We of the Never-Never Part 21

CHAPTER XVIII

Only three weeks before, as we hunted for it through scrub and bush and creek-bed, the Yellow Hole had been one of our Unknown Waters, tucked snugly away in an out-of-the-way elbow of creek country, and now we found it transformed into the life-giving heart of a bustling world of men and cattle and commerce. Beside it stood the simple camp of the stockman--a litter of pack-bags, mosquito-nets, and swags; here and there were scattered the even more simple camps of the black boys; and in the background, the c.u.mbrous camp of the Chinese drovers reared itself up in strong contrast to the camps of the bushfolk--two fully equipped tents for the drovers themselves and a simpler one for their black boys. West of the Yellow Hole boys were tailing a fine mob of bullocks, and to the east other "boys" were "holding" a rumbling mob of mixed cattle, and while Jack and Dan rode here and there shouting orders for the "cutting out" of the cattle, the Dandy busied himself at the fire, making tea as a refresher, before getting going in earnest, the only restful, placid, unoccupied beings in the whole camp being the Chinese drovers. Not made of the stuff that "lends a hand" in other people's affairs, they sat in the shade of their tents and looked on, well pleased that men should bustle for their advantage. As we rode past the drovers they favoured us with a sweet smile of welcome, while Dan met us with a chuckle of delight at the sweetness of their smile, and as Jack took our horses--amused both at the drovers' sweetness and Dan's appreciation of it--the Dandy greeted us with the news that we had "struck it lucky, as usual," and that a cup of tea would be ready in "half a shake."

Dan also considered we had "struck it lucky," but from a different point of view, for he had only just come into camp with the mixed cattle, and as the bullocks among them more than completed the number required, he suggested the drovers should take delivery at once, a.s.suring us, as we drank the tea, that he was just about dead sick of them "little Chinese darlings."

The "little Chinese darlings," inwardly delighted that the Maluka's simple trust seemed as guileless as ever, smugly professed themselves willing to fall in with any arrangement that was pleasing to the white folk, and as they mounted their horses Dan heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

But Dan's satisfaction was premature, for it took time and much galloping before the "little Chinese darlings" could satisfy themselves and each other that they had the very finest bullocks procurable in their mob. A hundred times they changed their minds: rejecting chosen bullocks, recalling rejected bullocks, and comparing every bullock accepted with every bullock rejected. Bulk was what they searched for--plenty for their money, as they judged it, and finally gathered together a mob of coa.r.s.e, wide-horned, great-framed beasts, rolling in fat that would drip off on the road as they travelled in.

"You'd think they'd got 'em together for a boiling-down establishment, with a bone factory for a side line," Dan chuckled, secretly pleased that our best bullocks were left on the run, and, disbanding the rejected bullocks before "they" could "change their minds again," he gathered together the mixed cattle and shut them in the Dandy's new yard, to keep them in hand for later branding.

But the "little Chinese darlings" had counted on the use of that yard for themselves, and finding that their bullocks would have to be "watched" on camp that night, they stolidly refused to take delivery before morning, pointing out that should the cattle stampede during the night, the loss would be ours, not theirs.

"Well, I'm blowed!" Dan chuckled, but the Maluka cared little whether the papers were signed then or at sun-up; and the drovers, pleased with getting their way so easily, magnanimously offered to take charge of the first "watch"--the evening watch--provided that only our horses should be used, and that Big Jack and Jackeroo and others should lend a hand.

Dan wouldn't hear of refusing the offer. "Bit of exercise'll do 'em good," he said; and deciding the bullocks would be safe enough with Jack and Jackeroo, we white folk stretched ourselves in the warm firelight after supper, and, resting, watched the shadowy mob beyond the camp, listening to the shoutings and gallopings of the watchers as we chatted.

When a white man watches cattle, if he knows his business he quiets his mob down and then opens them out gradually, to give them room to lie down, or ruminate standing without rubbing shoulders with a restless neighbour, which leaves him little to do beyond riding round occasionally, to keep his "boys" at their posts, and himself alert and ready for emergencies. But a Chinaman's idea of watching cattle is to wedge them into a solid body, and hold them huddled together like a mob of frightened sheep, riding incessantly round them and forcing back every beast that looks as though it might extricate itself from the tangle, and galloping after any that do escape with screams of anxiety and impotency.

"Beck! beck!" (back), screamed our drovers, as they galloped after escaped beasts, flopping and wobbling and gurgling in their saddles like half-filled water-bags; galloping invariably after the beasts, and thereby inciting there to further galloping. And "Beck! beck!" shouted our boys on duty with perfect mimicry of tone and yells of delight at the impotency of the drovers, galloping always outside the runaways and bending them back into the mob, flopping and wobbling and gurgling in their saddles until, in the half light, it was difficult to tell drover from "boy." Not detecting the mimicry, the drovers in no way resented it; the more the boys screamed and galloped in their service the better pleased they were; while the "boys" were more than satisfied with their part of the entertainment, Jackeroo and Big Jack particularly enjoying themselves.

"They'll have 'em stampeding yet," Dan said at last growing uneasy, as more and more cattle escaped, and the mob shifted ground with a rumbling rattle of hoofs every few minutes. Finally, as the rumbling rattle threatened to become permanent, a long drawn-out cry of "Ring--ing" from Big Jack sent Dan and the Quiet Stockman to their saddles. In ten minutes the hubbub had ceased, Dan's master-hand having soothed the irritated beasts; then having opened them out he returned to the camp fire alone. Jack had gone on duty before his time and sent the "little Chinese darlings" to bed.

Naturally Dan's cattle-tussle reminded him of other tussles with ringing cattle; then the cattle-camp suggesting other cattle-camp yarns, he settled down to reminiscences until he had us all cold thrills and skin-creeps, although we were gathered around a blazing fire.

Tale after tale he told of stampedes and of weaners piling up against fences. Then followed a tale or two of cattle Iying quiet as mice one minute, and up on their feet crashing over camps the next, then tales of men being "treed" or "skied," and tales of scrub-bulls, maddened cow-mothers, and "pokers."

"Pokers," it appears, have a habit of poking out of mobs, grazing quietly as they edge off until "they're gone before you miss 'em." Camps seem to have some special attraction for pokers, but we learned they object to interference. Poke round peaceful as cats until "you rile them," Dan told us, and then glided into a tale of how a poker "had us all treed once."

"Poked in a bit too close for our fancy while we were at supper," he explained, "so we slung sticks at him to turn him back to the mob, and the next minute was making for trees, but as there was only saplings handy, it would have been a bit awkward for the heavy weights if there hadn't have been enough of us to divide his attentions up a bit." (Dan was a good six feet, and well set up at that.) "Climbing saplings to get away from a stag isn't much of a game," he added, with a reminiscent chuckle; "they're too good at the bending trick. The farther up the sapling you climb, the nearer you get to the ground."

Then he favoured us with one of his word-pictures: "There was the sapling bending like a weeping willow," he said, "and there was the stag underneath it, looking up at me and asking if he could do anything for me, taking a poke at me boot now and then, just to show nothing would be no bother, and there was me, hanging on to the sapling, and leaning lovingly over him, telling him not to go hanging round, tiring himself out on my account; and there was the other chaps--all light weights--laughing fit to split, safe in their saplings. 'Twasn't as funny as it looked, though," he a.s.sured us, finding us unsympathetic, "and n.o.body was exactly sorry when one of the lads on duty came along to hear the fun, and stock-whipped the old poker back to the mob."

The Maluka and the Dandy soon proved it was nothing to be "treed."

"Happens every time a beast's hauled out of a bog, from all accounts, that being the only thanks you get for hauling 'em out of the mess." Then Dan varied the recital with an account of a chap getting skied once who forgot to choose a tree before beginning the hauling business, and immediately after froze us into horror again with the details of two chaps "lying against an old rotten log with a mob of a thousand going over 'em "; and we were not surprised to hear that when they felt well enough to sit up they hadn't enough arithmetic left between 'em to count their bruises.

After an evening of ghost stories, a creaking door is enough to set teeth chattering; and after an evening of cattle-yarns, told in a cattle camp, a snapping twig is enough to set hair lifting; and just as the most fitting place for ghost stories is an old ruined castle, full of eerie noises, so there is no place more suited to cattle-camp yarns than a cattle camp. They need the reality of the camp-fire, the litter of camp baggage, the rumbling mob of shadowy cattle near at hand, and the possibilities of the near future--possibilities brought home by the sight of tethered horses standing saddled and bridled ready "in case of accidents."

