But his especial wrath was reserved for the fowl-roosts over his sleeping quarters. "What's 'er matter! Fowl sit down close up kitchen!" he growled in furious gutturals, whenever his eyes rested on them; and as soon as time permitted he mounted to the roof and, boiling over with righteous indignation, hurled the offending roosts into space.

New roosts were then nailed to the branches of a spreading coolibar tree, a hundred yards or so to the north of the buildings, the trunk encircled with zinc to prevent snakes or wild cats from climbing into the roosts; a movable ladder staircase made, to be used by the fowls at bedtime, and removed as soon as they were settled for the night, lest the cats or snakes should make unlawful use of it (Cheon always foresaw every contingency); and finally, "boys" and lubras were marshalled to wean the fowls from their old love.

But the weaning took time, and proved most entertaining; and while the fowls were being taught by bitter experience to bend to Cheon's will, the homestead pealed with shoutings and laughter.

Every evening the fun commenced about sundown, and the entire community assembled to watch it; for it was worth watching—fowls dodged, and scurried, and squawked, as the staff and the rejected, under Cheon's directions, chivied and danced and screamed between them and their desire, the lubras cheering to the echo every time one of the birds gave in, and stalked, cackling and indignant, up the ladder into the branches of the coolibar; or pursuing runaways that had outwitted them, in shrieking, pell-mell disorder, while Cheon, fat and perspiring, either shouted orders and cheered lustily, bounded wrathfully alter both runaways and lubras, or collapsed, doubled up with uncontrollable laughter, at the squawk of amazement from fowls which, having gained their old haunt, had found Jimmy there waiting to receive them. As for ourselves, I doubt if we ever enjoyed anything better. A simple thing, perhaps, to amuse grown-up white folk—a fat, perspiring Chinaman, and eight or ten lubras chivying fowls; but it is this enjoyment of simple things that makes life in the Never-Never all it is.

Busy as he was, Cheon found time to take the missus also under his ample wing, and protect her from everything—even herself. "Him too muchee little fellow," he said to the Maluka, to explain his attitude towards his mistress; and the Maluka, chuckling, shamefully encouraged him in his ways.

Every suggestion the missus made was received with an amused: "No good that way, missus! Me savey all about." Her methods with lubras were openly disapproved, and her gardening ridiculed to all comers: "White woman no good, savey gard'n," he reiterated, but was fated to apologise handsomely in that direction later on.

Still, in other things the white woman was honoured as became her position as never Sam had honoured her. Without any discrimination, Sam had summoned all at meal-times with a booming teamster's bell, thus placing the gentry on a level with the Quarters; but as Cheon pointed out, what could be expected of one of Sam's ways and caste? It was all very well to ring a peremptory bell for the Quarters—its caste expected to receive and obey orders; but gentry should be graciously notified that all was ready, when it suited their pleasure to eat; and from the day of Sam's departure, the House was honoured with a sing-song: "Din-ner! Boss! Mis-sus!" at midday, with changes rung at "Bress-fass" or "Suppar"; and no written menu being at its service, Cheon supplied a chanted one, so that before we sat down to the first course we should know all others that were to come.

The only disadvantage we could associate with his coming was that by some means Jimmy's Nellie had got on to the staff. No one seemed to know when or how it had happened, but she was there, firmly established working better than any one else, and Dan was demanding payment of his bets.

Cheon would not hear of her dismissal. She was his "right hand," he declared; and so I interviewed Nellie and stated my objections in cold, brutal English, only to hate myself the next moment; for poor Nellie, with a world of longing in her eyes, professed herself more than willing to wear "good fellow clothes" if she could get any.

"Missus got big mob," she suggested as a hint; and, although that was a matter of opinion and comparison, in remorse I recklessly gave her my only bath wrapper, and for weeks went to the bath in a mackintosh.

Nellie was also willing to use as much carbolic soap as the station could afford; but as the smoking and spitting proved more difficult to cope with, and I had discovered that I could do all the "housework" in less time than it took to superintend it, I made Cheon a present of the entire staff, only keeping a lien on it for the washing and scrubbing. The lubras, however, refused to be taken off my visitor's list and Cheon insisting on them waiting on the missus while she was attending to the housework, no one gained or lost by the transfer.

Cheon had a scheme all his own for dealing with the servant question: the Maluka should buy a little Chinese maiden to wait on the missus. Cheon knew of one in Darwin, going cheap, for ten pounds, his—COUSIN's child. "A real bargain!" he assured the Maluka, finding him lacking in enthusiasm; "docile, sweet, and attentive," and yes, Cheon was sure of that "devoted to the missus," and also a splendid pecuniary investment (Cheon always had an eye on the dollars). Being only ten years of age, for six years she could serve the missus, and would then bring at least eighty pounds in the Chinese matrimonial market in Darwin—Chinese wives being scarce there. If she grew up moon-faced, and thus "good-looking," there seemed no end to the wealth she would bring us.

It took time to convince Cheon of the abolition of slavery throughout the Empire, and even when convinced, he was for buying the treasure and saying nothing about it to the Governor. It was not likely he would come in person to the Elsey, he argued, and, unless told, would know nothing about it.

But another fat, roundabout, roly-poly of humanity was to settle the servant question finally, within a day or two. "Larrikin" had been visiting foreign parts at Wandin, towards the west, and returning with a new wife, stolen from one "Jacky Big-Foot," presented her to the missus.

"Him Rosy!" he said, thus introducing his booty and without further ceremony Rosy requested permission to "sit down" on the staff. Like Cheon she carried her qualifications on the tip of her tongue: "Me savey scrub 'im, and sweep 'im, and wash 'im, and blue 'im, and starch 'im," she said glibly, with a flash of white teeth against a babyish pink tongue. She was wearing a freshly washed bright blue dress, hanging loosely from her shoulders, and looked so prettily jolly, clean, capable, and curly-headed, that I immediately made her housemaid and Head of the Staff.

"Great Scott!" the Maluka groaned, "that makes four of them at it!" But Rosy had appealed to me and I pointed out that it was a chance not to be missed and that she was worth the other three all put together. "Life will be a perennial picnic," I said, "with Rosy and Cheon at the head of affairs "; and for once I prophesied correctly.

Rosy, having been brought up among white folk, proved an adept little housemaid and Cheon looked with extreme favour upon her, and held her up as a bright and shining example to Jimmy's Nellie. But the person Cheon most approved of at the homestead was Johnny; for not only had Johnny helped him in many of his wild efforts at carpentry, but was he not working in the good cause?

"What's 'er matter, missus only got one room?" Cheon had said, angry with circumstances, and daily and hourly he urged Johnny to work quicker.

"What's the matter indeed!" Johnny echoed, mimicking his furious gutturals, and sawing, planing, and hammering, with untiring energy, pointed out that he was doing his best to give her more.

Finding the progress slow with only one man at work, Cheon suggested the Maluka might lend a hand in his spare time (station books being considered recreation); and when Dan came in with a mob of cattle from the Reach country, he hinted that cattle could wait, and that Dan could employ his time better.

But Dan also was out of patience with circumstances, and growled out that "they'd waited quite long enough as it was," for the work of the station was at a deadlock for want of stores. They had been sadly taxed by the needs of travellers, and we were down to our last half-bag of flour and sugar, and a terrifyingly small quantity of tea; soap, jams, fruits, kerosene, and all such had long been things of the past. The only food we had in quantities was meat, vegetables, and milk. Where we would have been without Cheon no one can tell.

To crown all, we had just heard that the Dandy was delayed in a bog with a broken shaft, but he eventually arrived in time to save the situation, but not before we were quite out of tea. He had little to complain of in the way of welcome when his great piled-up waggon lumbered into the homestead avenue and drew up in front of the store.

The horse teams were close behind, the Dandy said, but Mac was "having a gay time" in the sandy country, and sent in a message to remind the missus that she was still in the Land of Wait-awhile. The reminder was quite unnecessary.

There was also a message from Mine Host. "I'm sending a few cuttings for the missus," it read. Cuttings he called them, but the back of the waggon looked like a nurseryman's van; for all a-growing and a-blowing and waiting to be planted out, stood a row of flowering, well-grown plants in tins: crimson hibiscus, creepers, oleanders, and all sorts. A man is best known by his actions, and Mine Host best understood by his kindly thoughtfulness.

The store was soon full to overflowing, and so was our one room, for everything ordered for the house had arrived—rolls of calico heavy and unbleached, mosquito netting, blue matting for the floors, washstand ware, cups and saucers, and dozens of smaller necessities piled in every corner of the room.

