning fellows they were!
I was standing close by a Winchester which lay on the ground; one man
came up, patting me all over and grinning in the most friendly way, and
all the time he worked away with his foot to move the rifle to his mate
beside me. However, he did not succeed, nor another who tried the same
trick on Godfrey, and after a time they all retired, for reasons best
known to themselves, leaving only the old man and the children behind.

Godfrey pressed the old man into our service and made him cut bushes for
a shade; it seemed to me that an axe was not just the best thing for a
man who would probably sooner have used it against us than not, so he was
deposed from his office as woodcutter. As soon as the well was ready for
baling I walked off to see if anything of interest could be found, or if
another camp was anywhere near. The instant the old Jew saw me sling a
rifle over my shoulder he ran like a hare, yelling as he went. He was
answered by similar calls not far off. As he ran he picked up his spears
from a bush, and I could see the marks of the weapons of the rest of the
tribe, which had been planted just over the rise of sand. They evidently
knew all about a rifle, yet we were still over a hundred miles in a
bee-line from Hall's Creek. I saw their fleeing figures scattering in all
directions, and followed up some tracks for some distance without finding
anything of interest.