The Squatter's Dream

“I am horribly tired,” he said to Jack, “of doing colonial experience with this old buffer. It’s tremendously hard work and no pay, and, as I’ve been here for a year, I fancy we’re quits. I know as much bullock as I’m likely to learn for the next five years. I got a tip from home the other day. What do you say if I go run-hunting with you? You’re just the sort of mate I should like, and I believe there is some grand country to the north-west, in spite of what old Blockham says.”

Jack looked at the cheerful, pleasant youngster, full of mirth, and with the eager blood of generous youth, unworn and sorrow free, coursing through every vein. Much as he hungered after congenial fellowship in his lonely quest, he yet spoke warningly.

“It’s a risky game enough, Waldron, you know. I’d say, if you take my advice, stay where you are for another year. You’ll get your money out then, and be sure of investing it properly. You have a little to learn yet, excuse me, like all new arrivals.”

“Oh, yes, I dare say, that’s all very prudent, and so on. There are new chums and new chums. Look at my arms, old fellow.”

Here he rolled up his jersey and showed his muscular fore-arm, bronzed and well-nigh blackened by exposure to the unrespecting sun.

“I’ve not had my coat on much, as you see. I can ride, brand, leg-rope, split, fence, milk, and draft with any man we’ve ever had here. A year or two more Jackerooing would only mean the consumption of so many more figs of negro-head, in my case. No! take me or leave me, as you like, but I’m off exploring on my own hook if you don’t.”

“In that case,” assented Jack, “we may as well hunt in couples. We can back up one another if the niggers are as bad and the water as scarce as your friend says.”

“He be hanged!” said the impetuous youth. “He’s not a bad old chap, but he tells awful yarns, and, like all old hands, he thinks nobody knows anything but himself.”

“Then it’s settled. Can you get a couple of horses?”

“Yes, and a stunning black boy. The young scamp is awfully fond of me, and as a tracker he’s a regular out-and-outer. By Jove! won’t it be jolly – Redgrave and Waldron, the intrepid explorers! I feel as if we could go to Carpentaria.”

Jack smiled at the boy’s joyous readiness for the battle. Once he had been as wild in delight at feast or foray; but those days had gone.

“We must wait till we come back,” said he, gravely, “before we begin to arrange the fashion of the chaplet. If the black boy is plucky, and really wants to go with us, bring him by all means.”

Mr. Waldron, for whom remittances had lately arrived, spent the next day in getting in his horses, packing his effects, the half of which were condemned by Jack as being overweight, and questioning and lecturing the boy Doorival as to his special “call” for the enterprise. This sable waif was not the particular property of any one, so he was permitted to risk his valueless life without remark or remonstrance. He had been captured in a somewhat indiscriminate reprisal upon a wild tribe by a neighbour of Mr. Blockham’s, with his foot sticking out of a hollow log, in which, like a dingo puppy, he had instinctively hidden. Dragged forth by that member, he had been chained up till he grew tame, and well flogged from time to time till further “civilized.” After a few years of this stern training he had become sufficiently civilized to run away, and had arrived at Outer Back Mullah some months since, a shade more than half dead with fear and thirst. Travelling through hostile country, where his kidney fat wouldn’t have been worth an hour’s purchase after discovery by his countrymen, he had had necessarily but little leisure and less refreshment. Guy Waldron had taken him in hand as he would a bull-terrier pup, and, finding him game and sharp, had adopted him as personal retainer. On the third morning after the treaty, therefore, Doorival appeared on an elderly but well-conditioned screw, leading a pack-horse, and showing in his roving black eyes and gleaming teeth the strongest satisfaction at his promotion.

Mr. Blockham did by no means disguise his sentiments when he bade farewell to his quondam pupil and his adventurous guest.

“Well, Waldron, good-bye. I wish you both luck, I’m sure; but I’m blest if I don’t believe a warrigal will be picking some of your bones before this day six months. I’ve no opinion of exploring; I don’t believe in running after new country; let other fellows, if they’re fools enough, do all that bullocking. Wise men buy their work afterwards – and cheap enough too. I didn’t take up Outer Back Mullah; quite the contrary. I gave a chap two hundred pounds for it, and where’s he now?”

“Somebody must find the runs,” said Guy, “and a good run, with permanent water, or say a dozen or twenty blocks, are worth more than two hundred or two thousand pounds either.”

