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PELICAN POOL
A NOVEL
BY
SYDNEY DE LOGHE
Author of
"The Straits Impregnable"
[Illustration: Decoration]
SYDNEY
ANGUS & ROBERTSON LTD.
1917
Printed by
W. C. Penfold & Co. Ltd., 183 Pitt Street, Sydney
for
Angus & Robertson Ltd.
TO
M. L.
WHO, AT SUCH A PLACE AS SURPRISE, HAS
BORNE THE HEAT AND BURDEN OF THE DAY
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. WHERE TO FIND SURPRISE VALLEY CAMP 1
II. HOW THEY PASS THE EVENING AT SURPRISE 10
III. PELICAN POOL 37
IV. KALOONA RUN 54
V. THE HUT BY PELICAN POOL 77
VI. THE COACH COMES TO SURPRISE 92
VII. THE RETURN TO SURPRISE 118
VIII. THE BANKS OF THE POOL 145
IX. HOW THE DAYS PASS BY AT SURPRISE 159
X. HOW THE DAYS PASS BY AT KALOONA 176
XI. THE PARTING BY THE POOL 190
XII. SELWYN HEARS SOME NEWS 205
XIII. THE JOURNEY TO THE POOL 221
XIV. THE HALT BY THE ROAD 233
XV. THE PARTING OF THE WAY 237
XVI. SUMMER DAYS 241
XVII. THE ERRAND TO THE POOL 250
XVIII. THE BOTTOM OF THE VALLEY 264
XIX. THE SELWYNS RETURN SOUTH 272
XX. THE FAREWELL BY THE HUT 282
XXI. THE COMING OF THE RAINS 296
XXII. THE MEETING BY THE RIVER 319
CHAPTER I
WHERE TO FIND SURPRISE VALLEY CAMP
Where the equator girdles the earth, the Indian Ocean and the amorous
waters of the Pacific have their marriage bed. Afire with the passions
of the tropics, excited by breezes from a thousand islands of palm, of
spice, of coral, of pearl, jewelled for the ceremony with quick-lived
phosphorous lights, the oceans move to each other, and mingle hot
kisses under high red suns and fierce white moons. They have begotten
many children; and one of these--the Sea of Carpentaria--leans deep
into the northern coast of Australia, and wears itself against a
thousand miles of barren shore.
As a young girl, dreaming her dreams, spends affection careless of the
cost, so these romantic waters woo the stern northern land with warm
and tireless embrace. And, as a man, busy on his own affairs, cares
nothing for such soft entreaty, so the north land gives no sign; but
remarks in silence the passage of the years.
Yet who shall say that passion has no place there--because a giant
broods, dreaming a giant's dreams? Who shall say--because long waiting
may have brought crabbed age--that the north land has not its sorrows?
Morose countenance it keeps, yet freely can it spend. Its pulse beats
no feeble strokes. Fierce suns travel across it, the heavens are torn
for its rains, its floods laugh at restraint, the drought is slave of
its ill-humours.
Its face is rough with frequent ranges where scanty vegetation climbs,
where barren rock-faces catch the sunlight, and clefts run in, and
shadowy cave-mouths open out. Here the wallaby finds harbourage, the
bat hangs himself in the shadows, the python unrolls his coils, and the
savage stays a space for shelter.
Its face is smooth with dreary plain. Stunted trees find living there,
and hold out narrow leaves to cheat the suns. The spinifex battles with
the thrifty soil, and porcupine grass weaves its spikes for the unwary.
Score of miles by score of miles the country rolls away, brown or red
where shows the bare earth, grey or yellow or smoky blue where the sun
weds the dried grassland, shining white where the quartz pushes out of
the ground. Through half the hours the sun stares from the centre of
the sky, the leaves hang unmoved, the grasses are unstirred: silence
only lives. The savage is dreaming of the feast to come, the kangaroo
has taken himself to the roots of a tree in the dried water-course. The
sun passes to the journey's end: life again draws breath. The kangaroo
seeks the tenderer grasses; the dingo rises in his lair to stretch, and
loll his tongue; the parrot screams from the tree-top; tiny finches, in
splendid coats, swing among the bushes; a brown kite takes high station
in the sky. Yet the waste seems empty, and the white ants only may
boast of conquest where their red cones rise everywhere about the plain.
A belt of greener timber stands out bravely from the faded vegetation
to mark the river on its passage to the sea. To the parching waterholes
the pelican comes at dawn to fish and to pout his breast: snowy
spoonbills and divers splash in the lonely shallows. The alligator
comes up to sun himself; the turtle bubbles from the hot mud; and the
quick striped fishes play at hide and seek among the languid weeds. The
kingfisher busies himself along the bank, and with evening the ducks
push their triangles about the sky.
The conquest of this northern land will bring the fall of one of
savagery's last fortresses. Already the outposts of South and East
press in. The ramparts are crumbling, and soon the gates must tumble
to a victor who never yet has been denied. The white man has turned
here his covetous gaze. Vainly the burning winds and angry rains shall
beat at the ashes of his first fires and shall scatter his first
solitary bones. The silences shall not fright him, nor the lean places
turn his purpose. Though he fall, yet will he come on again, for this
foe is fashioned of stern stuff. In ones, in twos, already he toils
over the face of the wilderness, seeking the kindlier ways for his
herds: in ones, in twos, he passes about the hills and watercourses,
wresting from their bosoms the objects of his avarice. Alike he invades
the sternest and gentlest retreats, raising his shelters to mock at sun
and storm. His long fences are breaking the distances, his beasts of
burden trample the virgin waterholes, his iron houses defile the hermit
vales. Not easily does he work his will. Lean and brown he becomes, and
his women grow haggard before their time. But children patter upon the
bitter places, and them the wilderness has less power to hurt.
