Part 24 (1/2)
Monkey was a law unto himself, and a very unpleasant law, being a reputed murderer several times over, and when he and his followers were about, white men saw to their rifles; and as we turned in we also agreed ”that this wasn't exactly the kind of n.i.g.g.e.r hunt we had set out for.” ”It makes a difference when the other chap's doing the hunting, Sool'em, old girl,” Dan added, cautioning her to keep her ”weather eye open,” as he saw to his rifle and laid it, muzzle outwards, in his net. Then, as we settled down for the night with revolvers and rifle at hand, and Brown at the head of our net, he ”hoped” the missus would not ”go getting nightmare, and make things unpleasant by shooting round promiscuous like,” and having by this tucked himself in to his satisfaction, he lay down, ”reckoning this ought to just about finish off her education, if she doesn't get finished off herself by n.i.g.g.e.rs before morning.”
A cheerful nightcap; but such was our faith in Sool'em and Brown as danger signals, that the camp was asleep in a few minutes. Perhaps also because n.i.g.g.e.r alarms were by no means the exception: the bush-folk would get little sleep if they lay awake whenever they were camped near doubtful company. We sleep wherever we are, for it is easy to grow accustomed even to n.i.g.g.e.r alarms, and beside, the bush-folk know that when a man has clean hands and heart he has little to fear from even his ”bad fellow black fellows.” But the Red Lilies were beyond our boundaries, and Monkey was a notorious exception, and shrill cries approaching the camp at dawn brought us all to our elbows, to find only the flying foxes returning to the pine forest, fanning inwards this time.
After giving the horses another drink, and breakfasting on damper and ”Lot's wife,” we moved on again, past the glory of the lagoons, to further brumby encounters, carrying a water-bag on a pack-horse by way of precaution against further ”drouths.” But such was the influence of ”Lot's wife” that long before mid-day the bag was empty, and Dan was recommending bloater-paste as a ”grand thing for breakfast during the Wet seeing it keeps you dry all day long.”
Further damper and ”Lot's wife” for dinner, and an afternoon of thirst, set us all dreading supper, and about sundown three very thirsty, forlorn white folk were standing by the duck-under below ”Knock-up camp,” waiting for the Quiet Stockman, and hoping against hope that his meat had not ”turned on him”; and when he and his ”boys” came jangling down the opposite bank, and splas.h.i.+ng and plunging over the ”duckunder” below, driving a great mob of horses before them we a.s.sailed him with questions.
But although Jack's meat was ”chucked out days ago” he was merciful to us and shouted out: ”Will a dozen boiled duck do instead? Got fourteen at one shot this morning, and boiled 'em right off,” he explained as we seized upon his tucker-bags. ”Kept a dozen of 'em in case of accidents.”
Besides a shot-gun, Jack had much sense.
A dozen cold boiled duck ”did” very nicely after four meals of damper and bloater-paste; and a goodly show they made set out in our mixing dish.
Dan, gloating over them, offered to ”do the carving.” ”I'm real good at the poultry carving trick, when there's a bird apiece,” he chuckled, spearing bird after bird with a two-p.r.o.nged fork, and pa.s.sing round one apiece as we sat expectantly around the mixing dish, all among the tucker-bags and camp baggage. And so excellent a sauce is hunger that we received and enjoyed our ”bird apiece” unabashed and unblus.h.i.+ngly--the men-folk returning for further helpings, and the ”boys” managing all that were left.
All agreed that ”you couldn't beat cold boiled duck by much”; but in the morning grilled fish was accepted as ”just the thing for breakfast”; then finding ourselves face to face with Lot's wife, and not too much of that, we beat a hasty retreat to the homestead; a further opportune ”catch” of duck giving us heart for further brumby encounters and another night's camp out-bush. Then the following morning as we rode towards the homestead Dan ”reckoned” that from an educational point of view the trip had been a p.r.o.nounced success.
CHAPTER XXI
Just before mid-day--five days after we had left the homestead--we rode through the Southern slip rails to find the Dandy at work ”cleaning out a soakage” on the brink of the billabong, with Cheon enthusiastically encouraging him. The billabong, we heard, had threatened to ”peter out”
in our absence, and riding across the now dusty wind-swept enclosure we realised that November was with us, and that the ”dry” was preparing for its final fling--”just showing what it could do when it tried.”
With the South-east Trades to back it up it was fighting desperately against the steadily advancing North-west monsoon, drying up, as it fought, every drop of moisture left from last Wet. There was not a blade of green gra.s.s within sight of the homestead, and everywhere dust whirled, and eddied, and danced, hurled all ways at once in the fight, or gathered itself into towering centrifugal columns, to speed hither and thither, obedient to the will of the elements.
Half the heavens seemed part of the Dry, and half part of the Wet: dusty blue to the south-east, and dark banks of clouds to the north-west, with a fierce beating sun at the zenith. Already the air was oppressive with electric disturbances, and Dan, fearing he would not get finished unless things were kept humming, went out-bush next morning, and the homestead became once more the hub of our universe--the south-east being branded from that centre. Every few days a mob was brought in, and branded, and disbanded, hours were spent on the stockyard fence; pack-teams were packed, unpacked, and repacked; and every day grew hotter and hotter, and every night more and more electric, and as the days went by we waited for the Fizzer, hungry for mail-matter, with a six weeks' hunger.
When the Fizzer came in he came with his usual l.u.s.ty shouting, but varied his greeting into a triumphant: ”Broken the record this time, missus.
Two bags as big as a house and a few et-cet-eras!” And presently he staggered towards us bent with the weight of a mighty mail. But a Fizzer without news would not have been our Fizzer, and as he staggered along we learned that Mac was coming out to clear the run of brumbies. ”Be along in no time now,” the Fizzer shouted. ”Fallen clean out with bullock-punching. Wouldn't put his worst enemy to it. Going to tackle something that'll take a bit of jumping round.” Then the mail-bags and et-cet-eras came down in successive thuds, and no one was better pleased with its detail than our Fizzer: fifty letters, sixty-nine papers, dozens of books and magazines, and parcels of garden cuttings.
”Last you for the rest of the year by the look of it,” the Fizzer declared later, finding us at the house walled in with a litter of mail-matter. Then he explained his interruption. ”I'm going straight on at once,” he said ”for me horses are none too good as it is, and the lads say there's a bit of good gra.s.s at the nine-mile ”, and, going out, we watched him set off.
”So long!” he shouted, as cheerily as ever, as he gathered his team together. ”Half-past eleven four weeks.”
But already the Fizzer's shoulders were setting square, for the last trip of the ”dry” was before him--the trip that perished the last mailman--and his horses were none too good.
”Good luck!” we called after him. ”Early showers!” and there was a note in our voices brought there by the thought of that gaunt figure at the well--rattling its dicebox as it waited for one more round with our Fizzer: a note that brought a bright look into the Fizzer's face, as with an answering shout of farewell he rode on into the forest. And watching the st.u.r.dy figure, and knowing the luck of our Fizzer--that luck that had given him his fearless judgment and steadfast, courageous spirit--we felt his cheery ”Half-past eleven four weeks” must be prophetic, in spite of those long dry stages, with their beating heat and parching dust eddies--stages eked out now at each end with other stages of ”bad going.”
”Half-past eleven four weeks,” the Fizzer had said; and as we returned to our mail-matter, knowing what it meant to our Fizzer, we looked anxiously to the northwest, and ”hoped the showers” would come before the ”return trip of the Downs.”
In addition to the fifty letters for the house, the Fizzer had left two others at the homestead to be called for--one being addressed to Victoria Downs (over two hundred miles to our west), and the other to--
F. BROWN, Esq., IN CHARGE OF STUD BULLS GOING WEST VIA NORTHERN TERRITORY.
The uninitiated may think that the first was sent out by mistake and that the second was too vaguely addressed; but both letters went into the rack to await delivery, for our faith in the wisdom of our Postal Department was great; it makes no mistakes, and to it--in a land where everybody knows everybody else, and all his business, and where it has taken him--an address could never be too vague. The bush-folk love to say that when it opened out its swag in the Territory it found red tape had been forgotten, but having a surplus supply of common sense on hand, it decided to use that in its place.
And so it would seem. ”Down South” envelopes are laboriously addressed with the names of stations and vias here and vias there; and throughout the Territory men move hither and thither by compulsion or free-will giving never a thought to an address; while the Department, knowing the ways of its people, delivers its letters in spite of, not because of, these addresses. It reads only the name of the man that heads the address of his letters and sends the letters to where that man happens to be. Provided it has been clearly stated which Jones is meant the Department will see to the rest, although it is wise to add Northern Territory for the guidance of Post Offices ”Down South.” ”Jones travelling with cattle for Wave Will,” reads the Department; and that gossiping friendly wire reporting Jones as ”just leaving the Powell,” the letter lies in the Fizzer's loose-bag until he runs into Jones's mob; or a mail coming in for Jones, Victoria River, when this Jones is on the point of sailing for a trip south, his mail is delivered on s.h.i.+pboard; and as the Department goes on with its work, letters for east go west, and for west go south--in mail-bags, loose-bags, travellers' pockets or per black boy--each one direct to the bush-folk as a migrating bird to its destination.
But, painstaking as our Department is with our mailmatter, it excels itself in its handling of telegrams. Southern red tape has decreed--no doubt wisely as far as it goes--that telegrams shall travel by official persons only; but out-bush official persons are few, and apt to be on duty elsewhere when important telegrams arrive; and it is then that our Department draws largely on that surplus supply of common sense.
Always deferential to the South, it obediently pigeon-holes the telegram, to await some official person, then, knowing that a delay of weeks will probably convert it into so much waste paper, it writes a ”duplicate,”