sometimes get ten different sorts rolled into one,” he said finally, after a long dissertation. “But, generally speaking, there’s just three sorts of ’em. There’s Snorters—the goers, you know—the sort that go rampaging round, looking for insults, and naturally finding them; and then there’s fools; and they’re mostly screeching when they’re not smirking—the uncertain-coy-and-hard-to-please variety, you know,” he chuckled, “and then,” he added seriously, “there’s the right sort, the sort you tell things to. They’re A1 all through the piece.”
The Sanguine Scot was confident, though, that they were all alike, and none of ’em were wanted; but one of the Company suggested “If she was little, she’d do. The little ’uns are all right,” he said.
But public opinion deciding that “the sort that go messing round where they know they’re not wanted are always big and muscular and snorters,” the Sanguine Scot was encouraged in his determination to “block her somehow.”
“I’ll block her yet; see if I don’t,” he said confidently. “After all these years on their own, the boys don’t want a woman messing round the place.” And when he set out for the railway along the north track, to face the “escorting trick,” he repeated his assurances. “I’ll block her, chaps, never fear,” he said; and glowering at a “quiet” horse that had been sent by the lady at the Telegraph, added savagely, “and I’ll begin by losing that brute first turn out.”
Chapter 2
From sun-up to sun-down on Tuesday, the train glided quietly forward on its way towards the Never-Never; and from sun-up to sun-down the Măluka and I experienced the kindly consideration that it always shows to travellers: it boiled a billy for us at its furnace; loitered through the pleasantest valleys; smiled indulgently, and slackened speed whenever we made merry with blacks, by pelting them with chunks of water-melon; and generally waited on us hand and foot, the Man-in-Charge pointing out the beauty spots and places of interest, and making tea for us at frequent intervals.
It was a delightful train—just a simple-hearted, chivalrous, weather-beaten old bush-whacker, at the service of the entire Territory. “There’s nothing the least bit officious or standoffish about it,” I was saying, when the Man-in-Charge came in with the first billy of tea.
“Of course not!” he said, unhooking cups from various crooked-up fingers. “It’s a Territorian, you see.”
“And had all the false veneer of civilisation peeled off long ago,” the Măluka said, adding, with a sly look at my discarded gloves and gossamer, “It’s wonderful how quietly the Territory does its work.”
The Man-in-Charge smiled openly as he poured out the tea, proving thereby his kinship with all other Territorians; and as the train came to a standstill, swung off and slipped some letters into a box nailed to an old tree-trunk.
At the far end of the train, away from the engine, the passengers’ car had been placed, and as in front of it a long, long line of low-stacked sinuous trucks slipped along in the rear of the engine, all was open view before us; and all day long, as the engine trudged onwards—hands in pockets, so to speak, and whistling merrily as it trudged—I stood beside the Măluka on the little platform in front of the passengers’ car, drinking in my first deep, intoxicating draught of the glories of the tropical bush.
There were no fences to shut us in; and as the train zig-zagged through jungle and forest and river-valley—stopping now and then to drink deeply at magnificent rivers ablaze with water-lilies—it almost seemed as though it were some kindly Mammoth creature, wandering at will through the bush.
Here and there, kangaroos and other wild creatures of the bush hopped out of our way, and sitting up, looked curiously after us; again and again little groups of blacks hailed us, and scrambled after water-melon and tobacco, with shouts of delight, and, invariably, on nearing the tiny settlements along the railway, we drove before us white fleeing flocks of goats.
At every settlement we stopped and passed the time of day and, giving out mail-bags, moved on again into the forest. Now and again, stockmen rode out of the timber and received mail-bags, and once a great burly bushman, a staunch old friend of the Măluka’s, boarded the train, and greeted him with a hearty hand-shake.
“Hullo! old chap!” he called in welcome, as he mounted the steps of the little platform, “I’ve come to inspect your latest investment”; but catching sight of the “latest investment” he broke into a deafening roar.
“Good Lord!” he shouted, looking down upon me from his great height, “is that all there is of her? They’re expecting one of the prize-fighting variety down there,” and he jerked his head towards the Never-Never. Then he congratulated the Măluka on the size of his missus.
“Gimme the little ’uns,” he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his approval. “You can’t beat ’em for pluck. My missus is one of ’em, and she went bush with me when I’d nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to share with her.” Then, slapping the Măluka vigorously on the back, he told him he’d got some sense left. “You can’t beat the little ’uns,” he declared. “They’re just the very thing.”
The Măluka agreed with him, and after some comical quizzing, they decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman’s “missus” was the “littlest of all little ’uns, straight up and down,” the Măluka’s “knocked spots off her sideways.”
But although the Territory train does not need to bend its neck to the galling yoke of a minute time-table, yet, like all bush-whackers, it prefers to strike its supper camp before night-fall, and after allowing us a good ten minutes’ chat, it blew a deferential “Ahem” from its engine, as a hint that it would like to be “getting along.” The bushman took the hint, and after a hearty “Good luck, missus!” and a “chin, chin, old man,” left us, with assurances that “her size ’ud do the trick.”
Until sundown we jogged quietly on, meandering through further pleasant places and meetings; drinking tea and chatting with the Man-in-Charge between whiles, extracting a maximum of pleasure from a minimum rate of speed: for travelling in the Territory has not yet passed that ideal stage where the travelling itself—the actual going—is all pleasantness.
As we approached Pine Creek I confided to the men-folk that I was feeling a little nervous. “Supposing that telegraphing bush-whacker decides to shoot me off-hand on my arrival,” I said; and the Man-in-Charge said amiably: “It’ll be brought in as justifiable homicide; that’s all.” Then reconnoitring the enemy from the platform, he “feared” we were “about to be boycotted.”
There certainly were very few men on the station, and the Man-in-Charge recognising one of them as the landlord of the Playford, assured us there was nothing to fear from that quarter. “You see, you represent business to him,” he explained.
Every one but the landlord seemed to have urgent business in the office or at the far end of the platform, but it was quickly evident that there was nothing to fear from him; for, finding himself left alone to do the honours of the Creek, he greeted us with an amused: “She doesn’t look up to sample sent by telegram”; and I felt every meeting would be, at least, unconventional. Then we heard that as Mac had “only just arrived from the Katherine, he couldn’t leave his horses until they were fixed up”; but the landlord’s eyes having wandered back to the “Goer,” he winked deliberately at the Măluka before inviting us to “step across to the Pub.”
The Pub seemed utterly deserted, and with another wink the landlord explained the silence by saying that “a cyclone of some sort” had swept most of his “regulars” away; and then he went shouting through the echoing passages for a “boy” to “fetch along tea.”
Before the tea appeared, an angry Scotch voice crept to us