The Squatter's Dream

CHAPTER XX

“Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.” —Cowper.

For five days the explorers pursued their toilsome journey. The scrub was dense; the travelling was monotonous and discouraging; but the leader was too old a bushman to expect other than difficulty and privation at the onset, while the temperament of Guy Waldron soared easily in its first essay of conflict with the wilderness above such trifles as scarcity of water and a dangerous route. The boy Doorival managed to jack up a little game from time to time, which materially aided their unpretending menu. Once, indeed, the horses went back a whole day’s journey; the situation was far from reassuring while they waited in camp for their scout. But at sundown the unerring and patient tracker returned triumphantly with the truants; and that night in camp was so full of satisfaction that it might be considered to approach a condition of actual pleasure so lightly flow or ebb the currents of mental circulation which we characterize as joy or sorrow.

“By Jove!” said Guy, “I’ve often thought it was jolly enough dozing before the fire on a great ottoman at Waldron Hall, after a good day’s shooting, before it was time to dress for dinner, but I really believe I feel more real pleasure at this moment as we lie here smoking and seeing these rascally nags of ours short-hobbled and safe again for a start. I thought we were up a tree several times to-day, for exploring on foot is not inspiriting exercise, anyhow you look at it.”

“Doorival is a trump,” assented Jack. “He was a happy thought; here’s his health in this flowing bowl of ‘Jack the Painter.’ I wish Mr. Blockham’s stores had been a little more recherché.”

“He believes in the great doctrine of cheap and t’other thing,” answered Waldron. “I never could have imagined that sugar of such exceeding blackness was manufactured as we always had there. I used to tell him that some planter distantly related must have worked up his spare niggers in it. He was always giving me lessons in economy. One night he said solemnly, as we were smoking, ‘Look here, Waldron, you’ll never make no money if you use matches to light your pipe when there’s a fire right before you;’ whereupon he placed a coal on the bowl of his and puffed away like a man who had saved a sovereign. Fancy saving the fractional part of a farthing, and then paying a shilling for a glass of bad grog.”

“It sounds absurd,” agreed Jack, “but with colonists of his stamp the grog is exceptional, while the penny wisdom is invariable. And I must say in justice that the Blockhams of our acquaintance generally die rich, having burrowed their way to wealth, mole-blind to the pleasures of the intellect, the claims of sympathy, and the duties of society.”

“Well, we’ll go in for the severest screwing,” said Guy, “when we get hold of this new run, with which we shall make a colossal fortune and a European reputation. I should like to crow over my old governor, bless his old soul! – he always delicately hinted that I should never do any good out here, or anywhere else. Wanted me to take a farm. A farm! Fancy three hundred acres in Oxfordshire, with a score or two of bullocks, and twice as many black-faced Down sheep. Regular cockatooing. I didn’t see it then. Now I’d almost as soon ‘keep a pike.’”

“You’re an adventurous, crusading kind of fellow, I know, Master Guy,” said Jack, reflectively, “and I’m very glad to find another knight-errant. But I’m not sure, all the same, whether both of us might not have gone into the Master of Athelstane business advantageously, and grown heavier and fussier every year, while we looked after our own green fields and these same despised short-horned beeves. However, it’s Kismet, I suppose, that such land and sea rovers should exist, and either plant their standards or fill the breach for other more cautious combatants to walk over. Now, every man to his blanket. Good-night.”

The scrub was passed at length, and, as Jack had prophesied, they descried open country so superior to the character of the district generally as to warrant the expectation of still more splendid discoveries.

The watercourses were larger and the occasional lagoons deeper, and beyond all question permanent. The plains were immense, and though not richly grassed were covered with the best kinds of salsolaceous herbage, known to bushmen as affording better and healthier food for stock than the more enticing-looking green sward.

However, with the insatiable greed of their kind, they were not disposed to content themselves with anything short of the magnificent and exalted standard which they had set up for themselves. So onward and onward still they pressed, though from time to time the existence of “Indian sign” began to be pressed upon their attention by the watchful, uneasy Doorival.

