“Helm, old man, we ‘ve lost the track!”
“Don’t be a howling idiot, man. Lost! how could we be lost? Why, there’s
the track right ahead, and pretty fresh too.”
But Anderson flung himself off his horse on to the dry crisp grass, and
covered his face with his hands.
“I’ll tell you,” reiterated his mate, leaning forward in his saddle and
shading his eyes, “I see hoof-marks quite plain. Why, they might have
been made yesterday!”
“They were made yesterday,” groaned the other, hopelessly. “Don’t you
see, my dear fellow, we made them ourselves.”
“What!”
Helm raised his head and swore a passionate oath, then sprang from
his horse, stooped over the faint track, ran wildly along it for a few
yards, turned back, and again cried out that the other was playing some
ghastly joke off on him.
“It’s too bad, Anderson, too bad. Get up, man, and don’t be a fool. Come
on, there ‘s very likely water on the other side of that ridge. You’ll
feel better after you’ve had a good drink.”
“That’s the ridge we passed last night, I tell you. Water--oh, yes,
there’s water there, but it’s as salt as the sea.”
“The salt-pan! No, by heaven, no, I won’t believe that. That’s miles
behind us!”
“Nevertheless,” said the other man, drearily, “it’s the same old
salt-pan. You ‘ll see it the moment we cross the ridge.”
“Come on, then, come on. Don’t sit groaning there: let’s know the worst.
I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it till I see for myself.”
“The horses ought to have a spell if we’re ever to get out of this,”
muttered Anderson; but he followed his companion’s lead, mounted his
tired horse, and rode slowly on after him towards the still distant
ridge.
Out back beyond the Mulligan is No Man’s Land. They had gone out to seek
new country, crossed the Queensland border into South Australia, and
now, old bushman as he was, Anderson had only the vaguest idea of their
whereabouts. Ever since they started it had been the same trouble; the
season had been exceptionally dry, and everywhere the waters were dried
up. First one horse had died, then another, until at last they were
reduced to only three; still they had pushed on, for the blacks told
a tale of a magnificent waterhole where the water was permanent, and
Anderson had a certain amount of faith in the unerring wisdom of the
children of the soil where water was concerned. So he pushed on, hoping
against hope, till the younger man, more fearful, perhaps more prudent,
persuaded him to turn back. But it was too late. The weakest horse, the
one they had used as a packhorse, gave in, and had to be left behind the
first day of their return journey; and now, on the fourth, they had just
made the terrible discovery they were going round on their own tracks.
They had been so thankful--so hopeful--when they struck that track in
the morning.
Anderson knew there was another party out better appointed than they
were; these might be their tracks, and possibly they had water with
them. They might even have come across water--and water--water--if only
they had a little water. And so they had pushed on, eagerly, hopefully,
till the terrible truth began to dawn on the older and more experienced
bushman. The weather for the last two days had been dull and cloudy,
they had not caught a glimpse of the sun, and hourly they had expected a
thunderstorm, which would not only clear the air, but would supply them
with the water they needed; but to-day the clouds had all cleared away,
and the only effect of their presence had been that they had lost their
bearings completely. Where and when they had lost them Anderson could
not say even now, and he was loth at first to share his misgivings with
his mate; but the sight of the ridge decided him. If they found, as he
fully expected to, the salt-pan they had passed the night before on the
other side, then most surely were they lost men--lost in a cruel thirsty
land where no water was.
He pondered it over in his mind as he rode slowly after his companion.
“There was no hope. There could possibly be no hope.” Over and over
again he said it to himself as a man who hardly realizes his own
words--and then they topped the low ridge, and right at his feet lay the
salt-pan glittering in the sun.
“Cruel--cruel--cruel!” Helm had flung himself face downwards on the hard
ground now, and given way to a paroxysm of despair all the more bitter
for his former hopefulness. Anderson looked down on him pityingly for
a moment, as one who had no part in his trouble, then he looked away
again. Save for the sunshine, it was exactly the same scene, the very
same they had looked upon last night--there lay the glittering salt-pan,
white as driven snow, above it the hard blue cloudless sky, and all
around the dreary plain, broken only by the ridge on which they stood.
