CHAPTER XTHE HUT IN THE SCRUB
Theywere somewhat thoughtful as they turned back into the scrub: a little awed by the wonder they had seen—perhaps a little sober at the remembrance of the long, rough journey home. But there was something of triumph in Robin and Barry, for they had succeeded where others had failed. Many tourists set out each summer for the Merri Creek Falls, but the majority gave up the journey, voting no waterfall worth the trouble of getting through the forest in which this particular fall chose to hide itself. Few of the residents of the district had reached the Falls—being a busy folk with small leisure for scenery. And they had won through! It was small wonder if Robin and Barry felt a throb of exultation.
They reached the place where they had rejoined the track after their long wading in the creek. Dr. Lane halted.
“I wonder if it would not be better to keep to the track for a bit,” he said, rather doubtfully. “If we could save ourselves even half a mile of that unpleasant wading it would be something. What do you think, Robin?”
“I don’t fancy we should risk losing our way,” Robin answered. “It must be the only track, even if it seems to bend to the north; there is no settlement of any kind out here.”
“Do let’s try it for a bit,” begged Barry. “My feet won’t stand too much of those beastly stones; I’m sure I’ve sixteen blisters already!”
“Well, we can try it for a while,” Dr. Lane said.
They followed the track, which almost immediately became more definite. There were signs that it had been used; light scrub had evidently been roughly cut, and once or twice Robin, who was leading, thought that she could make out a footprint. She pulled up, presently, and pointed out a faint mark to Dr. Lane.
“Don’t you think a boot made that?”
“It looks uncommonly like it,” Dr. Lane answered. “There may be someone camped near here: a prospector, or a fishing enthusiast. It would be luck if we could find someone who could tell us if we were going out of our way.”
“It might be a track left by the man you were talking to,” Barry suggested.
“Oh, he was here last summer; no track of his would be visible by this time. That mark looked fairly new. Hullo—!” He broke off suddenly.
The path had swung sharply round a dense patch of dogwood, and they saw before them, in a little open space, a rough bark hut. It stood among a clump of wattles, the trunks of which had been used, so far as was possible, as supports. No more crazy-looking building had ever formed a home: it seemed to lean this way and that, and where the heavy slabs of iron-bark had warped under the weather it was patched with whatever material the bush afforded, and daubed with creek mud. Dr. Lane gave a low whistle.
“We seem to have found our prospector,” he said. “I hope the good man is at home.”
“Man!” said Robin, staring. “It isn’t only a man. Look there!”
She pointed to where a rude clothes-line, made of twisted stringy-bark, hung between two trees. Something fluttered from it: a woman’s dress of faded blue, patched and torn. And as they looked, a woman suddenly came round the corner of the hut, and, seeing them, cried out and ran forward.
She was a very young woman, but her face was lined and worn in a way that was not good to see. Her faded hair was strained back from a face so thin that it looked almost like a mummy’s; her eyes held a world of horror in their sunken depths. Robin gave a gasp of pity and went quickly to meet her, and the poor soul put out a trembling hand, touching her sleeve with a kind of incredulous delight.
“A girl!” she muttered. “I thought I’d never see a woman again!”
“What is it?” Robin asked gently. “Can we help you?”
“I’m just desperate”—the low, strained voice could hardly be heard. “I thought no one ’ud ever come.”
“You are not alone here?” Dr. Lane asked sharply. She shook her head.
“Me husband’s there. He’s dyin’, I think—he’s been ill for weeks. We’d both have been dead pretty soon.” Then she swayed, and would have fallen, if they had not caught her. They gave her a mouthful of brandy and water, and in a minute she made herself sit up and answer questions.
Bit by bit the sorry little story came from her halting tongue—long before it was finished, Dr. Lane had gone off with long strides to the hut, feeling for his pocket medicine-case as he went. She and her husband had come to the district as “married couple” on a farm: they had heard wild stories of gold to be found by fossickers and prospectors along the Merri Creek, and when they had saved a little money they had given up their job and come out into the bush. A farmer who knew the track had brought them up on horses, a packhorse carrying what outfit and stores they had been able to buy.
From the first, bad luck had dogged them. They were of the feckless kind that should never leave a township; and the immensity and the silence of the bush, and its impenetrable nature, had filled their very souls with fear. “We hated to look at it,” she whispered—“only there wasn’t nothing else to look at.” They had managed to burn down their tent, losing a good deal of their property. It seemed that they had expected, in a vague way, to live chiefly on fish and rabbits—and had found neither easy to get. Not a speck of gold had rewarded their pitiful seeking, although they had worked together with aching backs and blistered hands, cheering each other on with visions of “striking it rich” any moment. And then, just as they realized the uselessness of their efforts, Jim, the husband, had fallen ill.
“I don’ know what was the matter with him,” she whispered. “We didn’t have no medicine—it was all burned, the little bit we had. He couldn’t eat nothing: I got a rabbit twice, an’ once I caught a fish, but he didn’t seem to fancy none.” For the last three days he had scarcely moved or spoken, and she was afraid to leave him. There was no food left: there had been none for thirty-six hours. “I knew he was dyin’,” the weak voice whispered. “I just thought I’d lie down an’ die too.”
“Robin!” The doctor’s voice was urgent, and the girl ran to him as he stood in the doorway of the wretched hut.
“Have we any milk left?” he asked sharply.
“There is a bottle in Barry’s haversack,” she said; “and a few sandwiches we kept for the way home. Oh, and I’ve a cake of milk-chocolate. I didn’t dare offer her anything until I spoke to you. She’s starving, you know.” Her voice caught in a sob. “Is he . . . is her husband . . . dead?”
