Were impatiently waiting our departure - waiting to convert the
erst raging scrub bulls into white, bleaching bones.
Travelling quicker than the cattle, we were camped and at dinner at
"Abraham's" - another lily-strewn billabong - when the mob came in, the
thirsty brutes travelling with down-drooping heads and lowing deeply and
incessantly. Their direction showing that they would pass within a few
yards of our camp fire, on their way to the water, as a matter of course
I stood up, and Dan, with a chuckle, assured me that they had "something
else more important on than chivying the missus."
But the recollection of that raging mob was too vividly in mind, and the
cattle beginning to trot at the sight of the water, decided against them,
and the next moment I was three feet from the ground, among the
low-spreading branches of a giant Paper-bark. Jackeroo was riding ahead,
and flashed one swift, sidelong glance after me but as the mob trotted by
he trotted with them as impassive as a statue.
But we had by no means done with Jackeroo; for as we sat in camp that
night at the Springs, with the cattle safe in the yard, shouts of
laughter from the "boys'" camp attracted our attention, and we found
Jackeroo the centre-piece of the camp, preparing to repeat some
performance. For a second or so he stood irresolute; then, clutching
wildly at an imaginary something that appeared to encumber his feet, with
a swift, darting run and a scrambling clamber, he was into the midst of a
sapling; then, our silence attracting attention, the black world
collapsed in speechless convulsions.
"How the missus climbed a tree, little 'un," the Maluka chuckled; and the
mimicry of action had been so perfect that we knew it could only be that.
Every detail was there: the moment of indecision, the wild clutch at the
habit, the quick, feminine lift of the running feet, and the
indescribably feminine scrambling climb at the finish.
In that one swift, sidelong glance every movement had been photographed
on Jackeroo's mind, to be reproduced later on for the entertainment of
the camp with that perfect mimicry characteristic of the black folk.
And it was always so. Just as they had "beck-becked" and bumped in their
saddles with the Chinese drovers, so they imitated every action that
caught their fancy, and almost every human being that crossed their
path - riding with feet outspread after meeting one traveller; with toes
turned in, in imitation of another; flopping, or sitting rigidly in their
saddles, imitating actions of hand and turns of the head; anything to
amuse themselves, from riding side-saddle to climbing trees.
Jackeroo being "funny man" in the tribe, was first favourite in
exhibitions; but we could get no further pantomime that night, although
we heard later from Bett-Bett that "How the missus climbed a tree" had a
long run.
The next day passed branding the cattle, and the following as we arrived
within sight of the homestead, Dan was congratulating the Maluka on the
"missus being without a house," and then he suddenly interrupted himself
"Well, I'm blest!" he said. "If we didn't forget all about bangtailing
that mob for her mattress."
We undoubtedly had, but thirty-three nights, or thereabouts, with the
warm, bare ground for a bed, had made me indifferent to mattresses, and
hearing that Dan became most hopeful of "getting her properly educated"
yet.
Cheon greeted us with his usual enthusiasm, and handed the Maluka a
letter containing a request for a small mob of bullocks within three
weeks.
"Nothing like keeping the ball rolling,", Dan said, also waxing
enthusiastic, while the South-folk remained convinced that life out-bush
is stagnation.
CHAPTER XIX
Dan and the Quiet Stockman went out to the north-west immediately, to
"clean up there" before getting the bullocks together; but the Maluka,
settling down to arrears of bookkeeping, with the Dandy at his right
hand, Cheon once more took the missus under his wing feeding her up and
scorning her gardening efforts.
"The idea of a white woman thinking she could grow water-melons," he
scoffed, when I planted seeds, having decided on a carpet of luxuriant
green to fill up the garden beds until the shrubs grew. The Maluka
advised "waiting," and the seeds coming up within a few days, Cheon,
after expressing surprise, prophesied an early death or a fruitless life.
Billy Muck, however, took a practical interest in the water-melons, and
to incite him to water them in our absence, he was made a shareholder in
the venture. As a natural result, the Staff, the Rejected, and the
Shadows immediately applied for shares - pointing out that they too
carried water to the plants - and the water-melon beds became the
property of a Working Liability Company with the missus as Chairman of
Directors.
The shadows were as numerous as ever, the rejected on the increase, but
the staff was, fortunately, reduced to three for the time being; or,
rather, reduced to two, and increased again to three: Judy had been
called "bush" on business, and the Macs having got out in good time.
Bertie's Nellie and Biddie had been obliged to resign and go with the
waggons, under protest, of course, leaving Rosy and Jimmy's Nellie
augmented by one of the most persistent of all the shadows - a tiny child
lubra, Bett-Bett.
Most of us still considered Bett-Bett one of the shadows but she
persisted that she was the mainstay of the staff. "Me all day dust 'im
paper, me round 'im up goat" she would say. "Me sit down all right".
She certainly excelled in "rounding-up goat," riding the old Billy like a
race-horse; and with Rosy filling the position of housemaid to
perfection, Jimmy's Nellie proving invaluable in her vigorous treatment
of the rejected and the wood-heap gossip filling in odd times, life so
far as it was dependent on black folk - was running on oiled wheels:
