Country." No one knew better than he his own limits,
and none better understood "springy country." Carefully he would test
suspicious-looking turf with a cautious fore-paw, and when all roads
proved risky, in his own unmistakable language he would advise his rider
to dismount and walk over, having shown plainly that the dangerous bit
was not equal to the combined weight of horse and man. When Roper
advised, wise men obeyed.
But gorges and ridges were not all Dan had to show us. Twice in our
thirty-five miles of the Roper - about ten miles apart - wide-spreading
rocky arches completely span the river a foot or so beneath its surface,
forming natural crossing-places; for at them the full volume of water
takes what Dan called a "duck-under," leaving only smoothly flowing
shallow streams, a couple of hundred yards wide, running over the rocky
bridgeways. The first "duck-under" occurs in a Ti Tree valley, and,
marvelling at the wonder of the rippling streamlet so many yards wide and
so few in length, with that deep, silent river for its source and
estuary - we loitered in the pleasant forest glen, until Dan, coming on
further proofs of a black fellow's "second-sight" along the margins of
the duck-under, he turned away in disgust, and as we followed him through
the great forest he treated us to a lengthy discourse on thought-reading.
The Salt Creek, coming into the Roper with its deep, wide estuary,
interrupted both Dan's lecture and our course, and following along the
creek to find the crossing we left the river, and before we saw it again
a mob of "brumbies" had lured us into a "drouth" that even Dan declared
was the "dead finish."
Brumby horses being one of the problems of the run, and the destruction
of brumby stallions imperative, as the nigger-hunt was apparently off,
the brumby mob proved too enticing to be passed by, and for an hour and
more it kept us busy, the Maluka and Dan being equally "set on getting a
stallion or two."
As galloping after brumbies when there is no trap to run them into is
about as wise as galloping after a flight of swallows, we followed at a
distance when they galloped, and stalked them against the wind when they
drew up to reconnoitre: beautiful, clean-limbed, graceful creatures, with
long flowing manes and tails floating about them, galloping freely and
swiftly as they drove the mares before them, or stepping with light,
dancing tread as they drew up and faced about, with the mares now huddled
together behind them. Three times they drew up and faced about and each
time a stallion fell before the rifles, then, becoming more wary, they
led us farther and farther back, evading the rifles at every halt, until
finally they galloped out of sight, and beyond all chance of pursuit.
Then, Dan discovering he had acquired the "drouth," advised "giving it
best" and making for the Spring Hole in Duck Creek.
"Could do with a drop of spring water," he said, but Dan's luck was out
this trip, and the Spring Hole proved a slimy bog "alive with dead
cattle," as he himself phrased it. Three dead beasts lay bogged on its
margin, and held as in a vice, up to their necks in slime and awfulness
stood two poor living brutes. They turned piteous terrified eyes on us
as we rode up, and then Dan and the Maluka firing in mercy, the poor
heads drooped and fell and the bog with a sickening sigh sucked them
under.
As we watched, horribly fascinated, Dan indulged in a soliloquy - a habit
with him when ordinary conversation seemed out of place. "'Awful dry Wet
we're having,' sez he," he murmured, "'the place is alive with dead
cattle.' 'Fact,' sez he, 'cattle's dying this year that never died
before.'" Then remarking that "this sort of thing" wasn't "exactly a
thirst quencher," he followed up the creek bank into a forest of
cabbage-tree palms - tall, feathery-crested palms everywhere, taller even
that the forest trees; but never a sign of water.
It was then two o'clock, and our last drink had been at breakfast - soon
after sun-up; and for another hour we pegged wearily on, with that seven
hours' drouth done horses, the beating sun of a Territory October
overhead, Brown stretched across the Maluka's knees on the verge of
apoplexy, and Sool'em panting wearily on. With the breaking of her leg
little Tiddle'ums had ended her bush days, but as she lost in bush craft
she gained in excellency as a fence personifier.
By three o'clock we struck water in the Punch Bowl - a deep, volcanic
hole, bottomless, the blacks say, but apparently fed beneath by the
river; but long before then Dan's chuckle had died out, and soliloquies
had ceased to amuse him.
At the first sight of the water we revived, and as Brown and Sool'em lay
down and revelled on its margin, Dan "took a pull as an introduction,"
and then, after unpacking the team and getting the fire going for the
billy, he opened out the tucker-bags, having decided on a "fizz" as a
"good quencher."
"Nothing like a fizz when you've got a drouth on," he said, mixing soda
and cream-of-tartar into a cup of water, and drinking deeply. As he
drank, the "fizz" spattered its foam all over his face and beard, and
after putting down the empty cup with a satisfied sigh, he joined us as
we sat on the pebbly incline, waiting for the billy to boil, and with the
tucker-bags dumped down around and about us. "Real refreshing that!" he
said, drawing a red handkerchief from his belt and mopping his spattered
face and beard, adding, as he passed the damp handkerchief over his ears
and neck with chuckling exaggeration:
