The Great Trek Read online

  The bill for this prodigious load of purchases amounted to over a hundred pounds—five hundred dollars in American money. Sterl looked aghast at the bill. Red’s jaw dropped in consternation. “Holy Mackeli, pard, thet’s orful. I’ll turn in most of what I bought. I must ’a’ been loco.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Sterl declared quickly. “It’s more fun, buying this stuff, than I ever had before. You were a plumb circus. Red, think how fine it’ll be using all this, way out in a strange country. If we can only pack it!”

  It took a dray to transport their outfit to the yard on the outskirts of town, where they had been directed to go. Late in the afternoon they had all their purchases stowed away in the front of one of the big new wagons, with their baggage on top, and the woolen blankets spread. Before that task, however, they had changed their traveling clothes to the worn and comfortable garb of cowboys. Sterl had not felt so good for weeks. It was all settled. No turning back! The wild and unknown called irresistibly. Red seemed unutterably happy, and that meant more to Sterl than he had realized. He had a job that struck fire in him. He owned more things dear to a rider’s heart than ever before altogether. He had money, however hateful it had seemed to accept it. Early that day, visiting the two banks, Sterl had changed his American money into Australian pounds. The bulk of it was far less. And this fortune, to him, reposed in a leather money belt around his waist, where he could always feel it. Never until that sunset hour, with their task done, had Sterl felt stable, beyond vacillation and grief. Nan Halbert was happy. She would never know how that happiness had come from him. Ross had depth and fineness. All he had needed was this jolt to make a man of him. Sterl gazed with dim sad eyes out over the gold green hills. That time of contending tides of trouble was past. He would be glad, presently, and forget.

  They had scraped acquaintance with one of Slyter’s teamsters, a hulking, craggy-visaged chap some years their senior. He imperturbably announced that his name was Roland Tewksbury Jones. Red’s reaction to that cognomen was characteristic.

  “Yeah? Have a cigar,” he said, producing one with a grand flourish. “My handle is Red. Seein’ as how I couldn’t remember yore turrible name, I’ll call you Rol, for short. In our country real names never get anywhere. On the Texas trails I knowed a lot of Joneses, in particular Buffalo Jones, Dirty Face Jones, an’ Wrong-Wheel Jones. I’ll tell you about them shore-fire Westerners some day.”

  Roland evinced a calm speculation as to what manner of man this Yankee cowboy was. He accepted Sterl’s invitation to have dinner with them, and after that he invited them to go to a pub for a drink. They all had several drinks, and returned to their wagon where they found a fire blazing and the other teamsters busily unloading the supplies. Sterl looked for Slyter, but that individual did not appear.

  Red averred he was so tired he could not wag any longer. The day had been harder for Sterl than fifty miles over a rough trail. Still, the fire felt so good and the bustling work about them so interesting that they stayed up until they almost fell standing. Then, spreading their canvas and blankets under the wagon, as they had done thousands of times, they composed themselves to rest and sleep. Sterl’s last waking sense was to hear Red: “Where’n’ll air them muskeeters they hollered about?”

  Sterl slept infinitely sounder out in the open, on the hard ground, than he had for a month on soft beds. Indeed, the sun was shining brightly when he awoke. Red appeared dead to the world. Sterl mildly kicked him and called: “Comanches!” Red stirred, but did not come out of it until Sterl shouted: “Point the herd, Texas!”

  Red opened his eyes, blinked, and stared at the wagon bed roof and at Sterl, then, comprehending, he said: “Mawnin’, pard. That’ll do about Texas.”

  They rolled out to perform hurried ablutions. Teamsters were leading horses out of the paddock; others were tying tarpaulins over the wagons. Jones addressed Red: “You have time for breakfast, if you move as fast as you said you did in Texas.”

  The cowboys took the hint and hurried off, with Red growling: “What you make of that, pard? The English galoot? I never said nothin’ about bein’ fast nowhere.”

