First Sight of the Musgraves
Next day Mick Darby rode with cocked rifle in the lead of the plant.
The white boys were not with him. They rode twenty or thirty yards in
the rear of the mounted blacks, ready to give instant alarm of any
danger. But for nearly a week nothing unusual happened. A few smoke
signals were seen, but were so far away that they seemed to indicate
that the wild blacks had taken warning and were retiring to their bush
fastnesses, having been convinced that it was beyond their power to
trick a watchful white man.
Night after night the horses were hobbled on the best feed that could
be found, and were watched from sunset till dawn. The white boys took
their turn at this work, at first together, but, as night followed
night, and there was no sign of the blacks, Mick allowed them to take
their watches alone. This experience did more than any other to
impress them with Central Australia: its silence, its absolute
loneliness, its vastness and the puny insignificance of man, who dared
to pit his power against it.
As hour after hour went by, and Sax or Vaughan rode round the horses or
squatted on the ground with the quietly breathing saddle-horse standing
near, these lads were slowly but surely changed from school-boys to
men. They felt that they were face to face with the power of untamed
nature--the desert and the savage inhabitants of it--and that even they
were units in an army of progress which was conquering that nature and
making it minister to the needs of civilized man. Of course, these
were not their actual thoughts, but that was certainly the general
effect which night-watching had upon them.
Six days went by in this way and it appeared as if all danger was past.
The party had been making towards a low range of hills on the western
horizon, and on the seventh day the plant passed up a little valley and
halted on the top for midday camp.
Through the clean sun-filled air of Central Australia the view was so
clear that all sense of distance was lost, and objects many days away
seemed no farther off than a few hours' ride. The character of the
country was the same as that which they had travelled over since
leaving Oodnadatta: masses of scanty mulga scrub standing out dark on a
landscape of vast bare plains or rolling sand-hills. Far away, a
pale-blue silhouette against the bright north-west sky, was a range of
high mountains.
"Those are the Musgraves," said Mick, in answer to a question. "That's
where those niggers come from who speared my two horses."
"Are the niggers very wild?" asked Sax, thinking of his father.
"They're the last that really are wild in this part of the country,"
answered the drover. "The rest have either come in and made camps near
stations, or cleared right out into West Australia."
"Are there many of them?" asked Vaughan.
"Nobody really knows," replied Mick. "The Musgraves is a big slice of
country, as you can see, and it stretches back for a couple of hundred
miles north. They say there's plenty of water and game in those
mountains. Chaps used to go there after gold, but so few of them came
back that they chucked it and left the place alone. The Musgraves have
got a bad name."
Mick Darby did not know that everything he said had a very personal
application to one at least of his companions. The words of his
father's note kept ringing in Sax's ears: "In difficulties. Musgrave
Ranges. In difficulties. Musgrave Ranges," and his vivid imagination
filled all sorts of details into the drover's bare statements about the
dangers of the place. He noticed Yarloo looking intently at the
distant peaks, and when he caught the boy's eye, a significant glance
passed between them. They were both thinking of the lonely white man.
But imaginary dangers soon gave place to present interests. The saddle
of the hills where they were camped was the eastern boundary of
Sidcotinga Station, the run on which Mick was going to take up the
duties of head stockman, and the boys were keen to note every landmark
which he pointed out.
"How big is it, Mick?" asked Vaughan.
"Between six and seven thousand square miles."
"Miles! You mean acres, don't you, Mick?"
"Acres be blowed! No, miles. This isn't a cocky farmer's cow-paddock."
The extent of country amazed the boys. They were standing on a pretty
high hill and could see over a vast scope of country, but Mick told
them that a certain landmark near the head station was not even in
sight, and that the run stretched on beyond that again for miles and
miles.
"But how ever do you know when you've gone off the run?" asked Sax.
"Is it fenced?"
Mick Darby laughed heartily. "Fenced!" he exclaimed. "Fenced! Oh my
hat! No, lad, there's not a fence between here and glory, except round
a little bit of a paddock where they keep the working horses over
night. Why, d'you know that to fence Sidcotinga Station you'd need
nearly four hundred miles of fencing? There's no timber for the posts
in this part of the country, and as for wire---- No, they don't use
fences in Central Australia."
This was such a new point of view to the boys, that during the
afternoon's ride they asked innumerable questions of their kind-hearted
friend. They heard that cattle are kept on any particular run because
of the impossibility of their wandering more than a certain distance
away from their water-hole. In fact, a run is made up of permanent
waters and the area of country around them. There may be any amount of
good feed on other parts of the run, but unless it is within reach of
water it is absolutely useless.
The only chance that cattle have of straying is after rain, which falls
very, very seldom in Central Australia. When it does fall, the stock
wander off to new feeding-grounds, and may become stranded when the
surface waters dry up. The stockmen are very busy at such times,
tracking up cattle and bringing them back to their accustomed haunts.
All this and much more the boys learnt as they rode along, and although
it seemed so new to them, there was a splendid sense that they were in
it all, and that soon they would know these things from actual
experience.
An experience of Central Australian life which might have ended fatally
was to come to them sooner than they expected. Seeing that they were
now on Sidcotinga Station country, and that they had not been molested
for six days, Mick decided to let the horses go without being watched
that night, taking the precaution of tying up his own saddle-horse in
case of need.
Next morning all the boys had run away except Yarloo. He went out with
a bridle at dawn and returned with the news that every one of the
horses had been speared.