No one was surprised, and no one thought of asking what had happened, for Jack had always steered clear of women, as he termed it. Not that he feared or disliked them, but because he considered that they had nothing in common with men. "They're such terrors for asking questions," he said once, when pressed for an opinion, adding as an afterthought, "They never seem to learn much either," in his own quiet way, summing up the average woman's conversation with a shy bushman: a long string of purposeless questions, followed by inane remarks on the answers.

"I'm leaving!" Jack had said, and later met the Maluka unshaken in his resolve. There was that in the Maluka, however, that Jack had not calculated on a something that drew all men to him, and made Dan speak of him in after-years as the "best boss ever I struck"; and although the interview only lasted a few minutes, and the Maluka spoke only of the work of the station, yet in those few minutes the Quiet Stockman changed his mind, and the notice was never given.

"I'm staying on," was all he said on returning to the Quarters; and quick decisions being unusual with Jack, every one felt interested.

"Going to give her a chance?" Dan asked with a grin, and Jack looked uncomfortable.

"I've only seen the boss," he said.

Dan nodded with approval. "You've got some sense left, then," he said, "if you know a good boss when you see one."

Jack agreed in monosyllables; but when Dan settled down to argue out the advantages of having a woman about the place, he looked doubtful; but having nothing to say on the subject, said nothing; and when Dan left for the Katherine next morning he was still unconvinced.

Dan set out for the north track soon after sun-up, assuring us that he'd get hold of Johnny somehow; and before sun-down a traveller crossed the Creek below the billabong at the south track, and turned into the homestead enclosure.

We were vaguely chatting on all and sundry matters, as we sat under the verandah that faced the billabong, when the traveller came into sight.

"Horse traveller!" Mac said, lazily shading his eyes, and then sprang to his feet with a yell. "Talk of luck!" he shouted. "You'll do, missus! Here's Johnny himself."

It was Johnny, sure enough; but Johnny had a cheque in his pocket, and was yearning to see the "chaps at the Katherine"; and, after a good look through the House and store, decided that he really would have to go in to the Settlement for—tools and "things."

"I'll be back in a week, missus," he said next morning, as he gathered his reins together before mounting, "and then we shan't be long. Three days in and three out, you know, bar accidents, and a day's spell at the Katherine," he explained glibly. But the "chaps at the Katherine" proved too entertaining for Johnny, and a fortnight passed before we saw him again.



CHAPTER VII

The Quiet Stockman was a Scotchman, and, like many Scotchmen, a strange contradiction of shy reserve and quiet, dignified self-assurance. Having made up his mind on women in general, he saw no reason for changing it; and as he went about his work, thoroughly and systematically avoided me. There was no slinking round corners though; Jack couldn't slink. He had always looked the whole world in the face with his honest blue eyes, and could never do otherwise. He only took care that our paths did not cross more often than was absolutely necessary; but when they did, his Scotch dignity asserted itself, and he said what had to be said with quiet self-possession, although he invariably moved away as soon as possible.

"It's just Jack's way," the Sanguine Scot said, anxious that his fellow Scot should not be misunderstood. "He'll be all there if ever you need him. He only draws the line at conversations."

But when I mounted the stockyard fence one morning, to see the breaking-in of the colts, he looked as though he "drew the line" at that too.

Fortunately for Jack's peace of mind, horse-breaking was not the only novelty at the homestead. Only a couple of changes of everything, in a tropical climate, meant an unbroken cycle of washing-days, while, apart from that, Sam Lee was full of surprises, and the lubras' methods of house-cleaning were novel in the extreme.

Sam was bland, amiable, and inscrutable, and obedient to irritation; and the lubras were apt, and merry, and open-hearted, and wayward beyond comprehension. Sam did exactly as he was told, and the lubras did exactly as they thought fit, and the results were equally disconcerting.

Sam was asked for a glass of milk, and the lubras were told to scrub the floor. Sam brought the milk immediately, and the lubras, after scrubbing two or three isolated patches on the floor, went off on some frolic of their own.

At afternoon tea there was no milk served. "There was none," Sam explained blandly. "The missus had drunk it all. Missus bin finissem milk all about," he said When the lubras were brought back, THEY said THEY had "knocked up longa scrub," and finished the floor under protest.

The Maluka offered assistance; but I thought I ought to manage them myself, and set the lubras to clean and strip some feathers for a pillow—the Maluka had been busy with a shot-gun—and suggested to Sam that he might spend some of his spare time shooting birds.

Mac had been right when he said the place was stiff with birds. A deep fringe of birds was constantly moving in and about and around the billabong; and the perpetual clatter of the plovers and waders formed an undercurrent to the life at the homestead.

The lubras worked steadily for a quarter of an hour at the feathers; then a dog-fight demanding all their attention, the feathers were left to the mercy of the winds, and were never gathered together. At sundown Sam fired into a colony of martins that Mac considered the luck of the homestead. Right into their midst he fired, as they slept in long, graceful garlands one beside the other along the branches of a gum-tree, each with its head snugly tucked away out of sight.

"Missus want feather!" Sam said, with his unfathomable smile, when Mac flared out at him, and again the missus appeared the culprit.

The Maluka advised making the orders a little clearer, and Sam was told to use more discretion in his obedience, and, smiling and apologetic, promised to obey.

The lubras also promised to be more painstaking, reserving only the right to rest if they should "knock up longa work."

The Maluka, Mac and the Dandy, looked on in amusement while the missus wrestled with the servant question; and even the Quiet Stockman grinned sympathetically at times, unconsciously becoming interested in a woman who was too occupied to ask questions.

For five days I "wrestled"; and the only comfort I had was in Bertie's Nellie, a gentle-faced old lubra almost sweet-faced. She undoubtedly did her best, and, showing signs of friendship, was invaluable in "rounding up" the other lubras when they showed signs of "knocking up."

On the morning of the sixth day Sam surpassed himself in obedience. I had hinted that breakfast should be a little earlier, adding timidly that he might use a little more ingenuity in the breakfast menu, and at the first grey streak of dawn breakfast was announced, and, dressing hurriedly, we sat down to what Sam called "Pump-pie-King pie with raisins and mince." The expression on Sam's face was celestial. No other word could describe it. There was also an underlying expression of triumph which made me suspicious of his apparent ingenuousness, and as the lubras had done little else but make faces at themselves in the looking-glass for two days (I was beginning to hate that looking-glass), I appealed to the Maluka for assistance.

He took Sam in hand, and the triumph slipped away from beneath the stolid face, and a certain amount of discrimination crept into his obedience from henceforth.

Then the Sanguine Scot said that he would "tackle the lubras for her," and in half an hour everywhere was swept and garnished, and the lubras were meek and submissive.

"You'll need to rule them with a rod of iron," Mac said, secretly pleased with his success. But there was one drawback to his methods, for next day, with the exception of Nellie, there were no lubras to rule with or without a rod of iron.

Jimmy, the water-carrier and general director of the woodheap gossip, explained that they had gone off with the camp lubras for a day's recreation; "Him knock up longa all about work," he said, with an apologetic smile. Jimmy was either apologetic or condescending.

Nellie rounded them up when they returned, and the Maluka suggested, as a way out of the difficulty, that I should try to make myself more attractive than the camp lubras, which Mac said "shouldn't be difficult," and then coughed, doubtful of the compliment.

I went down to the Creek at once to carry out the Maluka's suggestion, and succeeded so well that I was soon the centre of a delighted dusky group, squatting on its haunches, and deep in fascinations of teaching an outsider its language. The uncouth mispronunciations tickled the old men beyond description, and they kept me gurgling at difficult gutturals, until, convulsed at the contortion of everyday words and phrases, they echoed Dan's opinion in queer pidgin-English that the "missus needed a deal of education." Jimmy gradually became loftily condescending, and as for old Nellie, she had never enjoyed anything quite so much.

Undoubtedly I made myself attractive to the blackfellow mind; for, besides having proved an unexpected entertainment, I had made every one feel mightily superior to the missus. That power of inspiring others with a sense of superiority is an excellent trait to possess when dealing with a black fellow, for there were more than enough helpers next day, and the work was done quickly and well, so as to leave plenty of time for merry-making.

The Maluka and Mac were full of congratulations. "You've got the mob well in hand now," Mac said, unconscious that he was about to throw everything into disorder again.

For six years Mac had been in charge of the station, and when he heard that the Maluka was coming north to represent the owners, he had decided to give bullock-punching a turn as a change from stock-keeping. Sanguine that "there was a good thing in it," he had bought a bullock waggon and team while in at the Katherine, and secured "loading" for "inside." Under these circumstances it was difficult to understand why he had been so determined in his blocking, the only reason he could ever be cajoled into giving being "that he was off the escorting trick, and, besides, the other chaps had to be thought of."

He was now about to go to "see to things," taking Bertie, his right-hand boy, with him, but leaving Nellie with me. Bertie had expressed himself quite agreeable to the arrangement, but at the eleventh hour refused to go without Nellie; and Nellie, preferring the now fascinating homestead to the company of her lord and master, refused to go with him, and Mac was at his wits' end.

It was impossible to carry her off by force, so two days were spent in shrill ear-splitting arguments the threads of Nellie's argument being that Bertie could easily "catch nuzzer lubra," and that the missus "must have one good fellow lubra on the staff."

Mac, always chivalrous, said he would manage somehow without Bertie, rather than "upset things"; but the Maluka would not agree, and finally Nellie consented to go, on condition that she would be left at the homestead when the waggons went through.

Then Mac came and confessed a long-kept secret. Roper belonged to the station, and he had no claim on him beyond fellowship. "I've ridden him ever since I came here, that's all," he said, his arm thrown across the old horse. "I'd have stuck to him somehow, fair means or foul, if I hadn't seen you know how to treat a good horse."

The Maluka instantly offered fair means, but Mac shook his head. "Let the missus have him," he said, "and they'll both have a good time. But I'm first offer when it comes to selling." So the grand old horse was passed over to me to be numbered among the staunchest and truest of friends.

"Oh, well," Mac said in good-bye. "All's well that end's well," and he pointed to Nellie, safely stowed away in a grove of dogs that half filled the back of the buck-board.

But all had not ended for us. So many lubras put themselves on the homestead staff to fill the place left vacant by Nellie, that the one room was filled to overflowing while the work was being done, and the Maluka was obliged to come to the rescue once more. He reduced the house staff to two, allowing a shadow or two extra in the persons of a few old black fellows and a piccaninny or two, sending the rejected to camp.

In the morning there was a free fight in camp between the staff and some of the camp lubras, the rejected, led by Jimmy's lubra—another Nellie—declaring the Maluka had meant two different lubras each day.

Again there was much ear-splitting argument, but finally a compromise was agreed on. Two lubras were to sit down permanently, while as many as wished might help with the washing and watering. Then the staff and the shadows settled down on the verandah beside me to watch while I evolved dresses for two lubras out of next to nothing in the way of material, and as I sewed, the Maluka, with some travellers who were "in" to help him, set to work to evolve a garden also out of next to nothing in the way of material.

Hopeless as it looked, oblong beds were soon marked out at each of the four corners of the verandah, and beyond the beds a broad path was made to run right round the House. "The wilderness shall blossom like the rose," the Maluka said, planting seeds of a vigorous-growing flowering bean at one of the corner posts.

The travellers were deeply interested in the servant wrestle, and when the Staff was eventually clothed, and the rejected green with envy, decided that the "whole difficulty was solved, bar Sam."

Sam, however, was about to solve his part of the difficulty to every one's satisfaction. A master as particular over the men's table as his own was not a master after Sam's heart, so he came to the Maluka, and announced, in the peculiar manner of Chinese cooks, that he was about to write for a new cook for the station, who would probably arrive within six weeks, when Sam, having installed him to our satisfaction, would, with our permission, leave our service.

The permission was graciously given, and as Sam retired we longed to tell him to engage some one renowned for his disobedience. We fancied later that our willingness piqued Sam, for after giving notice he bestirred himself to such an extent that one of our visitors tried to secure his services for himself, convinced we were throwing away a treasure.

In that fortnight we had several visitors, travellers passing through the station, and as each stayed a day or two, a few of the visits overlapped, and some merry hours were spent in the little homestead.

Some of the guests knew beforehand of the arrival of a missus at the station, and came ready groomed from their last camp; but others only heard of her arrival when inside the homestead enclosure, and there was a great application of soap, and razors, and towels before they considered themselves fit for presentation.

With only one room at our disposal it would seem to the uninitiated that the accommodation of the homestead must have been strained to bursting point; but "out-bush" every man carries a "bluey" and a mosquito net in his swag, and as the hosts slept under the verandah, and the guests on the garden paths, or in their camps among the forest trees, spare rooms would only have been superfluous. With a billabong at the door, a bathroom was easily dispensed with; and as every one preferred the roomy verandahs for lounging and smoking, the House had only to act as a dressing-room for the hosts and a dining-room for all.

The meals, of course, were served on the dining-table; but no apology seemed necessary for the presence of a four-poster bed and a washing stand in the reception-room. They were there, and our guests knew why they were there, and words, like the spare rooms, would have been superfluous.

Breakfast at sun-up or thereabouts, dinner at noon and supper at sun-down, is the long-established routine of meals on all cattle-runs of the Never-Never, and at all three meals Sam waited, bland and smiling.

The missus, of course, had one of the china cups, and the guests enamel ware; and the flies hovering everywhere in dense clouds, saucers rested on the top of the cups by common consent. Bread, scones, and such thing were covered over with serviettes throughout all meals while hands were kept busy "shooing" flies out of prospective mouthfull.

Everything lacked conventionality, and was accepted as a matter of course; and although at times Sam sorely taxed my gravity by using the bed for a temporary dumb waiter, the bushmen showed no embarrassment, simply because they felt none, and retained their self-possession with unconscious dignity. They sat among the buzzing swarms of flies, light-hearted and self-reliant, chatting of their daily lives of lonely vigils, of cattle-camps and stampedes, of dangers and privations, and I listened with a dawning consciousness that life "out-bush" is something more than mere existence.

Being within four miles of the Overland Telegraph—that backbone of the overland rout—rarely a week was to pass without someone coming in, and at times our travellers came in twos and threes, and as each brought news of that world outside our tiny circle, carrying in perhaps an extra mail to us, or one out for us, they formed a strong link in the chain that bound us to Outside.

In them every rank in bush life was represented, from cattle-drovers and stockmen to the owners of stations, from swag-men and men "down in their luck" to telegraph operators and heads of government departments, men of various nationalities with, foremost among them, the Scots, sons of that fighting race that has everywhere fought with and conquered the Australian bush. Yet, whatever their rank or race, our travellers were men, not riff-raff, the long, formidable stages that wall in the Never-Never have seen to that, turning back the weaklings and worthless to the flesh-pots of Egypt, and proving the worth and mettle of the brave-hearted: all men, every one of them, and all in need of a little hospitality, whether of the prosperous and well-doing or "down in their luck," and each was welcomed according to that need; for out-bush rank counts for little: we are only men and women there. And all who came in, and went on, or remained, gave us of their best while with us; for there was that in the Maluka that drew the best out of all men. In life we generally find in our fellow-men just what we seek, and the Maluka, seeking only the good, found only the good and drew much of it into his own sympathetic, sunny nature. He demanded the best and was given the best, and while with him, men found they were better men than at other times.

Some of our guests sat with us at table, some with the men, and some "grubbed in their camps." All of them rode in strangers and many of them rode out life-long friends, for such is the way of the bushfolk: a little hospitality, a day or two of mutual understanding, and we have become part of the other's life. For bush hospitality is something better than the bare housing and feeding of guests, being just the simple sharing of our daily lives with a fellow-man—a literal sharing of all that we have; of our plenty or scarcity, our joys or sorrows, our comforts or discomforts, our security or danger; a democratic hospitality, where all men are equally welcome, yet so refined in its simplicity and wholesomeness, that fulsome thanks or vulgar apologies have no part in it, although it was whispered among the bushfolk that those "down in their luck" learned that when the Maluka was filling tucker-bags, a timely word in praise of the missus filled tucker-bags to over-flowing.

Two hundred and fifty guests was the tally for that year, and earliest among them came a telegraph operator, who as is the way with telegraphic operators out-bush invited us to "ride across to the wire for a shake hands with Outside"; and within an hour we came in sight of the telegraph wire as our horses mounted the stony ridge that overlooks the Warloch ponds, when the wire was forgotten for a moment in the kaleidoscope of moving, ever-changing colour that met our eyes.

Two wide-spreading limpid ponds, the Warloch lay before us, veiled in a glory of golden-flecked heliotrope and purple water-lilies, and floating deep green leaves, with here and there gleaming little seas of water, opening out among the lilies, and standing knee-deep in the margins a rustling fringe of light reeds and giant bulrushes. All round the ponds stood dark groves of pandanus palms, and among and beyond the palms tall grasses and forest trees, with here and there a spreading colabar festooned from summit to trunk with brilliant crimson strands of mistletoe, and here and there a gaunt dead old giant of the forest, and everywhere above and beyond the timber deep sunny blue and flooding sunshine. Sunny blue reflected, with the gaunt old trees, in the tiny gleaming seas among the lilies, while everywhere upon the floating leaves myriads and myriads of grey and pink "gallah" parrots and sulphur-crested cockatoos preened feathers, or rested, sipping at the water grey and pink verging to heliotrope and snowy white, touched here and there with gold, blending, flower-like, with the golden-flecked glory of the lilies.

For a moment we waited, spell-bound in the brilliant sunshine; then the dogs running down to the water's edge, the gallahs and cockatoos rose with gorgeous sunrise effect: a floating gray-and-pink cloud, backed by sunlit flashing white. Direct to the forest trees they floated and, settling there in their myriads, as by a miracle the gaunt, gnarled old giants of the bush all over blossomed with garlands of grey, and pink, and white, and gold.

But the operator, being unpoetical, had ridden on to the "wire," and presently was "shinning up" one of its slender galvanised iron posts as a preliminary to the "handshake"; for tapping the line being part of the routine of a telegraph operator in the Territory, "shinning up posts," is one of his necessary accomplishments.

In town, dust, and haste, and littered papers, and nerve-racking bustle seem indispensable to the sending of a telegram; but when the bush-folk "shake hands" with Outside all is sunshine and restfulness, soft beauty and leisurely peace. With the murmuring bush about us in the clear space kept always cleared beneath those quivering wires, we stood all dressed in white, first looking up at the operator as, clinging to his pole, he tapped the line, and then looking down at him as he knelt at our feet with his tiny transmitter beside him clicking out our message to the south folk. And as we stood, with our horses' bridles over our arms and the horses nibbling at the sweet grasses, in touch with the world in spite of our isolation, a gorgeous butterfly rested for a brief space on the tiny instrument, with gently swaying purple wings, and away in the great world men were sending telegrams amid clatter and dust, unconscious of that tiny group of bushfolk, or that Nature, who does all things well, can beautify even the sending of a telegram.

In the heart of the bush we stood yet listening to the clatter of the townsfolk, for, business over, the little clicking instrument was gossiping cheerily with us—the telegraph wire in the Territory being such a friendly wire. Daily it gathers gossip, and daily whispers it up and down the line, and daily news and gossip fly hither and thither: who's "inside," who has gone out, whom to expect, where the mailman is, the newest arrival in Darwin and the latest rainfall at Powell's Creek.

