Before the mustered horses were drafted out, every one at the homestead, blacks, whites, and Chinese, went up to the stockyard to “have a look at them.”
Dan was in one of his superior moods. “Let’s see if she knows anything about horses,” he said condescendingly, as the Quiet Stockman opened the mob up a little to show the animals to better advantage. “Show us your fancy in this lot, missus.” “Certainly,” I said, affecting particular knowledge of the subject, and Jack wheeled with a quick, questioning look, suddenly aware that, after all, a womanmightbe only a fellow-man; and as I glanced from one beautiful animal to another he watched keenly, half expectant and half incredulous.
It did not take long to choose. In the foreground stood a magnificent brown colt, that caught and held the attention, as it watched every movement with ears shot forward, and nostrils quivering; and as I pointed it out Jack’s boyish face lit up with surprise and pleasure.
“Talk of luck!” Dan cried, as usual withholding the benefit of the doubt. “You’ve picked Jack’s fancy.”
But it was Jack himself who surprised every one, for, forgetting his monosyllables, he said with an indescribable ring of fellowship in his voice, “She’s picked out the best in the whole mob,” and turned back to his world among the horses with his usual self-possession.
Dan’s eyes opened wide. “Whatever’s come to Jack?” he said; but seemed puzzled at the Măluka’s answer that he was “only getting educated.” The truth is, that every man has his vulnerable point, and Jack’s was horses.
When the mob had been put through the yards, all the unbroken horses were given into the Quiet Stockman’s care, and for the next week or two the stockyard became the only place of real interest; for the homestead, waiting for the Wet to lift, had settled down to store lists, fencing, and stud books.
It was not the horses alone that were of interest at the yards; the calm, fearless, self-reliant man who was handling them was infinitely more so. Nothing daunted or disheartened him; and in those hours spent on the stockyard fence, in the shade of a spreading tree, I learnt to know the Quiet Stockman for the man he was.
If any one would know the inner character of a fellow man, let him put him to horse-breaking, and he will soon know the best or the worst of him. Let him watch him handling a wild, unbroken colt, and if he is steadfast of purpose, just, brave, and true-hearted, it will all be revealed; but if he lacks self-restraint, or is cowardly, shifty, or mean-spirited, he will do well to avoid the test, for the horse will betray him.
Jack’s horse-breaking was a battle for supremacy of mind over mind, not mind over matter a long course of careful training and schooling, in which nothing was broken, but all bent to the control of a master. To him no two horses were alike; carefully he studied their temperaments, treating each horse according to its nature—using the whip freely with some, and with others not at all; coercing, coaxing, or humouring, as his judgment directed. Working always for intelligent obedience, not cowed stupidity, he appeared at times to be almost reasoning with the brute mind, as he helped it to solve the problems of its schooling; penetrating dull stupidity with patient reiteration, or wearing down stubborn opposition with steady, unwavering persistence, and always rewarding ultimate obedience with gentle kindness and freedom.
Step by step, the training proceeded. Submission first, then an establishment of perfect trust and confidence between horse and man, without which nothing worth having could be attained.
After that, in orderly succession the rest followed: toleration of handling, reining, mouthing, leading on foot, and on horseback and in due time saddling and mounting. One thing at a time and nothing new until the old was so perfected that when all was ready for the mounting—from a spectacular point of view—the mounting was generally disappointing. Just a little rearing and curvetting, then a quiet, trusting acceptance of this new order of things.
Half a dozen horses were in hand at once, and, as with children at school, some quickly got ahead of the others, and every day the interest grew keener and keener in the individual character of the horses. At the end of a week Jack announced that he was “going to catch the brown colt,” next day. “It’ll be worth seeing,” he said; and from the Quiet Stockman that was looked upon as a very pressing invitation.
From the day of the draughting he had ceased altogether to avoid me, and in the days that followed had gradually realised that a horse could be more to a woman than a means of locomotion; and now no longer drew the line at conversations.
When we went up to the yards in the morning, the brown colt was in a small yard by itself, and Jack was waiting at the gate, ready for its “catching.”
With a laugh at the wild rush with which the colt avoided him, he shut himself into the yard with it, and moved quietly about, sometimes towards it and sometimes from it; at times standing still and looking it over, and at other times throwing a rope or sack carelessly down, waiting until his presence had become familiar, and the colt had learned that there was nothing to fear from it.
There was a curious calmness in the man’s movements, a fearless repose that utterly ignored the wild rushes, and as a natural result they soon ceased; and within just a minute or two the beautiful creature was standing still, watching in quivering wonder.
Gradually a double rope began to play in the air with ever-increasing circles, awakening anew the colt’s fears; and as these in turn subsided, without any apparent effort a long running noose flickered out from the circling rope, and, falling over the strong young head, lay still on the arching neck.
The leap forward was terrific; but the rope brought the colt up with a jerk; and in the instant’s pause that followed the Quiet Stockman braced himself for the mad rearing plunges that were coming. There was literally only an instant’s pause, and then with a clatter of hoofs the plungings began, and were met with muscles of iron, and jaw set like a vice, as the man, with heels dug into the ground dragged back on the rope, yielding as much as his judgment allowed—enough to ease the shocks, but not an inch by compulsion.
Twice the rearing, terrified creature circled round him and then the rope began to shorten to a more workable length. There was no haste, no flurry. Surely and steadily the rope shortened (but the horse went to the man not the man to the horse; that was to come later). With the shortening of the rope the compelling power of the man’s will forced itself into the brute mind, and, bending to that will, the wild leaps and plungings took on a vague suggestion of obedience—a goingwiththe rope, not against it; that was all. An erratic going, perhaps, but enough to tell that the horse had acknowledged a master. That was all Jack asked for at first, and, satisfied, he relaxed his muscles, and as the rope slackened the horse turned and faced him; and the marvel was how quickly it was all over.
But something was to follow, that once seen could never be forgotten the—advance of the man to the horse.
With barely perceptible movement, the man’s hands stole along the rope at a snail’s pace. Never hurrying never stopping, they slid on, the colt watching them as though mesmerised. When within reach of the dilated nostrils, they paused and waited, and slowly the sensitive head came forward snuffing, more in bewilderment than fear at this new wonder, and as the dark twitching muzzle brushed the hands, the head drew sharply back, only to return again in a moment with greater confidence.
Three or four times the quivering nostrils came back to the hands before they stirred, then one lifted slowly and lay on the muzzle, warm and strong and comforting, while the other, creeping up the rope, slipped on to the glossy neck, and the catching was over.