Fit surroundings add intensity to all tales, just as it added intensity to my feelings when Dan advised the Maluka to swing our net near a low-branched tree, pointing out that it would "come in handy for the missus if she needed it in a hurry."

I favoured climbing the tree at once, and spending the night in it, but the men-folk a.s.suring me that I would be "bound to hear them coming," I turned in, sure only of one thing, that death may come to the bush-folk in any form but ennui. Yet so adaptable are we bush-folk to circ.u.mstances that most of that night was oblivion.

At sun-up, the drovers, still sweetly smiling, announced that two bullocks had strayed during some one's watch. Not in theirs, they hastened to a.s.sure us, when Dan sniffed scornfully in the background.

But Dan's scorn turned to blazing wrath, when--the drovers refusing to replace the "strays" with cows from the mixed cattle in hand, and refusing also to take delivery of the bullocks, two beasts short--the musterers had to turn out to gather in a fresh mob of cattle for the sake of two bullocks. "Just as I was settling down to celebrate Sunday, too,"

Dan growled, as he and Jack rode out of camp.

Forty years out-bush had not been enough to stamp generations of Sabbath-keeping out of Dan's blood, although he was not particular which day of the week was set apart for his Sabbath. "Two in a fortnight" was all he worried about.

Fortune favouring the musterers, by midday all was peace and order; the drovers, placid and contented, had retired to their tents once more, reprieved from taking delivery for another day and night, and after dinner, as the "boys" tailed the bullocks and mixed cattle on the outskirts of the camp, to graze them, we settled down to "celebrate our Sabbath" by resting in the warm, dry shade.

Here and there upon the gra.s.sy incline that stretched between the camp and the Yellow Hole, we settled down each according to his taste; Dan with his back against a tree trunk and far-reaching legs spread out before him; the Maluka, Jak [sic], and the Dandy flat upon their backs, with bent-back folded arms for pillows, and hats drawn over eyes to shade them from the too dazzling sunlight; dogs, relaxed and spread out, as near to their master as permitted, and the missus "fixed up" in an opened-out, bent-back gra.s.sy tussock, which had thus been formed into a luxurious armchair. At the foot of the incline lay the Yellow Hole, gleaming and glancing in the sunshine; all around and about us were the bush creatures, rustling in the scrub and gra.s.ses--flies were conspicuous by their absence, here and there shafts of sunlight lay across the gray-brown shade; in the distance the grazing cattle moved among the timber; away out in the glorious sunshine, beyond and above the tree-tops, brown-winged, slender Bromli kites wheeled and circled and hovered and swooped; and lounging in the sun-flecked shade, well satisfied with our lot, we looked out into the blue, sunny depths, each one of us the embodiment of lazy contentment, and agreeing with Dan that "Sunday wasn't a bad inst.i.tution for them as had no objection to doing a loaf now and then."

That suggesting an appropriate topic of conversation to Dan, for a little while we spoke of the Sabbath-keeping of our Scottish forefathers; as we spoke, idly watching the circling, wheeling Bromli kites, that seemed then as at all times, an essential part of the sunshine. To the bush-folk of the Never-Never, sunshine without Bromli kites would be as a summer's day without the sun. All day and every day they hover throughout it, as they search and wait and watch for carrion, throwing dim, gliding shadows as they wheel and circle, or flashing sunshine from brown wings by quick, sudden swoops, hovering and swooping throughout the sunshine, or rising to melt into blue depths of the heavens, where other arching, floating specks tell of myriads there, ready to swoop, and fall and gather and feast wherever their lowest ranks drop earthwards with the crows.

Lazily we watched the floating movement, and as we watched, conversation became spasmodic--not worth the energy required to sustain it--until gradually we slipped into one of those sociable silences of the bushfolk--silences that draw away all active thought from the mind, leaving it a sensitive plate ready to absorb impressions and thoughts as they flit about it, silences where every one is so in harmony with his comrades and surroundings that the breaking of them rarely jars--spoken words so often defining the half-absorbed thoughts.

Dimly conscious of each other, of the grazing cattle the Bromli kites, the sweet scents and rustling sounds of the bush, of each other's thoughts and that the last spoken thought among us had been Sabbath-keeping, we rested, idly, NOT thinking, until Dan's voice crept into the silence.

"Never was much at religion meself," he said, lazily altering his position, "but Mrs. Bob was the one to make you see things right off."

Lazily and without stirring we gave our awakened attention, and after a quiet pause the droning Scotch voice went on, too contented to raise itself above a drone: "Can't exactly remember how she put it; seemed as though you'd only got to hoe your own row the best you can, and lend others a hand with theirs, and just let G.o.d see after the rest."

Quietly, as the droning voice died away, we slipped back into our silence, lazily dreaming on, with Dan's words lingering in our minds, until, in a little while, it seemed as though the dancing tree-tops, the circling Bromli kites, every rustling sound and movement about us, had taken them up and were shouting them to the echo. "How much you will be able to teach the poor, dark souls of the stockmen," a well-meaning Southerner had said, with self-righteous arrogance; and in the brilliant glory of that bush Sabbath, one of the "poor, dark souls" had set the air vibrating with the grandest, n.o.blest principles of Christianity summed up into one brief sentence resonant with its ringing commands: Hoe your own row the best you can. Lend others a hand with theirs. Let G.o.d see to the rest.

Men there are in plenty out-bush, "not much at religion," as they and the world judge it, who have solved the great problem of "hoeing their own rows" by the simple process of leaving them to give others a hand with theirs; men loving their neighbours as themselves, and with whom G.o.d does the rest, as of old. "Be still, and know that I am G.o.d," is still whispered out of the heart of Nature, and those bushmen, unconsciously obeying, as unconsciously belong to that great simple-hearted band of worshippers, the Quakers; men who, in the hoeing of their own rows have ever lived their lives in the ungrudging giving of a helping hand to all in need, content that G.o.d will see to the rest.

Surely the most scrupulous Quaker could find no fault with the "Divine Meeting" that G.o.d was holding that day: the long, restful preparation of silence; that emptying of all active thought from the mind; that droning Scotch voice, so perfectly tuned to our mood, delivering its message in a language that could pierce to the depths of a bushman's heart; and then silence again--a silence now vibrating with thought. As gradually and naturally as it had crept upon us, that silence slipped away, and we spoke of the mult.i.tude of sounds and creatures about us, until, seeing deeper and deeper into Dan's message every moment, we learned that each sound and creature was hoeing its own row as it alone knew how, and, in the hoeing, was lending all others a hand with theirs, as they toiled in the Mighty Row of the Universe, each obedient to the great law of the Creator that all else shall be left to Him, as through them He taught the world that no man liveth to himself alone.

"You will find that a woman alone in a camp of men is decidedly out of place," the Darwin ladies had said; and yet that day, as at all times, the woman felt strangely and sweetly in place in the bushmen's camp. "A G.o.d-forsaken country," others of the town have called the Never-Never, because the works of men have not yet penetrated into it. Let them look from their own dark alleys and hideous midnights into some or all of the cattle camps out-bush, or, better still, right into the "poor dark souls'" of the bush-folk themselves--if their vision is clear enough--before they judge.

Long before our midnight had come, the camp was sleeping a deep, sound sleep--those who were not on watch--a dreamless sleep, for the bullocks were peaceful and ruminating, the Chinese drovers having been "excused"

from duty lest other beasts should stray during "some one's" watch.

Soon after sun-up the head drover formally accepted the mob, and, still inwardly marvelling at the Maluka's trust, filled in his cheque, and, blandly smiling, watched while the Maluka made out receipts and cancelled the agreement. Then, to show that he dealt little in simple trust, he carried the receipts and agreement in private and in turn, to Dan, and Jack, and the Dandy, asking each if all were honestly made out.

Dan looked at the papers critically ("might have been holding them upside down for all I knew," he said later), and a.s.sured the drover that all was right. "Which was true" he added also later, "seeing the boss made 'em out." Dan dealt largely in simple trust where the boss was concerned.

Jack, having heard Dan's report, took his cue from it and pa.s.sed the papers as "just the thing "; but the Dandy read out every word in them in a loud, clear voice, to his own amus.e.m.e.nt and the drovers' discomfiture.

The papers having been thus proved satisfactory, the drovers started their boys with the bullocks, before giving their attention to the packing up of their camp baggage, and we turned to our own affairs.

As the Dandy's new yard was not furnished yet with a draughting lane and branding pens, the mixed cattle were to be taken to the Bitter Springs yard; and by the time Jack had been seen off with them and our own camp packed up, the drovers had become so involved in baggage that Dan and the Dandy felt obliged to offer a.s.sistance. Finally every one was ready to mount, and then we and the drovers exchanged polite farewells and parted, seller and buyer each confident that he knew more about the cash for that cheque than the other. No doubt the day came when those drovers ceased to marvel at the Maluka's simple trust.

The drovers rode away to the north-west, and as we set out to the south-east, Dan turned his back on "them little darlings" with a sigh of relief. "Reckon that money's been earned, anyway," he said. Then, as Jackeroo was the only available "boy," the others all being on before with the cattle, we gathered together our immense team of horses and drove them out of camp. In open order we jogged along across country, with Jackeroo riding ahead as pilot, followed by the jangling, straggling team of pack- and loose horses, while behind the team rode the white folk all abreast, with six or eight dogs trotting along behind again. For a couple of hours we jogged along in the tracks of Jack's cattle, without coming up with them, then, just as we sighted the great rumbling mob, a smaller mob appeared on our right.

"Run 'em into the mob," Dan shouted; and at his shout every man and horse leapt forward--pack-horses and all--and went after them in pell-mell disorder.

"Scrub bulls! Keep behind them!" Dan yelled giving directions as we stampeded at his heels (it is not all advantage for musterers to ride with the pack-team) then as we and they galloped straight for Jack's mob every one yelled in warning: "Hi! look out there! Bulls! Look out,"

until Dan's revolver rang out above the din.

Jack turned at the shot and saw the bulls, but too late. Right through his mob they galloped, splitting it up into fragments, and in a moment pack-horses, cattle, riders, bulls, were part of a surging, galloping ma.s.s--boys galloping after bulls, and bulls after boys, and the white folk after anything and everything, peppering bulls with revolver-shots (stock-whip having no effect), shouting orders, and striving their utmost to hold the mob; pack and loose horses galloping and kicking as they freed themselves from the hubbub; and the missus scurrying here and there on the outskirts of the melee, dodging behind bushes and scrub in her anxiety to avoid both bulls and revolver-shots. Ennui forsooth! Never was a woman farther from death by ennui.

Finally the horses gathered themselves together in the friendly shelter of some scrub, and as the woman sought safety among them, the Maluka's rifle rang out, and a charging bull went down before it. Then out of the thick of the uproar Sambo came full gallop, with a bull at his horse's heels, and Dan full gallop behind the bull, bringing his rifle to his shoulder as he galloped, and as all three galloped madly on Dan fired, and the bull pitching blindly forward, Sambo wheeled, and he and Dan galloped back to the mob to meet another charging outlaw and deal with it.

Then in quick succession from all sides of the mob bulls darted out with riders at THEIR heels, or riders shot forward with bulls at their heels, until the mob looked like a great spoked wheel revolving on its own axis.

Bull after bull went down before the rifles, old Roper, with the Maluka riding him, standing like a rock under fire; and then, just as the mob was quieting down, a wild scrub cow with a half-grown calf at her heels shot out of the mob and headed straight for the pack team, Dan galloping beside her and cracking thunderclaps out of a stock-whip. Flash and I scuttled to shelter, and Dan, bending the cow back to the mob, shouted as he pa.s.sed by, at full gallop: "Here you are, missus; thought you might like a drop of milk."

For another five minutes the mob was "held" to steady them a bit before starting, and then, just as all seemed in order, one of the prostrate bulls staggered to its feet--anything but dead; and as a yell went up "Look out, boss! look out!" Roper sprang forward in obedience to the spurs, just too late to miss a sudden, mad lunge from the wounded outlaw, and the next moment the bull was down with a few more shots in him, and Roper was receiving a tribute that only he could command.