They Found a Cave Read Online Free Page B

wall which had streaks of orange sand in the few cracks which scarred its face.
    â€˜Like a spell?’ Tas asked, and thankfully they rested. The air was pungent with strange scents crushed from the wild shrubs they had trodden underfoot. It was a day dreamy with sunshine and early spring. A bird flew out near them, hung over space a moment, and dropped like a stone, dwindling to the size of a sparrow.
    â€˜See him?’ Tas asked. ‘That was a wedgetail eagle. Got a nest up on those rocks along there. Can you see it?’
    Their eyes were too untrained to distinguish the pile of sticks and bones from the ledge upon which it rested, but they were properly impressed when told it was one of the largest eagles in the world.
    There was no breeze to cool them, or to stir the hanging fingers of the few gum-trees which dragged their stunted bodies from fissures in the rock. Such a heavy quiet lay over the bush that it struck them as comic, and they laughed aloud when the thin cackle of an egg-laying hen rose from far below. Looking down they could see the Homestead spread out like a toy thing, the house a mere red-and-white matchbox, the sheep dotted about between fences like the ones in Nippy’s farmyard set.
    â€˜What a toy!’ Brick chuckled. ‘The beehives look like cakes of soap. And what’s the stuff like cotton wool? Must be the big cherry-plum in flower. Doesn’t it all look tiny from up here? As for the house—’
    â€˜â€œâ€”but the smoke”,’ Nigel prompted, prepared to conduct with a piece of stick and throwing back his head to sing, ‘“but the smoke goes up the chimney just the same…”’
    â€˜â€œJ UST THE SAME !”’ sang the other three in chorus.
    â€˜â€œBut the SMOKE goes up the chimney JUST THE SAME ”!’ they yelled all together to the unheeding bush.
    All except Tas, who just grinned and muttered, ‘Oh, you Pommies! You’re quite mad. Somethin’ always reminds you of a song or somethin’.’
    â€˜Well, want to fight about it?’ enquired Nigel, flushing.
    â€˜Shut up, Nig!’ Cherry intervened hastily. ‘Can’t you see he’s only chipping you? Now, Tas, come on! Lead us to yon Bushranger’s Den, if there really is one. I can’t see any caves from here; there’s nothing but a solid wall of rock.’
    â€˜Matter of fact it’s jest over your head. By cripes! If you can’t see it from here then it’s no wonder old Jim the Bushranger could sit up there and pop off the Troopers when they came after him. Look up!’
    They looked: but as Nippy said, there was nothing to be seen but a bulge of rock.
    â€˜And a ledge,’ added Nigel, stepping back as far as possible and making use of his extra height.
    â€˜A ledge? That’s it !’ Tas cried excitedly. ‘That’s all you can see of it from below. Not ten feet over your heads and you can’t see a thing. Gosh! Old Jim must have found it a bonza hiding-place.’
    â€˜Did they ever catch him?’
    â€˜Yeah. Not here, though. It was when he went to Hobart one time to buy boots. They’d never git him here ,’ he cried scornfully. ‘Now, come on and we’ll take a look inside.’
    â€˜Won’t we break our necks first?’ Nigel was already trying to scale the wall of rock, and slipping back each time for lack of foothold.
    â€˜If you try to git in that way, you will.’
    â€˜What other way is there?’ snapped Nigel crossly. ‘Any fool can see you can’t get down to the ledge from above.’
    â€˜That’s true,’ Tas was grinning and enjoying himself hugely, ‘ so if you can’t climb up to it from here, nor down to it from the top—reckon you’d best follow Uncle Tas, hadn’t you?’
    In an astonished silence they picked their way after him, keeping close along the wall, following its smooth face till a