For a little while there was some gentle patting and fondling, to a murmuring accompaniment of words; the horse standing still with twitching ears the while. Then came the test of the victory—the test of the man’s power and the creature’s intelligence. The horse was to go to the man, at the man’s bidding alone, without force or coercion. “The better they are the sooner you learn ’em that,” was one of Jack’s pet theories, while his proudest boast—his only boast—perhaps was that he’d “never been beaten on that yet.”
“They have to come sooner or later if you stick at ’em,” he had said, when I marvelled at first to see the great creatures come obediently to the click of his tongue or fingers. So far in all his wide experience the latest had been the third day. That, however, was rare; more frequently it was a matter of hours, sometimes barely an hour, while now and then—incredulous as it may seem to the layman—only minutes.
Ten minutes before Jack put the brown colt to the test it had been a wild, terrified, plunging creature, and yet, as he stepped back to try its intelligence and submission, his face was confident and expectant.
Moving slowly backwards, he held out one hand—the hand that had proved all kindness and comfort—and, snapping a finger and thumb, clicked his tongue in a murmur of invitation.
The brown ears shot forward to attention at the sound, and as the head reached out to investigate, the snapping fingers repeated the invitation, and without hesitation the magnificent creature went forward obediently until the hand was once more resting on the dark muzzle.
The trusting beauty of the surrender seemed to break some spell that had held us silent since the beginning of the catching. “Oh, Jack! Isn’t he a beauty?” I cried unconsciously putting my admiration into a question.
But Jack no longer objected to questions. He turned towards us with soft, shining eyes. “There’s not many like him,” he said, pulling at one of the flexible ears. “You could learn him anything.” It seemed so, for after trying to solve the problem of the roller and bit with his tongue when it was put into his mouth, he accepted the mystery with quiet, intelligent trust; and as soon as he was freed from it, almost courted further fondling. He would let no one but Jack near him, though. When we entered the yard the ears went back and the whites of the eyes showed. “No one but me for a while,” Jack said, with a strange ring of ownership in his voice, telling that it is a good thing to have a horse that is yours, and yours only.
Within a week “Brownie” was mounted, and ridden down to the House for final inspection, before “going bush” to learn the art of rounding up cattle. “He’ll let you touch him now,” Jack said; and after a snuffing inquiry at my hands the beautiful creature submitted to their caresses.
Dan looked at him with approving eyes. “To think she had the luck to choose him too, out of all that crowd,” he said.
“Wealways call it instinct, I think,” the Măluka said teasingly, twitting me on one of my pet theories, and the Dandy politely suggested “It might be knowledge.’”
Then the Quiet Stockman gave his opinion, making it very clear that he no longer felt that women had nothing in common with men. “It neverisanythingbutinstinct,” he said, with quiet decision in his voice. “No one everlearnshorses.”
While the Quiet Stockman had been busy rearranging his ideas of womankind, a good many things had been going wrong at the homestead. Sam began by breaking both china cups, and letting the backbone slip out of everything in his charge.
Fowls laid-out and eggs became luxuries. Cream refused to rise on the milk. It seemed impossible to keep meat sweet. Jimmy lost interest in the gathering of firewood and the carrying of water; and as a result, the waterbutts first shrank, then leaked, and finally lay down, a medley of planks and iron hoops. A swarm of grasshoppers passed through the homestead, and to use Sam’s explicit English: “Vegetable bin finissem all about”; and by the time fresh seeds were springing the Wet returned with renewed vigour, and flooded out the garden. Then stores began to fail, including soap and kerosene, and writing-paper and ink threatened to “peter out.” After that the lubras, in a private quarrel during the washing of clothes, tore one of the “couple of changes” of blouses sadly; and the mistress of a cattle-station was obliged to entertain guests at times in a pink cambric blouse patched with a washed calico flour-bag; no provision having been made for patching. Then just as we were wondering what else could happen, one night, without the slightest warning, the very birds migrated from the lagoon, carrying away with them the promise of future pillows, to say nothing of a mattress, and the Măluka was obliged to go far afield in search of non-migrating birds.
Dan wagged his head and talked wise philosophy, with these disasters for the thread of his discourse; but even he was obliged to own that there was a limit to education when Sam announced that “Tea bin finissem all about.”
He had found that the last eighty-pound tea-chest contained tinware when he opened it to replenish his teacaddy. Tea had been ordered, and the chest was labelled tea clearly enough, to show that the fault lay in Darwin; but that was poor consolation to us, the sufferers.
The necessities of the bush are few; but they are necessities; and Billy Muck was sent in to the Katherine post-haste, to beg, borrow, or buy tea from Mine Host. At the least a horseman would take six days for the trip, irrespective of time lost in packing up; but knowing Billy’s untiring, swinging stride, we hoped to see him within four days.
Billy left at midday, and we drank our last cup of tea at supper; the next day learned what slaves we can be to our bodies. Because we lacked tea, the interest went out of everything. Listless and unsatisfied, we sat about and developed headaches, not thirsty—for there was water in plenty—but craving for the uplifting influence of tea. Never drunkards craved more intensely for strong drink! Sam made coffee; but coffee only increased the headaches and cravings, and so we sat peering into the forest, hoping for travellers; and all we learnt by the experience was that tea is a necessary of life out-bush.
On the second evening a traveller came in from the south track. “He wouldn’t refuse a woman, surely,” every one said, and we welcomed him warmly.
He had about three ounces of tea. “Meant to fill up here meself,” he said in apology, as, with the generosity of a bushman, he offered it all unconditionally. Let us hope the man has been rewarded, and has never since known what it is to be tealess out-bush! We never heard his name, and I doubt if any one of us would know the man again if we saw him. All we saw was a dingy tuckerbag, with its one corner bulging heart-shaped with tea!
We accepted one half, for the man had a three-days, journey before him, and Sam doled it out so frugally that we spent two comparatively happy days before fixing our attention on the north track, along which Billy would return.
In four and a half days he appeared, carrying a five-pound tea-tin on his head, and was hailed with a yell of delight. We were all in the stockyard, and Billy, in answer to the hail, came there.
Dan wanted a “sniff of it right off,” so it was then and there opened; but as the lid flew back the yell of delight changed to a howl of disappointment. By some hideous mistake, Billy had broughtraisins.
Like many philosophers, Dan could not apply his philosophy to himself. “It’s the dead finish,” he said dejectedly; “never struck anything like it before. Twice over too,” he added. “First tinware and now this foolery”; and he kicked savagely at the offending tin, sending a shower of raisins dancing out into the dust.
