"Every day must seem the same," said others:
every one agreeing that life out-bush was stagnation, and all marvelling
that we did not die of ennui.
"Whatever do you do with your time?" The day Neaves's mate left was
devoted to housekeeping duties - "spring-cleaning," the Maluka called it,
while Dan drew vivid word-pictures of dogs cleaning their own chains.
The day after that was filled in with preparations for a walk-about, and
the next again found us camped at Bitter Springs. Monotony! when of the
thirty days that followed these three every day was alike only in being
different from any other, excepting in their almost unvarying menu: beef
and damper and tea for a first course, and tea and damper and jam for a
second. They also resembled each other, and all other days out-bush, in
the necessity of dressing in a camp mosquito net. "Stagnation!" they
called it, when no day was long enough for its work, and almost every
night found us camped a day's journey from our breakfast camp.
It was August, well on in the Dry, and on a cattle station in the
Never-Never "things hum" in August. All the surface waters are drying up
by then, and the outside cattle - those scattered away beyond the
borders - are obliged to come in to the permanent waters, and must be
gathered in and branded before the showers scatter them again.
We were altogether at the Springs: Dan, the Dandy, the Quiet Stockman,
ourselves, every horse-"boy" that could be mustered, a numerous staff of
camp "boys" for the Dandy's work, and an almost complete complement of
dogs, Little Tiddle'ums only being absent, detained at the homestead this
time with the cares of a nursery. A goodly company all told as we sat
among the camp fires, with our horses clanking through the timber in
their hobbles: forty horses and more, pack teams and relays for the whole
company and riding hacks, in addition to both stock and camp horses for
active mustering; for it requires over two hundred horses to get through
successfully a year's work on a "little place like the Elsey."
Every one of the company had his special work to attend to; but every
one's work was concerned with cattle, and cattle only. The musterers were
to work every area of country again and again, and the Dandy's work began
in the building of the much-needed yard to the north-west.
We breakfasted at the Springs all together, had dinner miles apart, and
all met again at the Stirling for supper. Dan and ourselves dined also
at the Stirling on damper and "push" and vile-smelling blue-black tea.
The damper had been carried in company with some beef and tea, in Dan's
saddle-pouch; the tea was made with the thick, muddy, almost putrid water
of the fast-drying water hole, and the "push" was provided by force of
circumstances, the pack teams being miles away with the plates, knives,
and forks.
