heap of flat, stodgy-looking slabs. “Must have been sitting on ’em all night,” he said, “and there’s no other bread for breakfast.”
There was no doubt that we must eat them or go without bread of any kind; but as we sat tugging at the gluey guttapercha-like substance, Mac’s sense of humour revived. “Didn’t I tell you I was slap-up at Johnny cakes?” he chuckled, adding with further infinitely more humorous chuckles: “You mightn’t think it; but I really am.” Then he pointed to Jackeroo, who was watching in bewilderment while the Măluka hunted for the crispest crust, not for himself, but the woman. “White fellow big fellow fool all right! eh, Jackeroo?” he asked, and Jackeroo openly agreed with us.
Finding the black soil flats impassable after the deluge, Mac left the track, having decided to stick to the ridges all day; and all that had gone before was smoothness itself in comparison to what was in store.
All day the buck-board rocked and bumped through the timber, and the Măluka, riding behind, from time to time pointed out the advantages of travelling across country, as we bounced about the buck-board like rubber balls: “There’s so little chance of getting stiff with sitting still.”
Every time we tried to answer him we bit our tongues as the buck-board leapt over the tussocks of grass. Once we managed to call back, “You won’t feel the journey in a buck-board.” Then an overhanging bough threatening to wipe us out of our seats, Mac shouted, “Duck!” and as we “ducked” the buck-board skimmed between two trees, with barely an inch to spare.
“I’m a bit of a Jehu all right!” Mac shouted triumphantly. “It takes judgment to do the thing in style”; and the next moment, swinging round a patch of scrub, we flew off at a tangent to avoid a fallen tree, crashing through its branches and grinding over an out-crop of ironstone to miss a big boulder just beyond the tree. It undoubtedly took judgment this “travelling across country along the ridges”; but the keen, alert bushman never hesitated as he swung in and out and about the timber, only once miscalculating the distance between trees, when he was obliged to back out again. Of course we barked trees constantly, but Mac called that “blazing a track for the next travellers,” and everywhere the bush creatures scurried out of our way; and when I expressed fears for the springs, Mac reassured me by saying a buck-board had none, excepting those under the seat.
If Mac was a “bit of a Jehu,” he certainly was a “dead homer,” for after miles of scrub and grass and timber, we came out at our evening camp at the Bitter Springs, to find the Head Stockman there, with his faithful, tawny-coloured shadow, “Old Sool em,” beside him.
Dog and man greeted us sedately, and soon Dan had a billy boiling for us, and a blazing fire, and accepted an invitation to join us at supper and “bring something in the way of bread along with him.”
With a commonplace remark about the trip out, he placed a crisp, newly baked damper on the tea-towel that acted as supper cloth; but when we all agreed that he was “real slap-up at damper making,” he scented a joke and shot a quick, questioning glance around; then deciding that it was wiser not to laugh at all than to laugh in the wrong place, he only said, he was “not a bad hand at the damper trick.” Dan liked his jokes well labelled when dealing with the unknown Woman.
He was a bushman of the old type, one of the men of the droving days; full of old theories, old faiths, and old prejudices, and clinging always to old habits and methods. Year by year as the bush had receded and shrunk before the railways, he had receded with it, keeping always just behind the Back of Beyond, droving, bullock-punching, stock-keeping, and unconsciously opening up the way for that very civilisation that was driving him farther and farther back. In the forty years since his boyhood railways had driven him out of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and were now threatening even the Never-Never, and Dan was beginning to fear that they would not leave “enough bush to bury a man in.”
Enough bush to bury a man in! That’s all these men of the droving days have ever asked of their nation and yet without them the pioneers would have been tied hand and foot, and because of them Australia is what it is.
“Had a good trip out?” Dan asked, feeling safe on that subject, and appeared to listen to the details of the road with interest; but all the time the shrewd hazel eyes were upon me, drawing rapid conclusions, and I began to feel absurdly anxious to know their verdict. That was not to come before bedtime; and only those who knew the life of the stations in the Never-Never know how much was depending on the stockmen’s verdict.
Dan had his own methods of dealing with the Unknown Woman. Forty years out-bush had convinced him that “most of ’em were the right sort,” but it had also convinced him that “you had to take ’em all differently,” and he always felt his way carefully, watching and waiting, ready to open out at the first touch of fellowship and understanding, but just as ready to withdraw into himself at the faintest approach to a snub.
By the time supper was over he had risked a joke or two, and taking heart by their reception, launched boldly into the conversation, chuckling with delight as the Măluka and Mac amused themselves by examining the missus on bushcraft.
“She’ll need a deal of educating before we let her out alone,” he said, after a particularly bad failure, with the first touch of that air of proprietorship that was to become his favourite attitude towards his missus.
“It’s only common sense; you’ll soon get used to it,” Mac said in encouragement, giving us one of his delightful backhanders. Then in all seriousness Dan suggested teaching her some of the signs of water at hand, right off, “in case she does get lost any time,” and also seriously, the Măluka and Mac “thought it would be as well, perhaps.”
Then the townswoman’s self-satisfied arrogance came to the surface. “You needn’t bother about me,” I said, confident I had as much common sense as any bushman. “If ever I do get lost, I’ll just catch a cow and milk it.”
Knowing nothing of the wild, scared cattle of the fenceless runs of the Never-Never, I was prepared for anything rather than the roar of delight that greeted that example of town “common sense.”
“Missus! missus!” the Măluka cried, as soon as he could speak, “you’ll need a deal of educating”; and while Mac gasped, “Oh I say! Look here!” Dan, with tears in his eyes, chuckled: “She’ll have a drouth on by the time she runs one down.” Dan always called a thirst a drouth. “Oh Lord!” he said, picturing the scene in his mind’s eye, “ ‘I’ll catch a cow and milk it,’ she says.”
Then, dancing with fun, the hazel eyes looked round the company, and as Dan rose, preparatory to turning in, we felt we were about to hear their verdict. When it came it was characteristic of the man in uniqueness of wording:
“She’s the dead finish!” he said, wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve. “Reckoned she was the minute I heard her talking about slap-up dampers”; and in some indescribable way we knew he had paid the woman who was just entering his life the highest compliment in his power. Then he added, “Told the chaps the little ’uns were generally all right.” It is the helplessness of little women that makes them appear “all right” in the eyes of bushmen, helplessness being foreign to snorters.
At breakfast Dan expressed surprise because there was no milk, and the pleasantry being well received, he considered the moment ripe for one of his pet theories.
“She’ll do for this place!” he said, wagging his head wisely. “I’ve been forty years out-bush, and I’ve known eight or ten women in that time, so I ought to know something about it. Anyway, the ones that could see jokes suited best. There was Mrs. Bob out Victoria way. She’d see a joke a mile off; sighted ’em as soon as they got within cooee. Never knew her miss one, and never knew anybody suit the bush like she did.” And, as we packed up and set out for the last lap of our journey he was still ambling about his theory. “Yes,” he said, “you can dodge most things out bush; but you can’t dodge jokes for long. They’ll run you down sooner or later”; adding with a chuckle, “Never heard of one running Mrs. Bob down, though. She always tripped ’em up before they could get to her.” Then finding