Every one but Dan was speechless, while Billy, not being a slave to tea-drinking, gathered the raisins up, failing to see any cause for disappointment, particularly as most of the raisins fell to his share for his prompt return.
He also failed to see any advantage in setting out again for the Katherine. “Might it catch raisins nuzzer time,” he said, logically enough.
Dan became despondent at the thought. “They’re fools enough for anything,” he said. I tried to cheer him up on the law of averages, as Goggle-Eye was sent off with instructions to travel “quick-fellow, quick-fellow, big mob quick-fellow,” and many promises of reward if he was back in “four fellow sleeps.”
For two more days we peered into the forest for travellers but none appeared, and Dan became retrospective. “We might have guessed this ’ud happen,” he said, declaring it was a “judgment on the missus” for chucking good tea away just because a fly got into it. “Luck’s cleared right out because of it, missus,” he said; “and if things go on like this Johnny’ll be coming along one of these days.” (Dan was the only one of us who could joke on the matter.)
“Luck’s smashed all to pieces,” he insisted later, when he found that the first pillow was finished; but at sundown was inclined to think it might be “on the turn again,” for Goggle-Eye appeared on the north track, stalking majestically in front of a horseman.
“Me bin catch traveller,” he said triumphantly, claiming his rewards, “Me bin come back two fellow sleep”; and before we could explainthatwas hardly what we had meant, the man had ridden up.
“Heard you were doing a famish here, sitting with your tongues hanging out,” he laughed, “so I’ve brought you a few more raisins.” And dismounting, he drew out from a pack-bag a long calico bag containing quite ten pounds of tea.
“You struck the Wag’s tin,” he said, explaining the mistake, as every one shouted for Sam to boil a kettle instantly, and with the tea came a message from the Wag himself:
“I’ll trouble you for my raisins”; and we could almost hear the Wag’s slow, dry chuckle underlying the words.
Mine Host also sent a message, saying he would “send further supplies every opportunity, to keep things going until the waggons came through,” and underlyinghismessage we felt his kindly consideration. As a further proof of his thoughtfulness we found two china cups imbedded in the tea. He had heard of Sam’s accident. Tea in china cups! and as much and as strong as we desired. But in spite of Mine Host’s efforts to keep us going, twice again, before the waggons came, we found ourselves begging tea from travellers.
Our energies revived with the very first cup of tea, and we went for our usual evening stroll through the paddocks, with all our old appreciation; and on our return found the men stretched out on the grass beyond the Quarters, optimistic and happy, sipping at further cups of tea. (Sam’s kettle was kept busy that night.)
The men’s optimism was infectious, and presently the Măluka “supposed the waggons would be starting before long.”
It was only March, and the waggons had to wait till the Wet lifted; but just then every one felt sure that “the Wet would lift early this year.”
“Generally does with the change of moon before Easter,” the traveller said, and, flying off at a tangent, I asked when Easter was, unwittingly setting the homestead a tough problem.
Nobody “could say for certain.” But Dan “knew a chap once who could reckon it by the moon” and the Măluka felt inspired to work it out. “It’s simple enough,” he said. “The first Friday—or is it Sunday?—after the first full moon,afterthe twenty-first of March.”
“Twenty-fifth, isn’t it?” the Dandy asked, complicating matters from the beginning.
The traveller reckoned it’d be new moon about Monday or Tuesday, which seemed near enough at the time; and full moon was fixed for the Tuesday or Wednesday fortnight from that.
“That ought to settle it,” Dan said; and so it might have if any one had been sure of Monday’s date; but we all had different convictions about that, varying from the ninth to the thirteenth.
After much ticking off of days upon fingers, with an old newspaper as “something to work from,” the date of the full moon was fixed for the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of March, unless the moon came in so late on Tuesday that it brought the full to the morning of the twenty-sixth.
“Seems getting a bit mixed,” Dan said, and matters were certainly complicated.
If we were to reckon from the twenty-first, Easter was in March, but if from the twenty-fifth, in April—if the moon came in on Monday, but March in either case if the full was on the twenty-sixth.
Dan suggested “giving it best.” “It ’ud get anybody dodged,” he said, hopelessly at sea; but the Măluka wanted to “see it through.” “The new moon should clear most of it up,” he said; “but you’ve given us a teaser this time, little ’un.”
The new moon should have cleared everything up if we could have seen it, but the Wet coming on in force again, we saw nothing till Thursday evening, when it was too late to calculate with precision.
Dan was for having two Easters, and “getting even with it that way”; but Sam unexpectedly solved the problem for us.
“What was the difficulty?” he asked, and listened to the explanation attentively. “Bunday!” he exclaimed at the finish, showing he had fully grasped the situation. Of course he knew all about Bunday! Wasn’t it so many weeks after the Chinaman’s New Year festival? And in a jargon of pidgin-English he swept aside all moon discussions, and fixed the date of “Bunday” for the twenty-eighth of March, “which,” as Dan wisely remarked, “proved that somebody was right,” but whether the Măluka or the Dandy, or the moon, he forgot to specify. “The old heathen to beat us all too,” he added, “just when it had got us all dodged.” Dan took all the credit of the suggestion to himself. Then he looked philosophically on the toughness of the problem: “Anyway,” he said, “the missus must have learnt a bit about beginning at the beginning of things. Just think what she’d have missed if any one had known when Easter was right off!”
“What she’d have missed indeed. Exactly what the townsman misses, as long as he remains in a land where everything can be known right off.”
But a new idea had come to Dan. “Of course,” he said, “as far as that goes, if Johnny does turn up she ought to learn a thing or two, while he’s moving the dining-room up the house”; and he decided to welcome Johnny on his return.
He had not long to wait, for in a day or two Johnny rode into the homestead, followed by a black boy carrying a cross-cut saw. This time he hailed us with a cheery:
“Nowwe shan’t be long.”
It had taken over six weeks to “get hold of little Johnny”; but as the Dandy had prophesied, once he started, he “made things hum in no time.”
“Now we shan’t be long,” he said, flourishing a tape measure; and the Dandy was kept busy for half a day, “wrestling with the calculating.”
That finished, the store was turned inside out and a couple of “boys” sent in for “things needed,” and after them more “boys” for more things; and then other “boys” for other things, until travellers must have thought the camp blacks had entered into a walking competition. When everything necessary was ordered, “all hands” were put on to sharpen saws and tools, and the homestead shrieked and groaned all day with harsh, discordant raspings. Then a camp was pitched in the forest, a mile or so from the homestead; a sawpit dug, a platform erected, and before a week had passed an invitation was issued, for the missus to “come and see a tree felled.” “Laying the foundation-stone,” the Măluka called it.
Johnny of course welcomed us with a jovial “Now we shan’t be long,” and shouldering a tomahawk, led the way out of the camp into the timber.
House-hunting in town does not compare favourably with timber-hunting for a house, in a luxuriant tropical forest. Sheltered from the sun and heat we wandered about in the feathery undergrowth, while the Măluka tested the height of the giant timber above us with shots from his bull-dog revolver bringing down twigs and showers of leaves from the topmost branches, and sending flocks of white cockatoos up into the air with squawks of amazement.
Tree after tree was chosen and marked with the tomahawk, each one appearing taller and straighter and more beautiful than any of its fellows until, finding ourselves back at the camp, Johnny went for his axe and left us to look at the beauty around us.
“Seems a pity to spoil all this, just to make four walls to shut the missus in from anything worth looking at,” Dan murmured as Johnny reappeared. “They won’t make anything as good as this up at the house.” Johnny the unpoetical hesitated, perplexed. Philosophy was not in his line. “ ’Tisn’t too bad,” he said, suddenly aware of the beauty of the scene, and then the tradesman came to the surface. “I reckonmyjob’ll be a bit more on the plumb, though,” he chuckled, and, delighted with his little joke, shouldered his axe and walked towards one of the marked trees, while Dan speculated aloud on the chances a man had of “getting off alive” if a tree fell on him.
“Trees don’t fall on a man that knows how to handle timber,” the unsuspecting Johnny said briskly; and as Dan feared that “fever was her only chance then,” he spat on his hands, and, sending the axe home into the bole of the tree with a clean, swinging stroke, laid the foundation-stone—the foundation-stone of a tiny home in the wilderness, that was destined to be the dwelling-place of great joy, and happiness, and sorrow.
The Sanguine Scot had prophesied rightly. There being “time enough for everything in the Never-Never,” there was time for “many pleasant rides along the Reach, choosing trees for timber.”
But the rides were the least part of the pleasure. For the time being, the silent Reach forest had become the hub of our little universe. All was life and bustle and movement there. Every day fresh trees were felled and chopping contests entered into by Johnny and the Dandy; and as the trees fell in quick succession, black boys and lubras armed with tomahawks, swarmed over them, to lop away the branches, before the trunks were dragged by the horses to the mouth of the sawpit. Every one was happy and light-hearted, and the work went merrily forward, until a great pile of tree-trunks lay ready for the sawpit.
Then a new need arose: Johnny wanted several yards of strong string, and a “sup” of ink, to make guiding lines on the timber for his saw; but as only sewing cotton was forthcoming, and the Măluka refused to part with one drop of his precious ink, we were obliged to go down to the beginning of things once more: two or three lubras were set to work to convert the sewing-cotton into tough, strong string, while others prepared a substitute for the ink from burnt water-lily roots.
The sawing of the tree-trunks lasted for nearly three weeks, and the Dandy, being the under-man in the pit, had anything but a merry time. Down in the pit, away from the air, he worked; pulling and pushing, pushing and pulling, hour after hour, in a blinding stream of sawdust.
When we offered him sympathy and a gossamer veil, he accepted the veil gratefully, but waved the sympathy aside, saying it was “all in the good cause.” Nothing was ever a hardship to the Dandy, excepting dirt.
Johnny being a past-master in his trade, stood on the platform in the upper air, guiding the saw along the marked lines; and as he instructed us all in the fine art of pit-sawing, Dan decided that the building of a house, under some circumstances, could be an education in itself.
“Thought she might manage to learn a thing or two out of it,” he said. “The building of it is right enough. It all depends what she uses it for when Johnny’s done with it.”
As the pliant saw coaxed beams, and slabs, and flooring boards out of the forest trees I grew to like beginning at the beginning of things, and realised there was an underlying truth in Dan’s whimsical reiteration, that “the missus was in luck when she struck this place”; for beams and slabs and flooring boards wrested from Nature amid merrymaking and philosophical discourses are not as other beams and slabs and flooring boards. They are old friends and fellow-adventurers, with many a good tale to tell, recalling comical situations in their reminiscences with a vividness that baffles description.
Perhaps those who live in homes with the beginning of things left behind in forests they have never seen, may think chattering planks a poor compensation for unpapered, rough-boarded walls and unglazed window frames. Let them try it before they judge; remembering always, that before a house can be built of old friends and memories the friends must be made and the memories lived through.
But other things beside the sawing of timber were in progress, Things were also “humming” in the dog world. A sturdy fox-terrier, Brown by name, had been given by a passing traveller to the Măluka, given almost of necessity for Brown—as is the way with fox-terriers at times—quietly changed masters, and lying down at the Măluka’s feet, had refused to leave him. The station dogs resented his presence there, and persecuted him as an interloper; and being a peace-loving dog, Brown bore it patiently for two days, hoping, no doubt, the persecution would wear itself out. On the third day, however, he quietly changed his tactics—for sometimes the only road to peace is through fighting—and, accepting their challenge, took on the station dogs one by one in single combat.
Only a full-sized particularly sturdy-looking fox-terrier against expert cattle dogs; and yet no dog could stand against him. One by one he closed with them, and one by one they went before him; and at the end of a week he was “cock of the walk,” and lay down to enjoy his well-earned peace. His death-stroke was a flashing lunge, from a grip of a foreleg to a sharp, grinding grip of the enemy’s tongue. How he managed it was a puzzle, but sooner or later he got his grip in, to let go at the piercing yell of defeat that invariably followed. But Brown was a gentleman, not a bully, and after each fight buried the hatchet, appearing to shake hands with his late adversary. No doubt if he had had a tail he would have wagged it, but Brown had been born with a large, perfectly round, black spot, at the root of his tail, and his then owner, having an eye for the picturesque, had removed his white tail entirely, even to its last joint, to allow of no break in the spot; and when the spirit moved Brown to wag a tail, a violent stirring of hairs in the centre of this spot betrayed his desire to the world. It goes without saying that Brown did not fight the canine women-folk; for, as some one has said, man is the only animal that strikes his women-folk.
Most of the battles were fought in the station thoroughfare, all of them taking on the form of a general mêlée. As soon as Brown closed with an enemy, the rest of the dogs each sought an especial adversary, hoping to wipe out some past defeat; while the pups, having no past to wipe out, diverted themselves by skirmishing about on the outskirts of the scrimmage, nipping joyously at any hind quarters that came handy, bumping into other groups of pups, thoroughly enjoying life, and accumulating material for future fights among themselves.
Altogether we had a lively week. To interfere in the fights only prolonged them; and, to add to the general hubbub, the servant question had opened up again. Jimmy’s Nellie, who had been simmering for some time, suddenly rebelled, and refused to consider herself among the rejected.
We said there was no vacancy on the staff for her, and she immediately set herself to create one, by pounding and punching at the staff in private. Finding this of no avail, she threatened to “sing” Maudie dead, also in private, unless she resigned. Maudie proving unexpectedly tough and defiant, Nellie gave up all hope of creating a vacancy, and changing front, adopted a stone-walling policy. Every morning, quietly and doggedly, she put herself on the staff, and every morning was as quietly and doggedly dismissed from office.
Doggedness being an unusual trait in a black fellow, the homestead became interested. “Never say die, little ’un,” the Măluka laughed each morning; but Dan was inclined to bet on Nellie.
“She’s got nothing else to do, and can concentrate all her thoughts on it,” he said, “and besides, it means more for her.”
It meant a good deal to me, too, for I particularly objected to Jimmy’s Nellie partly because she was an inveterate smoker and a profuse spitter upon floors; partly because—well to be quite honest—because a good application of carbolic soap would have done no harm; and partly because she appeared to have a passion for exceedingly scanty garments, her favourite costume being a skirt made from the upper half of a fifty-pound calico flour bag. Her blouses had, apparently, been all mislaid.
Nellie, unconscious of my real objections, daily and doggedly put herself on the staff, and was daily and doggedly dismissed. But as she generally managed to do the very thing that most needed doing, before I could find her to dismiss, Dan was offering ten to one on Nellie by Easter time.
“Another moon’ll see her on the staff,” he prophesied, as we prepared to go out-bush for Easter.
The Easter moon had come in dry and cool, and at its full the Wet lifted, as our traveller had foretold. Only a bushman’s personal observation, remember, this lifting of the Wet with the full of the Easter moon, not a scientific statement; but by an insight peculiarly their own, bushmen come at more facts than most men.
Sam did his best with Bunday, serving hot rolls with mysterious markings on them for breakfast, and by midday he had the homestead to himself, the Măluka and I being camped at Bitter Springs and every one else being elsewhere. Our business was yard-inspection, with Goggle-Eye as general factotum. We, of course, had ridden out, but Goggle-Eye had preferred to walk. “Me all day knock up longa horse,” he explained striding comfortably along beside us.
Several exciting hours were spent with boxes of wax matches, burning the rank grass back from the yard at the springs (at Goggle-Eye’s suggestion the missus had been pressed into the service); and then we rode through the rank grass along the river, scattering matches as we went like sparks from an engine. As soon as the rank grass seeds it must be burnt off, before the soil loses its moisture, to ensure a second shorter spring, and everywhere we went now clouds of dense smoke rose behind us.
That walk about with the Măluka and “Gadgerrie” lived like a red-letter day in old Goggle-Eye’s memory; for did he not himself strike a dozen full boxes of matches?
Dan was away beyond the northern boundary, going through the cattle, judging the probable duration of “outside waters” for that year, burning off too as he rode. The Quiet Stockman was away beyond the southern boundary, rounding up wanderers and stragglers among the horses, and the station was face to face with the year’s work, making preparations for the year’s mustering and branding—for with the lifting of the Wet everything in the Never-Never begins to move.
“After the Wet” rivers go down, the north-west monsoon giving place to the south-east Trades; bogs dry up everywhere, opening all roads; travellers pass through the stations from all points of the compass—cattle buyers, drovers, station-owners, telegraph people—all bent on business, and all glad to get moving after the long compulsory inaction of the Wet; and lastly that great yearly cumbrous event takes place: the starting of the “waggons,” with their year’s stores for Inside.
The first batch of travellers had little news for us. They had heard that the teams were loading up, and couldn’t say for certain, and, finding them unsatisfactory, we looked forward to the coming of the “Fizzer,” our mailman, who was almost due.
Eight mails a year was our allowance, with an extra one now and then through the courtesy of travellers. Eight mails a year against eight hundred for the townsfolk. Was it any wonder that we all found we had business at the homestead when the Fizzer was due there?
When he came this trip he was, as usual, brimming over with news: personal items, public gossip, and the news that the horse teams had got most of their loading on, and that the Macs were getting their bullocks under way. Two horse waggons and a dray for far “inside,” and three bullock waggons for the nearer distances, comprised the “waggons” that year. The teamsters were Englishmen; but the bullock-punchers were three “Macs”—an Irishman, a Highlander, and the Sanguine Scot.
Six waggons, and about six months’ hard travelling, in and out, to provide a year’s stores for three cattle stations and two telegraph stations. It is not surprising that the freight per ton was what it was—twenty-two pounds per ton for the Elsey, and upwards of forty pounds for “inside.” It is this freight that makes the grocery bill such a big item on stations out-bush, where several tons of stores are considered by no means a large order.
Close on the heels of the Fizzer came other travellers, with the news that the horse teams had got going and the Macs had “pulled out” to the Four Mile. “Your trunks’ll be along in no time now, missus,” one of them said. “They’ve got ’em all aboard.”
The Dandy did some rapid calculations: “Ten miles a day on good roads,” he said: “one hundred and seventy miles. Tens into that seventeen days. Give ’em a week over for unforeseen emergencies, and call it four weeks.” It sounded quite cheerful and near at hand, but a belated thunderstorm or two, and consequent bogs, nearly doubled the four weeks.
Almost every day we heard news of the teams from the now constant stream of travellers; and by the time the timber was all sawn and carted to the house to fulfil the many promises there, they were at the Katherine.
But if the teams were at the Katherine, so were the teamsters, and so was the Pub; and when teamsters and a pub get together it generally takes time to separate them, when that pub is the last for over a thousand miles. One pub at the Katherine and another at Oodnadatta and between them over a thousand miles of bush, and desert and dust, and heat, and thirst. That, from a teamster’s point of view, is the Overland Route from Oodnadatta to the Katherine.
A pub had little attraction for the Sanguine Scot, and provided he could steer the other Macs safely past the one at the Katherine, there would be no delay there with the trunks; but the year’s stores were on the horse teams and the station, having learnt bitter experience from the past, now sent in its own waggon for the bulk of the stores, as soon as they were known to be at the Katherine; and so the Dandy set off at once.
“You’ll see me within a fortnight, bar accidents” he called back, as the waggon lurched forward towards the slip-rails; and the pub also having little attraction for the Dandy, we decided to expect him, “bar accidents.” For that matter, a pub had little attraction for any of the Elsey men, the Quiet Stockman being a total abstainer, and Dan knowing “how to behave himself,” although he owned to having “got a bit merry once or twice.”
The Dandy out of sight, Johnny went back to his work, which happened to be hammering the curves out of sheets of corrugated iron.
“Now we shan’t be long,” he shouted, hammering vigorously, and when I objected to the awful din, he reminded me, with a grin, that it was “all in the good cause.” When “smoothed out,” as Johnny phrased it, the iron was to be used for capping the piles that the house was built upon, “to make them little white ants stay at home.”
“We’ll smooth all your troubles out, if you give us time,” he shouted, returning to the hammering after his explanation with even greater energy. But by dinnertime some one had waddled into our lives who was to smooth most of the difficulties out of it, to his own, and our complete satisfaction.
Just as Sam announced dinner a cloud of dust creeping along the horizon attracted our attention.
“Foot travellers!” Dan decided; but something emerged out of the dust, as it passed through the sliprails, that looked very like a huge mould of white jelly on horse-back.
Directly it sighted us it rolled off the horse, whether intentionally or unintentionally we could not say, and leaving the beast to the care of chance, unfolded two short legs from somewhere and waddled towards us—a fat, jovial Chinese John Falstaff.
“Good day, boss! Good day, missus! Good day, all about,” he said in cheerful salute, as he trundled towards us like a ship’s barrel in full sail. “Me new cook, me—” and then Sam appeared and towed him into port.
“Well, I’m blest!” Dan exclaimed, staring after him. “Whathavewe struck?”
But Johnny knew, as did most Territorians. “You’ve struck Cheon, that’s all,” he said. “Talk of luck! He’s the jolliest old josser going.”
The “jolliest old josser” seemed difficult to repress; for already he had eluded Sam, and, reappearing in the kitchen doorway, waddled across the thoroughfare towards us.
“Me new cook!” he repeated, going on from where he had left off. “Me Cheon!” and then, in queer pidgin-English, he solemnly rolled out a few of his many qualifications:
“Me savey all about,” he chanted. “Me savey cook ’im, and gard’in’, and milk ’im, and chuckie, and fishin’ and shootin’ wild duck.” On and on he chanted through a varied list of accomplishments, ending up with an application for the position of cook. “Me sit down? Eh boss?” he asked, moon-faced and serious.
“Please yourself!” the Măluka laughed, and with a flash of white teeth and an infectious chuckle Cheon laughed and nodded back; then, still chuckling, he waddled away to the kitchen and took possession there, while we went to our respective dinners, little guessing that the truest-hearted, most faithful, most loyal old “josser” had waddled into our lives.
Cheon rose at cock-crow (“fowl-sing-out,” he preferred to call it), and began his duties by scornfully refusing Sam’s bland offer of instruction in the “ways of the homestead.”
“Me savey all about,” he said, with a majestic wave of his hands, after expressing supreme contempt for Sam’s caste and ways; so Sam applied for his cheque, shook hands all round, and withdrew smilingly.
Sam’s account being satisfactorily “squared,” Cheon’s name was then formally entered in the station books as cook and gardener, at twenty-five shillings a week. That was the only vacancy he ever filled in the books; but in our life at the homestead he filled almost every vacancy that required filling, and there were many.
There was nothing he could not and did not do for our good, and it was well that he refused to be instructed in anybody’s ways, for his own were delightfully disobedient and unexpected and entertaining. Not only had we “struck the jolliest old josser going,” but a born ruler and organiser into the bargain. He knew best what was good for us, and told us so, and, meekly bending to his will, our orders became mere suggestions to be entertained and carried out if approved of by Cheon, or dismissed as “silly-fellow” with a Podsnapian wave of his arm if they in no way appealed to him.
Full of wrath for Sam’s ways, and bubbling over with trundling energy, he calmly appropriated the whole staff, as well as Jimmy, Billy Muck, and the rejected, and within a week had put backbone into everything that lacked it, from the water-butts to old Jimmy.
The first two days were spent in a whirlwind of dust and rubbish, turned out from unguessed-at recesses, and Cheon’s jovial humour suiting his helpers to a nicety, the rubbish was dealt with amid shouts of delight and enjoyment; until Jimmy, losing his head in his lightness of heart, dug Cheon in the ribs, and, waving a stick over his head, yelled in mock fierceness: “Me wild-fellow, black fellow. Me myall-fellow.”
Then Cheon came out in a new rôle. Without a moment’s hesitation his arms and legs appeared to fly out all together in Jimmy’s direction, completely doubling him up.
“Me myall-fellow, too,” Cheon said calmly, master of himself and the situation. Then, chuckling at Jimmy’s discomfiture, he went on with his work, while his helpers stared open-eyed with amazement; an infuriated Chinese catherine-wheel being something new in the experience of a black fellow. It was a wholesome lesson, though, and no one took liberties with Cheon again.
The rubbish disposed of, leaking water-butts, and the ruins of collapsed water-butts, were carried to the billabong, swelled in the water, hammered and hooped back into steadfast, reliable water-butts, and trundled along to their places in a merry, joyous procession.
With Cheon’s hand on the helm, cream rose on the milk from somewhere. The meat no longer turned sour. An expert fisherman was discovered among the helpers—one Bob by name. Cheon’s shot-gun appeared to have a magnetic attraction for wild duck. A garden sprang up as by magic, grasshoppers being literally chased off the vegetables. The only thing we lacked was butter; and after a week of order and cleanliness and dazzlingly varied menus, we wondered how we had ever existed without them.
It was no use trying to wriggle from under Cheon’s foot once he put it down. At the slightest neglect of duty, lubras or boys were marshalled and kept relentlessly to their work until he was satisfied; and woe betide the lubras who had neglected to wash hands, and pail and cow, before sitting down to their milking. The very fowls that laid out-bush gained nothing by their subtlety. At the faintest sound of a cackle, a dosing lubra was roused by the point of Cheon’s toe, as he shouted excitedly above her: “Fowl sing out! That way! Catch ’im egg! Go on!” pointing out the direction with much pantomime; and as the egg-basket filled to overflowing, he either chuckled with glee or expressed further contempt for Sam’s ways.