The Sea of Carpentaria woos the north land. The north land gives no
sign.
. . . . . . .
The mining camp of Surprise Valley lies in the folds of those ranges
which break the long plains of the Gulf country. Ten years ago it grew
along the bottom of a cup of the hills, and since that season neither
has waxed nor waned, being nothing troubled by the wilderness which
marches to the door-ways of its tents and humble iron houses.
The traveller, by circumstance brought thither from the East, with ill
grace leaves his steamer at the coast, boards the casual train, and
presently finds himself jerking forward on the second stage of the
journey. He bumps westward for five hundred miles. He moves through
plains which--right and left--push into the horizon. The ocean has not
seemed to him more immense. A curtain of heat is about their edges, a
haze dwells about them. The clamour of his coming scatters sheep at
their grazing, alarms the kangaroo at matins, sends the wild turkey
into the taller grasses. For a night, for a day, for half another
night, he is held in thrall. He alone appears eager for the journey
end. He smokes, he reads, he eats: a dozen ways he sets himself to
hurry time. The cool of the evening takes him to the outside platform
of the car to reflect and watch the darkening of the skies--to remark
the first white stars. At such hour maybe he takes his lot in better
part.
Sunrise renews the stale prospect, and the heated air of noon finds him
with sticky collar and drowsy brain. He dozes, wakes, dozes again.
Ever and anon the brakes grind, and the train jerks to a standstill.
From the window he looks upon a siding, where a platform of blistered
planks and an iron shed are emblems of railway authority. A dozen
stockmen and loafers of the township crowd the patch of shade, to
smoke and spit and await the train's advance. First to the eye comes
the hotel, beside it lies the store; and haphazard stand the wooden
houses, with iron roofs glaring back into the sun's fierce face. Never
a church lifts up its cross as of old the tabernacle made signal in the
wilderness. A dusty way leads into the plain, and along this presently
the stockmen will turn their horses.
The second evening brings the journey-end. From his platform the
traveller sees a township's lights grow upon the plain--lights closer
and redder than the stars that meet them. The iron rails have ended.
Thankfully he gets down to stretch his limbs in the cool, wide night.
But a hundred miles still frown him from the goal. With morning he
clambers into a seat of the mail coach--a battered carriage. His
luggage has been strapped behind. He sits solitary beside the driver,
who accepts him with easy familiarity. The reins run slack to the
horses' heads, and the five lean beasts draw him forward at even pace.
The dust climbs up and hangs upon the air. All day he rolls over empty
plain.
The second afternoon brings the ranges marching from the horizon, and
by evening the coach rises and dips upon a see-saw roadway. As the
sun leans down to the horizon, the driver draws taut his reins before
Surprise Valley Hotel. Surprise Valley ends the coach journey--ends
the direct mail service--ends the bush parson's endeavors--ends the
travelling school-master's rounds--ends civilization--ends everything.
When humour so inclines them--which is seldom--the people of Surprise
Valley may walk from their doorways into the great unknown of the West.
Fortune has given to Surprise the greenest fold of the western ranges.
Easy hills stand up about the camp, tracing a zig-zag rim against
the sky. The camp lies in the hollow, as in the bottom of a cup. It
clambers about the lower slopes, following the whim of the latest
comer. The hotel boasts a roof and walls of iron, that much boasts the
store, that much the manager's house. The staff barracks and the mine
offices equally are favoured. Wooden piles lift the buildings high from
the ground. Elsewhere stand weather-worn tents; and sometimes a bough
shed, thatched with gum-leaves, serves its architect as parlour.
Towering over all rise the poppet-heads and bins of the mine. Goats
take a siesta beneath the scrubby trees, explore the rubbish heaps,
and clamber about the dump; fowls of more breeds than Joseph's coat
knew colours, employ themselves in the dusty places, or keep the shade
of the broken rocks. Here and there an optimist nurses a garden, and
finds reward in a few drooping vegetables. Goats and fowls peer through
the netting with evil in their hearts. This is Surprise Valley to the
stranger eye.
Three score burnt men and a handful of shabby women here find living.
They dig for the green copper hidden jealously in the bosom of the
hills. From distant parts they have drifted, they stay awhile; again
they drift; but the camp endures, and the wilderness is powerless
to harm it. Forward and backward from the railroad, a hundred miles
away, the weekly coach crawls on its journey, keeping open the track
to civilization, and bringing such news and comforts as that world
has leisure to send. The mail bags disgorge stale papers; the driver
delivers stale news. Round and round turns the wheel of affairs. A
whistle begins the day for this community: a whistle ends it. Deep in
the earth the men labor with hammer and drill. Overhead the women bend
at their pots and pans, and peg the weekly washings under cloudless
skies. The children, untaught, unchecked, patter among the stones and
tussocks, and send abroad their cries. Summer follows winter. The suns
climb up; in season the rains roar down; the frost comes in its turn.
But the men of Surprise Valley dig always in the bowels of the hills,
and the women busy themselves about their doors.