Daily the telegraph people hear all the news of the Territory, and in due course give the news to the public, when the travellers gathering it, carry it out to the bushfolk, scattering it broadcast, until everybody knows every one else, and all his business and where it has taken him; and because of that knowledge, and in spite of those hundreds of thousands of square miles of bushland, the people of the Territory are held together in one great brotherhood.

Among various items of news the little instrument told us that Dan was "packing up for the return trip"; and in a day or two he came in, bringing a packet of garden seeds and a china teapot from Mine Host, Southern letters from the telegraph, and, from little Johnny, news that he was getting tools together and would be along in no time.

Being in one of his whimsical moods, Dan withheld congratulations.

"I've been thinking things over, boss," he said, assuming his most philosophical manner "and I reckon any more rooms'll only interfere with getting the missus educated."

Later on he used the servant question to hang his argument on. "Just proves what I was saying" he said. "If the cleaning of one room causes all this trouble and worry, where'll she be when she's got four to look after? What with white ants, and blue mould, and mildew, and wrestling with lubras, there won't be one minute to spare for education."

He also professed disapproval of the Maluka's devices for making the homestead more habitable. "If this goes on we'll never learn her nothing but loafin'", he declared when he found that a couple of yards of canvas and a few sticks had become a comfortable lounge chair. "Too much luxury!" and he sat down on his own heels to show how he scorned luxuries. A tree sawn into short lengths to provide verandah seats for all comers he passed over as doubtful. He was slightly reassured however, when he heard that my revolver practice had not been neglected, and condescended to own that some of the devices were "handy enough." A neat little tray, made from the end of a packing-case and a few laths, interested him in particular. "You'll get him dodged for ideas one of these days," he said, alluding to the Maluka's ingenuity, and when, a day or two later, I broke the spring of my watch and asked helplessly, "However was I going to tell the time till the waggons came with the clock?" Dan felt sure I had set an unsolvable problem.

"That 'ud get anybody dodged," he declared; but it took more than that to "dodge" the Maluka's resourcefulness. He spent a little while in the sun with a compass and a few wooden pegs, and a sundial lay on the ground just outside the verandah.

Dan declared it just "licked creation," and wondered if "that 'ud settle 'em," when I asked for some strong iron rings for a curtain. But the Dandy took a hobble chain to the forge, and breaking the links asunder, welded them into smooth round rings.

The need for curtain rings was very pressing, for, scanty as it was, the publicity of our wardrobe hanging in one corner of the reception room distressed me, but with the Dandy's rings and a chequered rug for curtain, a corner wardrobe was soon fixed up.

Dan looked at it askance, and harked back to the sundial and education. "It's 'cute enough," he said. "But it won't do, boss. She should have been taught how to tell the time by the sun. Don't you let 'em spoil your chances of education, missus. You were in luck when you struck this place; never saw luck to equal it. And if it holds good, something'll happen to stop you from ever having a house, so as to get you properly educated."

My luck "held good" for the time being; for when Johnny came along in a few days he announced, in answer to a very warm welcome, that "something had gone wrong at No. 3 Well" and that "he'd promised to see to it at once."

"Oh, Johnny!" I cried reproachfully, but the next moment was "toeing the line" even to the Head Stockman's satisfaction; for with a look of surprise Johnny had added: "I—I thought you'd reckon that travellers' water for the Dry came before your rooms." Out-bush we deal in hard facts.

"Thought I'd reckon!" I said, appalled to think my comfort should even be spoken of when men's lives were in question. "Of course I do; I didn't understand, that was all."

"We haven't finished her education yet," Dan explained, and the Maluka added, "But she's learning."

Johnny looked perplexed. "Oh, well! That's all right, then," he said, rather ambiguously. "I'll be back as soon as possible, and then we shan't be long."

Two days later he left the homestead bound for the well, and as he disappeared into the Ti-Tree that bordered the south track, most of us agreed that "luck was out." Only Dan professed to think differently. "It's more wonderful than ever," he declared; "more wonderful than ever, and if it holds good we'll never see Johnny again."



CHAPTER VIII

Considering ourselves homeless, the Maluka decided that we should "go bush" for awhile during Johnny's absence beginning with a short tour of inspection through some of the southern country of the run; intending, if all were well there, to prepare for a general horse-muster along the north of the Roper. Nothing could be done with the cattle until "after the Wet."

Only Dan and the inevitable black "boy" were to be with us on this preliminary walk-about; but all hands were to turn out for the muster, to the Quiet Stockman's dismay.

"Thought they mostly sat about and sewed," he said in the quarters. Little did the Sanguine Scot guess what he was doing when he "culled" needlework from the "mob" at Pine Creek.

The walk-about was looked upon as a reprieve, and when a traveller, expressing sympathy, suggested that "it might sicken her a bit of camp life," Jack clung to that hope desperately.

Most of the nigger world turned up to see the "missus mount," that still being something worth seeing. Apart from the mystery of the side-saddle, and the joke of seeing her in an enormous mushroom hat, there was the interest of the mounting itself; Jackeroo having spread a report that the Maluka held out his hands, while the missus ran up them and sat herself upon the horse's back.

"They reckon you have escaped from a "Wild West Show," Dan said, tickled at the look of wonder on some of the faces as I settled myself in the saddle. We learned later that Jackeroo had tried to run up Jimmy's hands to illustrate the performance in camp, and, failing, had naturally blamed Jimmy, causing report to add that the Maluka was a very Samson in strength.

"A dress rehearsal for the cattle-musters later on," Dan called the walk-about, looking with approval on my cartridge belt and revolver; and after a few small mobs of cattle had been rounded up and looked over, he suggested "rehearsing that part of the performance where the missus gets lost, and catches cows and milks 'em."

"Now's your chance, missus," he shouted, as a scared, frightened beast broke from the mob in hand, and went crashing through the undergrowth. "There's one all by herself to practice on." Dan's system of education, being founded on object-lessons, was mightily convincing; and for that trip, anyway, he had a very humble pupil to instruct in the "ways of telling the signs of water at hand."

All day as we zigzagged through scrub and timber, visiting water-holes and following up cattle-pads, the solitude of the bush seemed only a pleasant seclusion; and the deep forest glades, shady pathways leading to the outside world; but at night, when the camp had been fixed up in the silent depths of a dark Leichhardt-pine forest, the seclusion had become an isolation that made itself felt, and the shady pathways, miles of dark treacherous forest between us and our fellow-men.

There is no isolation so weird in its feeling of cut-offness as that of a night camp in the heart of the bush. The flickering camp-fires draw all that is human and tangible into its charmed circle, and without, all is undefinable darkness and uncertainty. Yet it was in this night camp among the dark pines, with even the stars shut out, that we learnt that out-bush "Houselessness" need not mean "Homelessness"—a discovery that destroyed all hope that "this would sicken her a bit."

As we were only to be out one night, and there was little chance of rain, we had nothing with us but a little tucker, a bluey each, and a couple of mosquito nets. The simplicity of our camp added intensely to the isolation; and as I stood among the dry rustling leaves, looking up at the dark broad-leaved canopy above us, with my "swag" at my feet, the Maluka called me a "poor homeless little coon."

A woman with a swag sounds homeless enough to Australian ears, but Dan, with his habit of looking deep into the heart of things, "didn't exactly see where the homelessness came in."

We had finished supper, and the Maluka stretching himself luxuriously in the firelight, made a nest in the warm leaves for me to settle down in. "You're right, Dan," he said, after a short silence, "when I come to think of it; I don't exactly see myself where the homelessness comes in. A bite and a sup and a faithful dog, and a guidwife by a glowing hearth, and what more is needed to make a home. Eh, Tiddle'ums?"

Tiddle'ums having for some time given the whole of her heart to the Maluka, nestled closer to him and Dan gave an appreciative chuckle, and pulled Sool'em's ears. The conversation promised to suit him exactly.

"Never got farther than the dog myself," he said. "Did I Sool'em, old girl?" But Sool'em becoming effusive there was a pause until she could be persuaded that "nobody wanted none of her licking tricks." As she subsided Dan went on with his thoughts uninterrupted: "I've seen others at the guidwife business, though, and it didn't seem too bad, but I never struck it in a camp before. There was Mrs. Bob now. You've heard me tell of her? I don't know how it was, but while she was out at the "Downs" things seemed different. She never interfered and we went on just the same, but everything seemed different somehow."

The Maluka suggested that perhaps he had "got farther than the dog" without knowing it, and the idea appearing to Dan, he "reckoned it must have been that." But his whimsical mood had slipped away, as it usually did when his thoughts strayed to Mrs. Bob; and he went on earnestly, "She was the right sort if ever there was one. I know 'em, and she was one of 'em. When you were all right you told her yarns, and she'd enjoy 'em more'n you would yourself, which is saying something; but when you were off the track a bit you told her other things, and she'd heave you on again. See her with the sick travellers!" And then he stopped unexpectedly as his voice became thick and husky.

Camp-fire conversations have a trick of coming to an abrupt end without embarrassing any one. As Dan sat looking into the fire, with his thoughts far away in the past, the Maluka began to croon contentedly at "Home, Sweet Home," and, curled up in the warm, sweet nest of leaves, I listened to the crooning, and, watching the varying expression of Dan's face, wondered if Mrs. Bob had any idea of the bright memories she had left behind her in the bush. Then as the Maluka crooned on, everything but the crooning became vague and indistinct, and, beginning also to see into the heart of things, I learned that when a woman finds love and comradeship out-bush, little else is needed to make even the glowing circle of a camp fire her home-circle.

Without any warning the Maluka's mood changed, "There is nae luck aboot her house, there is nae luck at a'," he shouted lustily, and Dan, waking from his reverie with a start, rose to the tempting bait.

