“Put down your spear and we will talk. You are standing in my camp.”

“I stand on my own land, not your land.”

“Yet you are in my camp. However, you are welcome. Put down your spear, and we will make a fire and talk!”

“There is no time for frills, half-caste. You were here when the aeroplane destroyed Sergeant Errey’s car and killed him. I saw it done. I saw you go down to the wreck. I saw you track up the hill to the road. I saw you pick up the Sergeant’s dillybag. You have it now. All this happened in the country of the Wantella Nation. Further, you travel alone, and you walk when a man would ride a horse or a camel or drive a car or truck. Sergeant Errey was a good white man. Talk.”

There was no mistaking the unbreakable will in the black eyes boring into his, and yet Bony without haste unbuckled his belt and removed his shirt and singlet. Then, turning his back to Burning Water, he said, speaking over his shoulder:

“Would you drive your spear into the sign of the square and the moon when it is full? I have stood on the square of squares facing the east and the full moon. My tribal father is called Illawalli, and he lives beside the northern waters. He has spoken to me of the Wantella Nation.”

As Bony turned again to face Burning Water, the Chief’s spear and club were dropped to the ground, and he advanced with his hand out-stretched:

“You bear the sign on your back of the great ones among us. I, too, have it on my back. I, too, have spoken with Illawalli who is as superior to me as I am to the tick on a cockatoo’s back. Your name?”

Bonaparte now was smiling upward into the smiling face of Chief Burning Water.

“I am known as Bony,” he replied. “I am on my way to visit Mr Donald McPherson, and to look for the cause of strange happenings reported from the Land of Burning Water-your land. I have seen a strange happening today. So let us make a fire and talk.”