“My word, plenty wild black fellow sit down here,” he exclaimed one day. “Big one tribe – plenty fighting men – you see um track.” Here he pointed to some perfectly invisible imprint upon the hard dry soil. “We better push on, these fellows sneak ’long a camp some night.”

“Then they’ll get pepper,” answered Guy, with his customary contempt of danger. “I could knock over as many of your countrymen, Doorival, with this Terry-rifle as would keep them corroboreeing for a month. All the same, I’d rather they didn’t tackle us just yet.”

“I think we must take rather longer stages,” proposed Jack, “and get out of this hostile country. We haven’t seen the track of cattle or sheep for nearly a week. I suspect we are beyond the furthest-out people.”

However, it would appear that Jack had under-estimated the enterprise of his countrymen, for next day Doorival came tearing in full of excitement to announce that he had seen cattle tracks, “all about – all about;” and by a patient system of induction the gradually concentric tracks brought them before the light had wholly faded within view of the actual encampment.

It was an outside station, in every sense of the word. As they rode up across the long, ever-lengthening plain to the speck in the shifting wavelets of the mirage which they knew to be a hut, a strangely characteristic reception awaited them.

In front of a small mud-walled cabin, thatched with wiry tussock grass which grew sparsely by the great lagoon on the bank of which it was constructed, sat a ragged individual, whose haggard features displayed pain and anxiety in equal proportions.

Before him were two crossed sticks, upon which were arranged a brace of double-barrelled rifles, much after the fashion of the disabled soldier in Gil Blas who levied contributions from the charitable on the roadside.

Perceiving as they advanced that the sentinel hoisted a flag of truce, so to speak, by waving a tattered handkerchief, they rode up and dismounted.

“By George! this is a droll homestead,” said Mr. Waldron, with his usual impetuosity. “May I ask if you are the survivors of Leichhardt’s expedition, or the Spirits of the Inner Desert, or Robinson Crusoe redivivus? At any rate I’m proud to make your acquaintance, sir. Allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Redgrave; my own name, Waldron.”

An unaccustomed smile distorted the stranger’s features. He retained his sitting position, as if, like the prince in the greatest of all fairy tales, he was composed of black marble below the waist.

“We’re very glad to see you and your friend too – pleasure decidedly mutual. Name of our firm, Heads and Taylor. We made out from Burnt Creek. I’ve been at death’s door with rheumatism – can’t walk a yard to save my life. Taylor is just recovering from fever and ague. He’s in bed in the humpy.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said Jack, sincerely. “But what is the idea of this battery?”

“Blacks!” said the rheumatic gentlemen. “I believe we have the greatest lot of devils on this run anywhere this side of Carpentaria. They’ve tried to rush the hut several times – once at night, luckily when the stockmen were at home, and we potted seven. They’re away all day, and I have to mount guard, as you see. However, turn out your horses, and we’ll enjoy ourselves for once in a way. It’s no compliment, unfortunately, to say that the longer you stay the better shall we be pleased.”

“Thanks, very much,” said Jack; “we won’t trespass on your rations; but we’ll camp alongside of you for a few days, and perhaps we may be able to be of mutual assistance.”

“Likely enough,” said the prince with the black marble legs, moving uneasily on his form. “I suppose you are looking out for country?”

“That is our object. Have you a notion of anything first class?”

“If you wait till the stockmen come in, I believe one of them knows of some wonderful country close by, that is within fifty miles. He lost himself, and got out there when we first came up; and he has ever since wanted us to move over and take it up; but this place is good enough and large enough for all the stock we shall have for the next ten years. So Taylor and I refused to budge. It will be the very thing for you. Perhaps you won’t mind helping me into the hut. I should like to see if Taylor wants anything. It is quite a luxury to feel safe.”

They lifted their afflicted brother pioneer carefully, and deposited him upon the edge of a rude stretcher in the hut. On the other bed lay the wasted form of a man, who raised his eyes beseechingly as they entered.