And yet in different circumstances he might have admired the landscape,
for it had a weird beauty all its own; miles and miles he could see
in the clear bright atmosphere, far away to the other side of the wide
lake, where a dark clump of trees or scrub was apparently raised in
the sky high above the horizon. He knew it was only the effect of
the mirage, another token, had he needed a token, that there was no
moisture, no water, not the faintest chance of a drop of rain. And yet
there had been some rain not so very long ago, for the mesembryanthemum
growing in dark green patches close to the edge of the salt was all in
flower, pink, and red, and brightest yellow, such gorgeous colouring;
and by that strange association of ideas, for which who shall account,
his thoughts flew back to the last Cup Day, and he saw again the
Flemington racecourse, and heard in fancy the shouts of the people as
the favourite passed the winning-post, On the ground in front of him
were long lines of crows, perched in the stunted boxwood trees above his
head, filling the air with their monotonous cawing. He laughed at the
mockery of the thing. The other man raised his head.
“Old man, what is it? Is it possible that--”
What wild imaginings for the moment had passed through his brain he
could not himself have told; but whatever his hopes might have been,
they were gone the moment he looked in his mate’s face.
“Man,” he said, sharply, “are you mad?”
Anderson was sobered in a second.
“No,” he said, bitterly, “but as far as I can see, it must come to that
before we ‘ve done.”
“No, no, we won’t give up hope yet. Is there no hope?”
Anderson sat down beside him, and pointed silently to the horses. If
ever poor beasts were done, were at their last gasp, they were, as they
stood there, their noses touching the ground. The bushman’s slender
equipment had been reduced to its scantiest proportions, and yet it
seemed cruelty to force them to carry even those slender packs; even
the canvas water-bags, dry as tinder now, hanging at their necks, were
a heavy burden. Wiser than their masters they had crawled beneath the
shade, scanty as it was, of the boxwood trees, and stood there patiently
waiting--For what? For death and the pitiless crows patiently waiting
overhead.
“Exactly,” Helm answered his companion’s unspoken thought, “but we can’t
sit and wait like that. Man, we must try to get out of this at any rate.
We cant sit here and wait for the crows.”
Anderson sighed heavily.
“What can we do?” he asked. “We must spell a bit. The horses are done.
As it is I ‘m afraid yours will have to be left and well have to go on
foot. There must be water about somewhere, for look at the crows; but we
can’t find it, and we couldn’t have searched more carefully.”
“Why not shoot the old horse if he’s no good? His blood might--”
“Nonsense, man. Aren’t you bushman enough yet to know that drinking
blood ‘s only the beginning of the end? Once we do _that_--”
“Well, after?” asked Helm.
But the other did not answer, for he, too, in his heart, was asking,
“After?” And their lips were dry and parched, and their tongues swollen,
and before them lay the salt-pan, with right in the centre a little
gleam of dark blue water which mocked their misery. There was nothing
for it but to lie down beneath the scanty shade and rest. They were too
weary to push on, all their energy had departed, and Helm, lying on
his back looking up at the patches of blue sky that peeped through the
branches, said with a sigh,
“If we ‘re done for, I wish to heaven the end would come now. I can’t
stand the thought of--of--What’s it like, old man? Is it very bad, do
you think?”
“As bad as bad can be.”
“And is there no hope?”
What could he say, this man who had lived in the bush all his life? What
hope could he give, when practically his experience told him there was
no hope--that if they would save themselves from needless pain they
would turn their pistols against themselves and die there and at once.
But the love of life is strong in us all, and the hope of life is as
strong. How could they die, these strong men with life in every vein?
No, no, surely it was impossible. An iguana scuttled across in front of
them and Helm started up eagerly.
“There,” he said, “there--and I never thought. Look at that beast. There
must be water somewhere or how could he live.”
Anderson sighed.
“Yes, there’s the bitterness of it. I know there’s water about if only
we could find it; but as we didn’t find any when we had everything in
our favour there’s not much good in our wasting time looking now. After
all I believe those beasts must live without, though they say they
don’t. No, old chap, our only hope lies in pushing on to the nearest
water we know of.”
“Then don’t let us lie here wasting precious minutes. Every minute is of
consequence; let’s make a start. We must push on.”
Push on! They had been pushing on ever since they left Yerlo station ten
days ago, and this is what it had brought them to.
