Dan went into the homestead for stores, and set the ball rolling by
returning at sundown in triumph with a great find: a lady traveller, the
wife of one of the Inland Telegraph masters. Her husband and little son
were with her, but - well, they were only men. It was five months since I
had seen a white woman, and all I saw at the time was a woman riding
towards our camp. I wonder what she saw as I came to meet her through the
leafy bough gundies. It was nearly two years since she had seen a woman.
It was a merry camp that night - merry and beautiful and picturesque. The
night was very cold and brilliantly starry, as nights usually are in the
Never-Never during the Dry; the camp fires were all around us: dozens of
them, grouped in and out among the gundies, and among the
fires - chatting, gossiping groups of happy-hearted human beings.
Around one central fire sat the lubras, with an outer circle of smaller
fires behind them: one central fire and one fire behind each lubra, for
such is the wisdom of the black folk; they warm themselves both back and
front. Within another circle of fires chirruped and gossiped the "boys,"
while around an immense glowing heap of logs sat the white folk - the
"big fellow fools" of the party, with scorching faces and freezing
backs, too conservative to learn wisdom from their humbler neighbours.
At our fireside we women did most of the talking, and as we sat chatting
on every subject under the sun, our husbands looked on in indulgent
amusement. Dan soon wearied of the fleeting conversation and turned in,
and the little lad slipped away to the black folk; but late into the
night we talked: late into the night, and all the next day and evening
and following morning - shaded from the brilliant sunshine all day in the
leafy "Cottage," and scorching around the camp fire during the evenings.
And then these travellers, too, passed out of our camp to become, with
the man from Beyanst, just pleasant memories.
"She'll find mere men unsatisfying after this," the Maluka said in
farewell, and a mere man coming in from the north-west before sundown,
greeted the Maluka with: "Thought you married a towny," as he pointed
with eloquent forefinger at our supper circle.
"So I did," the Maluka laughed back. "But before I had time to dazzle
the bushies with her the Wizard of the Never-Never charmed her into a
bush-whacker."
"Into a CHARMING bush-whacker, he MEANS!" the traveller said, bowing
before his introduction; and I wondered how the Maluka could have thought
for one moment that "mere men" would prove unsatisfying. But as I
acknowledged the gallantry Dan looked on dubiously, not sure whether
pretty speeches were a help or a hindrance to education.
But no one could call the Fizzer a "mere man"; and half-past eleven four
weeks being already past, the Fizzer was even then at the homestead, and
before another midday, came shouting into our camp, and, settling down to
dinner, kept the conversational ball rolling.
"Going to be a record Dry," he assured us - "all surface water gone along
the line already"; and then he hurled various items of news at us: "the
horse teams were managing to do a good trip; and Mac? Oh, Mac's getting
along," he shouted; "struck him on a dry stage; seemed a bit
light-headed; said dry stages weren't all beer and skittles - queer idea.
Beer and skittles! He won't find much beer on dry stages, and I reckon
the man's dilly that 'ud play a game of skittles on any one of 'em."
Every one was all right down the line! But the Fizzer was always a bird
of passage, and by the time dinner was over, and a few postscripts added
to the mail, he was ready to start, and rode off, promising the best mail
the "Territory could produce in a fortnight."
Other travellers followed the Fizzer, and the cooking lessons proceeded
until the fine art of making "puff de looneys," sinkers, and doughboys
had been mastered, and then, before the camp had time to grow monotonous,
the staff appeared with a few of the station pups. "Might it missus
like puppy dog," it said to explain its presence hinting also that the
missus might require a little clothes-washing done.
Lately, washing-days at the homestead had lost all their vim, for the
creek having stopped running, washing had to be conducted in tubs, so as
to keep the billabong clear for drinking purposes. But at the Springs
there was no necessity to think of anything but running water; and after
a happy day, Bertie's Nellie, Rosy, and Biddy returned to the
homestead - the goats had to be seen to, Nellie said, thinking nothing of
a twenty-seven-mile walk in a day, with a few hours' washing for
recreation in between whiles.
Part of the staff, a shadow or two, and the puppy dogs, filled in all
time until the yard was pronounced finished then a mob of cattle was
brought in and put through to test its strength; and just as we were
preparing to return to the homestead the Dandy's waggon lumbered into
camp with its loading of stores.
A box of new books kept us busy all afternoon, and then, before sundown,
the Maluka suggested a farewell stroll among the pools.
The Bitter Springs - a chain of clear, crystal pools, a long winding
chain, doubling back on itself in loops and curves - form the source of
the permanent flow of the Roper; pools only a few feet deep, irregular
and wide-spreading, with mossy-green, deeply undermined, overhanging
banks, and lime-stone bottoms washed into terraces that gleam azure-blue
through the transparent water.
