THUNDER FACTORY 311 



past the only available resting-place. They were 8 miles 

 from shore. Tom soon began 'to flounder, but Mary, 

 keeping her heart and her precious blanket, cheered him 

 on, and, changing her course, took a " fair wind down," as 

 she afterwards said, towards a distant point of the main- 

 land. Lifting the giant despair from her boy's shoulders 

 with encouraging words, holding him up occasionally when 

 he got tired, and clinging all the time to the only piece of 

 personal property she possessed, Mary eventually landed in 

 a quiet bay. Tom was so exhausted that she had to drag 

 him up on the sand, and having made him comfortable 

 with her safe but sodden blanket, she hurried into town to 

 report the circumstances to the police. A boat was sent to 

 the rescue of Charley and Belle Vue, still clinging to the 

 beacon, and the derelict dinghy was picked up. Nothing 

 was lost but the turtle. 



Smoke Signals 



It is many years since a black boy at Port Darwin 

 remarked casually to his master, a Government official there, 

 " Steamer him come on ; him sit down lame fella," and 

 began to limp across the room. He said that the steamer 

 was a long way away ; but " blackfella he make 'em smoke ; 

 blackfella bin tell 'em." 



Four days after the steamer Guthrie slowly entered the 

 port with her machinery badly disabled. 



Thunder Factory 



A boy who had visited towns, listening intently to a 

 reverberating peal of thunder asked — " How make 'em that 

 row. Boss ? He got big wheel ? " 



Home keeping blacks have homely wits. Having no 

 experience of the rumble and rattle of traffic they ascribe to 

 thunder a mysterious origin, and indicate though with 

 reserve, the very place where it is made. The swirl of a 