"No LUCK about HER house!" he said. "It was Mrs. Bob that had no luck. She struck a good, comfortable, well-furnished house first go off, and never got an ounce of educating. She was chained to that house as surely as ever a dog was chained to its kennel. But it'll never come to that with the missus. Something's bound to happen to Johnny, just to keep her from ever having a house. Poor Johnny, though," he added, warming up to the subject. "It's hard luck for him. He's a decent little chap. We'll miss him"; and he shook his head sorrowfully, and looked round for applause.

The Maluka said it seemed a pity that Johnny had been allowed to go to his fate; but Dan was in his best form.

"It wouldn't have made any difference," he said tragically. "He'd have got fever if he'd stayed on, or a tree would have fallen on him. He's doomed if the missus keeps him to his contract."

"Oh, well! He'll die in a good cause," I said cheerfully and Dan's gravity deserted him.

"You're the dead finish!" he chuckled, and without further ceremony, beyond the taking off his boots, rolled into his mosquito net for the night.

We heard nothing further from him until that strange rustling hour of the night that hour half-way between midnight and dawn, when all nature stirs in its sleep, and murmurs drowsily in answer to some mysterious call.

Nearly all bushmen who sleep with the warm earth for a bed will tell of this strange wakening moment, of that faint touch of half-consciousness, that whispering stir, strangely enough, only perceptible to the sleeping children of the bush one of the mysteries of nature that no man can fathom, one of the delicate threads with which the Wizard of Never-Never weaves his spells. "Is all well my children?" comes the cry from the watchman of the night; and with a gentle stirring the answer floats back "All is well."

Softly the pine forest rustled with the call and the answer; and as the camp roused to its dim half-consciousness, Dan murmured sleepily, "Sool'em, old girl" then after a vigorous rustling among the leaves (Sool'em's tail returning thanks for the attention), everything slipped back into unconsciousness until the dawn. As the first grey streak of dawn filtered through the pines, a long-drawn out cry of "Day-li-ght" Dan's camp reveille rolled out of his net, and Dan rolled out after it, with even less ceremony than he had rolled in.

On our way back to the homestead, Dan suggesting that the "missus might like to have a look at the dining-room," we turned into the towering timber that borders the Reach, and for the next two hours rode on through soft, luxurious shade; and all the while the fathomless spring-fed Reach lay sleeping on our left.

The Reach always slept; for nearly twelve miles it lay, a swaying garland of heliotrope and purple waterlilies, gleaming through a graceful fringe of palms and rushes and scented shrubs, touched here and there with shafts of sunlight, and murmuring and rustling with an attendant host of gorgeous butterflies and flitting birds and insects.

Dan looked on the scene with approving eyes. "Not a bad place to ride through, is it?" he said. But gradually as we rode on a vague depression settled down upon us, and when Dan finally decided he "could do with a bit more sunshine," we followed him into the blistering noontide glare with almost a sigh of relief.

It is always so. These wondrous waterways have little part in that mystical holding power of the Never-Never. They are only pleasant places to ride through and leave behind; for their purring slumberous beauty is vaguely suggestive of the beauty of a sleeping tiger: a sleeping tiger with deadly fangs and talons hidden under a wonder of soft allurement; and when exiles in the towns sit and dream their dreams are all of stretches of scorched grass and quivering sun-flecked shade.

In the honest sunlight Dan's spirits rose, and as I investigated various byways he asked "where the sense came in tying-up a dog that was doing no harm running loose." "It weren't as though she'd taken to chivying cattle," he added, as, a mob of inquisitive steers trotting after us, I hurried Roper in among the riders; and then he wondered "how she'll shape at her first muster."

The rest of the morning he filled in with tales of cattle-musters tales of stampedes and of cattle rushing over camps and "mincing chaps into saw-dust" until I was secretly pleased that the coming muster was for horses.

But Jack's reprieve was to last a little longer. When all was ready for the muster, word came in that outside blacks were in all along the river, and the Maluka deciding that the risks were too great for the missus in long-grass country, the plans were altered, and I was left at the homestead in the Dandy's care.

"It's a ill wind that blows nobody any good," the Maluka said, drawing attention to Jack's sudden interest in the proceedings.

Apart from sterling worth of character, the Dandy was all contrast to the Quiet Stockman: quick, alert, and sociable, and brimming over with quiet tact and thoughtfulness, and the Maluka knew I was in good hands. But the Dandy had his work to attend to; and after watching till the bush had swallowed up the last of the pack-team, I went to the wood-heap for company and consolation. Had the Darwin ladies seen me then, they would have been justified in saying, "I told you so."

There was plenty of company at the wood-heap, but the consolation was doubtful in character. Goggle-Eye and three other old black fellows were gossiping there, and after a peculiar grin of welcome, they expressed great fear lest the homestead should be attacked by "outside" blacks during the Maluka's absence. "Might it," they said, and offered to sleep in the garden near me, as no doubt "missus would be frightened fellow" to sleep alone.

