For two full weeks after our return from the drovers' camp our life was exactly as Cheon would have it—peaceful and regular, with an occasional single day "out-bush"; and when the Maluka in his leisure began to fulfil his long-standing promise of a defence around my garden, Cheon expressed himself well-pleased with his reform.

But even the demands of station books and accumulated mail-matter can be satisfied in time, and Dan reporting that he was "getting going with the bullocks," Cheon found his approval had been premature; for, to his dismay, the Maluka abandoned the fence, and began preparations for a trip "bush." "Surely the missus was not going?" he said; and next day we left him at the homestead, a lonely figure, seated on an overturned bucket, disconsolate and fearing the worst.

Cheon often favoured an upside-down bucket for a seat. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fat man can be imagined, yet Cheon sat on his rickety perch, for the most part chuckling and happy. Perhaps, like Mark Tapley, he felt it a "credit being jolly" under such circumstances.

By way of contrast, we found Dan and Jack optimistic and happy, with some good bullocks in hand, a record branding to report for the fortnight's work, and a drover in camp of such a delightful turn of mind that he was inclined to look upon every bullock mustered as "just the thing." He was easily disposed of, and within a week we were back at the homestead.

We had left Cheon sad and disconsolate, but he met us, filled with fury, and holding a sack of something soft in his arms. "What's 'er matter?" he spluttered, almost choking with rage. "Me savey grow cabbage "; and he flung the sack at our feet as we stood in the homestead thoroughfare staring at him in wonder. "Paper yabber!" he added curtly, passing a letter to the Maluka.

It was a kindly, courteous letter from our Eastern neighbour, who had "ventured to send a cabbage, remembering the homestead garden did not get on too well." (His visits had been in Sam's day). "How kind!" we said, and not understanding Cheon's wrath, the Maluka opened the bag, and passed two fine cabbages to him after duly admiring them.

They acted on Cheon like a red rag on a bull. Flinging them from him, he sent them spinning across the stony ground with two furious kicks, following them up with further furious kicks as we looked on in speechless amazement. "What's 'er matter?" he growled, as, abandoning the chase with a final lunge, he stalked indignantly back to us; and as the unfortunate cabbages turned over and lay still on their tattered backs, he began to explain his wrath. Was he not paid to grow cabbages, he asked, and where had he failed that we should accept cabbages from neighbours? Cabbages for ourselves, but insults for him! Then, the comical side of his nature coming to the surface as unexpectedly as his wrath, he was overcome with laughter, and clung to a verandah post for support, while still speechless, we looked on in consternation, for laughing was a serious matter with Cheon.

"My word, me plenty cross fellow," he gasped at intervals and finally led the way to the vegetable garden, where he cut an enormous cabbage and carried it to the store to weigh it. The scale turned at twelve pounds, and, sure of our ground now, we compared its mighty heart to the stout heart of Cheon—a compliment fully appreciated by his Chinese mind; then, having disparaged the tattered results to his satisfaction, we went to the house and wrote a letter of thanks to our neighbour, giving him so vivid a word-picture of the reception of his cabbages that he felt inspired to play a practical joke on Cheon later on. One thing is very certain—everyone enjoyed those cabbages including even Cheon and the goats.

Of course we had cabbage for dinner that day, and the day following, and the next day again, and were just fearing that cabbage was becoming a confirmed habit when Dan coming in with reports we all went bush again, and the spell was broken. "A pity the man from Beyanst wasn't about," Dan said when he heard of the daily menu.

It was late in September when Dan came in, and four weeks slipped away with the concerns of cattle and cattle-buyers and cattle-duffers, and as we moved hither and thither the water-melons leafed and blossomed and fruited to Billy's delight, and Cheon's undisguised amazement and the line party, creeping on, crept first into our borders and then into camp at the Warlochs, and Happy Dick's visits, dog-fights, and cribbage became part of the station routine. Now and then a traveller from "inside" passed out, but as the roads "inside" were rapidly closing in, none came from the Outside going in, and because of that there were no extra mails, and towards the end of October we were wondering how we were "going to get through the days until the Fizzer was due again," when Dan and Jack came in unexpectedly for a consultation.

"Run clean out of flour," Dan announced, with a wink and a mysterious look towards the black world, as he dismounted at the head of the homestead thoroughfare then, after inquiring for the "education of the missus" he added, with further winks and mystery, that it only needed a nigger hunt to round off her education properly but it was after supper before he found a fitting opportunity to explain his winks and mystery. Then, joining us as we lounged in the open starry space between the billabong and the house, he chuckled: "Yes, it just needs a nigger hunt to make her education a credit to us."

Dan never joined us in the evenings without an invitation, although he was not above putting himself in the way of one. Whenever he felt inclined for what he called "a pitch with the boss and missus" he would saunter past at a little distance, apparently bound for the billabong, but in reality ready to respond to the Maluka's "Is that you, Dan?" although just as ready to saunter on if that invitation was not forthcoming—a happy little arrangement born of that tact and delicacy of the bush-folk that never intrudes on another man's privacy.

Dan being just Dan rarely had need to saunter on; and as he sewed down on the grass in acceptance of this usual form of invitation, he wagged his head wisely, declaring "she had got on so well with her education that it 'ud be a pity not to finish her off properly." Then dropping his bantering tone, he reported a scatter-on among the river cattle.

"I wasn't going to say anything about it before the "boys," he said, "but it's time some one gave a surprise party down the river;" and a "scatter-on" meaning "niggers in," Maluka readily agreed to a surprise patrol of the river country, that being forbidden ground for blacks' camps.

"It's no good going unless it's going to be a surprise party," Dan reiterated; and when the Quiet Stockman was called across from the Quarters, he was told that "there wasn't going to be no talking before the boys."

Further consultations being necessary, Dan feared arousing suspicion, and to ensure his surprise party, and to guard against any word of the coming patrol being sent out-bush by the station "boys," he indulged in a little dust-throwing, and there was much talking in public about going "out to the north-west for the boss to have another look round there," and much laying of deep plans in private.

Finally, it was decided that the Quiet Stockman and his "boys" were to patrol the country north from the river while we were to keep to the south banks and follow the river down to the boundaries in all its windings, each party appointed to camp at the Red Lily lagoons second night out, each, of course, on its own side of the river. It being necessary for Jack to cross the river beyond the Springs, he left the homestead half a day before us—public gossip reporting that he was "going beyond the Waterhouse horse mustering," and Dan finding dust-throwing highly diverting, shouted after him that he "might as well bring some fresh relays to the Yellow Hole in a day or two," and then giving his attention to the packing of swags and pack-bags, "reckoned things were just about fixed up for a surprise party."



CHAPTER XX

At our appointed time we left the homestead, taking the north-west track for over a mile to continue the dust-throwing; and for the whole length of that mile Dan reiterated the "advantages of surprise parties," and his opinion that "things were just about properly fixed up for one"; and when we left the track abruptly and set off across country at right angles to it, Sambo's quick questioning, suspicious glance made it very evident that he, for one, had gleaned no inkling of the patrol, which naturally filled Dan with delight.

"River to-night, Sambo," he said airily, but after that one swift glance Sambo rode after us as stolid as ever—Sambo was always difficult to fathom—while Dan spent the afternoon congratulating himself on the success of his dust-throwing, proving with many illustrations that "it's the hardest thing to spring a surprise on niggers. Something seems to tell 'em you're coming," he explained. "Some chaps put it down to second-sight or thought-reading."

When we turned in Dan was still chuckling over his cute handling of the trip. "Bluffed 'em this time all right," he assured us, little guessing that the blacks at the "Red Lilies," thirty miles away, and other little groups of blacks travelling down the river towards the lagoons were conjecturing on the object of the Maluka's visit—"something having told them we were coming."

The "something" however, was neither second-sight nor thought-reading, but a very simple, tangible "something." Sambo had gone for a stroll from our camp about sundown, and one of Jack's boys had gone for a stroll from Jack's camp, and soon afterwards two tell-tale telegraphic columns of smoke, worked on some blackfellow dot-dash-system, had risen above the timber, and their messages had also been duly noted down at the Red Lilies and elsewhere, and acted upon. The Maluka was on the river, and when the Maluka was about, it was considered wisdom to be off forbidden ground; not that the blacks feared the Maluka, but no one cares about vexing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

On stations in the Never-Never the blacks are supposed to camp either in the homesteads, where no man need go hungry, or right outside the boundaries on waters beyond the cattle, travelling in or out as desired, on condition that they keep to the main travellers' tracks—blacks among the cattle having a scattering effect on the herd, apart from the fact that "niggers in" generally means cattle-killing.

Of course no man ever hopes to keep his blacks absolutely obedient to this rule; but the judicious giving of an odd bullock at not too rare intervals, and always at corroborree times, the more judicious winking at cattle killing on the boundaries, where cattle scaring is not all disadvantage, and the even more judicious giving of a hint, when a hint is necessary, will do much to keep them fairly well in hand, anyway from openly harrying and defiant killing, which in humanity is surely all any man should ask.

The white man has taken the country from the black fellow, and with it his right to travel where he will for pleasure or food, and until he is willing to make recompense by granting fair liberty of travel, and a fair percentage of cattle or their equivalent in fair payment—openly and fairly giving them, and seeing that no man is unjustly treated or hungry within his borders—cattle killing, and at times even man killing by blacks, will not be an offence against the white folk.

A black fellow kills cattle because he is hungry and must be fed with food, having been trained in a school that for generations has acknowledged "catch who catch can" among its commandments; and until the long arm of the law interfered, white men killed the black fellow because they were hungry with a hunger that must be fed with gold, having been trained in a school that for generations has acknowledged "Thou shalt not kill" among its commandments; and yet men speak of the "superiority" of the white race, and, speaking, forget to ask who of us would go hungry if the situation were reversed, but condemn the black fellow as a vile thief, piously quoting—now it suits them—from those same commandments, that men "must not steal," in the same breath referring to the white man's crime (when it finds them out) as "getting into trouble over some shooting affair with blacks." Truly we British-born have reason to brag of our "inborn sense of justice."

The Maluka being more than willing to give his fair percentage, a judicious hint from him was generally taken quietly and for the time discreetly obeyed, and it was a foregone conclusion that our "nigger hunt" would only involve the captured with general discomfiture; but the Red Lilies being a stronghold of the tribe, and a favourite hiding-place for "outsiders," emergencies were apt to occur "down the river," and we rode out of camp with rifles unslung and revolvers at hand.

Dan's sleep had in no wise lessened his faith in the efficiency of dust-throwing, and as we set out he "reckoned" the missus would "learn a thing or two about surprise parties this trip." We all did, but the black fellows gave the instruction.

All morning we rode in single file, following the river through miles of deep gorges, crossing here and there stretches of grassy country that ran in valleys between gorge and gorge, passing through deep Ti Tree forests at times, and now and then clambering over towering limestone ridges that blocked the way, with, all the while, the majestic Roper river flowing deep and wide and silent on our left, between its water-lily fringed margins. It would take a mighty drought to dry up the waters of the Territory—permanent, we call them, sure of our rivers and our rains. Almost fifty miles of these deep-flowing waterways fell to our share; thirty-five miles of the Roper, twelve in the Long Reach, besides great holes scattered here and there along the beds of creeks that are mighty rivers in themselves "during the Wet." Too much water, if anything, was the complaint at the Elsey, for water everywhere meant cattle everywhere.

For over two hours we rode, prying into and probing all sorts of odd nooks and crannies before we found any sign of blacks, and then, Roper giving the alarm, every one sat to attention. Roper had many ways of amusing himself when travelling through bush, but one of his greatest delights was nosing out hidden black fellows. At the first scent of "nigger" his ears would prick forward, and if left to himself, he would carry his rider into an unsuspected nigger camp, or stand peering into the bushes at a discomfited black fellow, who was busy trying to think of some excuse to explain his presence and why he had hidden.

As Roper's ears shot forward and he turned aside towards a clump of thick-set bushes, Dan chuckled in expectation, but all Roper found was a newly deserted gundi camp, and fresh tracks travelling eastwards—tracks left during the night—after our arrival at the river, of course.

Dan surveyed the tracks, and his chuckles died out, and, growing sceptical of the success of his surprise party, he followed them for a while in silence, Sambo riding behind, outwardly stolid, but no doubt, inwardly chuckling.

Other eastward-going tracks a mile or so farther on made Dan even more sceptical, and further tracks again set him harking back to his theory of "something always telling 'em somehow," and, losing interest in nigger-hunts, he became showman of the Roper river scenery.

Down into the depths of gorges he led us, through ferny nooks, and over the sandy stretches at the base of the mighty clefts through which the river flows; and as we rode, he had us leaning back in our saddles, in danger of cricking our necks, to look up at lofty heights above us, until a rocky peninsula running right into the river, after we had clambered up its sides like squirrels, he led the way across its spiky surfaced summit, and soon we were leaning forward over our horses' necks in danger of taking somersaults into space, as we peered over the sides of a precipice at the river away down beneath us. "Nothing like variety," Dan chuckled; and a few minutes later again we were leaning well back in our saddles as the horses picked their way down the far side of the ridge, old Roper letting himself down in his most approved style; dropping from ledge to ledge as he went, stepping carefully along their length, he would pause for a moment on their edges to judge distance, then, gathering his feet together, he would sway out and drop a foot or more to the next ledge. Riding Roper was never more than sitting in the saddle and leaving all else to him. Wherever he went there was safety, both for himself and his rider whether galloping between trees or beneath over-hanging branches, whether dropping down ridges with the surefootedness of a mountain pony, or picking his way across the treacherous "springy country." No one knew better than he his own limits, and none better understood "springy country." Carefully he would test suspicious-looking turf with a cautious fore-paw, and when all roads proved risky, in his own unmistakable language he would advise his rider to dismount and walk over, having shown plainly that the dangerous bit was not equal to the combined weight of horse and man. When Roper advised, wise men obeyed.

But gorges and ridges were not all Dan had to show us. Twice in our thirty-five miles of the Roper—about ten miles apart—wide-spreading rocky arches completely span the river a foot or so beneath its surface, forming natural crossing-places; for at them the full volume of water takes what Dan called a "duck-under," leaving only smoothly flowing shallow streams, a couple of hundred yards wide, running over the rocky bridgeways. The first "duck-under" occurs in a Ti Tree valley, and, marvelling at the wonder of the rippling streamlet so many yards wide and so few in length, with that deep, silent river for its source and estuary—we loitered in the pleasant forest glen, until Dan, coming on further proofs of a black fellow's "second-sight" along the margins of the duck-under, he turned away in disgust, and as we followed him through the great forest he treated us to a lengthy discourse on thought-reading.

The Salt Creek, coming into the Roper with its deep, wide estuary, interrupted both Dan's lecture and our course, and following along the creek to find the crossing we left the river, and before we saw it again a mob of "brumbies" had lured us into a "drouth" that even Dan declared was the "dead finish."

Brumby horses being one of the problems of the run, and the destruction of brumby stallions imperative, as the nigger-hunt was apparently off, the brumby mob proved too enticing to be passed by, and for an hour and more it kept us busy, the Maluka and Dan being equally "set on getting a stallion or two."

As galloping after brumbies when there is no trap to run them into is about as wise as galloping after a flight of swallows, we followed at a distance when they galloped, and stalked them against the wind when they drew up to reconnoitre: beautiful, clean-limbed, graceful creatures, with long flowing manes and tails floating about them, galloping freely and swiftly as they drove the mares before them, or stepping with light, dancing tread as they drew up and faced about, with the mares now huddled together behind them. Three times they drew up and faced about and each time a stallion fell before the rifles, then, becoming more wary, they led us farther and farther back, evading the rifles at every halt, until finally they galloped out of sight, and beyond all chance of pursuit. Then, Dan discovering he had acquired the "drouth," advised "giving it best" and making for the Spring Hole in Duck Creek.

"Could do with a drop of spring water," he said, but Dan's luck was out this trip, and the Spring Hole proved a slimy bog "alive with dead cattle," as he himself phrased it. Three dead beasts lay bogged on its margin, and held as in a vice, up to their necks in slime and awfulness stood two poor living brutes. They turned piteous terrified eyes on us as we rode up, and then Dan and the Maluka firing in mercy, the poor heads drooped and fell and the bog with a sickening sigh sucked them under.

As we watched, horribly fascinated, Dan indulged in a soliloquy—a habit with him when ordinary conversation seemed out of place. "'Awful dry Wet we're having,' sez he," he murmured, "'the place is alive with dead cattle.' 'Fact,' sez he, 'cattle's dying this year that never died before.'" Then remarking that "this sort of thing" wasn't "exactly a thirst quencher," he followed up the creek bank into a forest of cabbage-tree palms—tall, feathery-crested palms everywhere, taller even that the forest trees; but never a sign of water.

It was then two o'clock, and our last drink had been at breakfast—soon after sun-up; and for another hour we pegged wearily on, with that seven hours' drouth done horses, the beating sun of a Territory October overhead, Brown stretched across the Maluka's knees on the verge of apoplexy, and Sool'em panting wearily on. With the breaking of her leg little Tiddle'ums had ended her bush days, but as she lost in bush craft she gained in excellency as a fence personifier.

By three o'clock we struck water in the Punch Bowl—a deep, volcanic hole, bottomless, the blacks say, but apparently fed beneath by the river; but long before then Dan's chuckle had died out, and soliloquies had ceased to amuse him.

At the first sight of the water we revived, and as Brown and Sool'em lay down and revelled on its margin, Dan "took a pull as an introduction," and then, after unpacking the team and getting the fire going for the billy, he opened out the tucker-bags, having decided on a "fizz" as a "good quencher."

"Nothing like a fizz when you've got a drouth on," he said, mixing soda and cream-of-tartar into a cup of water, and drinking deeply. As he drank, the "fizz" spattered its foam all over his face and beard, and after putting down the empty cup with a satisfied sigh, he joined us as we sat on the pebbly incline, waiting for the billy to boil, and with the tucker-bags dumped down around and about us. "Real refreshing that!" he said, drawing a red handkerchief from his belt and mopping his spattered face and beard, adding, as he passed the damp handkerchief over his ears and neck with chuckling exaggeration: "Tell you what! A fizz 'ud be a great thing if you were short of water. You could get a drink and have a good wash-up with the one cupful."

With the "fizz," Dan's interest in education revived, and after dinner he took up the role of showman of the Roper scenery once more, and had us scrambling over boulders and cliffs along the dry bed of the creek that runs back from the Punch Bowl, until, having clambered over its left bank into a shady glen, we found ourselves beneath the gem of the Roper—a wide-spreading banyan tree, with its propped-up branches turning and twisting in long winding leafy passages and balconies, over a feathery grove of young palm trees that had crept into its generous shade.

Here and there the passages and balconies graded one to another's level, all being held together by innumerable stays and props, sent down from branch to branch, and from branches to the grassy turf beneath; and one sweeping limb, coming almost to the ground in a gentle incline before twisting away and up again, made ascent so simple that the men-folk sent the missus for a "stroll in midair," sure that no white woman's feet had yet trodden those winding ways. And as she strolled about the tree—not climbed—hindered only by her holland riding-skirt, Brown followed, anxiously but cautiously. Then, the spirit of vandalism taking hold of the Maluka, he cut the name of the missus deep into the yielding bark.

There are some wonderful trees on the Elsey, but not one of them will compare with the majesty and grandeur of that old banyan. Away from the world it stands beyond those rocky ways and boulders, with its soft shade sweeping curves, and feathery undergrowth, making a beautiful world of its own. For years upon years it has stood there—may be for centuries—sending down from its branches those props for its old age, bountiful with its shade, and indifferent whether its path-ways be trodden by white feet or black.

After the heat and "drouth" we could have loitered in that pleasant shade; but we were due at the Red Lilies "second night out"; and it being one of the unwritten laws of a "nigger-hunt" to keep appointments—"the other chaps worrying a bit if you don't turn up"—soon after four o'clock we were out in the blazing heat again, following the river now along its higher flood-bank through grassy plains and open forest land.

By five o'clock Dan was prophesying that "it 'ud take us all we knew to do the trick in daylight," but at six o'clock, when we were still eight miles from the Red Lilies, the Maluka settled the question by calling for a camp there and then. "The missus had had enough," the Maluka decided, and Dan became anxious. "It's that drouth that's done it," he lamented; and although agreeing with the Maluka that Jack would survive a few hours' anxiety, regretted we had "no way of letting him know." (We were not aware of the efficiency of smoke signalling).

We turned back a short distance for better watering for horses, settling down for the night at the second "duck-under"—McMinn's bar—within sound of the rushing of many waters; for here the river comes back to the surface with a mighty roar and swirling currents. "Knockup camp," Dan christened it in his pleasant way, and Sambo became unexpectedly curious. "Missus knock up?" he asked, and the Maluka nodding, Sambo's question was forgotten until the next mid-day.

By then we had passed the Red Lily lagoons, and ridden across the salt-bush plain, and through a deep belt of tall, newly sprung green grass, that hugged the river there just then, and having been greeted by smug, smiling old black fellows, were saluting Jack across two or three hundred feet of water, as we stood among our horses.

"Slewed!" Jack called in answer, through hollowed hands. "Didn't worry. Heard—the—missus—had—knocked—up," and Dan leaned against his horse, limp with amazement.

"Heard the missus had knocked up?" he gasped. "Well, I'm blowed! Talk of surprise parties!" and the old black fellows looked on enjoying the effect.

"Black fellow plenty savey," they said loftily, and Dan was almost persuaded to a belief in debbel-debbels, until our return to the homestead, when Jimmy's Nellie divulged the Court secret; then Dan ejaculated another "Well, I'm blowed!" with the theory of second-sight and thought-reading falling about his ears.

After a consultation across the river in long-drawn-out syllables, Jack decided on a horse muster for the return trip—genuine this time—and went on his way, after appointing to meet us at Knock-up camp next evening. But our horses refusing to leave the deep green feed, we settled down just where we were, beside the river, and formed a curious camping-ground for ourselves, a small space hacked out and trampled down, out of the dense rank grass that towered above and around us.

But this was to be a record trip for discomfort. Dan, on opening out the tucker-bags, announced ruefully that our supply of meat had "turned on us"; and as our jam-tin had "blown," we feared we were reduced to damper only, until the Maluka unearthed a bottle of anchovy paste, falsely labelled "Chicken and Ham." "Lot's wife," Dan called it, after "tackling some as a relish."

Birds were everywhere about the lagoons—ducks, shags, great geese, and pigmy geese, hovering and settling about them in screaming clouds; and after dinner, deciding we might as well have a bit of game for supper, we walked across the open salt-bush plain to the Big Red Lily. But revolvers are hardly the thing for duck shooting, and the soft-nosed bullets of the Maluka's rifle reducing an unfortunate duck to a tangled mass of blood and feathers we were obliged to accept, willy-nilly, the prospect of damper and "Lot's wife" for supper. But our hopes died hard, and we sneaked about the gorgeous lagoons, revolvers in hand, for a good hour, "larning a thing or two about the lagoons" from Dan as we sneaked.

The Red Lily lagoons lie away from the Roper, on either side of it, wide-spreading and shallow—great sheets of water with tall reeds and rushes about them, and glorious in flowering time with their immense cup-shaped crimson blossoms clustering on long stalks above great floating leaves—leaves nearly approaching three feet in diameter I think; and everywhere about the leaves hover birds and along the margins of the lagoons stalk countless waders, cranes, jabiroos, and oftentimes douce native companions.

