"Back blocks!" he said in scorn. "There ain't no back blocks left.
Can't travel a hundred miles nowadays without running into somebody! You
don't know what back blocks is, begging your pardon, ma'am."
But Dan did; and the camp chat that night was worth travelling several
hundred miles to hear: tales dug out of the beginning of things; tales of
drought, and flood, and privation; cattle-duffing yarns, and long tales
of the droving days; two years' reminiscences of getting through with a
mob - reminiscences that finally brought ourselves and the mob to
Oodnadatta.
"That's the place if you want to see drunks, ma'am," the traveller said,
forgetting in his warmth his "begging your pardon, ma'am," just when it
would have been most opportune, seeing I had little hankering to see
"drunks."
"It's the desert does it, missus, after the overland trip," Dan
explained. "It 'ud give anybody a 'drouth.' Got a bit merry meself there
once and had to clear out to camp," he went on. "Felt it getting a bit
too warm for me to stand. You see, it was when the news came through
that the old Queen was dead, and being something historical that had
happened, the chaps felt it ought to be celebrated properly."
Poor old Queen! And yet, perhaps, her grand, noble heart would have
understood these, her subjects, and known them for the men they were - as
loyal-hearted and true to her as the highest in the land.
"They were lying two-deep about the place next morning," Dan added,
continuing his tale; but the Maluka, fearing the turn the conversation
had taken, suggested turning in.
Then Dan having found a kindred spirit in the traveller, laid a favourite
trap for one of his favourite jokes: shaking out a worn old bluey, he
examined it carefully in the firelight.
"Blanket's a bit thin, mate," said the man from Beyanst, unconsciously
playing his part. "Surely it can't keep you warm"; and Dan's eyes danced
in anticipation of his joke.
"Oh well!" he said, solemn-looking as an owl, as he tucked it under one
arm, "if it can't keep a chap warm after ten years' experience it'll
never do it," and turned in at once, with his usual lack of ceremony.
We had boiled eggs for breakfast, and once more the traveller joined us.
Cheon had sent the eggs out with the cabbage, and I had hidden them away,
intending to spring a surprise on the men-folk at breakfast.
"How many eggs shall I boil for you, Dan?" I said airily, springing my
surprise in this way on all the camp. But Dan, wheeling with an
exclamation of pleasure, sprung a surprise of his own on the missus.
"Eggs!" he said.