“That’s all very well,” returned the cynical senior; “but how do you know there’s any country where you’re going, let alone water? Besides, excuse me, sir, but you’re a-goin’ with a man that’s been unlucky, by his own word, with everything he’s touched before. I don’t believe in a man as is unlucky. I’ve seen a deal of life, and I never go in with one of that sort; not if I know it. No offence to you, sir.” This to Jack. “You can’t help it, I know. As for you, you young black bilber, what are you grinnin’ and lookin’ so pleased at? You’ll wish old Driver was a lickin’ ye with the dog-chain again, when some of them myalls gets round ye a little before daylight.”

The little expedition set forth, maugre the boding utterances of Mr. Blockham. The equipment was not costly, but it was sufficient; and two of the party at least had a “letter of credit” good for all the drafts which they were likely to draw upon it for some time to come.

What says the wise, sad humorist? —

“Our youth! our youth! that spring of springs,It surely is one of the blessedest thingsBy Nature ever invented.When the rich are happy in spite of their wealth,When the poor are rich in spirits and health,And all with their lot contented.”

Guy Waldron, full of hope, and thirsting for wild life and adventure, rode side by side with Jack, carolling as he went, like Taillefer singing the song of Rollo in the fore-front of the Battle of Hastings.

Doorival followed at a short distance, accompanied by the dog Help, whom he had managed to propitiate, and to whom he from time to time addressed all kinds of pretended inquiries and suggestions.

“By Jove!” said Guy, “I feel quite a new man now I’ve got away from that confounded dull place, and that dismal old growler Blockham. He’s like the man in Marcus Clarke’s ballad, who ‘Did nothing but swear and smoke.’ It’s a luxury to have a Christian to talk to again. Talk of Englishmen! – Doorival’s a king to him.”

“It’s all luck,” said Jack; “even in this rather distant region you might have found a chum who got the periodicals by every mail, and went in for decent reading at odd times.”

“That’s true enough,” said the representative of “Young England,” “for I went over one day to get our mail – sixty-mile ride too – and Haughton’s cousin had just come down from India, such a jolly chap he was too – had been in Cashmere lately, and told us no end of yarns. But I was fool enough to think all squatters were alike, and let my agents send me anywhere they liked.”

“Well, you’ll know better next time,” said Jack, “after we’ve discovered this new country, and sold a few blocks to buy a couple of thousand store cattle with. You can pick up an Indian swell, or any sort of partner you fancy, if that works out.”

“You’ll suit me down to the ground, old fellow,” said Mr. Waldron, enthusiastically. “We’re in ‘for better for worse,’ as they say in the christening service, or the matrimonial questions and answers, or whatever it is.”

“It doesn’t concern us at present,” said Jack, gravely. “Possibly you’ll be better informed on that subject likewise, some day. In the meantime, how long shall we be getting through this cursed scrub?”

“I believe we shall have a week of it, if old Blockham is to be believed. He always used to swear that the scrub on this side of Mullah was more than a hundred miles thick, and that beyond that was a sandy desert, which ran right into the middle of the continent.”

“Probably his geographical information was defective,” answered Jack. “He is evidently one of that order of pioneers whose watchword is ‘no good country beyond me.’ We must keep a due north-west course, take our chance of water, and if Australia keeps true to her past character the worse country we pass through the better our chance of dropping on to something astoundingly good.”

“You think so really?” asked Waldron.

“Sure of it – look at the Won-won country, the Matyara, and half-a-dozen other choice districts I could name. The first explorers must have been perfectly desperate with the awful jungles and barren tracts they had to pass through. Then one fine morning a fellow climbs up the last iron-bark range, or tears his garments in pushing through the last thicket, and lo! the Promised Land lies stretched out before him.”

“By George! you raise a fellow’s spirits awfully,” said Guy. “I suppose you have been in this funny country ever so many years?”

“I wasn’t born in it, if that is what you mean,” answered his companion; “but I have been in Australia ever since I could speak; so I have had the benefit of sufficient colonial experience at any rate.”

Thus conversing, sometimes idly enough, at times with a strong tinge of earnestness, the day wore on. At sundown they reached a fairly commodious spot, and there they made their simple dispositions for passing the night.

