On the third day they gave us one bag of fish, and
afterwards all came to our camp. We used to keep our ammunition and
other articles in one gunyah, and all three of us lived together in
another. One of the natives took an oilcloth out of this gunyah,
and Mr. Burke seeing him run away with it followed him with his
revolver and fired over his head, and upon this the native dropt
the oilcloth; while he was away, the other blacks invited me away
to a waterhole to eat fish, but I declined to do so as Mr. Burke
was absent, and a number of natives were about who would have taken
all our things. When I refused, one took his boomerang and laid it
over my shoulder, and then told me by signs that if I called out
for Mr. Burke (as I was doing) that he would strike me; upon this I
got them all in front of the gunyah and fired a revolver over their
heads, but they did not seem at all afraid until I got out the gun,
when they all ran away. Mr. Burke hearing the report came back, and
we saw no more of them until late that night, when they came with
some cooked fish and called out "white fellow." Mr. Burke then went
out with his revolver, and found a whole tribe coming down, all
painted, and with fish in small nets carried by two men.
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