She knew the old prospector. From a cleared patch on the hillside she often noticed him washing for gold in the creek that ran through the valley.
Sometimes he stopped his swirling and sat on the bank watching her while he filled his pipe.
He had known her for two years. She was his friend. She was smaller than her companions, and differed from them in colour. She was grey; they were almost black—‘scrubbers’, the old man called them.
Each morning the creaking of his cart, as he followed the winding track round the mountain side, would cause them to stand erect for a moment, nostrils twitching.
But they did not fear him. He was one with the carol of the magpies and the gums.
When his ‘Whoa there!’ stayed the old black horse, they knew he only wished to look at them. They continued feeding. Their movements were like music—rhythmical—an undulating rise and fall of symmetrical bodies against a background of slender trees.
Occasionally they stopped and, sitting upright, looked back at him, a look of intense interest, of watchfulness.
Their flanks, wet with the dew from sweet-smelling leaves, glistened in the morning sun. They seemed like children of the trees.
There was a day when the old prospector approached within a few yards of the grey kangaroo. She awaited his coming, standing with head extended, eyes half-closed, nostrils working with curiosity. He remained motionless, and they regarded each other.
She turned and hopped slowly away from him. She moved with grace and dignity, despite her burden. She carried a joey.
A mile from the spot where the old prospector worked, two boys were cutting timber. Their axe-heads glittered in the sun. When for a moment the eager steel poised motionless above their heads, the muscles on their uncovered backs stood out in little, smooth brown hills. Their skin had the unblemished gloss of eggshells.
Beside the log on which they worked lay a blue kangaroo dog. His powerful, rib-lined chest rose and fell. His narrow loins had the delicacy of a stem.
Suddenly he lifted his head and, turning, bit at the smooth hair on his shoulder to ease an irritation. His lips, pushed up and back, revealed red gums and the smooth, ivory daggers of his teeth. He snuffled and worked his jaws. His jowls flowed with saliva. He expelled a deep breath and lay back again. Flies hovered over his head. He snapped and moved restlessly.
The boys called him Springer—Springer, the killer. In the shade from surrounding trees lay other dogs. They formed a pack, the existence of which was due to the boys’ love of hunting. They had no beauty of line, as had Springer. They were a rabble. They barked at nights and howled at the moon. They ran down rabbits with savage joy and, in the pack, were relentless in their pursuit. They looked to Springer to bring down the larger game. They were content to be in at the kill.
One of them, Boofer, a half-bred sheep dog, rose and stretched herself. She yawned with a whine and walked into the sunlight. She stood there a moment meditatively. She looked back over her shoulder. A flying chip fell beside her. She sniffed it. She was bored. She turned and trotted off among the trees.
Some time later her excited barking caused the other dogs to jump to their feet. They stood with their necks erect, their heads moving alertly from side to side.
Boofer tore past, some distance away, running at speed, her nose to the ground. The dogs yelped with delight and, scattering dry gum leaves and crashing through scrub, sped after her.
The boys stopped work and watched.
‘There they are, up on the hill!’ cried one. ‘Look, quick, look!’
He pointed.
He put two fingers to his mouth and whistled shrilly.
Springer, having disregarded the yelping of the pack, leaped to his feet at the sound, as to a clarion call.
He sprang forward with short, stiff bounds, craning his neck as if to see over obstacles. He stopped and grew tense, one forefoot raised in the air. His panting had ceased. He looked eagerly from side to side.
The boy who had whistled jumped from the log. He ran to the blue dog and, grasping his head between his hands, half lifted him from the ground. The dog’s neck was stretched and rolls of skin half-closed his eyes.
‘See ’em. See ’em,’ he whispered excitedly.
But no responsive quickening of muscle stirred the dog. The boy ran forward dragging Springer with him.
Then Springer saw. With a mighty bound he parted the boy’s hands. He leaped with a terrific releasing of energy, doubling like a spring until, having attained speed, he moved with effortless beauty.
The boy sprang again to the log. He stood with his lips slightly parted, eyes wide, his hands clenched by his side.
‘Boy!’ he breathed to his companion. ‘Look at him.’
