When we arrived at the five-mile in the morning we found Mac “packed up”
and ready for the start, and, passing the reins to him, the Maluka said,
“You know the road best”; and Mac, being what he called a “bit of a
Jehu,” we set off in great style across country, apparently missing
trees by a hair’s breadth, and bumping over the ant-hills, boulders, and
broken boughs that lay half-hidden in the long grass.
After being nearly bumped out of the buck-board several times, I asked
if there wasn’t any track anywhere; and Mac once again exploded with
astonishment.
“We’re on the track,” he shouted. “Good Heavens I do you mean to say you
can’t see it on ahead there?” and he pointed towards what looked like
thickly timbered country, plentifully strewn with further boulders and
boughs and ant-hills; and as I shook my head, he shrugged his shoulders
hopelessly. “And we’re on the main transcontinental route from Adelaide
to Port Darwin,” he said.
“Any track anywhere!” he mimicked presently, as we lurched, and heaved,
and bumped along. “What’ll she say when we get into the long-grass
country?”
“Long here!” he ejaculated, when I thought the grass we were driving
through was fairly long (it was about three feet). “Just you wait!”
I waited submissively, if bouncing about a buck-board over thirty miles
of obstacles can be called waiting, and next day we “got into the long-
grass country”, miles of grass, waving level with and above our
heads—grass ten feet high and more, shutting out everything but grass.
The Maluka was riding a little behind, at the head of the pack-team, but
we could see neither him nor the team, and Mac looked triumphantly round
as the staunch little horses pushed on through the forest of grass that
swirled and bent and swished and reeled all about the buck-board.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he said. “This is what we call long grass”; and he
asked if I could “see any track now.” “It’s as plain as a pikestaff,” he
declared, trying to show what he called a “clear break all the way.” “Oh
I’m a dead homer all right,” he shouted after further going as we came
out at the “King” crossing.
“Now for it! Hang on!” he warned, and we went down the steep bank at a
hand gallop; and as the horses rushed into the swift-flowing stream, he
said unconcernedly: “I wonder how deep this is,” adding, as the buck-
board lifted and swerved when the current struck it: “By George! They’re
off their feet,” and leaning over the splashboard, lashed at the
undaunted little beasts until they raced up the opposite bank.
“That’s the style!” he shouted in triumph, as they drew up, panting and
dripping well over the rise from the crossing. “Close thing, though! Did
you get your feet wet?”
“Did you get your feet wet!” That was all, when I was expecting every
form of concern imaginable. For a moment I felt indignant at Mac’s
recklessness and lack of concern, and said severely, “You shouldn’t take
such risks.”
But Mac was blissfully unconscious of the severity. “Risks!” he said.
“Why, it wasn’t wide enough for anything to happen, bar a ducking. If
you rush it, the horses are pushed across before they know they’re off
their feet.”
“Bar a ducking, indeed!” But Mac was out of the buck-board, shouting
back, “Hold hard there! It’s a swim,” and continued shouting directions
until the horses were across with comparatively dry pack-bags. Then he
and the Maluka shook hands and congratulated each other on being the
right side of everything.
“No more rivers!” the Maluka said.
“Clear run home, bar a deluge,” Mac added, gathering up the reins.
“We’ll strike the front gate to-night.”
All afternoon we followed the telegraph line, and there the track was
really well-defined; then at sundown Mac drew up, and with a flourish of
hats he and the Maluka bade the missus “Welcome Home!” All around and
about was bush, and only bush, that, and the telegraph line, and Mac,
touching on one of the slender galvanized iron poles, explained the
welcome. “This is the front gate.” he said; “another forty-five miles
and we’ll be knocking at the front door.” And they called the Elsey “a
nice little place.” Perhaps it was when compared with runs of six
million acres.
The camp was pitched just inside the “front gate,” near a wide-spreading
sheet of water, “Easter’s Billabong,” and at supper-time the
conversation turned on bush cookery.
“Never tasted Johnny cakes!!” Mac said. “Your education hasn’t begun
yet. We’ll have some for breakfast; I’m real slap-up at Johnny cakes!”
and rummaging in a pack-bag, he produced flour, cream-of-tartar, soda,
and a mixing-dish, and set to work at once.
“I’m real slap-up at Johnny cakes! No mistake!” he assured us, as he
knelt on the ground, big and burly in front of the mixing-dish, kneading
enthusiastically at his mixture. “Look at that!” as air-bubbles appeared
all over the light, spongy dough. “Didn’t I tell you I knew a thing or
two about cooking?” and cutting off nuggety-looking chunks, he buried
them in the hot ashes.
