The Great Trek Read online

  Australia’s far-famed harbor opened up to Sterl’s sight, a long curving bay with many arms cutting into the land. Here and there red-roofed houses stood out markedly from the bright green. Miles inland, around a broad turn where ships rode at anchor, the city of Sydney stood revealed, strange to the Westerners, foreign and stately, gray-walled, red-roofed, a broad and undulating area of edifices.

  In due course, while Sterl and Red packed their bags, the ship eased alongside a dock, and tied up, to the cheery chant of glad sailors. Going down the gangplank, Red manifested an unsteady gait, and, when he staggered out upon the deck, he walked like a man who had one leg shorter than the other. Sterl would not have bragged about his own steadiness. They were accosted upon the dock, led into a shed, where after a brief examination they were free. One of the stevedores directed them to an inn up the street, where soon they had a room and were relieved of their heavy bags.

  It was early in the afternoon. Krehl voted for seeing the sights. But Sterl disapproved, for that meant looking upon drink.

  “Pard, we must get our bearings and rustle for the open range,” Sterl said, and he meant to abide by that.

  Whereupon they had their first Australian meal, about which they disagreed, and then set out to ask two cardinally important questions—where was the cattle country and how could they get there?

  “Outback,” replied more than one person, waving a hand that, like an Indian’s gesture, signified vague and remote distance. In the reply of others they interrogated, that queer word stood forth with prominent significance.

  “Outback?” echoed Red, growing exasperated. “Where’n’ll is thet?”

  They wandered too far uptown, and the shops, the crowds of people, the lithe red-cheeked, clear-eyed girls, all so different from those in San Francisco, began to intrigue Sterl and wholly possessed Red.

  “Red, this isn’t getting us jobs,” Sterl observed, reluctantly turning.

  “Aw, pard,” remonstrated his comrade poignantly. “Thet one looked at me twice. An’ the second time she smiled.”

  “I saw her. High-stepper who took you for a hick from America.”

  “Come on, you everlasting lover of all women!”

  Back on the waterfront they resumed their search and asked questions of everyone who would listen. Civil and courteous, these Australians, thought Sterl, but not interested in tramps from foreign countries. At last a big man, ruddy of visage, looked them up and down and smiled when he said: “Yankees?”

  “Yes. It must be written all over us,” admitted Sterl, with an answering smile.

  “You asked for information about the cattle country. Are you drovers?”

  “Drovers?” echoed Sterl, puzzled, while Red looked belligerent.

  “Horse men…drivers of cattle?”

  “Oh! You bet. Plain Arizona and Texas cowboys. We eat up hard work. Where can we get jobs?”

  “Any station owner will hire you. But I advise you to go to Queensland. Big cattle mustering there.”

  “Where and how far?” Sterl queried eagerly.

  “Queensland is upcountry. Five hundred miles up the coast and inland three or four hundred more.”

  Sterl looked blankly at their informant. He received another subtle intimation of probably endless distances in this Australia. But Red was equal to the occasion.

  “Wal, only about a thousand miles. Nothin’ a-tall. My pard an’ me don’t care how far we have to walk, so long’s we’re shore of jobs.”

  “That’s absolutely sure. But you can’t walk,” replied the man, who had taken Red seriously. “Board the freighter Merryvale down the dock. Sails at six today. Brisbane. Queensland is your stop. Good luck, cowboys.”

  “Thanks, mister,” returned Sterl soberly. “It was kind of you.”

  Sterl led his comrade down the waterfront to where the big freighter was tied up at the center of busy shipping activities. He soon found an officer who said they could buy passage to Brisbane. And then Red Krehl broke out: “My Gawd, pard! You cain’t be heartless enough to drag me on thet sea again? I won’t go. You can jest go to hell without me. Aw! I tell you I’m seasick this heah minnit. I’m gonna look on red likker.”

  Nevertheless, despite Krehl’s reiterated exposition of his woes and determination to desert his friend, they were passengers on the Merryvale when she steamed out between Sydney Heads. He had, however, procured a bottle before leaving the waterfront, and Sterl was glad to help him drink its contents. Red raved and groaned about being seasick, but his reproaches were untenable because he did not suffer at all.

  Next morning they awoke to find the sea calm, with the steamer tearing along not five miles out from a magnificent and picturesque shoreline. Evidently this fact made a vast difference to landlubber Red, and it was a most unexpected and pleasing factor for Sterl. Never had he been more sure of what had made him a range rider—love of the open, of color and beauty, of the wild and the free, of waving prairie grass and rugged purple steppes, of ghastly desert and calling phantom mountain, of the raw and the physical in nature. It had been born in him. And as he leaned over the rail of this steamer to gaze at a white-wreathed shoreline, for leagues on leagues to north and south, at the rolling green ridges rising on and upward to the high ranges, he sustained a singular and revivifying intimation that beyond these calling dim mountains there might await him the greatest and most insuperable adventure of his life.

  “Dog-gone it!” Red was drawling. “I wanta be mad as hell, but I jest cain’t. Gosh, pard, that’s grand country. I wonder what’s beyond over there…Outback, as they call it. I’ve a hunch somethin’ is comin’ to us. Talk about wild range. No farm, no ranch, no town, far as we can see. I hate to knuckle to it, but even Texas cain’t beat that.”

  “Texas is grand, you old horned-toad!” declared Sterl. “This country is green, bright, rare, rich green, new to me.”

  “Must rain a lot, leastways along this heah coast. But Sydney was hot an’ dry. We wasn’t there longer’n a jack rabbit’s jump, but I felt it. Lemme see…. Must be May…spring, by gosh, an’

  thet’s great.”

  “May, aye, Red, but not spring. It’s fall.”

  “Aw, how can it be May an’ be fall?”

  “Red, your ignorance is terrific. We’re south of the equator, where the seasons are reversed. When it’s summer at home, it’s winter here.”

  “Yeah? Wal, I reckon I’ll never get thet through my haid. Any more’n I can savvy what thet sailor told us about it bein’ summer all the year up heah. If thet’s so, I’m shore gonna like this Australia.”

  It was a bright, sunny day, warm and pleasant, with the sea glassy and smooth, and running a long, low swell. A flock of gulls followed the ship. Fish and porpoises sported upon the blue water. Far to the north the smoke of a steamer drifted along the horizon.

  Sterl and Red spent all save mealtime upon deck, and it appeared that the farther north they traveled the more attractive grew the mainland. At last, when night fell, they sought their bunks, tired out from gazing and conjecturing.

  Next day, if anything, the weather was even finer, and the view of shore and island magnified all the properties that had been so satisfying. The sailors, having little work to do, were friendly and talkative. Red sighted his first whale and nearly fell overboard in his excitement. “Gosh, he shore was a buckin’ broncho. How’d you like to ride him, pard?”

  In the afternoon the skipper, a fine old sea dog, invited them to come up on the bridge with him. Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to tell him their plan. He was interested and communicative.

  “Boys, you are in on the ground floor, if you can stand the heat, the dust, the drought, the blacks, the floods, the fires, besides harder work than galley slaves.”

  “Captain, driving cattle on the Texas plain wasn’t just a picnic,” replied Sterl.

  “You’ll think so, after droving upcountry here.”

  “Boss, I reckon we’ve been up ag’in’ all you said ’cept the bla
cks,” Red inquired, deeply interested. “Jest what air these blacks?”

  “The black men. Natives of Australia. Aborigines.”

  “You mean niggers?”

  “Some people call them niggers. But they’re not Negroes. They are black, all right. Shiny black…dead black as coal. There are innumerable tribes of these Australian natives, most of whom live as they did in the Stone Age, and further back, perhaps thousands of years.”

  “Wal, can you beat that?” Red exclaimed, vastly perturbed. “Boss, what about these black men? Bad medicine, mebbe?”

  “Cannibals. They eat you.”

  Red’s expression was something to laugh at, and Sterl indulged himself. But he was surprised, too, and shocked as well. He did not entertain Red’s southern Texas hatred of Negroes.

  “Boss,” went on Krehl, “I’ve had my fill of fightin’ greasers, rustlers, robbers, an’ redskins on the Texas trails, but gosh! All of them put together cain’t be as wuss as black men…cannibals who eat you.”

  “Right you are, Red,” declared Sterl. “That’s a new one on cowboys. Captain, you’re sure putting the wind up on us, as you Australians say. But tell a little about cattle and ranches…I mean stations.”

  “Well, I’ve only a general bit of knowledge,” returned the skipper. “Cattle raising is not so new. There are stations up and down New South Wales, and eastern and central Queensland. Gradually cattlemen are working Outback. Five years or so ago the drovers ventured to muster mobs of cattle into the Northern Territory. I’ve heard of the terrible times they had. But I can’t give you any specific details. I do know, however, that no drovers have yet ventured way beyond the Outback of Australia…into the unknown interior…called the Never Never Land by the few explorers who did not leave their bones to be picked by the black men and bleach on the sand. That Never Never Land must be the most wonderful and appalling upon the earth.”

  “Never Never Land?” Sterl mused, deeply stirred. “Like our prairie land, or the Llano Estacado, or Death Valley, only I venture to guess vastly magnifying all the distances, hardships, and dangers of our country.”

  “Pard, thet’s kinda hard to believe,” said Red, shaking his head. “No places I ever heerd about an’ ventured into was as bad as they was painted. But thet always makes you the keener to see for yoreself.”

  “Well, boys, you are in for an adventure,” continued the skipper. “There’s some big movement on out from Brisbane. We have consignments of flour, harness, wagons on board that prove it. You make me wish I was a lad again, without the call of the salt sea in my blood.”

  Toward sunset that day Sterl gloated and mourned over a panorama that brought stingingly home to him the glory of Arizona.

  There were clouds above the lofty range that turned gold and purple, at last to take fire. A flame slanted down over the billowy green slope, transparent and changing, that lost its red only when blocked by a stretch of sandy shore and long curved white line of breakers. A headland projected far out into the sea, tipped by a sentinel lighthouse. The similarity here to any Arizona scene lay in the vividness of the sunset hues, burning, transforming, and at length dimming. The transparent purple veil dissolved off the mountain range, and quickly it seemed the day was done.

  The Merryvale docked at dawn far up a muddy river on the west bank of which stood Brisbane. After breakfast Sterl and Red labored ashore, dragging their burdens of baggage, curious and eager as boys half their age. Brisbane did not impress them with its bigness, but it sparkled under a bright sun, and appeared alive and bustling. They found a hotel and, leaving their baggage, sallied forth on the second lap of their adventure.

  In less than an hour they were directed to a merchandise store which was filling orders for a company of drovers making ready to leave Downsville, a cattle town in Central Queensland for points unknown.

  Sterl got hold of the manager, a weather-beaten man who had seen service in the open.

  “We are two American cowboys,” Sterl began swiftly. “Is there any chance for jobs Outback?”

  “Chance? Young man, they’ll welcome you with open arms. Report is that the drovers can’t find bushmen enough to start. Bing Slyter is here with his teamsters. He’s one of the drovers, and he’s buying supplies for the Danns and the other drovers. I’ll find Slyter for you.”

  Sterl turned to his shining-eyed comrade. “Red, we’re in luck. Right off the bat!”

  “Wal, so it ’pears. But let’s take it cool an’ easy.”

  “How can we? This deal opens up big…makes me breathless.”

  In a moment they were greeted by the manager, and faced a big man whose wide shoulders made his height appear moderate. If he was an Australian bushman, Sterl thought, he surely liked the type. Slyter had a strong face cast in bronze, a square chin, and eagle eyes that pierced like daggers.

  “Good day, young man,” he said in a voice that matched his size. “Watson here tells me you’re American cowboys, looking for jobs.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m Sterling Hazelton, from Arizona, and this is Red Krehl, from Texas. I’m twenty-five, and he’s a year younger. We were born in the saddle and have driven cattle all our lives. We rode the Chisholm Trail for three years. That’s our recommendation.”

  “It’s enough, after looking you over,” returned Slyter in booming gladness. “We Australians have heard of the Chisholm Trail. You drove mobs of cattle across Texas north to new markets in Kansas?”

  “Yes, sir. Five hundred miles of hard going. Sand, bad rivers, buffalo stampedes, electric storm where balls of fire rolled along the ground, storms with hailstones big enough to kill a man, fighting Indians and rustlers.”