But his especial wrath was reserved for the fowl-roosts over his sleeping quarters. “What’s ’er matter! Fowl sit down close up kitchen!” he growled in furious gutturals, whenever his eyes rested on them; and as soon as time permitted he mounted to the roof and, boiling over with righteous indignation, hurled the offending roosts into space.
New roosts were then nailed to the branches of a spreading coolibar tree, a hundred yards or so to the north of the buildings, the trunk encircled with zinc to prevent snakes or wild cats from climbing into the roosts; a movable ladder staircase made, to be used by the fowls at bedtime, and removed as soon as they were settled for the night, lest the cats or snakes should make unlawful use of it (Cheon always foresaw every contingency); and finally, “boys” and lubras were marshalled to wean the fowls from their old love.
But the weaning took time, and proved most entertaining; and while the fowls were being taught by bitter experience to bend to Cheon’s will, the homestead pealed with shoutings and laughter.
Every evening the fun commenced about sundown, and the entire community assembled to watch it; for it was worth watching—fowls dodged, and scurried, and squawked, as the staff and the rejected, under Cheon’s directions, chivied and danced and screamed between them and their desire, the lubras cheering to the echo every time one of the birds gave in, and stalked, cackling and indignant, up the ladder into the branches of the coolibar; or pursuing runaways that had outwitted them, in shrieking, pell-mell disorder, while Cheon, fat and perspiring, either shouted orders and cheered lustily, bounded wrathfully after both runaways and lubras, or collapsed, doubled up with uncontrollable laughter, at the squawk of amazement from fowls which, having gained their old haunt, had found Jimmy there waiting to receive them. As for ourselves, I doubt if we ever enjoyed anything better. A simple thing, perhaps, to amuse grown-up white folk—a fat, perspiring Chinaman, and eight or ten lubras chivying fowls; but it is this enjoyment of simple things that makes life in the Never-Never all it is.
Busy as he was, Cheon found time to take the missus also under his ample wing, and protect her from everything—even herself. “Him too muchee little fellow,” he said to the Măluka, to explain his attitude towards his mistress; and the Măluka, chuckling, shamefully encouraged him in his ways.
Every suggestion the missus made was received with an amused: “No good that way, missus! Me savey all about.” Her methods with lubras were openly disapproved, and her gardening ridiculed to all comers: “White woman no good, savey gard’n,” he reiterated, but was fated to apologise handsomely in that direction later on.
Still, in other things the white woman was honoured as became her position as never Sam had honoured her. Without any discrimination, Sam had summoned all at meal-times with a booming teamster’s bell, thus placing the gentry on a level with the Quarters; but as Cheon pointed out, what could be expected of one of Sam’s ways and caste? It was all very well to ring a peremptory bell for the Quarters—its caste expected to receive and obey orders; but gentry should be graciously notified that all was ready, when it suited their pleasure to eat; and from the day of Sam’s departure, the House was honoured with a sing-song: “Din-ner! Boss! Mis-sus!” at midday, with changes rung at “Bress-fass” or “Suppar”; and no written menu being at its service, Cheon supplied a chanted one, so that before we sat down to the first course we should know all others that were to come.
The only disadvantage we could associate with his coming was that by some means Jimmy’s Nellie had got on to the staff. No one seemed to know when or how it had happened, but she was there, firmly established working better than any one else, and Dan was demanding payment of his bets.
Cheon would not hear of her dismissal. She was his “right hand,” he declared; and so I interviewed Nellie and stated my objections in cold, brutal English, only to hate myself the next moment; for poor Nellie, with a world of longing in her eyes, professed herself more than willing to wear “good fellow clothes”if she could get any.
“Missus got big mob,” she suggested as a hint; and, although that was a matter of opinion and comparison, in remorse I recklessly gave her my only bath wrapper, and for weeks went to the bath in a mackintosh.
Nellie was also willing to use as much carbolic soap as the station could afford; but as the smoking and spitting proved more difficult to cope with, and I had discovered that I could do all the “housework” in less time than it took to superintend it, I made Cheon a present of the entire staff, only keeping a lien on it for the washing and scrubbing. The lubras, however, refused to be taken off my visitor’s list and Cheon insisting on them waiting on the missus while she was attending to the housework, no one gained or lost by the transfer.
Cheon had a scheme all his own for dealing with the servant question: the Măluka should buy a little Chinese maiden to wait on the missus. Cheon knew of one in Darwin, going cheap, for ten pounds, his—cousin’s child. “A real bargain!” he assured the Măluka, finding him lacking in enthusiasm; “docile, sweet, and attentive,” and yes,—Cheon was sure of that—“devoted to the missus,” and also a splendid pecuniary investment (Cheon always had an eye on the dollars). Being only ten years of age, for six years she could serve the missus, and would then bring at least eighty pounds in the Chinese matrimonial market in Darwin—Chinese wives being scarce there. If she grew up moon-faced, and thus “good-looking,” there seemed no end to the wealth she would bring us.
It took time to convince Cheon of the abolition of slavery throughout the Empire, and even when convinced, he was for buying the treasure and saying nothing about it to the Governor. It was not likely he would come in person to the Elsey, he argued, and, unless told, would know nothing about it.
But another fat, roundabout, roly-poly of humanity was to settle the servant question finally, within a day or two. “Larrikin” had been visiting foreign parts at Wandin, towards the west, and returning with a new wife, stolen from one “Jacky Big-Foot,” presented her to the missus.
“Him Rosy!” he said, thus introducing his booty and without further ceremony Rosy requested permission to “sit down” on the staff. Like Cheon she carried her qualifications on the tip of her tongue: “Me savey scrub ’im, and sweep ’im, and wash ’im, and blue ’im, and starch ’im,” she said glibly, with a flash of white teeth against a babyish pink tongue. She was wearing a freshly washed bright blue dress, hanging loosely from her shoulders, and looked so prettily jolly, clean, capable, and curly-headed, that I immediately made her housemaid and Head of the Staff.
“Great Scott!” the Măluka groaned, “that makes four of them at it!” But Rosy had appealed to me and I pointed out that it was a chance not to be missed and that she was worth the other three all put together. “Life will be a perennial picnic,” I said, “with Rosy and Cheon at the head of affairs”; and for once I prophesied correctly.
Rosy, having been brought up among white folk, proved an adept little housemaid and Cheon looked with extreme favour upon her, and held her up as a bright and shining example to Jimmy’s Nellie. But the person Cheon most approved of at the homestead was Johnny; for not only had Johnny helped him in many of his wild efforts at carpentry, but was he not working in the good cause?