"There won't be many idle hands round these parts for a while," a traveller said, looking round the congested room, and he was right, for having no sewing machine, a gigantic hand-sewing contract was to be faced. The ceilings of both rooms were to be calico, and a dozen or so of seams were to be oversewn for that, the strips of matting were to be joined together and bound into squares, and after that a herculean task undertaken: the making of a huge mosquito-netted dining-room, large enough to enclose the table and chairs, so as to ensure our meals in comfort—for the flies, like the poor, were to be with us always.

This net was to be nearly ten feet square and twelve high, with a calico roof of its own drawn taut to the ceiling of the room, and walls of mosquito netting, weighted at the foot with a deep fold of calico, and falling from ceiling to floor, with a wide double overlapping curtain for a doorway. Imagine an immense four-poster bed-net, ten by ten by twelve, swung taut within a larger room, and a fair idea of the dining-net will have been formed. A room within a room, and within the inner room we hoped to find a paradise at mealtime in comparison to the purgatory of the last few months.

But the sewing did not end at that. The lubras' methods of washing had proved most disastrous to my meagre wardrobe; and the resources of the homestead were taxed to the utmost to provide sufficient patching material to keep the missus even decently clothed.

"Wait for the waggons," the Maluka sang cheerily every time he found me hunting in the store (unbleached calico or mosquito netting being unsuitable for patching).

Cheon openly disapproved of this state of affairs, and was inclined to blame the Maluka. A good husband usually provides his wife with sufficient clothing, he insinuated; but when he heard that further supplies were on the bullock waggons, he apologised, and as he waddled about kept one ear cocked to catch the first sound of the bullock bells. "Bullocky jump four miles," he informed us; from which we inferred that the sound of the bells would travel four miles. Cheon's English generally required paraphrasing.

Almost every day some fresh garment collapsed, and I bitterly regretted my recklessness in giving Jimmy's Nellie the bath wrapper. Fortunately a holland dress was behaving beautifully. "A staunch little beast," the Maluka called it. That, however, had to be washed, every alternate day; and, fearing possible contingencies, I was beginning a dress of unbleached calico, when the Maluka, busy among the stores, came on a roll of bright pink galatea ordered for lubras' dresses, and brought it to the house in triumph.

Harsh, crudely pink, galatea! Yet it was received as joyfully as ever a woman received a Paris gown; for although necessity may be the mother of invention, she more often brings thankful hearts into this world.

A hank of coarse, bristling white braid was also unearthed from among the stores, and within three days the galatea had become a sturdy white-braided blouse and skirt, that promised to rival the "staunch little beast" in staunch-heartedness.

By the time it was finished, Johnny and the Dandy had all the flooring boards down in the dining-room, and before the last nail was in, Cheon and the Maluka had carried in every available stick of furniture, and spread it about the room to the greatest possible advantage. The walls were still unfinished, and doors and window frames gaped; but what did that matter? The missus had a dining-room, and as she presided at her supper-table in vivid pink and the pride of possession, Cheon looked as though he would have liked to shake hands with every one at once, but particularly with Johnny.

"Looks A1," the Maluka said, alluding to the stiff, aggressive frock, and took me "bush" with him, wearing the blouse, and a holland riding skirt that had also proved itself a true, staunch friend.

Dan, the Quiet Stockman, and the Dandy, had already gone "bush" in different directions; for with the coming of the year's stores, horse-breaking, house-building, trunks and waggons had all stepped into their proper places—a very secondary one—and cattle had come to the front and would stay there, as far as the men were concerned until next Wet.

Cattle, and cattle only, would be the work of the "Dry." Dan and the Quiet Stockman, with a dozen or so of cattle "boys" to help them, had the year's musterings and brandings to get through; the Dandy would be wherever he was most needed; yard-building, yard-repairing, carting stores or lending a hand with mustering when necessity arose, while the Maluka would be everywhere at once, in organisation if not in body.

Where runs are huge, and fenceless, and freely watered the year's mustering and branding is no simple task Our cattle were scattered through a couple of thousand square miles of scrub and open timbered country, and therefore each section of the run had to be gone over again and again; each mob, when mustered, travelled to the nearest yard and branded.

Every available day of the Dry was needed for the work; but there is one thing in the Never-Never that refuses to take a secondary—place the mailman; and at the end of a week we all found, once again, that we had business at the homestead; for six weeks had slipped away since our last mail-day, and the Fizzer was due once more.



CHAPTER XII

The Fizzer was due at sundown, and for the Fizzer to be due meant that the Fizzer would arrive, and by six o'clock we had all got cricks in our necks, with trying to go about as usual, and yet keep an expectant eye on the north track.

The Fizzer is unlike every type of man excepting a bush mail-man. Hard, sinewy, dauntless, and enduring, he travels day after day and month after month, practically alone—"on me Pat Malone," he calls it—with or without a black boy, according to circumstances, and five trips out of his yearly eight throwing dice with death along his dry stages, and yet at all times as merry as a grig, and as chirrupy as a young grasshopper.

With a light-hearted, "So long, chaps," he sets out from the Katherine on his thousand-mile ride, and with a cheery "What ho, chaps! Here we are again!" rides in again within five weeks with that journey behind him.

A thousand miles on horseback, "on me Pat Malone," into the Australian interior and out again, travelling twice over three long dry stages and several shorter ones, and keeping strictly within the Government time-limit, would be a life-experience to the men who set that limit if it wasn't a death-experience. "Like to see one of 'em doing it 'emselves," says the Fizzer. Yet never a day late, and rarely an hour, he does it eight times a year, with a "So long, chaps," and a "Here we are again."

The Fizzer was due at sundown, and at sundown a puff of dust rose on the track, and as a cry of "Mail oh !" went up all round the homestead, the Fizzer rode out of the dust.

"Hullo! What ho! boys," he shouted in welcome, and the next moment we were in the midst of his clattering team of pack-horses.

For five minutes everything was in confusion; horse bells and hobbles jingling and clanging, harness rattling, as horses shook themselves free, and pack-bags, swags, and saddles came to the ground with loud, creaking flops. Every one was lending a hand, and the Fizzer, moving in and out among the horses, shouted a medley of news and instructions and welcome.

"News? Stacks of it" he shouted. The Fizzer always shouted. "The gay time we had at the Katherine! Here, steady with that pack-bag. It's breakables! How's the raisin market? Eh, lads!" with many chuckles. "Sore back here, fetch along the balsam. What ho, Cheon!" as Cheon appeared and greeted him as an old friend. "Heard you were here. You're the boy for my money. You BALLY ass! Keep 'em back from the water there." This last was for the black boy. It took discrimination to fit the Fizzer's remarks on to the right person. Then, as a pack-bag dropped at the Maluka's feet, he added: "That's the station lot, boss. Full bags, missus! Two on 'em. You'll be doing the disappearing trick in half a mo'."

In "half a mo'" the seals were broken, and the mail-matter shaken out on the ground. A cascade of papers, magazines, and books, with a fat, firm little packet of letters among them: forty letters in all—thirty of them falling to my lot—thirty fat, bursting envelopes, and in another "half mo'" we had all slipped away in different directions—each with our precious mail matter—doing the "disappearing trick" even to the Fizzer's satisfaction.

The Fizzer smiled amiably after the retreating figures, and then went to be entertained by Cheon. He expected nothing else. He provided feasts all along his route, and was prepared to stand aside while the bush-folk feasted. Perhaps in the silence that fell over the bush homes, after his mail-bags were opened, his own heart slipped away to dear ones, who were waiting somewhere for news of our Fizzer.

Eight mails ONLY in a year is not all disadvantage. Townsfolk who have eight hundred tiny doses of mail-matter doled out to them, like men on sick diet can form little idea of the pleasure of that feast of "full bags and two on 'em," for like thirsty camels we drank it all in—every drop of it—in long, deep, satisfying draughts. It may have been a disadvantage, perhaps, to have been so thirsty; but then only the thirsty soul knows the sweetness of slaking that thirst.

After a full hour's silence the last written sheet was laid down, and I found the Maluka watching and smiling.

"Enjoyed your trip south, little 'un?" he said, and I came back to the bush with a start, to find the supper dead cold. But then supper came every night and the Fizzer once in forty-two.

At the first sound of voices, Cheon bustled in. "New-fellow tea, I think," he said, and bustled out again with the teapot (Cheon had had many years' experience of bush mail-days), and in a few minutes the unpalatable supper was taken away, and cold roast beef and tomatoes stood in its place.

After supper, as we went for our evening stroll, we stayed for a little while where the men were lounging, and after a general interchange of news the Fizzer's turn came.