“Poor chap,” said Mr. Heads, “he’s past the worst stage, but he’s awfully weak, and generally very thirsty about this time. I was just wondering whether I could drag myself in when you hove in sight. Of course I knew it was all right when I saw your horses. Horses denote respectability, always.”

“Except when mounted by bushrangers,” said Jack.

“I didn’t think of that. There’s nothing to steal out here, and an off-chance of being walked into by the blacks. We haven’t attained to a sufficiently high stage of civilization to support white Indians. Meanwhile, ‘sufficient for the day,’ &c.”

“I should say so,” said Waldron, lost in admiration of the courage and coolness of these dwellers in the wilderness. “You have had your share of evils, and something over.”

“It’s all a lottery – the fellows at Burnt Creek used to call us ‘heads and tails,’ and say we ought to toss up who would be first eaten by the niggers. I didn’t think it would be such a close thing, however.”

At nightfall the two stockmen came home, and the history of the establishment was fully disclosed. The overland journey with the stock had been unusually toilsome, and in swimming a river and remaining in wet clothes Mr. Heads had contracted an illness which had taken the form of acute rheumatism, and threatened to cripple him for life. Fever and ague had fastened their remitting fangs upon Taylor, and here in this lonely outpost, in the midst of hostile savages, hundreds of miles from medical or other aid, had the wayworn pioneers to brave their fate – to recover if their constitutions proved sufficiently strong, or to die and be buried in the waste. Such are the risks, however, which Englishmen have ever been found willing to dare for fame or for fortune.

And such, as long as “proud England keeps unchanged the strong hearts of her sons,” will they still continue to brave. Fortunately the stockmen were resolute, active young men, or a very Flemish account of the cattle would have been rendered. Of course they rode armed to the teeth with carbine and revolver, and made but little scruple of using both on occasion.

“I’m blowed if I know how the boss stands it, sitting up there like an image, day after day. He’s a good shot, and these warrigal devils knows it, or they’d have rushed the place long enough before now. I’m that afraid of seeing the hut burned, and them lyin’ cut up in bits outside, that I hardly durst come home of a night.”

“How are the cattle doing?” asked Jack.

“Well – they can’t help doing well; and they’d do better if these black beggars would let ’em alone. Better fattening country no man ever see. Pity you gentlemen don’t sit down handy and be neighbours for us.”

“I’m not sure that we won’t,” said Jack, in a non-committal tone of voice; “but we sha’n’t go in for any but real, first-class country, and plenty of it. We want run for ten or fifteen thousand head of cattle, at least.”

“Come, Mick,” said Mr. Heads, “you may as well lay this gentleman on to that Raak country that you saw when you were lost beyond the range, if you were not too frightened to know what it was like.”

“Well, I don’t say but I will,” said Mick, slowly. “I dare say he’ll sling me a tenner if it turns out all right. It is country, and no blessed mistake. This here run ain’t a patch on it.”

“Is there plenty of it?” inquired Jack, with commendable caution. “We don’t want a mulga scrub and a plain or two. We must have a whole country side; good water, and twenty-five-mile block. Something in that line. And I’ll give you – ”

“Twenty pounds, after we’ve seen and approved,” broke in Waldron, who was impatiently chafing to clench the bargain. “So it’s a bargain, eh?”

“Done – and done with you, sir,” said the stockman heartily. “You’re one of the right sort; and I’d give a trifle out of my own pocket to have you alongside of us. I’ll go a bit of the way to-morrow, and put you up to the lay of the country – there’s room enough and water enough for half the cattle in Queensland.”

This important stage reached, the rest of the evening was spent in comparatively cheerful and abstract talk. Mr. Heads took a more cheerful view of his situation and surroundings, and stated that when Messrs. Redgrave and Waldron had arrived and fairly put down stakes, he should look upon themselves as residents in a settled district. “They had not had a beast speared for a week. Matters were decidedly improving. If Taylor would only get stronger, he believed he would be on his legs again in no time. Couldn’t say how cheered up they all felt. Don’t you, Taylor?” Here the periodical chills came on the sick man, and he began to shiver as if he would shake his teeth out soon.