“It’s no good wearing ourselves out in the heat of the day,” said
Anderson, “wait till evening and we’ll do twice as much.”
“Which way?”
“South-east, I think. If we can only hold out we ought to fetch Gerring
Gerring Water. As far as I know this must be Tamba salt lake, and if
so--”
“Karinda’s just to the north there.”
“A hundred and twenty miles at the very least and not a drop of water
the whole way. No, that’s out of the question, old man; our only hope
lies in reaching Gerring Gerring.”
“And you don’t see much probability of our doing that?”
“Well, we can try.”
He felt a great pity, this older man, for the lad--he called him a lad
for all his four-and-twenty years--doomed to die, nay, dying at this
very moment, in the prime of his manhood. They could but try, he said
over and over again, they could but try.
And then as they rested they fell to talking of other things--talked of
their past lives and of their homes as neither, perhaps, had ever talked
before.
“My old mother ‘ll miss me,” said Charlie Helm with a sigh, “though Lord
knows when she’ll ever hear the truth of the matter.”
“Umph, I don’t know, but I guess if we do peg out, it’ll be some
considerable time before they can read the store account over us. Have
you got any paper about you?”
“Not a scrap. We can leave a message on the salt though.”
“It’ll be blown away before to-morrow. Who do you want to write to? Your
mother? That girl?”
Helm turned his face away. The man had no right to pry into his private
concerns.
“Write to your mother, lad, write to your mother by all means. Mothers
are made of different clay to other women; but don’t you bother about
the other. Women are all alike, take my word for it. It’s out of sight
out of mind with all of them. But write to your mother.”
“Some one may pass this way,” pondered the younger man, hardly heeding
his words. “It’s just worth trying,” and he lay silent while Anderson
talked on or rather thought aloud.
“It’s of the boy I’m thinking,” he said. “The poor helpless little one.
He never throve since his mother died. She didn’t go much on me, but the
boy was everything to her though he was a cripple. Well--well--if I were
only certain he was dead now it wouldn’t be half so hard. He’d be better
dead, I know, but I couldn’t think it before; he was all I had, and
the last time I saw him he put up his little hand--such a mite of a
hand--and clutched his daddy’s beard. He was all I had, how could I wish
him dead? But now--now--my God!--if I were certain he was dead and it
hadn’t hurt much.”
Helm sprang to his feet, and swore an oath.
“We’re not going to die,” he cried, “not as easily as all that. Come on,
we have wasted enough precious time.
“Not till it’s a little cooler. It’s no good, I tell you, wearing
ourselves out in the heat.”
And Helm, seeing the advice was good, lay down again. Lay down and tried
not to listen to the cawing of the crows, the only sound that broke
the stillness--tried not to think of cool waters; not to think of a
household down south; not to think of the girl who, notwithstanding his
mate’s cynical warning, filled all his thoughts. He dozed a little and
dreamed, and wakened with a start and a strong feeling upon him that it
had been something more than a dream, that some one had really called
him, was calling him still. Was it his mother’s voice, or that girl’s,
or was it Anderson’s? Anderson was sleeping heavily, and strong man as
he was, sobbing in his sleep. Helm stretched out a hand to awaken him
and then paused. Why should he? What had he better to offer than these
broken dreams?
He broke a branch from a tree, thereby scattering the crows and stepped
down to the edge of the glittering white salt. It crunched beneath his
feet like sand, and he went on till the hard crust began to give way
beneath him and the thick mud oozed up. Then when he thought it was
moist enough to resist the fierce hot wind, which was blowing from the
north like a breath from an oven, he prepared to write his last message.
And then came the difficulty.
What was he to say? What could he say? Not that he had so little, but so
much. And it might never be read after all, or at best it would only
be read by some station hand who, once they were dead, would give but
a passing thought to their message, only a passing thought to their
sufferings. They had found a skeleton, he remembered, the first year he
had been on Yerlo, a skeleton that must have been lying there years, a
poor wind-tossed, sunbaked thing from which all semblance of humanity
had long since departed, and he, in his carelessness, had thought so
little of it, had never realized the awful suffering that must have been
before the strong man came to _that_.
And now--and now--he took his stick and wrote in large printed letters
on the crisp salt--