News! He had said he had stacks of it, and he now bubbled over with it. The horse teams were "just behind," and the Macs almost at the front gate. The Sanguine Scot? Of course he was all right: always was, but reckoned bullock-punching wasn't all it was cracked up to be; thought his troubles were over when he got out of the sandy country, but hadn't reckoned on the black soil flats. "Wouldn't be surprised if he took to punching something else besides bullocks before he's through with it," the Fizzer shouted, roaring with delight at the recollection of the Sanguine Scot in a tight place. On and on he went with his news, and for two hours afterwards, as we sat chewing the cud of our mail-matter, we could hear him laughing and shouting and "chiacking."

At daybreak he was at it again, shouting among his horses, as he culled his team of "done-ups," and soon after breakfast was at the head of the south track with all aboard.

"So long, chaps," he called. "See you again half-past eleven four weeks"; and by "half-past eleven four weeks" he would have carried his precious freight of letters to the yearning, waiting men and women hidden away in the heart of Australia, and be out again, laden with "inside" letters for the outside world.

At all seasons of the year he calls the first two hundred miles of his trip a "kid's game." "Water somewhere nearly every day, and a decent camp most nights." And although he speaks of the next hundred and fifty as being a "bit off during the Dry," he faces its seventy-five-mile dry stage, sitting loosely in the saddle, with the same cheery "So long, chaps."

Five miles to "get a pace up"—a drink, and then that seventy-five miles of dry, with any "temperature they can spare from other parts," and not one drop of water in all its length for the horses. Straight on top of that, with the same horses and the same temperature, a run of twenty miles, mails dropped at Newcastle Waters, and another run of fifty into Powell's Creek, dry or otherwise according to circumstances.

"Takes a bit of fizzing to get into the Powell before the fourth sundown," the Fizzer says—for, forgetting that there can be no change of horses, and leaving no time for a "spell" after the "seventy-five-mile dry "—the time limit for that one hundred and fifty miles, in a country where four miles an hour is good travelling on good roads has been fixed at three and a half days. "Four, they call it," says the Fizzer, "forgetting I can't leave the water till midday. Takes a bit of fizzing all right"; and yet at Powell's Creek no one has yet discovered whether the Fizzer comes at sundown, or the sun goes down when the Fizzer comes.

"A bit off," he calls that stage, with a school-boy shrug of his shoulders; but at Renner's Springs, twenty miles farther on, the shoulders set square, and the man comes to the surface. The dice-throwing begins there, and the stakes are high—a man's life against a man's judgment.

Some people speak of the Fizzer's luck, and say he'll pull through, if any one can. It is luck, perhaps—but not in the sense they mean—to have the keen judgment to know to an ounce what a horse has left in him, judgment to know when to stop and when to go on—for that is left to the Fizzer's discretion; and with that judgment the dauntless courage to go on with, and win through, every task attempted.

The Fizzer changes horses at Renner's Springs for the "Downs' trip"; and as his keen eyes run over the mob, his voice raps out their verdict like an auctioneer's hammer. "He's fit. So is he. Cut that one out. That colt's A1. The chestnut's done. So is the brown. I'll risk that mare. That black's too fat." No hesitation: horse after horse rejected or approved, until the team is complete; and then driving them before him he faces the Open Downs—the Open Downs, where the last mail-man perished; and only the men who know the Downs in the Dry know what he faces.

For five trips out of the eight, one hundred and thirty miles of sun-baked, crab-holed, practically trackless plains, no sign of human habitation anywhere, cracks that would swallow a man—"hardly enough wood to boil a quart pot," the Fizzer says, and a sun-temperature hovering about 160 degrees (there is no shade-temperature on the Downs); shadeless, trackless, sun-baked, crab-holed plains, and the Fizzer's team a moving speck in the centre of an immensity that, never diminishing and never changing, moves onward with the team; an immensity of quivering heat and glare, with that one tiny living speck in its centre, and in all that hundred and thirty miles one drink for the horses at the end of the first eighty. That is the Open Downs.

"Fizz!" shouts the Fizzer. "That's where the real fizzing gets done, and nobody that hasn't tried it knows what it's like."

He travels its first twenty miles late in the afternoon, then, unpacking his team, "lets 'em go for a roll and a pick, while he boils a quart pot" (the Fizzer carries a canteen for himself); "spells" a bare two hours, packs up again and travels all night, keeping to the vague track with a bushman's instinct, "doing" another twenty miles before daylight; unpacks for another spell, pities the poor brutes "nosing round too parched to feed," may "doze a bit with one ear cocked," and then packing up again, "punches 'em along all day," with or without a spell. Time is precious now. There is a limit to the number of hours a horse can go without water, and the thirst of the team fixes the time limit on the Downs. "Punches 'em along all day, and into water close up sundown," at the deserted Eva Downs station.

"Give 'em a drink at the well there," the Fizzer says as unconcernedly as though he turned on a tap. But the well is old and out of repair, ninety feet deep, with a rickety old wooden windlass; fencing wire for a rope; a bucket that the Fizzer has "seen fit to plug with rag on account of it leaking a bit," and a trough, stuffed with mud at one end by the resourceful Fizzer. Truly the Government is careful for the safety of its servants. Added to all this, there are eight or ten horses so eager for a drink that the poor brutes have to be tied up, and watered one at a time; and so parched with thirst that it takes three hours' drawing before they are satisfied—three hours' steady drawing, on top of twenty-three hours out of twenty-seven spent in the saddle, and half that time "punching" jaded beasts along; and yet they speak of the "Fizzer's luck."

"Real fine old water too," the Fizzer shouts in delight, as he tells his tale. "Kept in the cellar for our special use. Don't indulge in it much myself. Might spoil my palate for newer stuff, so I carry enough for the whole trip from Renner's."

If the Downs have left deep lines on the Fizzer's face, they have left none in his heart. Yet at that well the dice-throwing goes on just the same.

Maybe the Fizzer feels "a bit knocked out with the sun," and the water for his perishing horses ninety feet below the surface; or "things go wrong" with the old windlass, and everything depends on the Fizzer's ingenuity. The odds are very uneven when this happens—a man's ingenuity against a man's life, and death playing with loaded dice. And every letter the Fizzer carries past that well costs the public just twopence.

A drink at the well, an all-night's spell, another drink, and then away at midday, to face the tightest pinch of all—the pinch where death won with the other mail-man. Fifty miles of rough, hard, blistering, scorching "going," with worn and jaded horses.

The old programme all over again. Twenty miles more, another spell for the horses (the Fizzer never seems to need a spell for himself), and then the last lap of thirty, the run into Anthony's Lagoon, "punching the poor beggars along somehow." "Keep 'em going all night," the Fizzer says; "and if you should happen to be at Anthony's on the day I'm due there you can set your watch for eleven in the morning when you see me coming along." I have heard somewhere of the Pride of Harness.

Sixteen days is the time-limit for those five-hundred miles, and yet the Fizzer is expected because the Fizzer is due; and to a man who loves his harness no praise could be sweeter than that. Perhaps one of the brightest thoughts for the Fizzer as he "punches" along those desolate Downs is the knowledge that a little before eleven o'clock in the morning Anthony's will come out, and, standing with shaded eyes, will look through the quivering heat, away into the Downs for that tiny moving speck. When the Fizzer is late there, death will have won at the dice-throwing.

I suppose he got a salary. No one ever troubled to ask. He was expected, and he came, and in our selfishness we did not concern ourselves beyond that.

It is men like the Fizzer who, "keeping the roads open," lay the foundation-stones of great cities; and yet when cities creep into the Never-Never along the Fizzer's mail route, in all probability they will be called after Members of Parliament and the Prime Ministers of that day, grandsons, perhaps, of the men who forgot to keep the old well in repair, while our Fizzer and the mail-man who perished will be forgotten; for townsfolk are apt to forget the beginnings of things.

Three days' spell at Anthony's, to wait for the Queensland mail-man from the "other-side" (another Fizzer no doubt, for the bush mail-service soon culls out the unfitted), an exchange of mail-bags, and then the Downs must be faced again with the same team of horses. Even the Fizzer owns that "tackling the Downs for the return trip's a bit sickening; haven't had time to forget what it feels like, you know," he explains.

Inside to Anthony's, three days' spell, over the Downs again, stopping for another drink at that well, along the stage "that's a bit off," and back to the "kid's game," dropping mail-bags in twos and threes as he goes in, and collecting others as he comes out, to say nothing of the weary packing and unpacking of his team. That is what the Fizzer had to do by half-past eleven four weeks.

"And will go hopelessly on the spree at the end of the trip," say uncharitable folk; but they do not know our Fizzer. "Once upon a time I was a bad little boy," our Fizzer says now, "but since I learnt sense a billy of tea's good enough for me."