"Me big mob frightened fellow longa wild black fellow," Goggle-Eye said, rather overdoing the part; and the other old rascals giggled nervously, and said "My word!" But sly, watchful glances made me sure they were only probing to find if fear had kept the missus at the homestead. Of course, if it had, a little harmless bullying for tobacco could be safely indulged in when the Dandy was busy at the yards.

Fortunately, Dan's system of education provided for all emergencies; and remembering his counsel to "die rather than own to a black fellow that you were frightened of anything," I refused their offer of protection, and declared so emphatically that there was nothing in heaven or earth that I was afraid to tackle single-handed, that I almost believed it myself.

There was no doubt they believed it, for they murmured in admiration "My word! Missus big mob cheeky fellow all right." But in their admiration they forgot that they were supposed to be quaking with fear themselves, and took no precautions against the pretended attack. "Putting themselves away properly," the Dandy said when I told him about it.

"It was a try-on all right," he added. "Evidence was against you, but they struck an unexpected snag. You'll have to keep it up, though"; and deciding "there was nothing in the yarn," the Dandy slept in the Quarters, and I in the House, leaving the doors and windows open as usual.

When this was reported at dawn by Billy Muck, who had taken no part in the intimidation scheme, a wholesome awe crept into the old men's admiration; for a black fellow is fairly logical in these matters.

To him, the man who crouches behind barred doors is a coward, and may be attacked without much risk, while he who relies only on his own strength appears as a Goliath defying the armies of a nation, and is best left alone, lest he develop into a Samson annihilating Philistines. Fortunately for my reputation, only the Dandy knew that we considered open doors easier to get out of than closed ones, and that my revolver was to be fired to call him from the Quarters if anything alarming occurred.

"You'll have to live up to your reputation now," the Dandy said, and, brave in the knowledge that he was within cooee, I ordered the old men about most unmercifully, leaving little doubt in their minds that "missus was big mob cheeky fellow."

They were most deferential all day, and at sundown I completed my revenge by offering these rulers of a nation the insult of a woman's protection. "If you are still afraid of the wild blacks, you may sleep near me to-night," I said, and apologised for not having made the offer for the night before.

"You've got 'em on toast," the Dandy chuckled as the offer was refused with a certain amount of dignity.

The lubras secretly enjoyed the discomfiture of their lords and masters, and taking me into their confidence, made it very plain that a lubra's life at times is anything but a happy one; particularly if "me boy all day krowl (growl)." As for the lords and masters themselves, the insult rankled so that they spent the next few days telling great and valiant tales of marvellous personal daring, hoping to wipe the stain of cowardice from their characters. Fortunately for themselves, Billy Muck and Jimmy had been absent from the wood-heap, and, therefore, not having committed themselves on the subject of wild blacks, bragged excessively. Had they been present, knowing the old fellows well, I venture to think there would have been no intimidation scheme floated.

As the Dandy put it, "altogether the time passed pleasantly," and when the Maluka returned we were all on the best of terms, having reached the phase of friendship when pet names are permissible. The missus had become "Gadgerrie" to the old men and certain privileged lubras. What it means I do not know, excepting that it seemed to imply fellowship. Perhaps it meant "old pal" or "mate," or, judging from the tone of voice that accompanied it, "old girl," but more probably, like "Maluka," untranslatable. The Maluka was always "Maluka" to the old men, and to some of us who imitated them.

Dan came in the day after the Maluka, and, hearing of our "affairs," took all the credit of it to himself.

"Just shows what a bit of educating'll do," he said. "The Dandy would have had a gay old time of it if I hadn't put you up to their capers"; and I had humbly to acknowledge the truth of all he said.

"I don't say you're not promising well," he added, satisfied with my humility. "If Johnny'll only stay away long enough, we'll have you educated up to doing without a house."

Within a week it seemed as though Johnny was aiding and abetting Dan in his scheme of education; for he sent in word that his "cross-cut saw," or something equally important, had doubled up on him, and he was going back to Katherine to "see about it straight off."



CHAPTER IX



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 woman MIGHT be 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 Maluka'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 Stockmas'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 going WITH the 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 did 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.

"We always call it instinct, I think," the Maluka 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 never is anything but instinct," he said, with quiet decision in his voice. "No one ever learns horses."

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 Maluka 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 brought RAISINS.

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 explain that was 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 underlying his message 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 Maluka "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 Maluka felt inspired to work it out. "It's simple enough," he said. "The first Friday—or is it Sunday?—after the first full moon, AFTER the 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 Maluka 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 Maluka 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:

"NOW we shan't be long."



CHAPTER X

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 thee foundation-stone," the Maluka 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 Maluka 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 reckon MY job'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 dwellingplace 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 Maluka 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 Maluka, given almost of necessity for Brown—as is the way with fox-terriers at times—quietly changed masters, and lying down at the Maluka'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 melee. 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 Maluka 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 Maluka 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 Maluka 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. "What HAVE we 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 Maluka 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.



CHAPTER XI

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 role. 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.