“What’s ’er matter, missus only got one room?” Cheon had said, angry with circumstances, and daily and hourly he urged Johnny to work quicker.
“What’s the matter indeed!” Johnny echoed, mimicking his furious gutturals, and sawing, planing, and hammering, with untiring energy, pointed out that he was doing his best to give her more.
Finding the progress slow with only one man at work, Cheon suggested the Măluka might lend a hand in his spare time (station books being considered recreation); and when Dan came in with a mob of cattle from the Reach country, he hinted that cattle could wait, and that Dan could employ his time better.
But Dan also was out of patience with circumstances, and growled out that “they’d waited quite long enough as it was,” for the work of the station was at a deadlock for want of stores. They had been sadly taxed by the needs of travellers, and we were down to our last half-bag of flour and sugar, and a terrifyingly small quantity of tea; soap, jams, fruits, kerosene, and all such had long been things of the past. The only food we had in quantities was meat, vegetables, and milk. Where we would have been without Cheon no one can tell.
To crown all, we had just heard that the Dandy was delayed in a bog with a broken shaft, but he eventually arrived in time to save the situation, but not before we were quite out of tea. He had little to complain of in the way of welcome when his great piled-up waggon lumbered into the homestead avenue and drew up in front of the store.
The horse teams were close behind, the Dandy said, but Mac was “having a gay time” in the sandy country, and sent in a message to remind the missus that she was still in the Land of Wait-awhile. The reminder was quite unnecessary.
There was also a message from Mine Host. “I’m sending a few cuttings for the missus,” it read. Cuttings he called them, but the back of the waggon looked like a nurseryman’s van; for all a-growing and a-blowing and waiting to be planted out, stood a row of flowering, well-grown plants in tins: crimson hibiscus, creepers, oleanders, and all sorts. A man is best known by his actions, and Mine Host best understood by his kindly thoughtfulness.
The store was soon full to overflowing, and so was our one room, for everything ordered for the house had arrived—rolls of calico heavy and unbleached, mosquito netting, blue matting for the floors, washstand ware, cups and saucers, and dozens of smaller necessities piled in every corner of the room.
“There won’t be many idle hands round these parts for a while,” a traveller said, looking round the congested room, and he was right, for having no sewing machine, a gigantic hand-sewing contract was to be faced. The ceilings of both rooms were to be calico, and a dozen or so of seams were to be oversewn for that, the strips of matting were to be joined together and bound into squares, and after that a herculean task undertaken: the making of a huge mosquito-netted dining-room, large enough to enclose the table and chairs, so as to ensure our meals in comfort—for the flies, like the poor, were to be with us always.
This net was to be nearly ten feet square and twelve high, with a calico roof of its own drawn taut to the ceiling of the room, and walls of mosquito netting, weighted at the foot with a deep fold of calico, and falling from ceiling to floor, with a wide double overlapping curtain for a doorway. Imagine an immense four-poster bed-net, ten by ten by twelve, swung taut within a larger room, and a fair idea of the dining-net will have been formed. A room within a room, and within the inner room we hoped to find a paradise at mealtime in comparison to the purgatory of the last few months.
But the sewing did not end at that. The lubras’ methods of washing had proved most disastrous to my meagre wardrobe; and the resources of the homestead were taxed to the utmost to provide sufficient patching material to keep the missus even decently clothed.
“Wait for the waggons,” the Măluka sang cheerily every time he found me hunting in the store (unbleached calico or mosquito netting being unsuitable for patching).
Cheon openly disapproved of this state of affairs, and was inclined to blame the Măluka. A good husband usually provides his wife with sufficient clothing, he insinuated; but when he heard that further supplies were on the bullock waggons, he apologised, and as he waddled about kept one ear cocked to catch the first sound of the bullock bells. “Bullocky jump four miles,” he informed us; from which we inferred that the sound of the bells would travel four miles. Cheon’s English generally required paraphrasing.
Almost every day some fresh garment collapsed, and I bitterly regretted my recklessness in giving Jimmy’s Nellie the bath wrapper. Fortunately a holland dress was behaving beautifully. “A staunch little beast,” the Măluka called it. That, however, had to be washed, every alternate day; and, fearing possible contingencies, I was beginning a dress of unbleached calico, when the Măluka, busy among the stores, came on a roll of bright pink galatea ordered for lubras’ dresses, and brought it to the house in triumph.
Harsh, crudely pink, galatea! Yet it was received as joyfully as ever a woman received a Paris gown; for although necessity may be the mother of invention, she more often brings thankful hearts into this world.
A hank of coarse, bristling white braid was also unearthed from among the stores, and within three days the galatea had become a sturdy white-braided blouse and skirt, that promised to rival the “staunch little beast” in staunch-heartedness.
By the time it was finished, Johnny and the Dandy had all the flooring boards down in the dining-room, and before the last nail was in, Cheon and the Măluka had carried in every available stick of furniture, and spread it about the room to the greatest possible advantage. The walls were still unfinished, and doors and window frames gaped; but what did that matter? The missus had a dining-room, and as she presided at her supper-table in vivid pink and the pride of possession, Cheon looked as though he would have liked to shake hands with every one at once, but particularly with Johnny.
“Looks A1,” the Măluka said, alluding to the stiff, aggressive frock, and took me “bush” with him, wearing the blouse, and a holland riding skirt that had also proved itself a true, staunch friend.
Dan, the Quiet Stockman, and the Dandy, had already gone “bush” in different directions; for with the coming of the year’s stores, horse-breaking, house-building, trunks and waggons had all stepped into their proper places—a very secondary one—and cattle had come to the front and would stay there, as far as the men were concerned until next Wet.
Cattle, and cattle only, would be the work of the “Dry.” Dan and the Quiet Stockman, with a dozen or so of cattle “boys” to help them, had the year’s musterings and brandings to get through; the Dandy would be wherever he was most needed; yard-building, yard-repairing, carting stores or lending a hand with mustering when necessity arose, while the Măluka would be everywhere at once, in organisation if not in body.
Where runs are huge, and fenceless, and freely watered the year’s mustering and branding is no simple task. Our cattle were scattered through a couple of thousand square miles of scrub and open timbered country, and therefore each section of the run had to be gone over again and again; each mob, when mustered, travelled to the nearest yard and branded.
Every available day of the Dry was needed for the work; but there is one thing in the Never-Never that refuses to take a secondary-place—the mailman; and at the end of a week we all found, once again, that we had business at the homestead; for six weeks had slipped away since our last mail-day, and the Fizzer was due once more.