“No, but not far off. Thank goodness I had my medicine-case; and the milk may help to pull him through. But it will be touch-and-go. Get Barry to light a fire and heat some water; we’ll make some chocolate into a hot drink for her. I want all the milk for the man. Don’t give her anything solid yet.” He turned and went back into the hut.
Twenty minutes later Robin had the satisfaction of seeing a little colour coming back into the blue lips as her patient sipped the hot chocolate. She fed her with a spoon, afraid that she might drink it too quickly. The woman’s eyes had gleamed wolfishly at the sight of the drink, but she was too weak to be anything but docile.
“Jim,” she muttered. “Is Jim gettin’ any?”
“The doctor is looking after him,” Robin told her, pityingly. “He is a very good doctor: he will do everything he can for him. We have a little milk, but we are keeping it all for Jim.” And at that the starved creature had given a great sigh of relief, and tears had stolen weakly down her face; it seemed that she had scarcely strength left to weep. Robin made her lie down when she had finished the chocolate, promising her food soon. She pointed, as she lay, to the torn blue dress hanging from the stringy-bark line.
“Couldn’t get me washin’ in,” she muttered, as if in apology. “I rubbed it out in the creek a week ago and hung it up. But every time I put up me arms to get it down I fainted right off. So at last I just leave it stay there.” And at that, Robin, who had been very calm and self-possessed, suddenly burst out crying, to Barry’s infinite alarm. She recovered herself in a moment.
“Sorry I was such a fool, old chap,” she said, gruffly. “It seemed to knock me all of a heap.” She went forward and unfastened the poor little frock—it was pinned to the line with thorns of prickly-Moses—and folded it carefully: and the woman on the grass watched her with wondering eyes that were yet not wholly sane.
Dr. Lane called Barry and Robin to him after he had examined the wife briefly.
“She’ll do: her heart and pulse are not bad,” he said. “The man is a different story, but I’m not without hope. Give me every scrap of food or chocolate that we have.”
It was a very little store, and Barry groaned over it.
“To think we were gorging, not half a mile away!” he uttered. “I didn’t want my last three sandwiches a bit, only it seemed a pity to leave them. If only we’d known!”
“It was a mighty good thing we knew as soon as we did,” said his father. “To-morrow it would certainly have been too late. And now, their main chance depends on you two.”
They looked at him enquiringly.
“I won’t leave them, of course,” he said. “The man’s only hope lies in my being with him, to give him medicine and stimulant at the proper intervals.”
“And we’re to get help?” Robin asked eagerly.
“Yes. You’re sure you can get back alone? I hate letting you go, but there’s no help for it.”
“Rather!” said Barry and Robin, together.
“I wonder if this track is all right,” the doctor said, uneasily.
“The woman says so. She told me twice, pointing to it, that it was the track the horses came. We’ll watch very carefully, and there’s always the creek to guide us.”
“Yes—if you can get to it through the scrub. Well, I can only hope it is safe: you’re a better bushman than I am, Robin. If you have not sent help out by this time to-morrow I’ll start in myself, by the way we came. Here’s a list of what I want—telephone it into Baroin at the earliest possible moment, and have the things sent out by car. Merritt or some of the other farmers will help you about getting stretcher-bearers: we’ll need two stretchers to bring them in, and plenty of relays of bearers, in this awful country. Make them start as early as they can; and you’ll have to arrange for the ambulance from Baroin to come as far as it can to meet the stretchers. That young fellow at the garage has sense: he will help, if you can get on to him. Sure you understand?”
Robin nodded. “We’ll send out food and fresh milk with the stretcher party as well as the things you want from the township,” she said. “You’ll be terribly hungry yourself by that time.”
“By Jove!” said Barry, staring; “it’s pretty awful to think of you having nothing to eat, Father.”
“Oh, I’m well fed,” said the doctor, lightly. “No need to worry about me. Now be off, you two—and remember, I won’t have an easy moment until I know how you have got on. For goodness’ sake, don’t lose the creek!” He smiled at them, letting his hand rest on his boy’s shoulder for a moment. Then he watched them as they hurried into the bush.
For a time the track was plain enough—steep and stony, with sudden drops that made them wonder sharply how men were going to carry a stretcher down it—but not densely overgrown. They were able to make good progress. Then they came to a place where a fallen tree had smashed across it, and it was quite difficult to find the path again in the mass of far-flung limbs; they hated the loss of time while they cast backwards and forwards. When, three or four hundred yards farther on, the track seemed to fork, Robin pulled up.
“I don’t like it, Barry,” she said. “There may have been stray cattle here, making a second trail, and how do we know where it may lead us? The creek is beastly to walk in, but at least it’s safe. I think we’d better get down to it.”
“Right-oh,” said Barry. “But can we?”
Robin put up her hand, listening.
“I think I hear it, don’t you?” She looked at the thick wall of scrub as one looks at an enemy. “Come on: I guess we can worm our way through.”
They wormed—if that term may be given to a struggle that left both breathless. Sometimes they tore aside stiff clumps of dogwood twined thickly with creeping plants: sometimes squeezed through the closely-growing hazel and blanket-wood, stepping downwards upon heaps of slender, long-fallen trunks, so rotten, under their covering of ferns, that at any moment a foot incautiously planted might sink down past the knee. They climbed over huge fallen trees, deep-brown with damp moss or slippery with wet—trunks on which it was no easy matter to get a footing; where, once gained, the slightest misstep might end in a long slither and a broken ankle. They could not see a yard ahead, in most places: only, when they paused a moment to wipe their dripping faces, the song of the creek could be heard, far below, but always coming a little nearer. Often it was easier to crawl beneath a dead giant than to climb over it, even if they had to dig a way through. Nettles, tall and venomous, stung their hands and faces: brambles and wild-raspberry, and all the other hooked enemies of the scrub tore at them unceasingly. When at last they gained the creek, and, plunging in thankfully, sat down on two boulders, they looked at each other and laughed.
“We’re a pretty pair of scarecrows,” said Robin. Barry chuckled.
“We are—if I look like you!”
“You’re worse,” Robin assured him.
“Couldn’t be!”
Their faces were almost unrecognizable with heat and dirt and the brown dust of fern-seed. Their clothes, torn in a hundred places, hung about them in soiled tatters: long, bleeding scratches showed beneath many of the rents. They looked at each other, panting, and laughed.
“At least we can have a drink and a wash,” Robin said. “What a comfort to think we needn’t mind getting wet!” She knelt down in the nearest pool, and as the stone on which she had chosen to kneel decided to turn completely round, she fell sideways into the water with a yelp and a stupendous splash. Barry shouted with laughter. She emerged, dripping, with an air of pained surprise.
“I said I didn’t mind getting wet, but this is wetter than I meant,” Robin said. “Oh, well, I’ll dry soon, and it’s very refreshing.” They scrubbed their hands and faces, dipping their heads under the hurrying water, and coming up with gasps of satisfaction; then they rubbed wet earth into their burning nettle-stings, already showing like angry weals upon the skin. Then, for they dared not linger, they set off upon the toilsome journey down the creek.
It was as well that they had shortened it by keeping to the track above, for their feet were still sore from the wading of the morning, and from being all day in soaked boots; and each step was soon a torment. They had not time to pick their way: the thought of the three whom they had left in the lonely camp whipped them forward, so that they plunged recklessly over the slippery stones, often losing their footing altogether. They had joked over it in the morning, but there was no joking now: it was hard enough to keep from wincing or crying out as the stones pinched and bruised their swollen feet, while their bodies ached with the perpetual effort to retain their balance.
“I think it’s nearly over,” said Robin, as she saw Barry lurch sideways, biting his lip to restrain an exclamation of pain. “Buck up, old chap—I believe we’re almost at the tree where we took to the creek first this morning.”
“Jolly good thing,” said the boy, trying to speak lightly. “You must be pretty sick of it, Robin—your boots are lighter than mine.” He forced a grin. “Wouldn’t this be great country for an aeroplane!”
“Rather—except when you wanted to land.” She looked ahead, and gave a joyful whistle. “There’s our tree!”
“Well, they say all things come to an end, but I was beginning to think that stretch of creek had no finish,” said Barry, as they climbed thankfully up the bank. “It’s all plain sailing now.”
“Yes, thank goodness—and we can hurry.”
It was already evening as they made their way along the rough path—rough as it was, it felt smooth and grateful to their aching feet. Robin led the way, keeping well ahead, so that the lash of the held-back branches should not sweep Barry’s face. They did not speak until at length they came out of the timber and saw, ahead, the cleared hills and valleys that meant home. Then Barry caught up.
“What should we do first, Robin?”
“We must scatter,” Robin said. “You go over to the Merritts’, Barry—you know the way. They will pass the word round among the farms in the hills on that side of the creek; it will be best for the men to meet there, for it’s the place nearest to the Falls track. They are sure to start as soon as it is light in the morning.”
“All right. Will you go home?”
“Yes; I’ll get Mother and Mrs. Lane to drive down to Merri Creek at once: Mrs. Lane can telephone for the things your father wants while Mother is telling the people there. Then I’ll cross our creek and get over to O’Rourke’s.”
“It’s nearly dark,” Barry said, looking anxiously at the sky. “Will there be time to get enough people?”
Robin laughed.
“The whole district will know before morning,” she said. “All the men about here know what it will mean to get two stretchers down the Falls track.”
“Where will I go after I’ve told the Merritts?”
“Home—and get those boots off as quickly as you can.”
“But it’s doing so little, Robin. Can’t I go on somewhere else?”
“There won’t be any need,” Robin said—“unless, of course, Mr. Merritt and the boys are away. But they won’t be: they’ll be milking. Oh, and tell them I’ll be over to give the girls a hand with the cows in the morning after the boys have gone. They will send word on everywhere—one place passes it to another, in a case like this.” She looked at the boy’s dead-beat face, and patted his shoulder. “You needn’t worry, Barry, old chap. They’ll all know you’ve done your bit.”
“I?” said Barry. “I haven’t done anything.” He turned to go. “You won’t be long, Robin?”
“I expect to come straight home from O’Rourke’s,” she said. “Don’t hurry too much—there’s plenty of time to get things ready by daylight.”
But the men of the district did not wait for daylight. It was not long after midnight when the first relay of twenty men set out—men who had no cows to milk, or having cows, had wives and children who could milk them. They carried food and the drugs that Dr. Lane had ordered, and they went on horses, so far as horses could be forced through the scrub. They were men who knew the track to the Falls—knew that it was not necessary to wade the creek as the Lanes and Robin had done. They left their horses when the going became impossible, and pushed onward on foot, making the way clearer for those who should follow: the sound of their axes echoed through the quiet night, and their hurricane lamps sent weird shafts of dim radiance to startle the furry folk of the bush, who only move after day has gone. It was scarcely dawn when old David Merritt halted them.
“We’re not more than a quarter of a mile from the Falls,” he said. “Eight of us’ll go forrard now: you other chaps stay here and get your breath. We’ll want all the breath you’ve got, I reckon.”