And our Fizzer is not the only man out-bush who has "learnt sense." Man after man I have met who found tea "good enough," and many more who "know how to behave themselves." Sadly enough, there are others in plenty who find their temptations too strong for them—temptations that the world hardly guesses at.

But I love the bush-folk for the good that is in them, hidden, so often, carefully away deep down in their brave, strong hearts—hearts and men that ring true, whether they have "learnt sense," or "know how to behave," or are only of the others. But every man's life runs parallel with other lives, and while the Fizzer was "punching along" his dry stages events were moving rapidly with us; while perhaps, aways in the hearts of towns, men and women were "winning through the dry stages" of their lives there.



CHAPTER XIII

Soon after the Fizzer left us the horse-teams came in, and went on, top-heavy with stores for "inside"; but the "Macs" were now thinking of the dry stages ahead, and were travelling at the exasperating rate of about four miles a day, as they "nursed the bullocks" through the good grass country.

Dan had lost interest in waggons, and was anxious to get among the cattle again; but with the trunks so near, the house growing rapidly, the days of sewing waiting, I refused point-blank to leave the homestead just then.

Dan tried to taunt me into action, and reviewed the "kennel" with critical eyes. "Never saw a dog makin', its own chain before," he said to the Maluka as I sat among billows of calico and mosquito netting. But the homemaking instinct is strong in a woman, and the musterers went out west without the missus. The Dandy being back at the Bitter Springs superintending the carting of new posts for the stockyard there, the missus was left in the care of Johnny and Cheon.

"Now we shan't be long," said Johnny, and Cheon, believing him, expressed great admiration for Johnny, and superintended the scrubbing of the walls, while I sat and sewed, yard after yard of oversewing, as never woman sewed before.

The walls were erected on what is known as the drop-slab-panel system—upright panels formed of three-foot slabs cut from the outside slice of tree trunks, and dropped horizontally, one above the other, between grooved posts—a simple arrangement, quickly run up and artistic in appearance—outside, a horizontally fluted surface, formed by the natural curves of the timber, and inside, flat, smooth walls. As in every third panel there was a door or a window, and as the horizontal slabs stopped within two feet of the ceiling, the building was exceedingly airy, and open on all sides.

Cheon, convinced that the system was all Johnny's was delighted with his ingenuity. But as he insisted on the walls being scrubbed as soon as they were up, and before the doors and windows were in, Johnny had one or two good duckings, and narrowly escaped many more; for lubras' methods of scrubbing are as full of surprises as all their methods.

First soap is rubbed on the dry boards, then vigorously scrubbed into a lather with wet brushes, and after that the lather is sluiced off with artificial waterspouts whizzed up the walls from full buckets. It was while the sluicing was in progress that Johnny had to be careful; for many buckets missed their mark, and the waterspouts shot out through the doorways and window frames.

Wearing a mackintosh, I did what I could to prevent surprises, but without much success. Johnny fortunately took it all as a matter of course. "It's all in the good cause," he chuckled, shaking himself like a water-spaniel after a particularly bad misadventure; and described the "performance" with great zest to the Maluka when he returned. The sight of the clean walls filled the Maluka also with zeal for the cause, and in the week that followed walls sprouted with corner shelves and brackets— three wooden kerosene cases became a handy series of pigeonholes for magazines and papers. One panel in the diningroom was completely filled with bookshelves, one above the other for our coming books. Great sheets of bark, stripped by the blacks from the Ti Tree forest, were packed a foot deep above the rafters to break the heat reflected from the iron roof, while beneath it the calico ceiling was tacked up. And all the time Johnny hammered and whistled and planed, finishing the bathroom and "getting on" with the office.

The Quiet Stockman coming in, was pressed into the service, and grew quite enthusiastic, suggesting substitutes for necessities, until I suggested cutting off the tail of every horse on the run, to get enough horsehair for a mattress.

"Believe the boss'ud do it himself if she asked him," he said in the Quarters; and in his consternation suggested bangtailing the cattle during the musters.

"Just the thing," Dan decided; and we soon saw, with his assistance, a vision of our future mattress walkin' about the run on the ends of cows' tails.

"Looks like it's going to be a dead-heat," Johnny said, still hammering, when the Dandy brought in word that the Macs were within twelve miles of the homestead. And when I announced next day that the dining-net was finished and ready for hanging, he also became wildly enthusiastic.

"Told you from the beginning we shouldn't be long," he said, flourishing a hammer and brimming over with suggestions for the hanging of the net. "Rope'll never hold it," he declared; "fencing wire's the thing," so fencing wire was used, and after a hard morning's work pulling and straining the wire and securing it to uprights, the net was in its place, the calico roof smooth and flat against the ceiling, and its curtains hanging to the floor, with strong, straight saplings run through the folded hem to weigh it down. Cheon was brimming over with admiration for it

"My word, boss! Missus plenty savey," he said. (Cheon invariably discussed the missus in her presence.) "Chinaman woman no more savey likee that," and bustling away, dinner was soon served inside the net.

Myriads of flies, balked in their desire, settled down on the outside, and while we enjoyed our dinner in peace and comfort, Cheon hovered about, like a huge bloated buzz fly himself, chuckling around the outside among the swarms of balked flies, or coming inside to see if "any fly sit down inside."

"My word, boss! Hear him sing-out sing-out. Missus plenty savey," he reiterated, and then calling a Chinese friend from the kitchen, stood over him, until he also declared that "missus BLENTY savey," with good emphasis on the BLENTY.

The net was up by midday, and at ten o'clock at night the slow, dull clang of a bullock-bell crept out of the forest. Cheon was the first to hear it. "Bullocky come on," he called, waddling to the house and waking us from our first sleep; and as the deep-throated bell boomed out again the Maluka said drowsily: "The homestead's only won by a head. Mac's at the Warlochs."

At "fowl-sing-out" we were up, and found Bertie's Nellie behind the black boys' humpy shyly peeping round a corner. With childlike impetuosity she had scampered along the four miles from the Warlochs, only to be overcome with unaccountable shyness.

"Allo, missus!" was all she could find to say, and the remainder of the interview she filled in with wriggling and giggles.

Immediately after breakfast Mac splashed through the creek at a hand-gallop and, dashing up to the house, flung himself from his horse, the same impetuous, warmhearted "Brither Scot."

"Patience rewarded at last," he called in welcome; and when invited to "come ben the hoose to the diningroom," was, as usual, full of congratulations. "My! We are some!" he said, examining every detail. But as he also said that "the Dandy could get the trunks right off if we liked to send him across with the dray," we naturally "liked," and Johnny and the Dandy harnessing up, went with him, and before long the verandah and rooms were piled with trunks.

Fortunately Dan was "bush" again among the cattle, or his heart would have broken at this new array of links for the chain.

Once the trunks were all in, Mac, the Dandy, and Johnny retired to the Quarters after a few more congratulations, Johnny continuing his flourishes all the way across. Cheon however, with his charming disregard for conventionality being interested, settled himself on one of the trunks to watch the opening up of the others.

To have ordered him away would have clouded his beaming happiness; so he remained, and told us exactly what he thought of our possessions, adding much to the pleasure of the opening of the trunks. If any woman would experience real pleasure, let her pack all her belongings into trunks—all but a couple of changes of everything—and go away out-bush, leaving them to follow "after the Wet" per bullock waggon, and when the reunion takes place the pleasure will be forthcoming. If she can find a Cheon to be present at the reunion, so much the better.

Some of our belongings Cheon thoroughly approved of; others were passed over as unworthy of notice; and others were held up to chuckling ridicule. A silver teapot was pounced upon with a cry of delight (tinware being considered far beneath the dignity of a missus, and seeing Sam had broken the china pot soon after its arrival, tinware had graced our board for some time), pictures were looked at askance, particularly an engraving of Psyche at the Pool; while the case for a set of carvers received boundless admiration, although the carvers in no way interested him.

The photographs of friends and relatives were looked carefully over, the womenfolk being judged by what they might bring in a Chinese matrimonial market.

"My word! That one good-looking. Him close up sixty pound longa China," was rather disconcerting praise of a very particular lady friend.

A brass lamp was looked upon as a monument of solid wealth, "Him gold," he decided, insisting it was in the face of all denials. "Him gold. Me savey gold all right. Me live longa California long time," he said, bringing forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said, making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at that for the time being.

After wandering through several trunks and gloating over blouses, and skirts, and house-linen, and old friends the books were opened up, and before the Maluka became lost to the world Cheon favoured them with a passing glance. "Big mob book," he said indifferently, and turned his attention to the last trunk of all.

Near the top was a silver filigree candlestick moulded into the form of a Convolvulus flower and leaf—a dainty little thing, but it appeared ridiculous to Cheon's commonsense mind.

"Him silly fellow," he scoffed, and appealed to the Maluka for his opinion: "him silly fellow? Eh boss?" he asked.

The Maluka was half-buried in books. "Um," he murmured absently, and that clinched the matter for all time. "Boss bin talk silly fellow" Cheon said, with an approving nod toward the Maluka, and advised packing the candlestick away again. "Plenty room sit down longa box," he said, truthfully enough, putting it into an enormous empty trunk and closing the lid, leaving the candlestick a piece of lonely splendour hidden under a bushel.

But the full glory of our possessions was now to burst upon Cheon. The trunk we were at was half filled with all sorts of cunning devices for kitchen use, intended for the mistress's pantry of that commodious station home of past ignorant imagination. A mistress's pantry forsooth, in a land where houses are superfluous and luxuries barred, and at a homestead where the mistress had long ceased to be anything but the little missus—something to rule or educate or take care of, according to the nature of her subordinates.

In a flash I knew all I had once been, and quailing before the awful proof before me, presented Cheon with the whole collection of tin and enamel ware, and packed him off to the kitchen before the Maluka had time to lose interest in the books.

Everything was exactly what Cheon most needed, and he accepted everything with gleeful chuckles—everything excepting a kerosene Primus burner for boiling a kettle. That he refused to touch. "Him go bang," he explained, as usual explicit and picturesque in his English.

After gathering his treasure together he waddled away to the kitchen, and at afternoon tea we had sponge cakes, light and airy beyond all dreams of airy lightness, no one having yet combined the efforts of Cheon, a flour dredge, and an egg-beater, in his dreams. And Cheon's heart being as light as his cookery, in his glee he made a little joke at the expense of the Quarters, summoning all there to afternoon tea with a chuckling call of "Cognac!" chuckles that increased tenfold at the mock haste of the Quarters. A little joke, by the way, that never lost in freshness as the months went by.

At intervals during the days that followed Cheon surveyed his treasures, and during these intervals the whirr of the flour dredge or egg-beater was heard from the kitchens, and invariably the whirr was followed by a low, distinct chuckle of appreciation.

All afternoon we worked, and by the evening the dining-room was transformed: blue cloths and lace runners on the deal side-table and improvised pigeon-holes; nicknacks here and there on tables and shelves and brackets; pictures on the walls; "kent" faces in photograph frames among the nicknacks; a folding carpet-seated armchair in a position of honour; cretonne curtains in the doorway between the rooms, and inside the shimmering white net a study in colour effect—blue and white matting on the floor, a crimson cloth on the table, and on the cloth Cheon's "silver" swan sailing in a sea of purple, blue, and heliotrope water-lilies. But best of all were the books row upon row of old familiar friends; nearly two hundred of them filling the shelved panel as they looked down upon us.

Mac was dazzled with the books. "Hadn't seen so many together since he was a nipper"; and after we had introduced him to our favourites, we played with our new toys like a parcel of children, until supper time.

When supper was over we lit the lamp, and shutting doors and windows, shut the Sanguine Scot in with us, and made believe we were living once more within sound of the rumble of a great city. Childish behaviour, no doubt, but to be expected from folk who can find entertainment in the going to bed of fowls; but when the heart is happy it forgets to grow old.

"A lighted lamp and closed doors, and the outside world is what you will it to be," the Maluka theorised, and to disprove it Mac drew attention to the distant booming of the bells that swung from the neck of his grazing bullocks.

"The city clocks," we said. "We hear them distinctly at night."

But the night was full of sounds all around the homestead, and Mac, determined to mock, joined in with the "Song of the Frogs."

"Quart pot! Qua-rt-pot!" he croaked, as they sang outside in rumbling monotone.

"The roll of the tramcars," the Maluka interpreted gravely, as the long flowing gutturals blended into each other; and Mac's mood suddenly changing he entered into our sport, and soon put us to shame in make-believing; spoke of "pining for a breath of fresh air"; "hoped" to get away from the grime and dust of the city as soon as the session was over; wondered how he would shape "at camping out," with an irrepressible chuckle. "Often thought I'd like to try it," he said, and invited us to help him make up a camping party. "Be a change for us city chaps," he suggested; and then exploding at what he called his "tomfoolery," set the dining-net all a-quivering and shaking.

"Gone clean dilly, I believe," he declared, after thinking that he had "better be making a move for the last train."

Then, mounting his waiting horse, he splashed through the creek again, and disappeared into the moonlit grove of pandanus palms beyond it.

The waggons spelled for two days at the Warlochs, and we saw much of the "Macs." Then they decided to "push on"; for not only were others farther "in" waiting for the waggons, but daily the dry stages were getting longer and drier; and the shorter his dry stages are, the better a bullock-puncher likes them.

With well-nursed bullocks, and a full complement of them—the "Macs" had twenty-two per waggon for their dry stages—a "thirty-five-mile dry" can be "rushed," the waggoners getting under way by three o'clock one afternoon, travelling all night with a spell or two for the bullocks by the way, and "punching" them into water within twenty-four hours.

"Getting over a fifty-mile dry" is, however, a more complicated business, and suggests a treadmill. The waggons are "pulled out" ten miles in the late afternoon, the bullocks unyoked and brought back to the water, spelled most of the next day, given a last drink and travelled back to the waiting waggons by sundown; yoked up and travelled on all that night and part of the next day; once more unyoked at the end of the forty miles of the stage; taken forward to the next water, and spelled and nursed up again at this water for a day or two; travelled back again to the waggons, and again yoked up, and finally brought forward in the night with the loads to the water.

Fifty miles dry with loaded waggons being the limit for mortal bullocks, the Government breaks the "seventy-five" with a "drink" sent out in tanks on one of the telegraph station waggons. The stage thus broken into "a thirty-five-mile dry," with another of forty on top of that, becomes complicated to giddiness in its backings, and fillings, and goings, and comings, and returnings.

As each waggon carries only five tons, all things considered, from thirty to forty pounds a ton is not a high price to pay for the cartage of stores to "inside."

But although the "getting in", with the stores means much to the "bush-folk," getting out again is the ultimate goal of the waggoners.

There is time enough for the trip, but only good time, before the roads will be closed by the dry stages growing to impossible lengths for the bullocks to recross; and if the waggoners lose sight of their goal, and loiter by the way, they will find themselves "shut in" inside, with no prospect of getting out until the next Wet opens the road for them.

The Irish Mac held records for getting over stages; but even he had been "shut in" once, and had sat kicking his heels all through a long Dry, wondering if the showers would come in time to let him out for the next year's loading, or if the Wet would break suddenly, and further shut him in with floods and bogs. The horse teams had been "shut in" the same year, but as the Macs explained, the teamsters had broached their cargo that year, and had a "glorious spree" with the cases of grog—a "glorious spree" that detained them so long on the road that by the time they were in there was no chance of getting out, and they had more than enough time to brace themselves for the interview that eventually came with their employers.

"Might a bullock-puncher have the privilege of shaking hands with a lady?" the Irish Mac asked, extending an honest, horny hand; and the privilege, if it were one, was granted. Finally all was ready, and the waggons, one behind the other, each with its long swaying line of bullocks before it, slid away from the Warloch Ponds and crept into the forest, looking like three huge snails with shells on their backs, Bertie's Nellie watching, wreathed in smiles.

Nellie had brought to the homestead her bosom friend and crony, Biddy, and the staff had increased to five. It would have numbered six, only Maudie, discovering that the house was infested with debbil-debbils, had resigned and "gone bush." The debbil-debbils were supposed to haunt the Maluka's telescope, for Maudie, on putting her eye to the sight opening, to find out what interested the Maluka so often, had found the trees on the distant plain leaping towards her.

"Debbil-debbil, sit down," she screamed, as, flinging the telescope from her in a frenzy of fear, she found the distance still and composed,

"No more touch him, missus!" she shrieked, as I stooped to pick up the telescope. "'Spose you touch him, all about there come on quick fellow. Me bin see him! My word him race!"

After many assurances, I was allowed to pick it up, Maudie crouching in a shuddering heap the while behind the office, to guard against surprises. Next morning she applied for leave of absence and "went bush." Jimmy's Nellie, however, was not so easily scared, and after careful investigation treated herself to a pleasant half hour with the telescope.

"Tree all day walk about," she said, explaining the mystery to the staff; and the looking-glass speedily lost in favour. The telescope proved full of delights. But although it was a great sight to see a piccaninny "come on big-fellow," nothing could compare with the joy of looking through the reversed end of the glass, into a world where great men became "little fellow," unless it were the marvel of watching dim, distant specks as they took on the forms of birds, beasts, or men.

