Read Online They Found a Cave by Nan Chauncy - Free Book Online

their shining faces streaked with the burned fat of previous chops.
    â€˜You look pretty savage,’ Cherry remarked. ‘Isn’t it nice, though, to do without knives and forks and good manners and all that rot? Tas, you are a good sort’—here she checked herself and tried to put her meaning into good Australian—‘Tas, you’re a bonza bloke I reckon to think this up for us.’
    â€˜She means,’ Nigel grinned, as he rolled a coat for a pillow, ‘she means that all this is good-oh, too right it is.’
    â€˜An’ that’s the dinkum oil,’ muttered Nippy, raising his head sleepily for a moment.
    Tas grinned and loosened his teeth for an instant from their grip on his meat. ‘Well, we haven’t done too bad so far, I must say,’ he conceded.
    â€˜I’m chortling over Ma’s face when she goes to fetch in their chops from the meat safe tonight,’ cried Brick.
    â€˜Umm!’ Tas wiped a greasy hand on his clothing. ‘I wonder when we’ll taste another chop, though, after these? Gosh! I reckon we’ll cry at the thought of chops, soon. It was real bad luck Pa hitting our trail like that, too. Now he’ll have an idea where we’ve gone, shouldn’t wonder. It will be a fair cow if he tracks us down up here.’
    â€˜I don’t know about fair cows, but he mustn’t spot our blonde goats,’ Nigel laughed as he kicked off his shoes. ‘He might never find us in this cave, but if he drives off our herd…’
    â€˜I know! Like the old days when they used to raid the women and the cattle,’ Brick cried with enthusiasm. ‘You’d better look out, Cherry, or they’ll get you and hold you as a hostage, see?’
    â€˜Don’t be more of an idiot than you can help,’ she returned loftily, stalking away from the fireside.
    The great opening of the cave showed an expanse of sky that was almost violet in colour. The stars rode there, magnificent and alive. To her unaccustomed eye the vast spread of tree-clothed hill and valley was one black smudge below the skyline. She shivered, though it was not cold, and glanced quickly over her shoulder, to be reassured by the firelight and a sudden burst of laughter.
    â€˜What does the sky tell us?’ asked Nigel, strolling across in his pyjamas. ‘We don’t want rain before we’re settled in properly, do we?’
    He peered into the night until, like Cherry’s, his eyes began to distinguish shapes. They stared in wonder for a time, awed by the ageless bush, and scarcely heard the scraps of conversation behind them till Brick shouted a question.
    â€˜What do you think the Pinners are doing at this moment, Nig? Cursing us, and looking for their chops? Just dancing round sizzling mad, like an ants’ nest when you pour hot water down?’
    â€˜I dunno.’ Nigel lifted his arms, stretched and yawned. ‘Seems funny, but somehow I don’t worry much about those two any more. Seem a long way off from us now, don’t they?’
    The other boys left the fire and came across. They stared down thoughtfully, in the direction of the Homestead which was hidden in black depths below, and nodded without speaking. They knew what Nig meant. But he summed up things in a last sentence before settling under his blankets. ‘It’ll take a lot of Pinners to shake us out of here.’
    The cave grew quiet when they were all in bed. A dying fire sucked gently round a last hunk of ‘shell’ and the kitten sneezed once in Nippy’s face. Somewhere over the tarn an owl was calling, calling for ‘More pork!…more pork!’ in queer hopeless tones. Cherry lifted her head and listened intently.
    â€˜S’orl right,’ Tas called sleepily, ‘haven’t you never heard the mo-pokes call before? They’re only little owls—“spotted owls” old Mad Dad Williams calls ’em. Go to