A woman
does not represent business here." Mine Host had indignantly refused
payment for a woman's board and lodging.
"I had to pay, though," the Maluka laughed, with one of his quick changes
of humour. "But, then, I'm only a man."
CHAPTER V
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:
