We of the Never-Never Part 24

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 splashing 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 unblushingly--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 shipboard; 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,"

and goes outside to send it "bush" by the first traveller it can find.

If no traveller is at hand, the "Line" is "called up" and asked if any one is going in the desired direction from elsewhere; if so, the "duplicate" is repeated "down the line," but if not, a traveller is created in the person of a black boy by means of a bribing stick of tobacco. No extra charge, of course. Nothing IS an extra in the Territory. "Nothing to do with the Department," says the chief; "merely the personal courtesy of our officers." May it be many a long day before the forgotten shipment of red tape finds its way to the Territory to strangle the courtesy of our officers!

Nothing finds itself outside this courtesy. The Fizzer brings in great piles of mail-matter, unweighed and unstamped, with many of the envelopes bursting or, at times, in place of an envelope, a request for one; and "our officers," getting to work with their "courtesy," soon put all in order, not disdaining even the licking of stamps or the patching or renewing of envelopes. Letters and packets are weighed, stamped, and repaired--often readdressed where addresses for South are blurred; stamps are supplied for outgoing mail-matter and telegrams; postage-dues and duties paid on all incoming letters and parcels--in fact, nothing is left for us to do but to pay expenses incurred when the account is rendered at the end of each six months. No doubt our Department would also read and write our letters for us if we wished it, as it does, at times, for the untutored.

Wherever it can, it helps the bush-folk, and they, in turn, doing what they can to help it in self-imposed task, are ever ready to "find room somewhere" in pack-bags or swags for mail-matter in need of transport a.s.sistance--the general opinion being that "a man that refuses to carry a man's mail to him 'ud be mean enough to steal bread out of a bird-cage."

In all the knowledge of the bush-folk, only one man had proved "mean enough." A man who shall be known as the Outsider, for he was one of a type who could never be one of the bush-folk, even though he lived out-bush for generations: a man so walled in with self and selfishness that, look where he would, he could see nothing grander or better than his own miserable self, and knowing all a mail means to a bushman, he could refuse to carry a neighbour's mail--even though his road lay through that neighbour's run--because he had had a difference with him.

"Stealing bread from a caged bird wasn't in it!" the homestead agreed, with unspeakable scorn; but the man was so reconciled to himself that the scorn pa.s.sed over him unnoticed. He even missed the contempt in the Maluka's cutting "Perfectly!" when he hoped we understood him. (The Outsider, by the way, spoke of the Never-Never as a land where you can Never-Never gel a bally thing you want! the Outsider's wants being of the flesh pots of Egypt). It goes without saying that the Maluka sent that neighbour's mail to him without delay, even though it meant a four-days'

journey for a "boy" and station horses, for the bush-folk do what they can to help each other and the Department in the matter of mails, as in all else.

Fortunately, the Outsider always remained the only exception, and within a day or two of the Fizzer's visit a traveller pa.s.sed through going east who happened to know that the "chap from Victoria Downs was just about due at Hodgson going back west," and one letter went forward in his pocket en route to its owner. But before the other could be claimed Cheon had opened the last eighty-pound chest of tea, and the homestead fearing the supply might not be equal to the demands of the Wet, the Dandy was dispatched in all haste for an extra loading of stores. And all through his absence, as before it, and before the Fizzer's visit, Dan and the elements "kept things humming."

Daily the soakage yielded less and less water, and daily Billy Muck and Cheon scrimmaged over its yield; for Billy's melons were promising to pay a liberal dividend, and Cheon's garden was crying aloud for water. Every day was filled with flies, and dust, and p.r.i.c.kly heat, and daily and hourly our hands waved unceasingly, as they beat back the mult.i.tude of flies that daily and hourly a.s.sailed us--the flies and dust treated all alike, but the p.r.i.c.kly heat was more chivalrous, and refrained from annoying a woman. "Her usual luck!" the men-folk said, utilising verandah-posts or tree-trunks for scratching posts when not otherwise engaged. Daily "things" and the elements hummed, and as they hummed Dan and Jack came and went like Will-o'-the-Wisps--sometimes from the south-east and sometimes from the north-east; and as they came and went, the Maluka kept his hand on the helm; Happy d.i.c.k filled in odd times as he alone knew how; a belated traveller or two pa.s.sing out came in, and went on, or remained; Brown of the Bulls sent on a drover ahead of the mob to spy out the land, and the second letter left the rack, while all who came in, or went on, or remained, during their stay at the homestead, stood about the posts and uprights waving off flies, and rubbing and wriggling against the posts like so many Uriah Heeps, as they laid plans, gossiped, gave in reports, or "swopped yarns." The Territory is hardly an earthly paradise just before the showers. Still, Cheon did all he could to make things pleasanter, regaling all daily on hop-beer, and all who came in were sure of a welcome from him--Dan invariably inspiring him with that ever fresh little joke of his when announcing afternoon tea to the quarters. "Cognac!" he would call, and also invariably, Dan made a great show of expectant haste, and a corresponding show of disappointment, when the teapot only was forthcoming.