Being so shallow and wide-spreading, the lagoons would dry up early in the "dry" were it not that the blacks are able to refill them at will from the river; for here the Roper indulges in a third "duck-under," so curious that with a few logs and sheets of bark the blacks can block the way of its waters and overflow them into the lagoons thereby ensuring a plentiful larder to hosts of wild fowl and, incidentally, to themselves.

As the mystery of this "duck-under" lies under water, it can only be described from hearsay. Here, so the blacks say, a solid wall of rock runs out into the river, incomplete, though, and complicated, rising and terminating before mid-stream into a large island, which, dividing the stream unequally, sends the main body of water swirling away along its northern borders, while the lesser current glides quietly around the southern side, slipping partly over the submerged wall, and partly through a great side-long cleft on its face—gliding so quietly that the cleft can be easily blocked and the wall heightened when the waters are needed for the lagoons. Black-fellow gossip also reports that the island can be reached by a series of subterranean caves that open into daylight away at the Cave Creek, miles away.

Getting nothing better than one miserable shag by our revolvers, we faced damper and "Lot's wife" about sundown, returning to camp through a dense Leichardt pine forest, where we found myriads of bat-like creatures, inches long, perhaps a foot, hanging head downwards from almost every branch of every tree. "Flying foxes," Dan called them, and Sambo helped himself to a few, finding "Lot's wife" unsatisfying; but the white folk "drew the line at varmints."

"Had bandicoot once for me Christmas dinner," Dan informed us, making extra tea "on account of 'Lot's wife'" taking a bit of "washing down." Then, supper over, the problem of watering the horses had to be solved. The margins of the lagoons were too boggy for safety, and as the horses, fearing alligators apparently, refused the river, we had a great business persuading them to drink out of the camp mixing dish.

The sun was down before we began; and long before we were through with the tussle, peculiar shrilling cries caught our attention, and, turning to face down stream, we saw a dense cloud approaching—skimming along and above the river: a shrilling, moving cloud, keeping all the while to the river, but reaching right across it, and away beyond the tree tops.

Swiftly it came to us and sped on, never ceasing its peculiar cry; and as it swept on, and we found it was made up of innumerable flying creatures, we remembered Dan's "flying foxes." In unbroken continuity the cloud swept out of the pine forest, along the river, and past us, resembling an elongated kaleidoscope, all dark colours in appearance; for as they swept by the shimmering creatures constantly changed places—gliding downwards as they flew, before dipping for a drink to rise again with swift, glancing movement, shrilling that peculiar cry all the while. Like clouds of drifting fog they swept by, and in such myriads that, even after the Maluka began to time them, full fifteen minutes passed before they began to straggle out, and twenty before the last few stragglers were gone. Then, as we turned up stream to look after them, we found that there the dense cloud was rising and fanning out over the tree tops. The evening drink accomplished, it was time to think of food.

Dan welcomed the spectacle as an "impromptu bit of education. Learnt something meself, even," he said with lordly superiority. "Been out-bush forty years and never struck that before "; and later, as we returned to camp, he declared it "just knocked spots off De Rougemont."

But it had taken so long to persuade the horses that a drink could proceed out of a mixing dish, that it was time to turn in by then; and Dan proceeded to clear a space for a sleeping ground with a tomahawk. "Seems no end to education once you start," he chuckled, hacking at a stubborn tussock. "Reckon no other woman ever learned to make a bed with a tomahawk." Then Sambo created a diversion by asking for the loan of a revolver before taking a message to the blacks' camp.

"Big mob bad fellow black fellow sit down longa island," he explained; and Dan, whimsical under all circumstances, "noticed the surprise party wasn't exactly going off without a hitch." "Couldn't have fixed up better for them if they've got a surprise party of their own up their sleeves," he added ruefully, looking round at the dense wall of grass about us; and as he and the Maluka swung the two nets not six feet apart, we were all of one mind that "getting murdered was an experience we could do nicely without." Then Sambo returning and swinging his net in the narrow space between the two others, set Dan chuckling again. "Doesn't mean to make a target of himself," he said; but his chuckle died out when Sambo, preparing to curl up in the safest place in the camp, explained his presumption tersely by announcing that "Monkey sit down longa camp." Monkey was a law unto himself, and a very unpleasant law, being a reputed murderer several times over, and when he and his followers were about, white men saw to their rifles; and as we turned in we also agreed "that this wasn't exactly the kind of nigger hunt we had set out for." "It makes a difference when the other chap's doing the hunting, Sool'em, old girl," Dan added, cautioning her to keep her "weather eye open," as he saw to his rifle and laid it, muzzle outwards, in his net. Then, as we settled down for the night with revolvers and rifle at hand, and Brown at the head of our net, he "hoped" the missus would not "go getting nightmare, and make things unpleasant by shooting round promiscuous like," and having by this tucked himself in to his satisfaction, he lay down, "reckoning this ought to just about finish off her education, if she doesn't get finished off herself by niggers before morning."

A cheerful nightcap; but such was our faith in Sool'em and Brown as danger signals, that the camp was asleep in a few minutes. Perhaps also because nigger alarms were by no means the exception: the bush-folk would get little sleep if they lay awake whenever they were camped near doubtful company. We sleep wherever we are, for it is easy to grow accustomed even to nigger alarms, and beside, the bush-folk know that when a man has clean hands and heart he has little to fear from even his "bad fellow black fellows." But the Red Lilies were beyond our boundaries, and Monkey was a notorious exception, and shrill cries approaching the camp at dawn brought us all to our elbows, to find only the flying foxes returning to the pine forest, fanning inwards this time.

After giving the horses another drink, and breakfasting on damper and "Lot's wife," we moved on again, past the glory of the lagoons, to further brumby encounters, carrying a water-bag on a pack-horse by way of precaution against further "drouths." But such was the influence of "Lot's wife" that long before mid-day the bag was empty, and Dan was recommending bloater-paste as a "grand thing for breakfast during the Wet seeing it keeps you dry all day long."

Further damper and "Lot's wife" for dinner, and an afternoon of thirst, set us all dreading supper, and about sundown three very thirsty, forlorn white folk were standing by the duck-under below "Knock-up camp," waiting for the Quiet Stockman, and hoping against hope that his meat had not "turned on him"; and when he and his "boys" came jangling down the opposite bank, and splashing and plunging over the "duckunder" below, driving a great mob of horses before them we assailed him with questions.

But although Jack's meat was "chucked out days ago" he was merciful to us and shouted out: "Will a dozen boiled duck do instead? Got fourteen at one shot this morning, and boiled 'em right off," he explained as we seized upon his tucker-bags. "Kept a dozen of 'em in case of accidents." Besides a shot-gun, Jack had much sense.

A dozen cold boiled duck "did" very nicely after four meals of damper and bloater-paste; and a goodly show they made set out in our mixing dish.

Dan, gloating over them, offered to "do the carving." "I'm real good at the poultry carving trick, when there's a bird apiece," he chuckled, spearing bird after bird with a two-pronged fork, and passing round one apiece as we sat expectantly around the mixing dish, all among the tucker-bags and camp baggage. And so excellent a sauce is hunger that we received and enjoyed our "bird apiece" unabashed and unblushingly—the men-folk returning for further helpings, and the "boys" managing all that were left.

All agreed that "you couldn't beat cold boiled duck by much"; but in the morning grilled fish was accepted as "just the thing for breakfast"; then finding ourselves face to face with Lot's wife, and not too much of that, we beat a hasty retreat to the homestead; a further opportune "catch" of duck giving us heart for further brumby encounters and another night's camp out-bush. Then the following morning as we rode towards the homestead Dan "reckoned" that from an educational point of view the trip had been a pronounced success.



CHAPTER XXI

Just before mid-day—five days after we had left the homestead—we rode through the Southern slip rails to find the Dandy at work "cleaning out a soakage" on the brink of the billabong, with Cheon enthusiastically encouraging him. The billabong, we heard, had threatened to "peter out" in our absence, and riding across the now dusty wind-swept enclosure we realised that November was with us, and that the "dry" was preparing for its final fling—"just showing what it could do when it tried."

With the South-east Trades to back it up it was fighting desperately against the steadily advancing North-west monsoon, drying up, as it fought, every drop of moisture left from last Wet. There was not a blade of green grass within sight of the homestead, and everywhere dust whirled, and eddied, and danced, hurled all ways at once in the fight, or gathered itself into towering centrifugal columns, to speed hither and thither, obedient to the will of the elements.

Half the heavens seemed part of the Dry, and half part of the Wet: dusty blue to the south-east, and dark banks of clouds to the north-west, with a fierce beating sun at the zenith. Already the air was oppressive with electric disturbances, and Dan, fearing he would not get finished unless things were kept humming, went out-bush next morning, and the homestead became once more the hub of our universe—the south-east being branded from that centre. Every few days a mob was brought in, and branded, and disbanded, hours were spent on the stockyard fence; pack-teams were packed, unpacked, and repacked; and every day grew hotter and hotter, and every night more and more electric, and as the days went by we waited for the Fizzer, hungry for mail-matter, with a six weeks' hunger.

When the Fizzer came in he came with his usual lusty shouting, but varied his greeting into a triumphant: "Broken the record this time, missus. Two bags as big as a house and a few et-cet-eras!" And presently he staggered towards us bent with the weight of a mighty mail. But a Fizzer without news would not have been our Fizzer, and as he staggered along we learned that Mac was coming out to clear the run of brumbies. "Be along in no time now," the Fizzer shouted. "Fallen clean out with bullock-punching. Wouldn't put his worst enemy to it. Going to tackle something that'll take a bit of jumping round." Then the mail-bags and et-cet-eras came down in successive thuds, and no one was better pleased with its detail than our Fizzer: fifty letters, sixty-nine papers, dozens of books and magazines, and parcels of garden cuttings.

"Last you for the rest of the year by the look of it," the Fizzer declared later, finding us at the house walled in with a litter of mail-matter. Then he explained his interruption. "I'm going straight on at once," he said "for me horses are none too good as it is, and the lads say there's a bit of good grass at the nine-mile ", and, going out, we watched him set off.

"So long!" he shouted, as cheerily as ever, as he gathered his team together. "Half-past eleven four weeks."

But already the Fizzer's shoulders were setting square, for the last trip of the "dry" was before him—the trip that perished the last mailman—and his horses were none too good.

"Good luck!" we called after him. "Early showers!" and there was a note in our voices brought there by the thought of that gaunt figure at the well—rattling its dicebox as it waited for one more round with our Fizzer: a note that brought a bright look into the Fizzer's face, as with an answering shout of farewell he rode on into the forest. And watching the sturdy figure, and knowing the luck of our Fizzer—that luck that had given him his fearless judgment and steadfast, courageous spirit—we felt his cheery "Half-past eleven four weeks" must be prophetic, in spite of those long dry stages, with their beating heat and parching dust eddies—stages eked out now at each end with other stages of "bad going."

"Half-past eleven four weeks," the Fizzer had said; and as we returned to our mail-matter, knowing what it meant to our Fizzer, we looked anxiously to the northwest, and "hoped the showers" would come before the "return trip of the Downs."

In addition to the fifty letters for the house, the Fizzer had left two others at the homestead to be called for—one being addressed to Victoria Downs (over two hundred miles to our west), and the other to—

F. BROWN, Esq., IN CHARGE OF STUD BULLS GOING WEST VIA NORTHERN TERRITORY.

The uninitiated may think that the first was sent out by mistake and that the second was too vaguely addressed; but both letters went into the rack to await delivery, for our faith in the wisdom of our Postal Department was great; it makes no mistakes, and to it—in a land where everybody knows everybody else, and all his business, and where it has taken him—an address could never be too vague. The bush-folk love to say that when it opened out its swag in the Territory it found red tape had been forgotten, but having a surplus supply of common sense on hand, it decided to use that in its place.

And so it would seem. "Down South" envelopes are laboriously addressed with the names of stations and vias here and vias there; and throughout the Territory men move hither and thither by compulsion or free-will giving never a thought to an address; while the Department, knowing the ways of its people, delivers its letters in spite of, not because of, these addresses. It reads only the name of the man that heads the address of his letters and sends the letters to where that man happens to be. Provided it has been clearly stated which Jones is meant the Department will see to the rest, although it is wise to add Northern Territory for the guidance of Post Offices "Down South." "Jones travelling with cattle for Wave Will," reads the Department; and that gossiping friendly wire reporting Jones as "just leaving the Powell," the letter lies in the Fizzer's loose-bag until he runs into Jones's mob; or a mail coming in for Jones, Victoria River, when this Jones is on the point of sailing for a trip south, his mail is delivered on shipboard; and as the Department goes on with its work, letters for east go west, and for west go south—in mail-bags, loose-bags, travellers' pockets or per black boy—each one direct to the bush-folk as a migrating bird to its destination.

But, painstaking as our Department is with our mailmatter, it excels itself in its handling of telegrams. Southern red tape has decreed—no doubt wisely as far as it goes—that telegrams shall travel by official persons only; but out-bush official persons are few, and apt to be on duty elsewhere when important telegrams arrive; and it is then that our Department draws largely on that surplus supply of common sense.

Always deferential to the South, it obediently pigeon-holes the telegram, to await some official person, then, knowing that a delay of weeks will probably convert it into so much waste paper, it writes a "duplicate," and goes outside to send it "bush" by the first traveller it can find. If no traveller is at hand, the "Line" is "called up" and asked if any one is going in the desired direction from elsewhere; if so, the "duplicate" is repeated "down the line," but if not, a traveller is created in the person of a black boy by means of a bribing stick of tobacco. No extra charge, of course. Nothing IS an extra in the Territory. "Nothing to do with the Department," says the chief; "merely the personal courtesy of our officers." May it be many a long day before the forgotten shipment of red tape finds its way to the Territory to strangle the courtesy of our officers!

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

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

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

"Stealing bread from a caged bird wasn't in it!" the homestead agreed, with unspeakable scorn; but the man was so reconciled to himself that the scorn passed over him unnoticed. He even missed the contempt in the Maluka's cutting "Perfectly!" when he hoped we understood him. (The Outsider, by the way, spoke of the Never-Never as a land where you can Never-Never gel a bally thing you want! the Outsider's wants being of the flesh pots of Egypt). It goes without saying that the Maluka sent that neighbour's mail to him without delay, even though it meant a four-days' journey for a "boy" and station horses, for the bush-folk do what they can to help each other and the Department in the matter of mails, as in all else.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Still it takes a bit of time to get the whole mob properly broken in," he said, giving Jack a preliminary caution. Then, the first lesson over, he became interested in the methods of handling the mob.

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

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

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

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

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

Even the Willy-Willys had lain down to watch the silent struggle, and Dan, finding himself left entirely without occupation, "feared he would be taking to booklearning soon if something didn't happen!" "Never knew the showers so late," he growled; and the homestead was inclined to agree that it was the "dead-finish"; but remembering that even then our Fizzer was battling through that last stage of the Dry, we were silent, and Dan remembering also, devoted himself to the "missus," she being also a person of leisure now the Willy-Willys were at rest.

For hours we pitched near the restful green of the melon-beds, and as we pitched the Maluka ran fencing wires through two sides of the garden fence, while Tiddle'ums and Bett-Bett, hovering about him, adapted themselves to the new order of things, finding the line the goats had to stop at no longer imaginary. And as the fence grew, Dan lent a hand here and there, the rejected and the staff indulged in glorious washing-days among the lilies of the Reach; Cheon haunted the vegetable patch like a disconsolate ghost; while Billy Muck, the rainmaker, hovered bat-like over his melons, lending a hand also with the fence when called upon. As Cheon mourned, his garden also mourned, but when the melons began to mourn, at the Maluka's suggestion, Billy visited the Reach with two buckets, and his usual following of dogs, and after a two-mile walk gave the melons a drink.