The waggons gone, and with them Nellie's shyness, she quietly ousted Rosy from her position at the head of the staff. "Me sit down first time," she said; and happy, smiling Rosy, retiring, obeyed orders as willingly as she had given them. With Nellie and Rosy at the head of affairs, house-cleaning passed unnoticed, and although, after the arrival of unlimited changes of everything, washing-day threatened to become a serious business, they coped with that difficulty by continuing to live in a cycle of washing days—every alternate day only, though, so as to leave time for gardening.

The gardening staff, which consisted of a king, an heir-apparent, and a royal councillor, had been engaged to wheel barrow-loads of rich loamy soil from the billabong to the garden beds; but as its members preferred gossiping in the shade to work of any kind, the gardening took time and supervision.

"That'll do, Gadgerrie?" was the invariable question after each load, as the staff prepared to sit down for a gossip; and "Gadgerrie" had to start every one afresh, after deciding whose turn it was to ride back to the billabong in the barrow.

Six loads in a morning was a fair record, for "Gadgerrie" was not often disinclined for a gossip on court matters, but although nothing was done while we were out-bush, the garden was gradually growing.

Two of the beds against the verandah were gaily flourishing, others "coming on," and outside the broad pathway a narrow bed had been made all round the garden for an hibiscus hedge; while outside this bed again, one at each corner of the garden, stood four posts—the Maluka's promise of a dog-proof, goat-proof, fowl-proof fence. So far Tiddle'ums had acted as fence, when we were in, at the homestead, scattering fowls, goats, and dairy cows in all directions if they dared come over a line she had drawn in her mind's eye. When Tiddle'ums was out-bush with us, Bett-Bett acted as fence.

Johnny, generally repairing the homestead now, admired the garden and declared everything would be "A1 in no time."

"Wouldn't know the old place," he said, a day or two later, surveying his own work with pride. Then he left us, and for the first time I was sorry the house was finished. Johnny was one of the men who had not "learnt sense" but the world would be a better place if there were more Johnnies in it.

Just as we were preparing to go out-bush for reports, Dan came in with a mob of cattle for branding and the news that a yard on the northern boundary was gone from the face of the earth.

"Clean gone since last Dry," he reported; "burnt or washed away, or both."

Rather than let his cattle go, he had travelled in nearly thirty miles with the mob in hand, but "reckoned" it wasn't "good enough." "The time I've had with them staggering bobs," he said, when we pitied the poor, weary, footsore little calves: "could 'av brought in a mob of snails quicker. 'Tisn't good enough."

The Maluka also considered it not "good enough," and decided to run up a rough branding wing at once on to the holding yard at the Springs; and while Dan saw to the branding of the mob the Maluka looked out his plans.

"Did you get much hair for the mattress?" I asked, all in good faith, when Dan came down from the yards to the house to discuss the plans, and Dan stood still, honestly vexed with himself.

"Well, I'm blest!" he said, "if I didn't forget all about it," and then tried to console me by saying I wouldn't need a mattress till the mustering was over. "Can't carry it round with you, you know," he said, "and it won't be needed anywhere else." Then he surveyed the house with his philosophical eye.

"Wouldn't know the old place," Johnny had said, and Dan "reckoned" it was "all right as houses go." Adding with a chuckle, "Well, she's wrestled with luck for more'n four months to get it, but the question is, what's she going to use it for now she's got it?"



CHAPTER XIV

For over four months we had wrestled with luck for a house, only to find we had very little use for it for the time being, that is, until next Wet. It couldn't be carried out-bush from camp to camp, and finding us at a loss for an answer, Dan suggested one himself.

"Of course!" he said, as he eyed the furnishings with interest, "it 'ud come in handy to pack the chain away in while the dog was out enjoying itself "; and we left it at that. It came in handy to pack the chain away in while the dog was enjoying itself, for within twenty-four hours we were camped at the Bitter Springs, and two weeks passed before the homestead saw us again.

After our experience of "getting hold of Johnny," Dan called it foolishness to wait for an expert, and the Dandy being away for the remainder of the stores, and the Quiet Stockman having his hands full to overflowing, the Maluka and Dan with that adaptability peculiar to bushmen, set to work themselves at the yard, with fifteen or twenty boys as apprentices.

As most of the boys had their lubras with them, it was an immense camp, but exceedingly pretty. One small tent "fly" for a dressing-room for the missus, and the remainder of the accommodation—open-air and shady bough gundies; tiny, fresh, cool, green shade-houses here, there, and everywhere for the blacks; one set apart from the camp for a larder, and an immense one—all green waving boughs—for the missus to rest in during the heat of the day. "The Cottage," Dan called it.

Of course, Sool'em and Brown were with us, Little Tiddle'ums being in at the homestead on the sick list with a broken leg; and in addition to Sool'em and Brown an innumerable band of nigger dogs, Billy Muck being the adoring possessor of fourteen, including pups, which fanned out behind him as he moved hither and thither like the tail of a comet.

Our camp being a stationary one, was, by comparison with our ordinary camps, a campe-de-luxe; for, apart from the tent-fly, in it were books, pillows, and a canvas lounge, as well as some of the flesh-pots of Egypt, in the shape of eggs, cakes, and vegetables sent out every few days by Cheon, to say nothing of scrub turkeys, fish, and such things.

Dan had no objection to the eggs, cakes, or vegetables, but the pillows and canvas lounge tried him sorely. "Thought the chain was to be left behind in the kennel," he said, and decided that the "next worst thing to being chained up was" for a dog to have to drag a chain round when it was out for a run. "Look at me!" he said, "never been chained up all me life, just because I never had enough permanent property to make a chain—never more than I could carry in one hand: a bluey, a change of duds, a mosquito net, and a box of Cockle's pills."

We suggested that Cockle's pills were hardly permanent property, but Dan showed that they were, with him.

"More permanent than you'd think," he said. "When I've got 'em in me swag, I never need 'em, and when I've left 'em somewhere else I can't get 'em: so you see the same box does for always."

Yard-building lacking in interest, lubras and piccaninnies provided entertainment, until Dan failing to see that "niggers could teach her anything," decided on a course of camp cookery.

Roast scrub turkey was the first lesson cooked in the most correct style: a forked stick, with the fork uppermost, was driven into the ground near the glowing heap of wood ashes; then a long sapling was leant through the fork, with one end well over the coals; a doubled string, with the turkey hanging from it, looped over this end; the turkey turned round and round until the string was twisted to its utmost, and finally string and turkey were left to themselves, to wind and unwind slowly, an occasional winding-up being all that was necessary.

The turkey was served at supper, and with it an enormous boiled cabbage—one of Cheon's successes. Dan was in clover, boiled cabbage being considered nectar fit for the gods, and after supper he put the remnants of the feast away for his breakfast. "Cold cabbage goes all right," he said, as he stowed it carefully away—"particularly for breakfast."

Then the daily damper was to be made, and I took the dish without a misgiving. I felt at home there, for bushmen have long since discarded the old-fashioned damper, and use soda and cream-of-tartar in the mixture. But ours was an immense camp, and I had reckoned without any thought. An immense camp requires an immense damper; and, the dish containing pounds and pounds of flour, when the mixture was ready for kneading the kneading was beyond a woman's hands—a fact that provided much amusement to the bushmen.

"Hit him again, little 'un," the Maluka cried encouragingly, as I punched and pummelled at the unwieldy mass.

"Give it to him, missus," Dan chuckled. "That's the style! Now you've got him down."

Kneeling in front of the dish, I pounded obediently at the mixture; and as they alternately cheered and advised and I wrestled with circumstances, digging my fists vigorously into the spongy, doughy depths of the damper, a traveller rode right into the camp.

"Good evening, mates," he said, dismounting. "Saw your fires, and thought I'd camp near for company." Then discovering that one of the "mates" was a woman, backed a few steps, dazed and open-mouthed—a woman, dough to the elbows, pounding blithely at a huge damper, being an unusual sight in a night camp in the heart of one of the cattle runs in the Never-Never.

"We're conducting a cooking class," the Maluka explained, amused at the man's consternation.

The traveller grinned a sickly grin, and "begging pardon, ma'am, for intruding," said something about seeing to his camp, and backed to a more comfortable distance; and the damper-making proceeded.

"There's a billy just thinking of boiling here you can have, mate, seeing it's late," Dan called, when he heard the man rattling tinware, as he prepared to go for water; and once more "begging pardon, ma'am, for intruding," the traveller came into our camp circle, and busied himself with the making of tea.

The tea made to his satisfaction, he asked diffidently if there was a "bit of meat to spare," as his was a "bit off"; and Dan went to the larder with a hospitable "stacks!"

"How would boiled cabbage and roast turkey go?" Dan called, finding himself confronted with the great slabs of cabbage; and the traveller, thinking it was supposed to be a joke, favoured us with another nervous grin and a terse "Thanks!" Then Dan reappeared, laden, and the man's eyes glistened as he forgot his first surprise in his second. "Real cabbage!" he cried. "Gosh! ain't tasted cabbage for five years"; and the Maluka telling him to "sit right down then and begin, just where you are"—beside our camp fire—with a less nervous "begging your pardon, ma'am," he dropped down on one knee, and began.

"Don't be shy of the turkey," the Maluka said presently, noticing that he had only taken a tiny piece, and the man looked sheepishly up. "'Tain't exactly that I'm shy of it," he said, "but I'm scared to fill up any space that might hold cabbage. That is," he added, again apologetic, "if it's not wanted, ma'am."

It wasn't wanted; and as the man found room for it, the Maluka and Dan offered further suggestions for the construction of the damper and its conveyance to the fire.

The conveyance required judgment and watchful diplomacy, as the damper preferred to dip in a rolling valley between my extended arms, or hang over them like a tablecloth, rather than keep its desired form. But with patience, and the loan of one of Dan's huge palms, it finally fell with an unctuous, dusty "whouf" into the opened-out bed of ashes.

By the time it was hidden away, buried in the heart of the fire, a woman's presence in a camp had proved less disturbing than might be imagined, and we learned that our traveller had "come from Beyanst," with a backward nod towards the Queensland border, and was going west; and by the time the cabbage and tea were finished he had become quite talkative.

"Ain't seen cabbage, ma'am, for more'n five years," he said, leaning back on to a fallen tree trunk, with a satisfied sigh (cabbage and tea being inflating), adding when I sympathised, "nor a woman neither, for that matter."

Neither a cabbage nor a woman for five years! Think of it, townsfolk! Neither a cabbage nor a woman—with the cabbage placed first. I wonder which will be longest remembered.

"Came on this, though, in me last camp, east there," he went on, producing a hairpin, with another nod eastwards. "Wondered how it got there." "Your'n, I s'pose"; then, sheepish once more, he returned it to his pocket, saying he "s'posed he might as well keep it for luck."

It being a new experience to one of the plain sisterhood to feel a man was cherishing one of her hairpins, if only "for luck," I warmed towards the "man from Beyanst," and grew hopeful of rivalling even that cabbage in his memory. "You didn't expect to find hairpins, and a woman, in a camp in the back blocks," I said, feeling he was a character, and longing for him to open up. But he was even more of a character than I guessed.

"Back blocks!" he said in scorn. "There ain't no back blocks left. Can't travel a hundred miles nowadays without running into somebody! You don't know what back blocks is, begging your pardon, ma'am."

But Dan did; and the camp chat that night was worth travelling several hundred miles to hear: tales dug out of the beginning of things; tales of drought, and flood, and privation; cattle-duffing yarns, and long tales of the droving days; two years' reminiscences of getting through with a mob—reminiscences that finally brought ourselves and the mob to Oodnadatta.

"That's the place if you want to see drunks, ma'am," the traveller said, forgetting in his warmth his "begging your pardon, ma'am," just when it would have been most opportune, seeing I had little hankering to see "drunks."

"It's the desert does it, missus, after the overland trip," Dan explained. "It 'ud give anybody a 'drouth.' Got a bit merry meself there once and had to clear out to camp," he went on. "Felt it getting a bit too warm for me to stand. You see, it was when the news came through that the old Queen was dead, and being something historical that had happened, the chaps felt it ought to be celebrated properly."

Poor old Queen! And yet, perhaps, her grand, noble heart would have understood these, her subjects, and known them for the men they were—as loyal-hearted and true to her as the highest in the land.

"They were lying two-deep about the place next morning," Dan added, continuing his tale; but the Maluka, fearing the turn the conversation had taken, suggested turning in.

Then Dan having found a kindred spirit in the traveller, laid a favourite trap for one of his favourite jokes: shaking out a worn old bluey, he examined it carefully in the firelight.

"Blanket's a bit thin, mate," said the man from Beyanst, unconsciously playing his part. "Surely it can't keep you warm"; and Dan's eyes danced in anticipation of his joke.

"Oh well!" he said, solemn-looking as an owl, as he tucked it under one arm, "if it can't keep a chap warm after ten years' experience it'll never do it," and turned in at once, with his usual lack of ceremony.

We had boiled eggs for breakfast, and once more the traveller joined us. Cheon had sent the eggs out with the cabbage, and I had hidden them away, intending to spring a surprise on the men-folk at breakfast.

"How many eggs shall I boil for you, Dan?" I said airily, springing my surprise in this way on all the camp. But Dan, wheeling with an exclamation of pleasure, sprung a surprise of his own on the missus.

"Eggs!" he said. "Good enough! How many? Oh, a dozen'll do, seeing we've got steak "; and I limply showed all I had—fifteen.

Dan scratched his head trying to solve the problem. "Never reckon it's worth beginning under a dozen," he said; but finally suggested tossing for 'em after they were cooked.

"Not the first time I've tossed for eggs either," he said, busy grilling steak on a gridiron made from bent-up fencing wire. "Out on the Victoria once they got scarce, and the cook used to boil all he had and serve the dice-box with 'em, the chap who threw the highest taking the lot."

"Ever try to boil an emu's egg in a quart-pot?" the man from Beyanst asked, "lending a hand" with another piece of fencing wire, using it as a fork to turn the steak on the impromptu gridiron. "It goes in all right, but when it's cooked it won't come out, and you have to use the quart-pot for an egg-cup and make tea later on."

"A course dinner," Dan called that; and then nothing being forthcoming to toss with—dice or money not being among our permanent property—the eggs were distributed according to the "holding capacity" of the company: one for the missus, two for the Maluka, and half a dozen each for the other two.

The traveller had no objection to beginning under a dozen, but Dan used his allowance as a "relish" with his steak. "One egg!" he chuckled as he shelled his relish and I enjoyed my breakfast. "Often wonder how ever she keeps alive."

The damper proved "just a bit boggy" in the middle, so we ate the crisp outside slices and gave the boggy parts to the boys. They appeared to enjoy it, and seeing this, after breakfast the Maluka asked them what they thought of the missus as a cook. "Good damper, eh?" he said, and Billy Muck rubbing his middle, full of damper and satisfaction, answered: "My word! That one damper good fellow. Him sit down long time", and all the camp, rubbing middles, echoed his sentiments. The stodgy damper had made them feel full and uncomfortable; and to be full and uncomfortable after a meal spells happiness to a black fellow.

"Hope it won't sit too heavy on my chest," chuckled the man from Beyanst, then, remembering that barely twelve hours before he had ridden into the camp a stranger, began "begging pardon, ma'am," most profusely again, and hoped we'd excuse him "making so free with a lady."

"It's your being so friendly like, ma'am," he explained. "Most of the others I've struck seemed too good for rough chaps like us. Of course," he added hastily, "that's not saying that you're not as good as 'em. You ain't a Freezer on a pedestal, that's all."

"Thank Heaven," the Maluka murmured and the man from Beyanst sympathised with him. "Must be a bit off for their husbands," he said; and his apologies were forgotten in the absorbing topic of "Freezers."

"A Freezer on a pedestal," he had said. "Goddess," the world prefers to call it; and tradition depicts the bushman worshipping afar off.

But a "Freezer" is what he calls it to himself, and contrary to all tradition, goes on his way unmoved. And why shouldn't he? He may be, and generally is, sadly in need of a woman friend, "some one to share his joys and sorrows with", but because he knows few women is no reason why he should stand afar off and adore the unknowable. "Friendly like" is what appeals to us all; and the bush-folk are only men, not monstrosities—rough, untutored men for the most part. The difficult part to understand is how any woman can choose to stand aloof and freeze, with warm-hearted men all around her willing to take her into their lives.

As the men exchanged opinions, "Freezers" appeared solitary creatures—isolated monuments of awe-inspiring goodness and purity, and I felt thankful that circumstances had made me only the Little Missus—a woman, down with the bushmen at the foot of all pedestals, needing all the love and fellowship she could get, and with no more goodness than she could do with—just enough to make her worthy of the friendship of "rough chaps like us."

"Oh well," said the traveller, when he was ready to start, after finding room in his swag for a couple of books, "I'm not sorry I struck this camp;" but whether because of the cabbage, or the woman, or the books, he did not say. Let us hope it was because of the woman, and the books, and the cabbage, with the cabbage placed last.