Upon the hillside the mob of kangaroos had heard the yapping of Boofer on their trail. The little grey kangaroo lifted her head quickly. For a long, tense moment she stood in frozen immobility looking down into the valley. Her joey, nibbling at the grass some distance from her, jumped in sudden panic and made for his mother with single-purposed speed. With her paws she held her pouch open like a sugar bag. He tumbled in headlong, his kicking legs projecting a moment before he disappeared.
How safe he felt in there; how secure from dogs with teeth and men with guns. His little heart, swift-beating at the excited barking of the pack, became even and content. He turned and his head popped forth with childish curiosity.
His mother was already on the move. The does were in haste; the old men were more leisured.
With a clamour the pack broke through the trees. Ahead of them, like the point of a spear, Springer ran silently.
The kangaroos leaped into frantic speed, but before they gained their top Springer was among them and they scattered wildly.
Perhaps it was because of her conspicuous colour, perhaps because she was so very small, the kangaroo dog singled her out from her companions and set after her relentlessly. And, recognising his leadership, the pack followed eagerly, joyfully, the hills echoing their exultation.
She had intended making up the hill to thicker timber, but, as if suddenly realising her desperate plight and the heavy responsibilities of motherhood, she turned her flight towards the old prospector.
Through the fragrant hazel, past the mottled silver-wattles, by sad tree-ferns and across chip-strewn clearings she sped; and behind her Springer cleared as she the fallen trunks, the scattered limbs, swerved as she did from the pointed stakes, flew wombat holes and trickling water-courses with equal ease. He rode the air like Death itself.
The clutch of some mimosa hampered the grey kangaroo. She lost ground. The blue dog gathered himself and sprang, but the rough take-off spoiled his leap and he wobbled in mid-air. His teeth closed on the skin of her shoulder, his body struck her. She staggered and collided with a sapling. The dog shot past her, scarring the moist earth with tearing feet.
With heroic endeavour the grey kangaroo recovered her balance and in a violent, concentrated effort, she drew away from the dog, a tattered banner of red skin draggling from her naked shoulder.
She made for some crowded gum suckers. They brushed her as she passed. With a swift and desperate movement she tore her joey from her pouch and flung him, almost without loss of speed, into their shelter. She turned at right angles, leading the blue dog away from him.
The joey staggered to his feet and hopped away distractedly. But the following pack, with triumphant cries, bore down on him. He gave one helpless glance back at them and tried to flee. They swept over him like a wind. He was lost in their midst.
Their howl of triumph reached the little grey mother as she strained ahead of Springer, the killer. Their unleashed savagery, fleeing from them in bloody glee, broke upon her in waves.
The old prospector heard it too, and, dropping his dish, he clambered in clumsy haste from the creek. When his head and shoulders appeared over the bank, he stopped a moment with dazed eyes and open mouth watching the approach of the grey kangaroo and her pursuer.
He raised himself swifty and ran towards them. His eyes were wide open, distraught. He raised his hand in the air and cried hoarsely, ‘Come be’ind ‘ere! Come be’ind ‘ere!’
When the grey kangaroo reached the clearing she was all but spent. The blue dog, with mouth open and silken strands of saliva blowing free, raced behind her across a patch of fern. He was but a length away when, with painful bounds, she reached the cool sweetness of young grass.
He made a last, terrific burst. He left the ground with all the glorious energy of a skin-clad dancer, his body modelled in clean curves of muscle. His teeth locked deep in her shoulder. His hurtling body seemed to arrest its speed as if suddenly braked. He met the ground stiff-legged and taut.
The grey kangaroo, her head jerked downwards, spun in the air. She turned completely over. Her long tail whipped in a circle above her head. She landed with a dull crash on her back. Before the shock of her falling had released her breath, Springer was at her throat. With demoniac savagery he tore at the soft, warm fur. With braced forelegs and tail erect, he shook her in a frenzy.
She kicked helplessly.
He sprang back, keyed for further conflict.
Her front paws, like little hands, quivered in unconscious supplication. She relaxed, sinking closer to the earth as to a mother.
He turned and walked away from her, panting, with red drops dripping from his running tongue.
With half-closed eyes he watched the old prospector running towards them, his heavy, wet boots flop-flopping on the grass.