Here Mr. Doorival began to demonstrate his quality, and to establish the soundness of the reasoning which led to his being promoted to his present position. He it was who discovered the water, made the fire, helped to unpack the cooking utensils, and to hobble out the horses – the whole under the watchful eye of the dog Help, who lay under a bush and watched the proceedings with great interest.

One horse was tethered, so as to be at hand in case of need; the others were permitted to range within moderate bounds. Only a small fire was made, as, once within the boundaries of the real wild blacks, it would be hazardous to run the chance of attracting them to the camp. And it was thought en règle. The nights were mild, as rarely in that region is it otherwise, the occasional storms and fierce rainfalls excepted.

After the evening meal and the postcœnal smoke, each one wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down separately, and at some distance from the fire; so in case of attack their antagonists would be less likely to surround them, or to discover the precise locality from which the deadly discharge of the white man’s firearms might be expected. Help deserted his youthful acquaintance of the day, and, curling himself up beside his master, dozed all watchfully, as is the manner of his kind.

CHAPTER XX

“Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.” —Cowper.

For five days the explorers pursued their toilsome journey. The scrub was dense; the travelling was monotonous and discouraging; but the leader was too old a bushman to expect other than difficulty and privation at the onset, while the temperament of Guy Waldron soared easily in its first essay of conflict with the wilderness above such trifles as scarcity of water and a dangerous route. The boy Doorival managed to jack up a little game from time to time, which materially aided their unpretending menu. Once, indeed, the horses went back a whole day’s journey; the situation was far from reassuring while they waited in camp for their scout. But at sundown the unerring and patient tracker returned triumphantly with the truants; and that night in camp was so full of satisfaction that it might be considered to approach a condition of actual pleasure so lightly flow or ebb the currents of mental circulation which we characterize as joy or sorrow.

“By Jove!” said Guy, “I’ve often thought it was jolly enough dozing before the fire on a great ottoman at Waldron Hall, after a good day’s shooting, before it was time to dress for dinner, but I really believe I feel more real pleasure at this moment as we lie here smoking and seeing these rascally nags of ours short-hobbled and safe again for a start. I thought we were up a tree several times to-day, for exploring on foot is not inspiriting exercise, anyhow you look at it.”

“Doorival is a trump,” assented Jack. “He was a happy thought; here’s his health in this flowing bowl of ‘Jack the Painter.’ I wish Mr. Blockham’s stores had been a little more recherché.”

“He believes in the great doctrine of cheap and t’other thing,” answered Waldron. “I never could have imagined that sugar of such exceeding blackness was manufactured as we always had there. I used to tell him that some planter distantly related must have worked up his spare niggers in it. He was always giving me lessons in economy. One night he said solemnly, as we were smoking, ‘Look here, Waldron, you’ll never make no money if you use matches to light your pipe when there’s a fire right before you;’ whereupon he placed a coal on the bowl of his and puffed away like a man who had saved a sovereign. Fancy saving the fractional part of a farthing, and then paying a shilling for a glass of bad grog.”

“It sounds absurd,” agreed Jack, “but with colonists of his stamp the grog is exceptional, while the penny wisdom is invariable. And I must say in justice that the Blockhams of our acquaintance generally die rich, having burrowed their way to wealth, mole-blind to the pleasures of the intellect, the claims of sympathy, and the duties of society.”

“Well, we’ll go in for the severest screwing,” said Guy, “when we get hold of this new run, with which we shall make a colossal fortune and a European reputation. I should like to crow over my old governor, bless his old soul! – he always delicately hinted that I should never do any good out here, or anywhere else. Wanted me to take a farm. A farm! Fancy three hundred acres in Oxfordshire, with a score or two of bullocks, and twice as many black-faced Down sheep. Regular cockatooing. I didn’t see it then. Now I’d almost as soon ‘keep a pike.’”

“You’re an adventurous, crusading kind of fellow, I know, Master Guy,” said Jack, reflectively, “and I’m very glad to find another knight-errant. But I’m not sure, all the same, whether both of us might not have gone into the Master of Athelstane business advantageously, and grown heavier and fussier every year, while we looked after our own green fields and these same despised short-horned beeves. However, it’s Kismet, I suppose, that such land and sea rovers should exist, and either plant their standards or fill the breach for other more cautious combatants to walk over. Now, every man to his blanket. Good-night.”

The scrub was passed at length, and, as Jack had prophesied, they descried open country so superior to the character of the district generally as to warrant the expectation of still more splendid discoveries.