Then with a pull at his hat, and a "good-bye, ma'am, good luck," the man from Beyanst rode out of the gundy camp, and out of our lives, to become one of its pleasant memories.

The man from Beyanst was our only visitor for the first week, in that camp, and then after that we had some one every day.

Dan went into the homestead for stores, and set the ball rolling by returning at sundown in triumph with a great find: a lady traveller, the wife of one of the Inland Telegraph masters. Her husband and little son were with her, but—well, they were only men. It was five months since I had seen a white woman, and all I saw at the time was a woman riding towards our camp. I wonder what she saw as I came to meet her through the leafy bough gundies. It was nearly two years since she had seen a woman.

It was a merry camp that night—merry and beautiful and picturesque. The night was very cold and brilliantly starry, as nights usually are in the Never-Never during the Dry; the camp fires were all around us: dozens of them, grouped in and out among the gundies, and among the fires—chatting, gossiping groups of happy-hearted human beings.

Around one central fire sat the lubras, with an outer circle of smaller fires behind them: one central fire and one fire behind each lubra, for such is the wisdom of the black folk; they warm themselves both back and front. Within another circle of fires chirruped and gossiped the "boys," while around an immense glowing heap of logs sat the white folk—the "big fellow fools" of the party, with scorching faces and freezing backs, too conservative to learn wisdom from their humbler neighbours.

At our fireside we women did most of the talking, and as we sat chatting on every subject under the sun, our husbands looked on in indulgent amusement. Dan soon wearied of the fleeting conversation and turned in, and the little lad slipped away to the black folk; but late into the night we talked: late into the night, and all the next day and evening and following morning—shaded from the brilliant sunshine all day in the leafy "Cottage," and scorching around the camp fire during the evenings. And then these travellers, too, passed out of our camp to become, with the man from Beyanst, just pleasant memories.

"She'll find mere men unsatisfying after this," the Maluka said in farewell, and a mere man coming in from the north-west before sundown, greeted the Maluka with: "Thought you married a towny," as he pointed with eloquent forefinger at our supper circle.

"So I did," the Maluka laughed back. "But before I had time to dazzle the bushies with her the Wizard of the Never-Never charmed her into a bush-whacker."

"Into a CHARMING bush-whacker, he MEANS!" the traveller said, bowing before his introduction; and I wondered how the Maluka could have thought for one moment that "mere men" would prove unsatisfying. But as I acknowledged the gallantry Dan looked on dubiously, not sure whether pretty speeches were a help or a hindrance to education.

But no one could call the Fizzer a "mere man"; and half-past eleven four weeks being already past, the Fizzer was even then at the homestead, and before another midday, came shouting into our camp, and, settling down to dinner, kept the conversational ball rolling.

"Going to be a record Dry," he assured us—"all surface water gone along the line already"; and then he hurled various items of news at us: "the horse teams were managing to do a good trip; and Mac? Oh, Mac's getting along," he shouted; "struck him on a dry stage; seemed a bit light-headed; said dry stages weren't all beer and skittles—queer idea. Beer and skittles! He won't find much beer on dry stages, and I reckon the man's dilly that 'ud play a game of skittles on any one of 'em."

Every one was all right down the line! But the Fizzer was always a bird of passage, and by the time dinner was over, and a few postscripts added to the mail, he was ready to start, and rode off, promising the best mail the "Territory could produce in a fortnight."

Other travellers followed the Fizzer, and the cooking lessons proceeded until the fine art of making "puff de looneys," sinkers, and doughboys had been mastered, and then, before the camp had time to grow monotonous, the staff appeared with a few of the station pups. "Might it missus like puppy dog," it said to explain its presence hinting also that the missus might require a little clothes-washing done.

Lately, washing-days at the homestead had lost all their vim, for the creek having stopped running, washing had to be conducted in tubs, so as to keep the billabong clear for drinking purposes. But at the Springs there was no necessity to think of anything but running water; and after a happy day, Bertie's Nellie, Rosy, and Biddy returned to the homestead—the goats had to be seen to, Nellie said, thinking nothing of a twenty-seven-mile walk in a day, with a few hours' washing for recreation in between whiles.

Part of the staff, a shadow or two, and the puppy dogs, filled in all time until the yard was pronounced finished then a mob of cattle was brought in and put through to test its strength; and just as we were preparing to return to the homestead the Dandy's waggon lumbered into camp with its loading of stores.

A box of new books kept us busy all afternoon, and then, before sundown, the Maluka suggested a farewell stroll among the pools.

The Bitter Springs—a chain of clear, crystal pools, a long winding chain, doubling back on itself in loops and curves—form the source of the permanent flow of the Roper; pools only a few feet deep, irregular and wide-spreading, with mossy-green, deeply undermined, overhanging banks, and lime-stone bottoms washed into terraces that gleam azure-blue through the transparent water.

There is little rank grass along their borders, no sign of water-lilies, and few weeds within them; clumps of palms dotted here and there among the light timber, and everywhere sunflecked, warm, dry shade. Nowhere is there a hint of that sinister suggestion of the Reach. Clear, beautiful, limpid, wide-spreading, irregular pools, set in an undulating field of emerald-green mossy surf, shaded with graceful foliage and gleaming in the sunlight with exquisite opal tints—a giant necklace of opals, set in links of emerald green, and thrown down at hazard to fall in loops and curves within a forest grove.

It is in appearance only the pools are isolated; for although many feet apart in some instances, they are linked together throughout by a shallow underground river, that runs over a rocky bed; while the turf, that looks so solid in many places, is barely a two-foot crust arched over five or six feet of space and water—a deathtrap for heavy cattle; but a place of interest to white folk.

The Maluka and I wandered aimlessly in and out among the pools for a while, and, then coming out unexpectedly from a piece of bush, found ourselves face to face with a sight that froze all movement out of us for a moment—the living, moving head of a horse, standing upright from the turf on a few inches of neck: a grey, uncanny, bodyless head, nickering piteously at us as it stood on the turf at our feet. I have never seen a ghost, but I know exactly how I will feel if ever I do.

For a moment we stood spellbound with horror, and the next, realising what had happened, were kneeling down beside the piteous head. The thin crust of earth had given way beneath the animal's hindquarters as it grazed over the turf, and before it could recover itself it had slipped bodily through the hole thus formed, and was standing on the rocky bed of the underground river, with its head only in the upper air.

The poor brute was perishing for want of food and water. All around the hole, as far as the head could reach, the turf was eaten, bare, and although it was standing in a couple of feet of water it could not get at it. While the Maluka went for help I brought handfuls of grass, and his hat full of water, again and again, and was haunted for days with the remembrance of those pleading eyes and piteous, nickering lips.

The whole camp, black and white, came to the rescue but it was an awful work getting the exhausted creature out of its death-trap. The hole had to be cut back to a solid ridge of rocky soil, saplings cut to form a solid slope from the bed of the river to the ground above, and the poor brute roped and literally hauled up the slope by sheer force and strength of numbers. After an hour's digging, dragging, and rope-pulling, the horse was standing on solid turf, a new pool had been added to the Springs, and none of us had much hankering for riding over springy country.

The hour's work among the pools awakened the latent geologist in all of us, excepting Dan, and set us rooting at the bottom of one of the pools for a piece of the terraced limestone.

It was difficult to dislodge, and our efforts reminded Dan of a night spent in the camp of a geologist—a man with many letters after his name. "Had the chaps heaving rocks round for him half his time," he said. "Couldn't see much sense in it meself." Dan spoke of the geologist as "one of them old Alphabets." "Never met a chap with so many letters in his brand," he explained. "He was one of them taxydermy blokes, you know, that's always messing round with stones and things."

Out of the water, the opal tints died out of the limestone, and the geologist in us went to sleep again when we found that all we had for our trouble was a piece of dirty-looking rock. Like Dan, we saw little sense in "heaving rocks round," and went back to the camp and the business of packing up for the homestead.

About next midday we rode into the homestead thoroughfare, where Cheon and Tiddle'ums welcomed us with enthusiasm, but Cheon's enthusiasm turned to indignation when he found we were only in for a day or two.

"What's 'er matter?" he ejaculated. "Missus no more stockrider"; but a letter waiting for us at the homestead made "bush" more than ever imperative: a letter, from the foreman of the telegraphic repairing line party, asking for a mob of killers, and fixing a date for its delivery to one "Happy Dick."

"Spoke just in the nick of time," Dan said; but as we discussed plans Cheon hinted darkly that the Maluka was not a fit and proper person to be entrusted with the care of a woman, and suggested that he should undertake to treat the missus as she should be treated, while the Maluka attended to the cattle.