Back at the settlement, riders had gone to and fro all night, and men had climbed where there was no footing for a horse in the darkness: and always when the message was given men made haste to pass it on, and women packed food swiftly, catching their breath to think of the woman who had fought for her man’s life in the awful loneliness of the wild bush. From the little towns the lights of cars and buggies gleamed in a long, broken procession, toiling up the hill tracks with men, and yet more men. Hill Farm was the central point: the cars and buggies and horsemen turned in at its gate unendingly, until the little flat below the house was black with vehicles. All night the house was a lit hive of humming activity. Robin and Barry slept the dreamless sleep of worn-out children on the veranda, heedless of the passing feet; but in the kitchen Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Lane, with other women, gave out great mugs of tea and parcels of food, and the men ate and drank swiftly before flinging off their coats and following the figures that streamed, ant-like, into the silent hills. There were none left when dawn had come. Even the men who had cows had yarded them at two o’clock in the morning, and, their milking done, were on their way before the sun turned the eastern tree-tops to copper and scarlet.
The first men who carried the stretchers did not last a quarter of a mile—old David Merritt’s estimate had been over-sanguine. Two hundred yards was enough, and more than enough, for the strongest man in that terrible descent through the bush, with the dead weight of a helpless burden: feeling with every step for roots and stumps in the track, bending to avoid the clutching branches, bracing each muscle suddenly to avoid shock for the silent forms they carried, when a sudden drop in the slippery path flung them forward. They fell, more than once: it was beyond human power always to retain footing under their loads. But even when they fell they did not try to save themselves—only to ease the fall for the stretchers. And one burden knew nothing, wrapped in a heavy, drugged sleep: and to the other, neither falls, nor weariness, nor hunger mattered any more.
“Both all right?” had been the eager question when the second relay had hurried up in response to a whistle. David Merritt’s headshake had been answer.
“The man’s gone, poor chap. Died in the night. The woman’ll do, the Doc. says.” He dropped his voice. “She don’t know he’s gone. The Doc.’s put her to sleep. I’d say carry her gently, boys, but it’s no darned use!”
It was no use, on that mountain pathway. They changed bearers every hundred yards, while those who were not carrying went ahead to make the way easier with their axes: and still, it was a journey of horror until they had accomplished the first abrupt descent, and of the twenty men, not one but was thankful to sit down and rest. Dr. Lane, heavy-eyed after his night of watching and fasting, glanced beneath the blanket that covered the woman’s face.
“She’ll sleep through, I fancy,” he said. “No need to hurry now, boys: the hurry was for the poor fellow yonder.” His tone bore the sadness of a man who has failed. “I could have pulled him through if I had found him twelve hours sooner, I believe.”
“We got here as quick as we could, Doc.,” said a big, loose-limbed fellow.
The doctor’s eye kindled.
“You were marvels!” he said. “I’m hanged if I know how you did it in the dark—I didn’t expect you until hours later.”
“Aw, that’s nothin’,” they said, awkwardly. David Merritt lit his pipe and pulled at it hard.
“Those youngsters,” he said, “They’re good plucked ’uns if you like—both kids, an’ one of ’em a girl! That boy of yours, Doc.—come up to my place limpin’ and runnin’, with his boots near cut from his feet, an’ the blood runnin’ out of them. An’ him a town kid. It was hard luck they didn’t know the track; it would ’a’ saved them miles of that cruel wading.”
“No joke, that wading isn’t,” said someone.
“No, it ain’t any joke. Gave his message quite clear, the kid did, an’ then wanted to go on to the next farm.”
“Did he go?” asked Barry’s father.
“Not if I knew it! All our work was done, an’ there was plenty of us to send messages. I put him on a pony an’ sent him acrost to Hill Farm—he’d done enough for any boy of his size.”
“Miss Robin’s the same,” said big Tim O’Rourke. “ ’Twas all I could do to make her go home from my place. Gad, you should ’a’ seen her: clothes cut to ribbons, an’ her feet bleedin’ like the boy’s. I wanted her to ride home. ‘No,’ says she, ‘you’ve only got one pony an’ you’ll need him!’ True enough, too, but I reckoned she needed him more. But she off down the hill before I could so much as get a bridle.”
“Town or country, I reckon them two are darned good Aussies!” said a returned soldier. A murmur of assent went round the group.
David Merritt put his pipe carefully into his pocket.
“Time for another shift, boys,” he said.
It was mid-afternoon before the last relay of bearers came steadily across the Hill Farm paddock towards the motor-ambulance that waited—brought by a cunning driver over ground where it is safe to say its builders had never dreamed that it could go. There was a little crowd about it: a silent crowd, for word of what they bore had gone before them, and if there were pride in the life snatched from the bush it was hushed into speechlessness in the presence of Death. The men took off their hats as the ambulance moved off slowly: here and there a woman sobbed. Big Tim O’Rourke, who had been first and last to carry, stretched his great shoulders.
“Poor chap!” he said. “He done his best. Well, boys, I reckon it’s about time to get home to milk!”
CHAPTER XICONCERNING THE END OF A PIG
“Comingout, Robin?”
“Too hot, I think,” Robin said, lazily. “Where do you want to go?”
“Oh, anywhere. What’s the good of staying in the house?”
“I don’t see much good in going out, either, in this weather. There isn’t a trout in the creek that would rise, on a day like this, and you know you wouldn’t get a shot at a rabbit until the evening. Unless you want to be like all the other tourists, and shoot parrots and jackasses!”
This was a calculated insult, and Barry responded by a well-aimed cushion. Robin caught it deftly and tucked it under her head.
“Thanks: I just wanted that. Barry, why can’t you read a book nicely like a good little boy?”
“Because I’m not one, I expect,” said Barry, truthfully. “I was one, once, before I came here—but two months of your society have had an awful effect on me. And I have read all the books I want to, and—I say, Robin, how about a swim?”
“Well, that is not such a foolish idea,” Robin said. “In fact, it seems the most possible thing to do, since you won’t let me read quietly. But I must get afternoon tea first.”
“I’ll help you,” he said. He disappeared violently from the veranda, and she heard the clatter of the kettle against the kitchen tap.
January was nearly over, and Barry was still an inmate of Hill Farm. Indeed, he could hardly be called a mere inmate, so much had he become a member of the family. His father and mother had returned from their Queensland trip, and had kindly invited him to return home, but the invitation had not been a command, and Barry had begged that he might remain where he was. Melbourne in mid-January made no appeal to him: nearly all his friends would be out of Town, having fled to the hills or the seaside, and he saw a dreary vision of hot streets with dusty tram-cars crawling up and down them. If Mrs. Hurst would have him—and Mrs. Hurst had nobly refrained from making any objection—why might he not stay at Hill Farm until school once more drew him into its relentless clutch? And since Dr. and Mrs. Lane had no sufficient answer to this query, at Hill Farm he had stayed.
Robin and he were inseparable chums, on a purely boyish footing. There was rarely any question of leadership on Barry’s part: he had learned from the first that he had to defer to Robin’s superior knowledge, and to adapt his days, if he wanted her companionship, to her occupations. It was fortunate for him that these occupations were rarely of a feminine nature. He was too active to remain unemployed while she worked; therefore it came about that while she milked Bessy he fed pigs, and while she trained runner beans in the way they should go, he dug potatoes—since, if they were to have time to play, work must be done first. Because they were young, and often very feather-headed, it was true that the work was not infrequently scamped; the garden was by no means the place of shining neatness that it had been in November, and it was possible, with the naked eye, to find weeds flourishing among the rows of vegetables. The painting of the garden fence had never been completed. The allies had, indeed attacked it, taking each one side, and had worked until the eastern half was done; then it had seemed a rather dreary prospect to begin upon the western half, and by mutual consent the work had been put aside until there was nothing better to do—a period that did not seem likely to arrive while Barry remained at Hill Farm. There were always so many things more interesting that clamoured for their attention.
They got into mischief, too, sometimes, and played pranks which called for intervention on the part of Mrs. Hurst; it was not to be expected that the “red-headed streak” in Robin would remain dormant with a companion as light-hearted as herself. Things that should have been done were forgotten, and there had been one or two occasions when the mother had been angry—such as the night when they had slipped out ’possum-hunting at midnight, had lost themselves in the gullies, and had not managed to get home until long after breakfast-time: when they arrived, penitent, but with an irrepressible air of having had a good time. But it was all straightforward mischief; and even when Mrs. Hurst was annoyed, it was with a half-hidden sense of relief that Robin was not growing old too soon. There had been something almost unnatural in the Robin who had worked early and late, had never forgotten anything that she should remember, and had been quite content to adapt her life to her mother’s standpoints. After all, she was only a child, still; and Mrs. Hurst was one of those who believe that childhood cannot always sit up and behave prettily, if it is to develop on the right lines. She had sorrowed because Robin seemed likely to have none of the ordinary irresponsible joy of life. Unquestionably, she was arriving at a good deal in Barry’s society.
Then, too, it would not last. Barry must soon go, and then there would be nothing for Robin but to slip into the old routine, finding most of her enjoyment in work about the place. Then, probably, the western half of the fence would receive a seemly coat of paint, and Hill Farm would no longer look lop-sided; hours for meals would become splendidly regular, the garden would be weeded, and the milk-bucket be polished again with monkey-soap until it resembled silver. There would be no more pranks and mischief: no gay shouts echoing over the hills. “And I shall wish all the time that she had a playmate again,” Mrs. Hurst admitted to herself.
There was another inmate now at Hill Farm—the forlorn little widow of poor “Jim,” who had ended his ineffectual life in the camp by the Falls. Polly had been nursed back to health in the hospital in Baroin; but with physical health full mental balance had not returned, and she would probably go through life gentle and uncomplaining, but never with complete realization of all that had happened to her. Public sympathy had been excited over her case: a subscription for her benefit had resulted in a fairly large sum, and kindly women had united in supplying her with an outfit of clothes. She did not know that her Jim was dead: that was something the hurt mind failed to grasp. He was away, she told people: gone away prospecting into the hills—he would be back for her as soon as he found gold. She did not seem to worry about Jim. But from the moment she had regained consciousness in the hospital she had begged for Robin.
She did not, of course, know who Robin was—did not even know her name, or why she wanted her. “The red-haired one,” she entreated, again and again, until the Baroin doctor, in despair, had motored out to Hill Farm and brought Robin to the hospital—when immediately the poor thing was content. Probably it was because Robin had been the one who had run to meet her at the camp: the first person who had brought a ray of encouragement to her hopeless misery. She remembered how the girl had fed her with a spoon; she told the story again and again to the nurses. When Robin went away she was restless and uneasy, asking for her continually. The matter had been finally settled by the Benevolent Society, which had agreed with Mrs. Hurst to take charge of her for a small weekly payment: and so Polly had come for three months to Hill Farm, where she pottered happily all day at small tasks, perfectly content if Robin now and then spared her a cheery word, and always watching for a chance to do her some small service. She liked Mrs. Hurst, and was always gentle and docile with her. But Robin was the sun of her existence.
Cool weather had ended with Christmas. For over a month no rain had fallen, and the paddocks had dried up rapidly, changing from green to yellow within a few days. All the creeks were shrinking, with the exception of Merri Creek, which, fed from its mysterious source above the Falls, had never been known to fail: the others were mere chains of holes, so that there was no water in some of David Merritt’s paddocks. It was a hard season for a district that depended mainly on dairying. The milk-yield began to fall off, so that the cheques from the butter-factory dwindled even as the water dwindled in the creeks: the gardens suffered, and the farmers whose houses were not well equipped with tanks were already carting water for their households—a strenuous task in country so hilly and rough.
Here and there, fires broke out during the last week of January: but settlers were fully alive to the risk they ran, and every outbreak had been fought and beaten before it could spread. Back in the ranges, however, fires were burning: the men of the district watched them anxiously, with grim predictions of what might happen should strong winds bring the blaze down towards the valleys. There were deep-voiced threats against any man who should dare to burn off his cut scrub, with the whole country as dry as tinder and dead grass as thick as a crop in every paddock. “If a fire does come our way,” David Merritt said, “there’ll be no earthly use in fighting it. It’ll be a case of make for the nearest hole in the creek, and be thankful if you get out of it alive!”
“But they always talk like that,” one farmer’s wife said to Mrs. Hurst. “There’ve been other years as dry, with the grass as thick: but even if a fire started they always manage to stop it. And most prob’ly rain’ll came soon.” That was the comforting belief: that rain would come soon. But the sun sank each evening in a sky of angry red; and day after day of breathless heat succeeded nights that, for Gippsland, were extraordinarily hot: Gippsland being a place where hot nights are almost unknown. And still rain seemed as far off as ever.
The afternoon when Barry had been so uncomfortably full of energy was a stifling one: and though his suggestion of a bathe in the creek was enticing, Robin viewed with no pleasure the prospect of the walk across the paddock. However, since he had rushed off to put on the kettle for tea, she felt that she could no longer lie down: and as the bed was hot and her book one that she had read twice before, she was able to be the more philosophic about getting up. She went out to the kitchen to find Barry sitting on the table discoursing to Polly, who greeted her with a delighted smile.
“Hullo, Miss Robin. Isn’t he a funny boy?”
“Rather!” said Robin. “What has he been doing now, Polly?”
“Been telling me stories,” said Polly. “Funny stories. I like your stories best.”
“Of course you do,” said Robin, laughing at Barry’s disgusted face. “I’ll tell you about Cinderella after tea, if you like—when he is out of the way.” For Polly loved stories, and would listen to the simplest fairy-tale, told over and over, with the most perfect delight. It was no unusual thing for her to crouch near Robin as she worked in the garden, listening, with parted lips and shining eyes, while Robin told her “The Three Bears,” or some other nursery classic, between strokes of her hoe.
“I never saw such rotten taste!” said Barry, disgustedly. “I’ve been telling her a gorgeous yarn I read about some Boy Scouts who got off with an aeroplane—but I believe it’s all double-Dutch to her.”
“Yes—double-Dutch!” said Polly, chuckling to herself over the phrase. “Funny little boy!”
“Here, I say—who are you calling little?” demanded Barry, justly indignant.
“Double-Dutch little boy,” crooned Polly, softly. “Double-Dutch little boy!” The words pleased her, and she drifted out of the kitchen, still singing them softly. Barry laughed, but there was pity in the laugh.
“Poor soul!” he said. “She’s just awfully funny, but what a shame it all is. She’d be a jolly nice little woman if she hadn’t had that cruel time.”
“I think she’s that now,” said Robin. “There never was anyone kinder, and she’s very capable and sensible in lots of ways. Only, just like a little child.” She sighed. “You know, I can’t bear to think of her after she leaves here: they are going to put her in some Home or other, and she’ll simply hate it. She can’t stand being within four walls—do you notice she always wanders out of a room after a few minutes? She told me once that something would hurt her if she stayed in a room.”
“Queer idea,” said Barry.
“Yes, isn’t it? And she loves the hills: she often sits on a stump in the paddock and looks at them for an hour at a time. I wonder does she think Jim is in them?”
“I wouldn’t wonder—poor soul. She never asks for him, does she?”
“No—she just says he’s coming back when he finds gold. But she will hate to be in a place with high walls in a city. I think she may begin to fret for Jim then. Mother and I wish we could keep her here, but I suppose it’s out of the question.”
“It would be a tremendous tie,” Barry remarked. “You could never leave her alone.”
“No: it hasn’t mattered yet, but of course it might be a difficulty. Anyhow, we couldn’t afford it. What a blessed nuisance money is! it’s always interfering with what one wants to do. If I could find a gold-mine Mother and I wouldn’t have any worries.”
“You’d have to manage the miners, and they’d always be going on strike,” said Barry, wisely. “Anyhow, you get a heap of fun out of life, without a gold-mine. There! that old kettle is boiling at last: I was getting so hot I thought I should boil before it did! When I strike my own mine, Robin, I’m going to have an electric plant put in here, so’s you can cook by electricity instead of that hot old wood-stove.” He filled the teapot, and then discovered that he had not put in any tea, at which he was justifiably annoyed.
“Your mind is too set on high projects,” laughed Robin, preparing the tray swiftly. “Never mind—you boiled three times as much water as we need; pitch it out, and the teapot will be as hot as Mother likes it to be, which is one good thing. Cake or biscuits? You can’t have bread-and-butter, ’cause all the butter is down the well. It was fast turning to oil this morning, so I put it down the well in a Mason jar.”
“Cake and biscuits, please,” said Barry. “Where’s your mother?”
“Lying down—she promised me, after a heated argument, that she would lie down until after five o’clock. I’m going to take this tray to her.” She went to the door and called softly. “Polly! Are you there?”
“Yes, Miss Robin.” Polly came hurrying, her face alight.
“Here’s your tea. Would you like to take it into the yard, in the shade?”
“Yes, please, Miss Robin. I like the yard.”
“All right. There’s a big piece of cake for you, and two biscuits—don’t let that funny boy get them!” Polly laughed delightedly, and scuttled into the kitchen; and Robin went off with her mother’s tray.
“We’re going for a swim, and we want to try to get some rabbits afterwards, Mother,” she said. “Does it matter if we’re late for tea? I’ll get it when we come in.”
“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Mrs. Hurst. “I don’t think anyone will be in a hurry for tea on such an evening. But don’t knock yourself up, dear.”
“Oh, no. Anyhow, we won’t be really late, because there is so much smoke about that we shan’t be able to shoot once the sun goes down. So I need not milk and feed until we come in. You won’t do it yourself, you bad old mother?—promise! Barry will help me.”
“Very well, I won’t,” Mrs. Hurst said. “Is Polly all right?”
“Yes—I’ll tell her not to go out of the yard. Well, I must go and get my tea, or Barry will have eaten all the cake.” She blew a merry kiss to her mother, and disappeared.
They set off presently across the paddock, Polly straining wistful eyes after their retreating figures.
“Whew-w, it’s hot!” whistled Barry. “Queer, wicked sort of heat—makes a chap feel all anyhow. This is the first day I’ve wanted to be back in Melbourne. Not that I want Melbourne: I don’t—but I want the sea.”
“Then I don’t see why you want the old Melbourne sea—that’s only the Bay.” Robin made disdainful answer. “It’s all used-up water. I’d rather have the Ninety-Mile Beach; great tumbling breakers as far as ever you can see each way, and a big lovely stretch of sand.”
Barry disagreed with this.
“I know it’s good,” he said. “But I want a place where you can dive. I like to get high up above the water and look right down into it, and then just shoot below! And then have room to swim under water: you can dive in some of the creek-holes, but the mud below spoils them. There’s a jetty at Inverloch where I used to dive—gorgeous place, with a good stiff current racing past, out to sea. That’s fun, if you like!”
“Thanks, I like mine without currents,” Robin laughed. “Anyhow, you will have to put up with the creek this afternoon, ’cause its all we’ve got.”
“Lucky to have it,” was Barry’s comment “I’ll race you in!”
They had arrived at their swimming-hole, a deep still place where the creek widened among lofty grey rocks. One formed a shelf that jutted over the deepest part: and when Barry had emerged from his dressing-nook he ran out upon it, standing bare-headed, a muscular, sturdy figure in his scanty swimming-suit. He sent a defiant crow in the direction of Robin, who had not yet appeared, and then bent forward, cleaving the air in a neat dive. A mighty splashing startled Robin, as she ran out, and she looked down to see him swimming wildly across the pool. Gaining the nearest rock he pulled himself out, and gave an excited shout.
“Don’t come in! Ugh! I dived on top of a snake!”
“Barry! It didn’t bite you?”
“No. I scared it too much.” He was scanning the water sharply. “There it is—see him, Robin? He’s swimming towards that little patch of sand between the rocks.”
“I see him,” Robin said. “Nice of him to come out my side, if only I can get a stick in time. Watch him, Barry—don’t take your eyes off him.” She scrambled down the rocks, wincing as sharp edges caught her bare feet; and then turned back to her dressing-hole. “The gun is quicker,” she observed, in answer to Barry’s impatient shout.
She ran out on the ledge with her gun just as the snake crawled out of the water upon the warm stretch of sunny sand. He liked the feel of it, and decided to stay a moment: a decision that was immediately his undoing. The report of the gun shattered the stillness, and what was left of the snake writhed feebly.
“Good man!” said Barry, happily. “That fellow won’t go bathing again.”
“Neither will I, until we have a good look round,” said the lady with the gun. “No fun in bathing with snakes. Get your boots on, Barry, and we’ll make sure his mate is not about.” They beat the bushes with sticks, poked into every crevice, and finally decided that to bathe was safe; and being, by this time, extremely hot, bathed for a very long while, without giving another thought to the possibility of snakes—which, indeed, would scarcely have ventured into the excited waters of the pool when people as energetic as Robin and Barry were disporting themselves in it. Finally, having dressed with reluctance, they pondered on what should be their next step.
“Too early to shoot,” Robin said. “There won’t be many rabbits about, anyhow: the heat and the smoke will keep them in their burrows. That fire up in the ranges must be getting bigger, Barry.”
“The smoke is certainly worse,” Barry remarked. “I hope the old fire stays where it is, that’s all.” He dived into the little canvas bag in which he carried his cartridges, and produced something wrapped in paper. “Know what that is, Robin?”
“No,” said Robin: “I don’t. Rum-looking stuff. What is it, Barry? Soap?”
Barry regarded with a proud eye the stick of putty-like substance he had unwrapped.
“Soap!” he said, scornfully. “I don’t cart yellow soap about with me, you silly! That’s gelignite.” He tossed up the plug and caught it, and Robin gave a cry of alarm.
“You idiot, Barry! Do take care—it might go off.”
“So might you,” was Barry’s impolite response. “Gelignite doesn’t go off like that—you’ve got to have a detonator, and fuse. I’ve got ’em, too.” He took from his bag a length of thick black cord, and a small tin box, handling the latter with considerable respect. It contained an innocent-looking little copper tube, closed at one end.
“That’s the detonator,” he explained. “You stick the end of the fuse into it and nip the tube with pliers so’s she can’t slip out. Then you shove the closed end of the detonator down into the gelignite, and everything’s ready.”
“But how does it go off?”
“Why, you put the gelignite where you want to blast things, and light the fuse: it burns at the rate of about a foot a minute. Soon as she begins to sputter, you know she’s properly alight, and then you scoot as hard as you can lick. And then—bang!”
Robin regarded the expert in explosives with something akin to reverence.
“How did you find out all about it?” she asked.
“Oh, I used to see the men blasting when they were making a new railway line one year when we went to Queensland,” said Barry. “They’d always let me watch until just before they lit the fuse. I found this outfit in one of the sheds, high up on a beam—it was in an old biscuit-tin. Must have belonged to your Uncle Donald.”
“What would he do with it?”
“Oh, lots of men use it for getting rid of old stumps and trees. So I collared it, because I had a great idea!”
“What?” demanded Robin. “Tell me, Barry!”
Barry regarded her in silence for a moment, his head on one side, like an inquisitive bird.
“I thought we could have no end of a lark with it,” he said. “I’ve seen the men using it so often, and I’ve always wanted to have a bit myself.”
“But isn’t it awfully dangerous?”
“Not a bit,” said Barry, airily, “if you know how to use it. Of course, in any ordinary place, and with the country as dry as it is, it wouldn’t do. But you know that rocky place up at the head of that gully—” he jerked his hand towards the hills. “There’s nothing but rocks there and mossy stuff and bare earth—not much earth, either. A few ferns sticking among the lumps of rock. It would be perfectly safe there. Let’s go and try it!”
He sat back on his heels and looked at her with an impish expression of joy in his plan.
“I suppose it would be safe,” Robin said. “The walls of the gully are so steep, and there is no grass there to be set on fire—only a few clumps of bracken, and we could watch them.” Her eye began to kindle. “It would be rather a lark!” she said. “But I wonder what Mr. Merritt would say. He rents that part, you know.”
“Oh, it won’t hurt him. We’ll hunt any of his cows out of the gully, if they’re there. If he hears the bang, and says anything about it, we’ll tell him, of course. I expect he’s used any amount of the stuff himself, blasting out stumps.” Barry jumped up. “Come along, Robin, old chap!”
“All right,” Robin said, recklessly.
“Hurroo!” cried Barry. “I knew you’d be a sport. You’re nearly as good as a boy!” He capered down the rocks ahead of her, and they set off on their way to the gully.
It was an ideal spot for such a lawless enterprise. The gully was a short one, running back between two great rocky hills that were almost bare of timber. At the closed end the walls of rock were very lofty: they could be fairly certain that no flying fragments of stone could reach the top. No stock were to be seen: all the ground was littered with half-buried boulders, among which patches of withered bracken clung. A few rabbits scurried away as they came in sight; but the children were far too excited to think of shooting. The sight, however, gave Robin a flash of common sense.
“We’ll leave the guns and all our cartridges here,” she said, halting beside a big tree near the entrance to the gully—the only tree that grew there. “Put them on this side, and nothing will be likely to touch them when you blow that old cliff to bits!”
“All right,” Barry agreed. “I prospected this place yesterday, you know; there’s a sort of cave between those two great rocks over yonder, and we can hide there while we’re waiting for the bang. Nothing could hit us—it’s as safe as a dugout.” He pranced along, almost running, to the end of the gully, where they halted—two little figures under the walls of frowning grey rock. “That’s the bit of stone I want to shift,” he said, pointing upwards.
Robin looked. A big square rock jutted sharply from the face of the cliff, with a mass of loose boulders under it.
“I’d give my hat to blow that big chap out!” declared Barry, excitedly. “There’s a cleft right behind him, on top—I can just get my hand in, up to the elbow. Gelignite shatters downwards, you know: I want to get the plug well down into that cleft. It’s a perfectly gorgeous place for the charge!”
“Well, it couldn’t do any harm, that I can see,” Robin said. “As long as you’re sure we have time to get out of the way.”
“Oh, whips of time! How do you suppose the men manage when they’re using this stuff every day?”
“They know more about it than I do,” was Robin’s sage comment. “But I suppose it’s all right: I’m game to chance it, anyhow. Carry on!”
She climbed up beside him, and explored for herself the hole where the charge was to go, and watched him place it in position.
“Now, you clear!” he told her. “No sense in our being in each other’s way when we’re scrambling down these rocks.”
“I suppose there isn’t,” she said, unwillingly. “But oh, Barry, do be careful! Suppose you slipped and hurt an ankle or something when you’re getting down?”
“Much more likely to do it if I’ve a girl blocking the way!” said the lordly male. “But I’m not going to do any such fat-headed thing. I know what I’m about. Cut, now, Robin, and I’ll set her going!”
Robin scrambled down the rocks, noting, with some relief, that the way was easy. Further she would not go, alone: she waited, with her heart beginning to beat heavily until Barry followed her, with amazing speed, and together they ran like frightened hares to their “dugout.” As they passed the largest patch of bracken they heard a quiet, satisfied grunting.
“Wonder if that’s a wombat?” panted Barry. “Well, he’s going to get the shock of his life!”
They reached their cave and crawled thankfully into its shelter. A split in the rock gave them a peep-hole, and they looked out anxiously. As they did so, two plump forms emerged from the ferns, still grunting.
“Oh, my sainted Aunt!” groaned Barry. “Robin, they’re Merritt’s young pigs!”
“Barry!” screamed Robin. “I’m going to hunt them!” She wriggled back, and the boy caught her sleeve in a tight grip.
“You silly ass!” he panted. “Keep back! I wouldn’t let you go out there for fifty pigs! Keep your head down, I tell you, Robin, you old——”
Bang!
The explosion burst upon their ears with shattering force. Never was such a noise—the walls of the gully, closing it in, seemed to rock with its deafening thunder. The great mass of rock shot from the face of the cliff, flying into a hundred pieces. Shattered fragments strewed the ground, banging and clattering on their protecting crags. One little pig uttered an ear-piercing shriek, and fled for the open country, his shrill notes of protest dying away in the distance. The other disappeared beneath a hurtling mass of stone.