silence for a hundred yards or more.
“Accidents!” he replied, “I should jolly well think there have. You see, horses are like men and women, though people don’t hardly believe it. Some’s born one way, and some another; teaching don’t make much difference to ’em, nor beltin’ either. Some of ’em, like some men, are born cowards, and when they get into a narrer track with a big drop both sides of ’em, they’re that queer in the head—though it’s the heart that’s wrong with ’em—that they feel like pitching theirselves over, just to get shut of the tremblin’ on the brink feelin’. Your horse was in a blue funk; he’d have slipped or backed over in another minute or two. That was the matter with him. When he seen old Keewah skip along by himself, it put confidence like, into him.”
“You’ve known of accidents, then?”
“My word! I mind when poor Paddy Farrell went down. He and his horse both. He was leadin’ a packer, as it might be one of us now. Well, his moke was a nervous sort of brute, and just as he got to the Needle Rock, it’s a bit farther on before the road widens out, but it’s terrible narrer there, and poor Paddy was walking ahead leadin’ the brute with a green hide halter, when a hawk flies out from behind a rock and frightened the packer. He draws back with a jerk, and his hind leg goes over the edge. Paddy had the end of the halter round his wrist, and it got jammed somehow, and down goes the lot, horse and pack, and him atop of ’em. Three or four of us were out all day looking for him at the foot of the range. We knew where we’d likely find him, and sure enough there they were, he and his horse, stone dead and smashed to pieces. We took him back to Bunjil, and buried him decent in the little graveyard. We managed to fish up a prayer-book, and got ‘Gentleman Jack’ to read the service over him. My word! he could read no end. They said he was college taught. He could drink too, more’s the pity.”
“Does every one drink that lives in these parts?”
“Well, a good few. Us young ones not so bad, but if a man stays here, after a few years he always drinks, partickler if he’s seen better days.”
“Now why is that? It’s a free healthy life, with riding, shooting, and a chance of a golden hole, as you call it. There are worse places to live in.”
“Nobody knows why, but they all do; they’ll work hard and keep sober for months. Then they get tired of having no one to talk to—nobody like theirselves, I mean. They go away, and come back stone-broke, or knock it all down in Bunjil, if they’ve made a few pounds.”
“That sounds bad after working hard and risking their lives on these Devil’s Bridges. How old was this Patrick Farrell?”
“Twenty-four, his name wasn’t Patrick. It was Aloysius William, named after a saint, I’m told. The boys called him ‘Paddy’ for short. At home, I believe they called him ‘Ally.’ But Paddy he always was in these parts. It don’t matter much now. See that tall rock sticking up by the side of the road at the turn? Well, that’s where he fell; they call it ‘Paddy’s Downfall,’ among the country people to this day. We’ve only a mile to go from there.”
When Mr. Blount and his companion reached the Needle Rock, a sharp-edged monolith, the edge of which unnecessarily infringed on the perilously scanty foothold, he did not wonder at the downfall of poor Aloysius William or any other wayfarer encumbered with a horse. He recalled the “vision of sudden death” which had so nearly been realised in his own case, and shuddered as he looked over the sheer drop on to a tangled mass of “rocks and trees confusedly hurled.”
“We’ve got Bunjil Inn to make yet,” said the bushman, stepping forward briskly; “we mustn’t forget that, if we leave my old moke too long in the yard, he’ll be opening the gate or some other dodge.”
In a hundred yards from the Needle Rock the track became wider, much to Mr. Blount’s relief, for he was beginning to feel an uncanny fascination for the awful abyss, and to doubt whether if a storm came on, he should be able to stand erect, or be reduced to the ignoble alternative of lying on his face.
“They’ve passed along here all right,” said the guide, casting a casual look at the path; “trust old Keewah for that, he’s leadin’ and your moke following close up.”
Mr. Blount did not see any clear indication, and would have been quite unable to declare which animal was foremost. But he accepted in all confidence Little-River-Jack’s assurance. The track, without gaining much breadth or similarity to any civilised high road, was yet superior in all respects to the chamois path they had left behind, and when his companion exclaimed, “There’s the yard, and our nags in it, as safe as houses,” he was relieved and grateful. The loss of a horse with a new saddle and bridle, besides his whole stock of travelling apparel, spare shoes, and other indispensable matters, would have been serious, not to say irreparable.
However there were the two horses with their accoutrements complete, in the trap yard aforesaid. The yard was fully eight feet high, and though the saplings of which it was composed were rudely put together, they were solid and unyielding. The heavy gate of the same material showed a rude carpentry in the head and tail pieces, the former of which was “let into the cap” or horizontal spar placed across the gate posts, and also morticed into a round upright below, sunk into the ground and projecting securely above it.
“They must have come in and shut the gate after them,” remarked Blount; “how in the world did they manage that?”
“Well, you see, this gate’s made pretty well on the balance to swing back to the post, where there’s a sort of groove for it. It’s always left half, or a quarter open. A prop’s put loose agen it, which any stock coming in from that side’s middlin’ sure to rub, and the gate swings to. See? It may graze ’em, as they’re going in, but they’re likely to jump forward, into the yard. The gate swings back to the post, and they’re nabbed. They can’t very well open it towards themselves, they haven’t savey for that. So they have to wait till some one comes.”
This explanation was given as they were riding along a decently plain road to Bunjil township, the first appearance of which one traveller descried with much contentment.
The “Divide,” before this agreeable change, had begun to alter its austere character. The ridge had spread out, the forest trees were stately and umbrageous, the track was fairly negotiable by horse and man. A fertile valley through which dashed an impetuous stream revealed itself. On the further bank stood dwellings, “real cottages,” as Mr. Blount remarked, “not huts.” These were in all cases surrounded by gardens, in some instances by orchards, of which the size and girth of the fruit trees bore witness to the richness of the soil as well as of the age of the township.
The short winter day had been nearly consumed by reason of their erratic progress; so that the evening shadows had commenced to darken the valley, while the clear, crisp atmosphere betrayed to the experienced senses of Mr. Carter, every indication of what he described as “a real crackin’ frost.”
“We’re in luck’s way,” he said, in continuation, “not to be struck for a camp out to-night. It’s cold enough in an old man frost hereabouts, to freeze the leg off an iron pot. But this is the right shop as we’re going to, for a good bed, a broiled steak for tea, and if you make friends with Sheila (she’s the girl that waits at table) you won’t die of cold, whatever else happens to you. Above all, the house is clean, and that’s more than you can say for smarter lookin’ shops. We’d as well have a spurt to finish up with.” Drawing his rein, and touching his hack with careless heel, the bushman went off at a smart canter along the main street, apparently the only one in the little town, Mr. Blount’s cob following suit with comparative eagerness, until they pulled up at a roomy building with a broad verandah, before which stood a sign-board, setting forth its title to consideration, as the “Prospector’s Arms” by William Middleton.
Several persons stood or lounged about the verandah, who looked at them keenly as they rode up. A broad-shouldered man with a frank, open countenance, came out of a door, somewhat apart from the group. He was plainly, by appearance and bearing, the landlord.
“So you’re