  “Rustlers? We call them bush-rangers. Cattle thieves just beginning to make themselves felt. One reason we drovers are leaving central Australia. I’ll give you both jobs. What wages do you ask?”

  “What ever you want to pay will satisfy us,” replied Sterl. “We want hard riding in a new country. We will give our best.”

  “Settled. If it’s hard riding you want, you’ll get it. And I’m fortunate to get you. We drovers are undertaking the greatest trek in Australian history. Seven-thousand-five-hundred cattle, three thousand miles across the Never-Never!”

  Sterl felt stunned at that ringing statement. But Red drawled in his cool and easy way: “Boss, that’s nothin’ a-tall to us. Jest all in the day’s work! But it shore sounds sweet.”

  “Mister Slyter,” burst out Sterl, “such a drive is unheard of. Three thousand Texas longhorns made hell on earth for a dozen cowboys. But this herd…this mob, as you call it…across that Never Never Land, if it’s unknown and terrible as they say…? Why, man, the drive is impossible, unthinkable. Please excuse me, Mister Slyter, but I know this cattle trail game.”

  “Hazelton, we can do it, and you’re going to be a great help. I was discouraged before I left home. Just couldn’t find teamsters and drivers who would undertake it. But Leslie said…‘Dad, don’t give up. You’ll find men. Besides, I’m going to be one of your drivers.’ Leslie’s a grand kid.”

  “You’re taking your family on this trek?” Sterl queried aghast.

  “Yes. And there’ll be two other families.”

  “You Australians don’t lack nerve,” smiled Sterl. “I remember only two drives, when we had women. And they were worse than buffalo stampedes.”

  “Boys, we’ll have much to talk about, and plenty of time later. I’ve no time now. Do you need money to outfit?”

  “No, sir. We have money. But we need to know what to buy.”

  “Buy here, then. Cheaper and far more goods to select from. Rifles, and all the ammunition you can afford. Tents, blankets, and mosquito nets, clothes, boots, socks, some tools, a medicine kit, bandages, gloves…a dozen pans, some bottles of whiskey, and about a ton, more or less, of tobacco. That goes furthest with the blacks. You needn’t stint on account of room. We’ll have wagons and drays.”

  “But, Mister Slyter,” exclaimed Sterl, in amazement. “Buy all that s
tuff? We don’t want to stock a store.”

  “Haw! Haw!” laughed the drover with impressive humor. “Boys, this great trek will take two years. Two years droving across the Never Never Land to the Kimberleys!”

  “Indeed, it will be never!” cried Sterl, staggered at the import. “Whoopee!” yelled Red.

  Chapter Two

  The remainder of that stimulating day Sterl and Red spent in a big merchandise store, making purchases for a two years’ trip beyond the frontier.

  Cowboys always loved to mill around in a store full of horse equipment, guns and ammunition, rider’s garb, tools, and range articles. Sterl never remembered possessing money to buy one tenth of what he longed for. This wonderful occasion made up for all past longings. Red, in his boyish eagerness, was like a bull on a rampage. “Gosh! Look at thet English saddle. Could I stick on thet, pard. Them gadgets on the front…pretty slick. Must be to hold you on. Fine leather, though, an’ workmanship.”

  The English rifles also intrigued the cowboys. Sterl had brought along his Winchester .44 from which he would not have been separated. And he had five hundred shells for it. But he had a vague idea these would be inadequate for such a long and perilous trip. He bought two of the English rifles, of a caliber advised by the merchant, and a thousand shells for each.

  These purchases broke the ice of old accustomed frugality, and introduced an orgy of spending. “Well, pard, what do we care about money?” drawled Red. “We’re rich, an’ anyhow we ain’t never gonna come back from this drive.” They bought all Slyter had advised, and more besides. Sterl had a weakness for bright scarves and pocket knives, while Red went berserk over socks. “You see, pard, never before in my life did I have more’n one pair. I used to wear ’em till they fell off an’ then go barefoot.” Lastly, Sterl laid in a store of candy and fancy things that might be handy to trade to the blacks, if no better use presented. More than once he wondered what this Slyter’s daughter, Leslie, would be like. Sterl attributed that to Red’s outspoken curiosity.