But Cheon's little joke and the afternoon tea were only interludes in the heat and thirst and dust. Daily things hummed faster and faster, and the South-east Trades skirmished and fought with the North-west monsoon, until the w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys, towering higher and higher sped across the plain incessantly, and whirled, and spun and danced like storm witches, in, and out and about the homestead enclosure, leaving its acres all dust, and only dust, with the house, lightly festooned in creepers now, and set in its deep-green luxuriant garden of melons, as a pleasant oasis in a desert of glare and dust.

Daily and hourly men waved and perspired and rubbed against scratching posts, and daily and hourly the w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys whirled and spun and danced, and daily and hourly as they threatened to dance, and spin, and whirl through the house, the homestead sped across the enclosure to slam doors and windows in their faces, thus saving our belongings from their whirling, dusty ravages; and when nimbler feet were absent it was no uncommon sight to see Cheon, perspiring and dishevelled, speeding towards the house like a huge humming-top, with speeding w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys speeding after him, each bent on reaching the goal before the other. Oftentimes Cheon outraced the w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys, and a very chuckling, triumphant Cheon slammed-to doors and windows, but at other times, the w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys outraced Cheon, and, having soundly buffeted him with dust and debris, sped on triumphant in their turn, and then a very wrathful, spluttering, dusty Cheon sped after them. Also after a buffeting Cheon w as generally persuaded an evil spirit dwelt within certain w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys.

But there is even a limit to keeping things humming during a Territory November; and things coming to a climax in a succession of dry thunderstorms, two cows died in the yards from exhaustion, and Dan was obliged to "chuck it."

"Not too bad, though," he said, reviewing the years work, after fixing up a sleeping camp for the Wet.

The camp consisted of a tent-fly, extended verandah-like behind the Quarters, open on three sides to the air and furnished completely with a movable four-legged wooden bunk: and surveying it with satisfaction, as the w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys danced about it, Dan reckoned it looked pretty comfortable. "No fear of catching cold, anyway," he said, and meant it, having got down to the root of hygiene; for among Dan's pet theories was the theory that "houses are fine things to catch cold in," backing up the theory by adding: "Never slept in one yet without getting a cold."

The camp fixed up, Dan found himself among the unemployed, and, finding the Maluka had returned to station books and the building of that garden fence, and that Jack had begun anew his horse-breaking with a small mob of colts, he envied them their occupation.

"Doing nothing's the hardest job I ever struck," he growled, shifting impatiently from shade to shade, and dratting the flies and dust; and even sank so low as to envy the missus her house.

"Gives her something to do cleaning up after w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys," he growled further, and in desperation took to outracing w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.ys--"so the missus 'ull have a bit of time for pitching," and was drawn into the wood-heap gossip, until Jack provided a little incidental entertainment in the handling of a "kicker."

But Jack and the missus had found occupation of greater interest than horse-breaking, gossiping, or spring cleaning--an occupation that was also affording Dan a certain amount of entertainment, for Jack was "wrestling with book-learning," which Dan gave us to understand was a very different thing from "education."

"Still it takes a bit of time to get the whole mob properly broken in,"

he said, giving Jack a preliminary caution. Then, the first lesson over, he became interested in the methods of handling the mob.

"That's the trick, is it? You just put the yearlings through the yard, and then tackle the two-year-olds." he commented, finding that after a run through the Alphabet we had settled down to the first pages of Bett-Bett's discarded Primer.

Jack, having "roped all the two-year-olds" in that first lesson, spent all evening handling them, and the Quarters looked on as he tested their tempers, for although most proved willing, yet a few were tricky or obstinate. All evening he sat, poring over the tiny Primer, amid a buzzing swarm of mosquitoes, with the doggedness all gone from his face, and in its place the light of a fair fight, and, to no one's surprise, in the morning we heard that "all the two-year-olds came at his call."

Another lesson at the midday spell roped most of the three-year-olds, and another evening brought them under the Quiet Stockman's will, and then in a few more days the four-year-olds and upwards had been dealt with, and the Primer was exhausted.

"Got through with the first draught, anyway," Dan commented, and, no Second Book being at our service we settled down to Kipling's "Just-So Stories." Then the billabong "petering out" altogether, and the soakage threatening to follow suit, its yield was kept strictly for personal needs, and Dan and the Maluka gave their attention to the elements.

"Something's got to happen soon," they declared, as we gasped in the stifling calm that had now settled down upon the Territory; for gradually the skirmishings had ceased, and the two great giants of the Territory element met in the centre of the arena for their last desperate struggle. Knee to knee they were standing, marvellously well matched this year, each striving his utmost, and yet neither giving nor taking an inch; and as they strove their satellites watched breathlessly.