Next day Billy Muck pressed old Jimmy into the service and, the Reach being visited twice, the melons received eight buckets of water Then Cheon tried every wile he knew to secure four buckets for his garden. "Only four," he pleaded, lavish in his bribes. But Billy and Jimmy had "knocked up longa a carry water," and Cheon watched them settle down to smoke, on the verge of tears. Then a traveller coming in with the news that heavy ram had fallen in Darwin—news gleaned from the gossiping wire—Cheon was filled with jealous fury at the good fortune of Darwin, and taunted Billy with rain-making taunts. "If he were a rain-maker," he taunted, "he would make a little when he wanted it, instead of walking miles with buckets," and the taunts rankling in Billy's royal soul, he retired to the camp to see about it.

"Hope he does the trick," the traveller said, busy unpacking his team. "Could do with a good bath fairly soon." But Dan cautioned him to "have a care," settling down in the shade to watch proceedings. "These early showers are a bit tricky," he explained, "can't tell how long they'll last. Heard of a chap once who reckoned it was good enough for a bath, but by the time he'd got himself nicely soaped the shower was travelling on ten miles a minute, and there wasn't another drop of rain for a fortnight, which wasn't too pleasant for the prickly heat."

The homestead rubbed its back in sympathy against the nearest upright, and Dan added that "of course the soap kept the mosquitoes dodged a bit," which was something to be thankful for. "There generally is something to be thankful for, if you only reckon it out," he assured all. But the traveller, reduced to a sweltering prickliness by his exertions, wasn't "noticing much at present," as he rubbed his back in his misery against the saddle of the horse he was unpacking. Then his horse, shifting its position, trod on his foot; and as he hopped round, nursing his stinging toes, Dan found an illustration for his argument. "Some chaps," he said, "'ud be thankful to have toes to be trod on"; and ducking to avoid a coming missile, he added cheerfully, "But there's even an advantage about having wooden legs at times. Heard once of a chap that reckoned 'em just the thing. Trod on a death-adder unexpected-like in his camp, and when the death-adder whizzed round to strike it, just struck wood, and the chap enjoyed his supper as usual that night. That chap had a wooden leg," he added, unnecessarily explicit; and then his argument being nicely rounded off, he lent a hand with the pack-bags.

The traveller filled in Dan's evening, and Neaves' mate coming through next day, gave the Quarters a fresh start and then just before that sundown we felt the first breath of victory from the monsoon—just a few cool, gusty puffs of wind, that was all, and we ran out to enjoy them, only to scurry back into shelter, for our first shower was with us. In pelting fury it rushed upon us out of the northwest, and rushing upon us, swept over us and away from us into the south-east, leaping from horizon to horizon in the triumph of victory.

As a matter of course, it left a sweltering awfulness behind it, but it was a promise of better things; and even as Dan was inquiring with a chuckle "whether that chap in the Quarters had got a bath out of it," a second pelting fury rushed over us, filling Cheon's heart with joy, and Billy with importance. Unfortunately it did not fill the water-butts with water, but already the garden was holding up its head, and Billy was claiming that he had scored a win.

"Well?" he said, waylaying Cheon in the garden, "Well, me rainmaker? Eh?" and Cheon's superstitious heart bowed down before such evidence.

A ten-minutes' deluge half an hour later licked up every grain of dust, filled the water-butts to overflowing, brought the insect pest to life as by magic, left a shallow pool in the heart of the billabong, and added considerably to Billy's importance. Had not Brown of the Bulls come in during that ten-minutes' deluge, Cheon would probably have fallen to offering sacrifices to Billy. As it was, he could only load him with plum-cake, before turning his attention to the welcoming of Brown of the Bulls.

"What was the boss drover's fancy in the way of cooking?" he inquired of the missus, bent on his usual form of welcome, and the boss drover, a great burly Queenslander, with a voice as burly as his frame, answered for himself with a laughing "Vegetables! and as many as you think I've room for." Then, as Cheon gravely measured his inches with his eye, a burly chuckle shook the boss drover's great frame as he repeated: "Just as many as you think I can hold," adding in half apology: "been away from women and vegetables for fifteen months."

"That's nothing," we told him, quoting the man from Beyanst, but hopeful to find the woman placed first. Then acting on a hint from Cheon, we took him to the banana clump.

During the evening another five-minutes' deluge gladdened our hearts, as the "lavender" bugs and other sweet pests of the Territory insect pest saddened our bodies.

Soon after breakfast-time Happy Dick was across "To see how you've fared," he said, and then, to the diversion of Brown of the Bulls, Cheon and Happy Dick rejoiced together over the brimming water-butts, and mourned because the billabong had not done better, regretting the while that the showers were so "patchy."

Then while Happy Dick was assuring us that "both Warlochs were bankers," the Sanguine Scot rode in through the slip-rails at the North track, waving his hat in greeting and with Bertie and Bertie's Nellie tailing along behind him.

"Back again!" Mac called, light-hearted as a schoolboy just escaped from drudgery, while Bertie's Nellie, as a matter of course, was overcome with ecstatic giggles.

With Mac and the showers with us, we felt there was little left to wish for, and told Brown of the Bulls that he might now prepare to enjoy himself, and with a chuckle of anticipation Brown "hoped" the entertainment would prove "up to samples already met with," as he could "do with a little enjoyment for a change."



CHAPTER XXII

As a matter of course, Bertie's Nellie quietly gathered the reins of management into her own hands, and as a matter of course, Jimmy's Nellie indulged in ear-splitting continuous protest, and Brown of the, Bulls expressed himself as satisfied, so far, with the entertaining powers of the homestead.

As a matter of course, we left the servant problem to work out its own solution, and, also as a matter of course, the Sanguine Scot was full of plans for the future but particularly bubbling over with the news that he had secured Tam-o'-Shanter for a partner in the brumby venture.

"He'll be along in a few days," he explained, confident that he was "in luck this time all right," and remembering Tam among the horses at the Katherine, we congratulated him.

As a matter of course, our conversation was all of brumbies, and Mac was also convinced that "when you reckoned everything up there was a good thing in it."

"Of course it'll take a bit of jumping round," he agreed. But the Wet was to be devoted to the building of a strong holding-yard, a "trap," and a "wing," so as to be able to get going directly the Wet lifted; and knowing the run well, and the extent of the brumby mobs on it, Mac then and there set to work to calculate the "sized mob" that could be "got together after the Wet," listening with interest to the account of our brumby encounters out east.

But long before we had done with brumbies Cheon was announcing dinner in his own peculiar way.

"Din-ner! Mis-sus! Boss! All about!" he chanted, standing in the open doorway nearest to us; and as we responded to his call, he held the door of the dining-net and glided into the details of his menu: "Veg-e-table Soooup!" he sang: "Ro-oast Bee-ef! Pee-es! Bee-ens! Too-mar-toos! Mar-row!" and listening, we felt Brown of the Bulls was being right royally welcomed with as many vegetables as were good for him. But the sweets shrank into a simple "bakee custard!"

"This is what you might call style!" Mac and Brown of the Bulls declared, as Cheon waved them to seats with the air of an Emperor, and for two courses the dinner went forward according to its menu, but at the third course tinned peaches had usurped the place of the "bakee custard."

Every one looked surprised, but, being of the bush-folk, accepted peaches and cream without comment, until Cheon, seeing the surprise, and feeling an explanation was due—anyway to the missus—bent over her and whispered in a hoarse aside. "Pussy cat been tuck-out custard."

For a moment the bushmen bent over their plates, intent on peaches and cream; but there is a limit to even a bushman's dignity, and with a choking gulp Mac exploded, and Brown of the Bulls joining in with a roar dragged down the Maluka's self-control; and as Cheon reiterated: "What name all about laugh, missus," chuckled in sympathy himself. Brown of the Bulls pulled himself together for a moment, once more to assure us that he was "Satisfied so far."

But the day's entertainment was only just beginning for after comparing weights and heights, Mac, Jack, Dan and Brown of the Bulls, entered into a trial of strength, and a heavy rail having been brought down from the stackyard, the "caber" was tossed before an enthusiastic company. The homestead thoroughfare was the arena and around it stood or sat the onlookers: the Quarters travellers, Happy Dick, some of the Line Party, the Maluka, the missus, and others, and as the caber pitched and tossed, Cheon came and went, cheering every throw lustily with charming impartiality, beating up a frothy cake mixture the while, until, finally, the cakes being in the oven, he was drawn, with others, into the competition.

A very jaunty, confident Cheon entered the lists, but a very surprised, chagrined Cheon retired in high dudgeon. "What's 'er matter!" he said indignantly. "Him too muchee heavy fellow. S'pose him little fellow me chuck him all right," explaining a comical failure with even more comical explanations. Soon after the retirement of our crestfallen Cheon, hot cakes were served by a Cheon all rotundity and chuckles once more, but immediately afterwards, a snort of indignation riveted our attention on an exceedingly bristling, dignified Cheon, who was glaring across the enclosure at two of our neighbour's black-boys, one of whom was the bearer of a letter, and the other, of a long yellow vegetable-marrow.

Right up to the house verandah they came, and the letter was presented to the Maluka, and the marrow to the missus in the presence of Cheon's glare and an intense silence; for most of the bush-folk had heard of the cabbage insult. Cheon had seen to that.

"Hope you will wish me luck while enjoying my little gift," said the letter, and mistaking its double meaning, I felt really vexed with our neighbour, and passing the marrow to Cheon, reflected a little of his bristling dignity as I said: "This is of no use to any one here, Cheon; you had better take it away "; and as Cheon accepted it with a grateful look, those about the verandah, and those without the garden, waited expectantly.

But there was to be no unseemly rage this time. In dignified silence Cheon received the marrow—a sinuous yellow insult, and as the homestead waited he raised it above his head, and stalking majestically from us towards the finished part of the fence, flung it from him in contemptuous scorn, adding a satisfied snort as the marrow, striking the base of a fence post, burst asunder, and the next moment, after a flashing swoop, he was grovelling under the wires, making frantic efforts to reach a baby bottle of whisky that had rolled from within the marrow away beyond the fence. "Cognac!" he gasped, as he struggled, and then, as shouts greeted his speedy success, he sat up, adding comically: "My word! Me close up smash him Cognac." At the thought came his inevitable laughter, and as he leant against the fence post, surrounded by the shattered marrow, he sat hopelessly gurgling, and choking, and shaking, and hugging his bottle, the very picture of a dissolute old Bacchanalian. (Cheon would have excelled as a rapid change artist). And as Cheon gurgled, and spluttered, and shook, the homestead rocked with yells of delight, while Brown of the Bulls rolled and writhed in a canvas lounge, gasping between his shouts: "Oh, chase him away, somebody; cover him up. Where did you catch him?"

Finally Cheon scrambled to his feet, and, perspiring and exhausted, presented the bottle to the Maluka. "My word, me cross fellow!" he said weakly, and then, bubbling over again at the recollection, he chuckled: "Close up smash him Cognac all right." And at the sound of the chuckle Brown of the Bulls broke out afresh:

"Chase him away!" he yelled. "You'll kill me between you! I never struck such a place! Is it a circus or a Wild West Show?"

Gravely the Maluka accepted the bottle, and with the same mock gravity answered Brown of the Bulls. "It is neither, my man," he said; "neither a circus, nor a Wild West Show. This is the land the poets sing about, the land where dull despair is king."

Brown of the Bulls naturally wished "some of the poets were about now," and Dan, having joined the house party, found a fitting opportunity to air one of his pet grievances.

"I've never done wishing some of them town chaps that write bush yarns 'ud come along and learn a thing or two," he said. "Most of 'em seem to think that when we're not on the drink we're whipping the cat or committing suicide." Rarely had Dan any excuse to offer for those "town chaps," who, without troubling to learn "a thing or two," first, depict the bush as a pandemonium of drunken orgies, painted women, low revenge, remorse, and suicide; but being in a more magnanimous mood than usual, as the men-folk flocked towards the Quarters he waited behind to add, unconscious of any irony: "Of course, seeing it's what they're used to in town, you can't expect 'em to know any better."

Then in the Quarters "Luck to our neighbour" was the toast—"luck," and the hope that all his ventures might be as successfully carried through as his practical joke. After that the Maluka gravely proposed "Cheon," and Cheon instantly became statuesque and dignified, to the further diversion of Brown of the Bulls—gravely accepting a thimbleful for himself, and, as gravely, drinking his own health, the Maluka just as gravely "clinking glasses" with him. And from that day to this when Cheon wishes to place the Maluka on a fitting pedestal, he ends his long, long tale with a triumphant: "Boss bin knock glass longa me one time."

Happy Dick and Peter filled in time for the Quarters until sundown, when Cheon announced supper there with an inspired call of "Cognac!" And then, as if to prove that we are not always on the drink, or "whipping the cat, or committing suicide," that we can love and live for others besides self, Neaves' mate came down from the little rise beyond the slip-rails, where he had spent his day carving a headstone out of a rough slab of wood that now stood at the head of our sick traveller's grave.

Not always on the drink, or whipping the cat, or committing suicide, but too often at the Parting of the Ways, for within another twelve hours the travellers, Happy Dick, the Line Party, Neaves' mate, Brown of the Bulls, and Mac, had all gone or were going their ways, leaving us to go ours—Brown back to hold his bulls at the Red Lilies until further showers should open up all roads, and Mac to "pick up Tam." But in the meantime Dan had become Showman of the Showers.

"See anything?" he asked, soon after sun-up, waving his hands towards the northern slip-rails, as we stood at the head of the thoroughfare speeding our parting guests; and then he drew attention to the faintest greenish tinge throughout the homestead enclosure—such a clean-washed-looking enclosure now.

"That's going to be grass soon," he said, and, the sun coming out with renewed vigour after another shower, by midday he had gathered a handful of tiny blades half an inch in length with a chuckling "What did I tell you?"

By the next midday, grass, inches tall, was rippling all around the homestead in the now prevalent northwest breeze, and Dan was preparing for a trip out-bush to see where the showers had fallen, and Mac and Tam coming in as he went out, Mac greeted us with a jocular: "The flats get greener every year about the Elsey."

"Indeed!" we said, and Mac, overcome with confusion, spluttered an apology: "Oh, I say! Look here! I didn't mean to hit off at the missus, you know!" and then catching the twinkle in Tam's eyes, stopped short, and with a characteristic shrug "reckoned he was making a fair mess of things."

Mac would never be other than our impetuous brither Scot, distinct from all other men, for the bush never robs her children of their individuality. In some mysterious way she clean-cuts out the personality of each of them, and keeps it sharply clean-cut; and just as Mac stood apart from all men, so Tam also stood apart, the quiet self-reliant man, though, we had seen among the horses, for that was the real man; and as Mac built castles, and made calculations, Tam put his shoulder to the drudgery, and before Mac quite knew what had happened, he was hauling logs and laying foundations for a brumby trap in the south-east country, while Bertie's Nellie found herself obliged to divide her attention between the homestead and the brumby camp.

As Mac hauled and drudged, the melons paid their first dividend; half-past eleven four weeks drew near; "Just-So Stories" did all they could, and Dan coming in found the Quiet Stockman away back in the days of old, deep in a simply written volume of Scottish history.

Dan had great news of the showers, but had to find other audience than Jack, for he was away in a world all his own, and, bent over the little volume, was standing shoulder to shoulder with his Scottish fathers, fighting with them for his nation. All evening he followed where they led, enduring and suffering, and mourning with them and rejoicing over their final victory with a ringing "You can't beat the Scots," as the little volume, coming to with a bang, roused the Quarters at midnight.

"You can't beat the Scots, missus!" he repeated, coming over in the morning for "more of that sort," all unconscious how true he was to type, as he stood there, flushed with the victories of his forefathers, a strong, young Scot, with a newly conquered world of his own at his feet.

As we hunted for "more of that sort," through a medley of odds and ends, the Quiet Stockman scanned titles and dipped here and there into unknown worlds, and Dan coming by, stared open-eyed.

"You don't say he's got the whole mob mouthed and reined and schooled in all the paces?" he gasped; but Jack put aside the word of praise. "There's writing and spelling yet," he said, and Dan, with his interest in booklearning reviving, watched the square chin setting squarer, and was bewildered. "Seems to have struck a mob of brumbies," he commented.

But before Jack could "get properly going" with the brumbies, two travellers rode into the homestead, supporting between them a third rider, a man picked up off the track delirious with fever, and foodless; and at the sight of his ghastly face our hearts stood still with fear. But the man was one of the Scots another Mac of the race that loves a good fight, and his plucky heart stood by him so well that within twenty-four hours he was Iying contentedly in the shade of the Quarters, looking on, while the homestead shared the Fizzer's welcome with Mac and Tam and a traveller or two.

Out of the south came the Fizzer, lopping once more in his saddle, with the year's dry stages behind him, and the set lines all gone from his shoulders, shouting as he came: "Hullo! What ho! Here's a crowd of us!" but on his return trip the Fizzer was a man of leisure, and we had to wait for news until his camp was fixed up.

"Now for it!" he shouted, at last joining the company, and Mac felt the time was ripe for his jocular greeting and, ogling the Fizzer, noticed that "The flats get greener every year about the Elsey."

But the Fizzer was a dangerous subject to joke with. "So I've noticed," he shouted as, improving on Mac's ogle, he singled him out from the company, then dropping his voice to an insinuating drawl he challenged him to have a deal.

Instantly the Sanguine Scot became a Canny Scot, for Mac prided himself on a horse-deal. And as no one had yet got the better of the Fizzer the company gathered round to enjoy itself.

"A swop," suggested the Fizzer, and Mac agreeing with a "Right ho!" a preliminary hand-shake was exchanged before "getting to business"; and then, as each made a great presence of mentally reviewing his team, each eyed the other with the shrewdness of a fighting cock.

"My brown mare!" Mac offered at last, and knowing the staunch little beast, the homestead wondered what Mac had up his sleeve.

We explained our suspicions in asides to the travellers, but the Fizzer seemed taken by surprise. "By George!" he said. "She's a stunner! I've nothing fit to put near her excepting that upstanding chestnut down there."

The chestnut was standing near the creek-crossing, and every one knowing him well, and sure of that "something" up Mac's sleeve, feared for the Fizzer as Mac's hand came out with a "Done!" and the Fizzer gripped it with a clinching "Right ho!"

Naturally we waited for the denouement, and the Fizzer appearing unsuspicious and well-pleased with the deal, we turned our attention to the Sanguine Scot.

Mac felt the unspoken flattery, and with an introductory cough, and a great show of indifference, said: "By the way! Perhaps I should have mentioned it, but the brown mare's down with the puffs since the showers," and looked around the company for approval.

But the Fizzer was filling the homestead with shoutings: "Don't apologise," he yelled. "That's nothing! The chestnut's just broken his leg; can't think how he got here. This'll save me the trouble of shooting him." Then dropping back to that chuckling drawl, and re-assuming the ogle, he added: "The—flats—get—greener—every—year—about—the Elsey," and with a good-humoured laugh Mac asked if "any other gentleman felt on for a swop."

Naturally, for a while the conversation was all of horse deals, until, Happy Dick coming in, it turned as naturally to dog-fights as Peter and Brown stalked aggressively about the thoroughfare.

Daily we hinted to Happy Dick that Peter's welcome was wearing out, and daily Happy Dick assured us that he "couldn't keep him away nohow." But then Happy Dick's efforts to keep him away were peculiar, taking the form of monologues as Peter trotted beside him towards the homestead—reiterations of:

"We're not the sort to say nuff, are we, Peter? We'll never say die, will we, Peter? We'll win if we don't lose, won't we, Peter?" Adding, after his arrival at the homestead, a subdued "S—SS-s, go it, Peter!" whenever Brown appeared in the thoroughfare.

But the homestead's hour of triumph was at hand, for as the afternoon wore on, Happy Dick found the very best told recital a poor substitute for the real thing, and thirsting for a further "Peter's latest," hissed: "S—s—ss, go it, Peter!" once too often. For, well, soon afterwards—figuratively speaking—Peter was carried off the field on a stretcher.

True, Brown had only one sound leg left to stand on, but by propping the other three carefully against it, he managed to cut a fairly triumphant figure. But Brown's victory was not to be all advantage to the homestead, for never again were we to hear "Peter's latest."

"Can't beat the Elsey for a good dog-fight! Can you, Peter?" the Fizzer chuckled, as Peter lay licking his wounds at Happy Dick's feet; but the Quarters, feeling the pleasantry ill-timed, delicately led the conversation to cribbage, and at sun-up next morning Happy Dick "did a get" to his work, with bulging pockets, leaving the Fizzer packing up and declaring that "half a day at the Elsey gave a man a fresh start."

But Dan also was packing up—a "duplicate" brought in by the Fizzer having necessitated his presence in Darwin, and as he packed up he assured us he would be back in time for the Christmas celebrations, even if he had to swim for it but before he left he paid a farewell visit to the Christmas dinner. "In case of accidents," he explained, "mightn't see it again. Looks like another case of one apiece," he added, surveying with interest the plumpness of six young pullets Cheon was cherishing under a coop.

"Must have pullet longa Clisymus," Cheon had said, and all readily agreeing, "Of course!" he had added "must have really good Clisymus"; and another hearty "Of course" convincing him we were at one with him in the matter of Christmas, he entered into details.

"Must have big poodinn, and almond, and Clisymus cake, and mince pie," he chuckled, and then after confiding to us that he had heard of the prospective glories of a Christmas dinner at the Pine Creek "Pub.," the heathen among us urged us to do honour to the Christian festival.

"Must have top-fellow Clisymus longa Elsey," he said, and even more heartily we agreed, "of course," giving Cheon carte blanche to order everything as he wished us to have it. "We were there to command," we assured him; and accepting our services, Cheon opened the ball by sending the Dandy in to the Katherine on a flying visit to do a little shopping, and, pending the Dandy's return we sat down and made plans.

The House and the Quarters should join forces that day, Cheon suggested, and dine under the eastern verandah "No good two-fellow dinner longa Clisymus," he said. And the blacks, too, must be regaled in their humpy. "Must have Vealer longa black fellow Clisymus," Cheon ordered, and Jack's services being bespoken for Christmas Eve, to "round up a Vealer," it was decided to add a haunch of "Vealer" to our menu as a trump card—Vealers being rarities at Pine Creek. Our only regret was that we lived too far from civilisation to secure a ham. Pine Creek would certainly have a ham; but we had a Vealer and faith in Cheon, and waited expectantly for the Dandy, sure the Elsey would "come out top-fellow."

And as we waited for the Dandy, the Line Party moved on to our northern boundary, taking with it possible Christmas guests; the Fizzer came in and went on, to face a "merry Christmas with damper and beef served in style on a pack-bag," also regretting empty mail-bags—the Southern mail having been delayed en route. Tam and the Sanguine Scot accepted invitations to the Christmas dinner; and the Wet broke in one terrific thunderclap, as the heavens, opening, emptied a deluge over us.

In that mighty thunderclap the Wet rushed upon us with a roar of falling waters, and with them Billy Muck appeared at the house verandah dripping like a beaver, to claim further credit.

"Well?" he said again, "Me rainmaker, eh ?" and the Maluka shouted above the roar and din:

"You're the boy for my money, Billy! Keep her going!" and Billy kept her going to such purpose that by sun-up the billabong was a banker, Cheon was moving over the face of the earth with the buoyancy of a child's balloon, and Billy had five inches of rain to his credit. (So far, eleven inches was the Territory record for one night). Also the fringe of birds was back at the billabong, having returned with as little warning as it had left, and once more its ceaseless chatter became the undertone of the homestead.