The watercourses were larger and the occasional lagoons deeper, and beyond all question permanent. The plains were immense, and though not richly grassed were covered with the best kinds of salsolaceous herbage, known to bushmen as affording better and healthier food for stock than the more enticing-looking green sward.

However, with the insatiable greed of their kind, they were not disposed to content themselves with anything short of the magnificent and exalted standard which they had set up for themselves. So onward and onward still they pressed, though from time to time the existence of “Indian sign” began to be pressed upon their attention by the watchful, uneasy Doorival.

“My word, plenty wild black fellow sit down here,” he exclaimed one day. “Big one tribe – plenty fighting men – you see um track.” Here he pointed to some perfectly invisible imprint upon the hard dry soil. “We better push on, these fellows sneak ’long a camp some night.”

“Then they’ll get pepper,” answered Guy, with his customary contempt of danger. “I could knock over as many of your countrymen, Doorival, with this Terry-rifle as would keep them corroboreeing for a month. All the same, I’d rather they didn’t tackle us just yet.”

“I think we must take rather longer stages,” proposed Jack, “and get out of this hostile country. We haven’t seen the track of cattle or sheep for nearly a week. I suspect we are beyond the furthest-out people.”

However, it would appear that Jack had under-estimated the enterprise of his countrymen, for next day Doorival came tearing in full of excitement to announce that he had seen cattle tracks, “all about – all about;” and by a patient system of induction the gradually concentric tracks brought them before the light had wholly faded within view of the actual encampment.

It was an outside station, in every sense of the word. As they rode up across the long, ever-lengthening plain to the speck in the shifting wavelets of the mirage which they knew to be a hut, a strangely characteristic reception awaited them.

In front of a small mud-walled cabin, thatched with wiry tussock grass which grew sparsely by the great lagoon on the bank of which it was constructed, sat a ragged individual, whose haggard features displayed pain and anxiety in equal proportions.

Before him were two crossed sticks, upon which were arranged a brace of double-barrelled rifles, much after the fashion of the disabled soldier in Gil Blas who levied contributions from the charitable on the roadside.

Perceiving as they advanced that the sentinel hoisted a flag of truce, so to speak, by waving a tattered handkerchief, they rode up and dismounted.

“By George! this is a droll homestead,” said Mr. Waldron, with his usual impetuosity. “May I ask if you are the survivors of Leichhardt’s expedition, or the Spirits of the Inner Desert, or Robinson Crusoe redivivus? At any rate I’m proud to make your acquaintance, sir. Allow me to introduce my friend, Mr. Redgrave; my own name, Waldron.”

An unaccustomed smile distorted the stranger’s features. He retained his sitting position, as if, like the prince in the greatest of all fairy tales, he was composed of black marble below the waist.

“We’re very glad to see you and your friend too – pleasure decidedly mutual. Name of our firm, Heads and Taylor. We made out from Burnt Creek. I’ve been at death’s door with rheumatism – can’t walk a yard to save my life. Taylor is just recovering from fever and ague. He’s in bed in the humpy.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” said Jack, sincerely. “But what is the idea of this battery?”

“Blacks!” said the rheumatic gentlemen. “I believe we have the greatest lot of devils on this run anywhere this side of Carpentaria. They’ve tried to rush the hut several times – once at night, luckily when the stockmen were at home, and we potted seven. They’re away all day, and I have to mount guard, as you see. However, turn out your horses, and we’ll enjoy ourselves for once in a way. It’s no compliment, unfortunately, to say that the longer you stay the better shall we be pleased.”

“Thanks, very much,” said Jack; “we won’t trespass on your rations; but we’ll camp alongside of you for a few days, and perhaps we may be able to be of mutual assistance.”

“Likely enough,” said the prince with the black marble legs, moving uneasily on his form. “I suppose you are looking out for country?”

“That is our object. Have you a notion of anything first class?”

“If you wait till the stockmen come in, I believe one of them knows of some wonderful country close by, that is within fifty miles. He lost himself, and got out there when we first came up; and he has ever since wanted us to move over and take it up; but this place is good enough and large enough for all the stock we shall have for the next ten years. So Taylor and I refused to budge. It will be the very thing for you. Perhaps you won’t mind helping me into the hut. I should like to see if Taylor wants anything. It is quite a luxury to feel safe.”

They lifted their afflicted brother pioneer carefully, and deposited him upon the edge of a rude stretcher in the hut. On the other bed lay the wasted form of a man, who raised his eyes beseechingly as they entered.

“Poor chap,” said Mr. Heads, “he’s past the worst stage, but he’s awfully weak, and generally very thirsty about this time. I was just wondering whether I could drag myself in when you hove in sight. Of course I knew it was all right when I saw your horses. Horses denote respectability, always.”

“Except when mounted by bushrangers,” said Jack.

“I didn’t think of that. There’s nothing to steal out here, and an off-chance of being walked into by the blacks. We haven’t attained to a sufficiently high stage of civilization to support white Indians. Meanwhile, ‘sufficient for the day,’ &c.”

“I should say so,” said Waldron, lost in admiration of the courage and coolness of these dwellers in the wilderness. “You have had your share of evils, and something over.”

“It’s all a lottery – the fellows at Burnt Creek used to call us ‘heads and tails,’ and say we ought to toss up who would be first eaten by the niggers. I didn’t think it would be such a close thing, however.”

At nightfall the two stockmen came home, and the history of the establishment was fully disclosed. The overland journey with the stock had been unusually toilsome, and in swimming a river and remaining in wet clothes Mr. Heads had contracted an illness which had taken the form of acute rheumatism, and threatened to cripple him for life. Fever and ague had fastened their remitting fangs upon Taylor, and here in this lonely outpost, in the midst of hostile savages, hundreds of miles from medical or other aid, had the wayworn pioneers to brave their fate – to recover if their constitutions proved sufficiently strong, or to die and be buried in the waste. Such are the risks, however, which Englishmen have ever been found willing to dare for fame or for fortune.

And such, as long as “proud England keeps unchanged the strong hearts of her sons,” will they still continue to brave. Fortunately the stockmen were resolute, active young men, or a very Flemish account of the cattle would have been rendered. Of course they rode armed to the teeth with carbine and revolver, and made but little scruple of using both on occasion.

“I’m blowed if I know how the boss stands it, sitting up there like an image, day after day. He’s a good shot, and these warrigal devils knows it, or they’d have rushed the place long enough before now. I’m that afraid of seeing the hut burned, and them lyin’ cut up in bits outside, that I hardly durst come home of a night.”

“How are the cattle doing?” asked Jack.

“Well – they can’t help doing well; and they’d do better if these black beggars would let ’em alone. Better fattening country no man ever see. Pity you gentlemen don’t sit down handy and be neighbours for us.”

“I’m not sure that we won’t,” said Jack, in a non-committal tone of voice; “but we sha’n’t go in for any but real, first-class country, and plenty of it. We want run for ten or fifteen thousand head of cattle, at least.”

“Come, Mick,” said Mr. Heads, “you may as well lay this gentleman on to that Raak country that you saw when you were lost beyond the range, if you were not too frightened to know what it was like.”

“Well, I don’t say but I will,” said Mick, slowly. “I dare say he’ll sling me a tenner if it turns out all right. It is country, and no blessed mistake. This here run ain’t a patch on it.”

“Is there plenty of it?” inquired Jack, with commendable caution. “We don’t want a mulga scrub and a plain or two. We must have a whole country side; good water, and twenty-five-mile block. Something in that line. And I’ll give you – ”

“Twenty pounds, after we’ve seen and approved,” broke in Waldron, who was impatiently chafing to clench the bargain. “So it’s a bargain, eh?”

“Done – and done with you, sir,” said the stockman heartily. “You’re one of the right sort; and I’d give a trifle out of my own pocket to have you alongside of us. I’ll go a bit of the way to-morrow, and put you up to the lay of the country – there’s room enough and water enough for half the cattle in Queensland.”

This important stage reached, the rest of the evening was spent in comparatively cheerful and abstract talk. Mr. Heads took a more cheerful view of his situation and surroundings, and stated that when Messrs. Redgrave and Waldron had arrived and fairly put down stakes, he should look upon themselves as residents in a settled district. “They had not had a beast speared for a week. Matters were decidedly improving. If Taylor would only get stronger, he believed he would be on his legs again in no time. Couldn’t say how cheered up they all felt. Don’t you, Taylor?” Here the periodical chills came on the sick man, and he began to shiver as if he would shake his teeth out soon.