And beyond the bush,
stretching away and away on every side of it, those hundreds of thousands
of square miles that constitute the Never-Never - miles sending out and
absorbing again from day to day the floating population of the Katherine.
Before supper the Telegraph Department and the Police Station called on
the Cottage to present compliments. Then the Wag came with his welcome.
"Didn't expect you to-day," he drawled, with unmistakable double meaning
in his drawl. "You're come sooner than we expected. Must have had luck
with the rivers "; and Mac became enthusiastic. "Luck!" he cried. "Luck!
She's got the luck of the Auld Yin himself - skinned through everything
by the skin of our teeth. No one else'll get through those rivers under
a week." And they didn't.
Remembering the telegrams, the Wag shot a swift quizzing glance at him;
but it took more than a glance to disconcert Mac once his mind was made
up, and he met it unmoved, and entered into a vivid description of the
"passage of the Fergusson," which filled in our time until supper.
After supper the Cottage returned the calls, and then, rain coming down
in torrents, the Telegraph, the Police, the Cottage and the "Pub" retired
to rest, wondering what the morrow would bring forth.
The morrow brought forth more rain, and the certainty that, as the river
was still rising, the swim would be beyond the horses for several days
yet; and because of this uncertainty, the Katherine bestirred itself to
honour its tethered guests.
The Telegraph and the Police Station issued invitations for dinner, and
the "Pub" that had already issued a hint that "the boys could refrain
from knocking down cheques as long as a woman was staying in the place"
now issued an edict limiting the number of daily drinks per man.
The invitations were accepted with pleasure, and the edict was attended
to with a murmur of approval in which, however, there was one dissenting
voice: a little bearded bushman "thought the Katherine was overdoing it a
bit," and suggested as an amendment that "drunks could make themselves
scarce when she's about." But Mine Host easily silenced him by offering
to "see what the missus thought about it."
Then for a day the Katherine "took its bearings," and keen, scrutinising
glances summed up the Unknown Woman, looking her through and through
until she was no longer an Unknown Woman, while the Maluka looked on
interested. He knew the bush-folk well, and that their instinct would be
unerring, and left the missus to slip into whichever niche in their lives
they thought fit to place her. And as she slipped into a niche built up
of strong, staunch comradeship, the black community considered that they,
too, had fathomed the missus; and it became history in the camp that the
Maluka had stolen her from a powerful Chief of the Whites, and, deeming
it wise to disappear with her until the affair had blown over, had put
many flooded rivers between him and his pursuers. "Would any woman have
flung herself across rivers on wires, speeding on without rest or pause,
unless afraid of pursuit?" the camp asked in committee, and the most
sceptical were silenced.
Then followed other days full of pleasant intercourse; for once sure of
its welcome, bushmen are lavish with their friendship. And as we roamed
about the tiny Settlement, the Wag and others vied with the Maluka, Mine
Host, and Mac in "making things pleasant for the missus": relating
experiences for her entertainment; showing all there was to be shown, and
obeying the edict with cheerful, unquestioning chivalry.
Neither the Head Stockman nor the little bushman, however, had made any
offers of friendship, Dan having gone out to the station immediately
after interviewing the Maluka, while the little bushman spent most of his
time getting out of the way of the missus whenever she appeared on his
horizon.
"A Tam-o-Shanter fleeing from the furies of a too fertile imagination,"
the Maluka laughed after a particularly comical dash to cover.
Poor Tam! Those days must live in his memory like a hideous nightmare!
I, of course, knew nothing of the edict at the time - for bushmen do not
advertise their chivalry - and wandered round the straggling Settlement
vaguely surprised at its sobriety, and turning up in such unexpected
places that the little bushman was constantly on the verge of apoplexy.
But experience teaches quickly. On the first day, after running into me
several times, he learned the wisdom of spying out the land before
turning a corner. On the second day, after we had come on him while thus
engaged several other times, he learned the foolishness of placing too
much confidence in corners, and deciding by the law of averages that the
bar was the only safe place in the Settlement, availed himself of its
sanctuary in times of danger. On the third day he learned that the law of
averages is a weak reed to lean on; for on slipping round a corner, and
mistaking a warning signal from the Wag, he whisked into the bar to whisk
out again with a clatter of hobnailed boots, for I was in there examining
some native curios. "She's in THERE next," he gasped as he passed the
Wag on his way to the cover of the nearest corner.
"Poor Tam!" How he must have hated women as he lurked in the doubtful
ambush of that corner.
"HOW he did skoot!" the Wag chuckled later on when recounting with glee,
to the Maluka and Mac, the story of Tam's dash for cover.
Pitying Tam, I took his part, and said he seemed a sober, decent little
man and couldn't help being shy; then paused, wondering at the queer
expression on the men's faces.