When they were cooked, crisp and brown, he displayed them with just
pride. “Well!” he said. “Who’s slap-up at Johnny cakes?” and standing
them on end in the mixing-dish he rigged up tents—a deluge being
expected—and carried them into his own for safety.
During the night the deluge came, and the billabong, walking up its
flood banks, ran about the borders of our camp, sending so many
exploring little rivulets through Mac’s tent, that he was obliged to
pass most of the night perched on a pyramid of pack bags and saddles.
Unfortunately, in the confusion and darkness, the dish of Johnny cakes
became the base of the pyramid, and was consequently missing at
breakfast time. After a long hunt Mac recovered it and stood looking
dejectedly at the ruins of his cookery—a heap of flat, stodgy-looking
slabs. “Must have been sitting on ’em all night,” he said, “and there’s
no other bread for breakfast.”
There was no doubt that we must eat them or go without bread of any
kind; but as we sat tugging at the gluey guttapercha-like substance,
Mac’s sense of humour revived. “Didn’t I tell you I was slap-up at
Johnny cakes?” he chuckled, adding with further infinitely more humorous
chuckles: “You mightn’t think it; but I really am.” Then he pointed to
Jackeroo, who was watching in bewilderment while the Maluka hunted for
the crispest crust, not for himself, but the woman. “White fellow big
fellow fool all right! eh, Jackeroo?” he asked, and Jackeroo openly
agreed with us.
Finding the black soil flats impassable after the deluge, Mac left the
track, having decided to stick to the ridges all day; and all that had
gone before was smoothness itself in comparison to what was in store.
All day the buck-board rocked and bumped through the timber, and the
Maluka, riding behind, from time to time pointed out the advantages of
travelling across country, as we bounced about the buck-board like
rubber balls: “There’s so little chance of getting stiff with sitting
still.”
Every time we tried to answer him we bit our tongues as the buck-board
leapt over the tussocks of grass. Once we managed to call back, “You
won’t feel the journey in a buck-board.” Then an overhanging bough
threatening to wipe us out of our seats, Mac shouted, “Duck!” and as we
“ducked” the buck-board skimmed between two trees, with barely an inch
to spare.
“I’m a bit of a Jehu all right!” Mac shouted triumphantly. “It takes
judgment to do the thing in style”; and the next moment, swinging round
a patch of scrub, we flew off at a tangent to avoid a fallen tree,
crashing through its branches and grinding over an out-crop of ironstone
to miss a big boulder just beyond the tree. It undoubtedly took judgment
this “travelling across country along the ridges”; but the keen, alert
bushman never hesitated as he swung in and out and about the timber,
only once miscalculating the distance between trees, when he was obliged
to back out again. Of course we barked trees constantly, but Mac called
that “blazing a track for the next travellers,” and everywhere the bush
creatures scurried out of our way; and when I expressed fears for the
springs, Mac reassured me by saying a buck-board had none, excepting
those under the seat.
If Mac was a “bit of a Jehu,” he certainly was a “dead homer,” for after
miles of scrub and grass and timber, we came out at our evening camp at
the Bitter Springs, to find the Head Stockman there, with his faithful,
tawny-coloured shadow, “Old Sool em,” beside him.
Dog and man greeted us sedately, and soon Dan had a billy boiling for
us, and a blazing fire, and accepted an invitation to join us at supper
and “bring something in the way of bread along with him.”
With a commonplace remark about the trip out, he placed a crisp, newly
baked damper on the tea-towel that acted as supper cloth; but when we
all agreed that he was “real slap-up at damper making,” he scented a
joke and shot a quick, questioning glance around; then deciding that it
was wiser not to laugh at all than to laugh in the wrong place, he only
said, he was “not a bad hand at the damper trick.” Dan liked his jokes
well labelled when dealing with the unknown Woman.
He was a bushman of the old type, one of the men of the droving days;
full of old theories, old faiths, and old prejudices, and clinging
always to old habits and methods. Year by year as the bush had receded
and shrunk before the railways, he had receded with it, keeping always
just behind the Back of Beyond, droving, bullock-punching, stock-
keeping, and unconsciously opening up the way for that very civilisation
that was driving him farther and farther back. In the forty years since
his boyhood railways had driven him out of Victoria, New South Wales and
Queensland, and were now threatening even the Never-Never, and Dan was
beginning to fear that they would not leave “enough bush to bury a man
in.”
Enough bush to bury a man in! That’s all these men of the droving days
have ever asked of their nation and yet without them the pioneers would
have been tied hand and foot, and because of them Australia is what it
is.
“Had a good trip out?” Dan asked, feeling safe on that subject, and
appeared to listen to the details of the road with interest; but all the
time the shrewd hazel eyes were upon me, drawing rapid conclusions, and
I began to feel absurdly anxious to know their verdict. That was not to
come before bedtime; and only those who knew the life of the stations in
the Never-Never know how much was depending on the stockmen’s verdict.
Dan had his own methods of dealing with the Unknown Woman. Forty years
out-bush had convinced him that “most of ’em were the right sort,” but
it had also convinced him that “you had to take ’em all differently,”
and he always felt his way carefully, watching and waiting, ready to
open out at the first touch of fellowship and understanding, but just as
ready to withdraw into himself at the faintest approach to a snub.
By the time supper was over he had risked a joke or two, and taking
heart by their reception, launched boldly into the conversation,
chuckling with delight as the Maluka and Mac amused themselves by
examining the missus on bushcraft.
“She’ll need a deal of educating before we let her out alone,” he said,
after a particularly bad failure, with the first touch of that air of
proprietorship that was to become his favourite attitude towards his
missus.
“It’s only common sense; you’ll soon get used to it,” Mac said in
encouragement, giving us one of his delightful backhanders. Then in all
seriousness Dan suggested teaching her some of the signs of water at
hand, right off, “in case she does get lost any time,” and also
seriously, the Maluka and Mac “thought it would be as well, perhaps.”
Then the townswoman’s self-satisfied arrogance came to the surface. “You
needn’t bother about me,” I said, confident I had as much common sense
as any bushman. “If ever I do get lost, I’ll just catch a cow and milk
it.”
Knowing nothing of the wild, scared cattle of the fenceless runs of the
Never-Never, I was prepared for anything rather than the roar of delight
that greeted that example of town “common sense.”
“Missus! missus!” the Maluka cried, as soon as he could speak, “you’ll
need a deal of educating”; and while Mac gasped, “Oh I say! Look here!”
Dan, with tears in his eyes, chuckled: “She’ll have a drouth on by the
time she runs one down.” Dan always called a thirst a drouth. “Oh Lord!”
he said, picturing the scene in his mind’s eye, “‘I’ll catch a cow and
milk it,’ she says.”
Then, dancing with fun, the hazel eyes looked round the company, and as
Dan rose, preparatory to turning in, we felt we were about to hear their
verdict. When it came it was characteristic of the man in uniqueness of
wording:
“She’s the dead finish!” he said, wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve.
“Reckoned she was the minute I heard her talking about slap-up dampers”;
and in some indescribable way we knew he had paid the woman who was just
entering his life the highest compliment in his power. Then he added,
“Told the chaps the little ’uns were generally all right.” It is the
helplessness of little women that makes them appear “all right” in the
eyes of bushmen, helplessness being foreign to snorters.
At breakfast Dan expressed surprise because there was no milk, and the
pleasantry being well received, he considered the moment ripe for one of
his pet theories.
“She’ll do for this place!” he said, wagging his head wisely. “I’ve been
forty years out-bush, and I’ve known eight or ten women in that time, so
I ought to know something about it. Anyway, the ones that could see
jokes suited best. There was Mrs. Bob out Victoria way. She’d see a joke
a mile off; sighted ’em as soon as they got within cooee. Never knew her
miss one, and never knew anybody suit the bush like she did.” And, as we
packed up and set out for the last lap of our journey he was still
ambling about his theory. “Yes,” he said, “you can dodge most things out
bush; but you can’t dodge jokes for long. They’ll run you down sooner or
later”; adding with a chuckle, “Never heard of one running Mrs. Bob
down, though. She always tripped ’em up before they could get to her.”
Then finding the missus had thrown away a “good cup of tea just because
a few flies had got into it,” he became grave. “Never heard of Mrs. Bob
getting up to those tricks,” he said, and doubted whether “the missus ’ud
do after all,” until reassured by the Maluka that “she’ll be fishing
them out with the indifference of a Stoic in a week or two”; and I was.
When within a few miles of the homestead, the buckboard took a sharp
turn round a patch of scrub, and before any one realised what was
happening we were in the midst of a mob of pack horses, and face to face
with the Quiet Stockman a strong, erect, young Scot, who carried his six
foot two of bone and muscle with the lithe ease of a bushman.
“Hallo” Mac shouted, pulling up. Then, with the air of a showman
introducing some rare exhibit, added: “This is the missus, Jack.”
Jack touched his hat and moved uneasily in his saddle, answering Mac’s
questions in monosyllables. Then the Maluka came up, and Mac, taking
pity on the embarrassed bushman, suggested “getting along,” and we left
him sitting rigidly on his horse, trying to collect his scattered
senses.
“That was unrehearsed,” Mac chuckled, as we drove on. “He’s clearing
out! Reckon he didn’t set out exactly hoping to meet us, though. Tam’s a
lady’s man in comparison,” but loyal to his comrade above his amusement,
he added warmly: “You can’t beat Jack by much, though, when it comes to
sticking to a pal,” unconscious that he was prophesying of the years to
come, when the missus had become one of those pals.
“There’s only the Dandy left now,” Mac went on, as we spun along an ever
more definite track, “and he’ll be all right as soon as he gets used to
it. Never knew such a chap for finding something decent in everybody he
strikes.” Naturally I hoped he would “find something decent in me,”
having learned what it meant to the stockmen to have a woman pitchforked
into their daily lives, when those lives were to be lived side by side,
in camp, or in saddle, or at the homestead.
Mac hesitated a moment, and then out flashed one of his happy
inspirations. “Don’t you bother about the Dandy,” he said; “bushmen have
a sixth sense, and know a pal when they see one.”
Just a bushman’s pretty speech, aimed straight at the heart of a woman,
where all the pretty speeches of the bushfolk are aimed; for it is by
the heart that they judge us. “Only a pal,” they will say, towering
strong and protecting; and the woman feels uplifted, even though in the
same breath they have honestly agreed with her, after careful scrutiny,
that it is not her fault that she was born into the plain sisterhood.
Bushmen will risk their lives for a woman pal or otherwise but leave her
to pick up her own handkerchief.
“Of course!” Mac added, as an afterthought. “It’s not often they find a
pal in a woman”; and I add to-day that when they do, that woman is to be
envied her friends.
“Eyes front!” Mac shouted suddenly, and in a moment the homestead was in
sight, and the front gate forty-five miles behind us. “If ever you DO
reach the homestead alive,” the Darwin ladies had said; and now they
were three hundred miles away from us to the north-west.
“Sam’s spotted us!” Mac smiled as we skimmed on, and a slim little
Chinaman ran across between the buildings. “We’d better do the thing in
style,” and whipping up the horses, he whirled them through the open
slip-rails, past the stockyards, away across the grassy homestead
enclosure, and pulled up with a rattle of hoofs and wheels at the head
of a little avenue of buildings.
The Dandy, fresh and spotless, appeared in a doorway; black boys sprang
up like a crop of mushrooms and took charge of the buck-board; Dan
rattled in with the pack-teams, and horses were jangling hobbles and
rattling harness all about us, as I found myself standing in the shadow
of a queer, unfinished building, with the Maluka and Mac surrounded by a
mob of leaping, bounding dogs, flourishing, as best they could, another
“Welcome home!”
“Well?” Mac asked, beating off dogs at every turn. “Is it a House or a
Hut?”
“A Betwixt and Between,” we decided; and then the Dandy was presented,
And the steady grey eyes apparently finding “something decent” in the
missus, with a welcoming smile and ready tact he said: “I’m sure we’re
all real glad to see you.” Just the tiniest emphasis on the word “you”;
but that, and the quick, bright look that accompanied the emphasis,
told, as nothing else could, that it was “that other woman” that had not
been wanted. Unconventional, of course; but when a welcome is
conventional out-bush, it is unworthy of the name of welcome.
The Maluka, knew this well, but before he could speak, Mac had seized a
little half-grown dog—the most persistent of all the leaping dogs—by her
tightly curled-up tail, and, setting her down at my feet, said: “And
this is Tiddle’ums,” adding, with another flourishing bow, “A present
from a Brither Scot,” while Tiddle’ums in no way resented the dignity.
Having a tail that curled tightly over her back like a cup handle, she
expected to be lifted up by it.
Then one after the other Mac presented the station dogs: Quart-Pot,
Drover, Tuppence, Misery, Buller, and a dozen others; and as I bowed
gravely to each in turn Dan chuckled in appreciation: “She’ll do! Told
you she was the dead finish.”
Then the introductions over, the Maluka said: “Ann, now I suppose she
may consider herself just ‘One of Us.’”