  Sterl sensed considerable strife and no little humor in Red’s adapting himself to the Australians. As for himself, Sterl resolved to go slow, to be friendly without encouragement, to bridle his tongue. Once out on the trail he had no misgivings as to how Red and he would be taken by their hosts.

  Returning to the wagons and teamsters, Sterl saw that they were about ready to start, two teams to a wagon. He had an appreciative eye for the powerful horses. Jones called for them to hop up. Sterl found a seat beside the driver, while Red propped himself up behind. Inquiry about Mr. Slyter elicited the information that the drover had left at daylight in his light two-horse rig. Jones took up the reins and led the procession of drays and wagons out onto the road.

  It was an exhilarating moment. Evidently Red nearly burst, holding in a cowboy yell. Sterl labored under a stress of feelings, prominent in which was that old heart-swelling call of the wild.

  Soon the town was left behind out of sight. A few farms and gardens lined the road for several miles. Then the yellow, grass-centered road led into a jungle of green and gold and bronze. Right then began Sterl’s education in Australian bush. Even if Jones had not been civil, which he was, Sterl could not have refrained from asking questions. They had ten days or more to drive, mostly on a level road, good campsites, plenty of water and grass, meat for the killing, mosquitoes in millions, and bad snakes.

  “Bad snakes?” echoed Sterl in dismay. He happened to be not over-afraid of snakes, and he had stepped on many a rattler to jump out of his boots, but the information was not happy.

  “Say, Rol, I heahed you,” interposed Red, who feared neither man nor beast nor savage, but was in mortal terror of snakes. “That’s orful bad news. What kind of snakes?”

  Sterl sensed Jones rising to the occasion. “All kinds and thick as hops. Black and brown snakes most common, and grow to eight feet. Hit you hard and are not too poisonous, though they kill people often. Tiger snakes mean and aggressive. If you hear a sharp hiss, just turn to stone right where you are. Death adders are the most dangerous. They are short, thick, sluggish snakes, easy to step on, and rank poison. The pythons and boas are not so plentiful. But you meet them. They grow to twenty feet and can give you a right smart hug.”

  “Aw, is that all?” Red queried disgustedly, who evidently was impressively scared, despite his natural skepticism. But Sterl saw no reason to doubt the teamster’s matter-of-fact assertions. Before they had traveled far, Sterl had his interest in Australia increased. And he grasped that his knowledge was growing by leaps and bounds.

  The thick golden-green grass grew as high as the flanks of a horse; cabbage trees and a stunted brushy palm stood up conspicuously; and the gum trees, or eucalyptus, made a forest of new color and beauty. They grew in profusion, from saplings to sturdy trunks, shell-barked and smooth, some of them resembling the bronze and opal sycamores of America, and others like the beeches and laurels. Here and there stood up a lofty spotted gum, its straight trunk symmetrical and round, branchless for a hundred feet, and then spreading great curved limbs above the other trees to terminate in fine, thin-leaved, steely-green foliage.

  Soon, as they penetrated inland, birds began to attract Sterl even more than the timber. A crow with a dismal and guttural caw took Sterl back to the creek bottoms of Texas. Another crow, black with white spotted wings, Jones called Australia’s commonest bird, the magpie. It appeared curious, friendly, and had a most melodious note—a carol that grew upon Sterl. It was deep and rich—a lovely sound—cra-ra-wong…cur-ra-wong.

  “Red, this magpie has your Texas mockingbird skinned to a frazzle,” said Sterl, turning enthusiastically to Red.

  “Thet?” barked his comrade insulted. “Thet noise! What’s eatin’ you, pard? There ain’t nothin’ beautiful about that. Jest a squall. If I had my gun out, I’d take a peg at some of them.”

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nbsp; Jones glanced disapprovingly at Red and warmed to Sterl’s praise.

  “See you must like birds. So do I,” he said. “Australians ought to, for we have hundreds of wonderful birds. The bell bird has a heavenly song. And the lyre bird in the bush can imitate any song or sound he hears. Leslie Slyter loves them. She knows where they stay, too. She’ll take you at daybreak to hear them.”

  Here Red Krehl pricked up his ears to attention. “Wal, now,” he said condescendingly, “thet there liar bird, he jest appeals to me. I’ll ask Miss Leslie to take me out to heah him.”

  Sterl gave his comrade a sly and knowing glance, as if he were as transparent as crystal. Anything in the world, even to digging post holes, if it could be relegated in the slightest to femininity, Red clasped to his breast.

  Presently the road led out of the jungle into a big area of ground cleared of all except the largest tree, which gave it a parklike appearance. On a knoll stood a house made of corrugated iron. Jones called it a cattle station. Sterl looked for cattle in vain. Red said: “Shines out like a dollar in a fog.”

  The teamster was bewildered anew at Red’s singular language, but he didn’t voice it.

  Grass and brush densely covered the undulating hills. Sterl concluded Australian cattle were equally browsers and grazers. The road wound to and fro between the hills, keeping to a level, eventually to enter thick brush again. Sterl made the acquaintance of flocks of colored parrots—galahs, the driver called them—that flew swiftly as bullets across the road, and then a flock of white cockatoos that squalled and squawked in loud protest at the invasion of their domain. When they sailed above the wagon, wide wings spread, Sterl caught a faint tinge of yellow, and he thought they were exquisite birds despite their raucous screech.

  “Humph! Reckon they’re English, all right,” Red declared cryptically.

  Sterl had glimpses of furry animals fleeting through the grass that skirted the road. And he saw a long lizard or a snake. This inland region was growing more colorful and alive every mile. They crossed the first brook, a clear, swift, little stream that passed on gleaming and glancing under the wide-spreading foliage. A blue heron and a white crane took lumbering flight.

  They came into a wide valley, rich in wavy grass and studded with bunches of cattle and horses. “Ha! Some hosses. Pretty nifty, pard,” Red said. Next to girls, horses always gladdened that cowboy’s eye. Far up the valley a tin roof caught the glare of the sun. It belonged to another station, Jones said.

  All over this valley dead trees, bleached and ghastly, stood up and spread gnarled branches futilely into the air. Sterl observed that these dead gums had been ringed around the trunks with an axe. No doubt the idea was to get rid of the shade and let the sun nourish the grass.

  At the end of this valley, where the road turned and climbed slightly, Sterl looked back to see three of the following wagons in sight. They were all making good time over this narrow, grass-bordered road. As Jones slowed up along a bank higher than the wagon bed, Sterl heard solid, thumping thuds, then a swish of grass, and Red’s stentorian—“Whoopee!”

  Sterl wheeled in time to see three great, strange, furry animals leaping clear over the wagon. They had long ears and enormous tails. He recognized them in the middle of their prodigious leap, but could not remember their names. They cleared the road, to alight with thumps and bound away as if on springs.

  “Whoa!” yelled Red. “What’n’ll was that? Did you see what I see? Have I got ’em, pard? Lord! There ain’t no such critters.”

  “Kangaroos,” said the teamster. “And that biggest one is an old man ’roo, all right.”

  “Oh, what a sight!” Sterl exclaimed. “Kangaroos…of course. One of them almost red. If thet wasn’t great! Jones, it struck me they sprung off their tails.”

  “Kangaroos do use their tails. Wait till you get smacked with one.”

  The trio of queer beasts stopped some hundred rods off and sat up to gaze at the wagon.

  “Are they good to eat?” queried the practical Red.

  “We like kangaroo meat when we can’t get beef or turkey or fowl. But that isn’t often. No end of game.”

  “Gosh!” Red ejaculated. “I’m gonna have my rifle handy in the mawnin’. Pard, we didn’t figger on huntin’. An’ I was wonderin’ what we’d do with all them shells you bought.”

  “What’s that?” Sterl shouted suddenly, espying a small, gray animal, hopping across the road.

  “Wallaby. A small species of kangaroo.”

  “Aw! Where?” interposed Red, craning his neck. “I didn’t see him.”

  More interesting miles, that seemed swift, brought them to an open flat crossed by a stream bordered with full-foliaged, yellow-blossoming trees, which Jones called wattles. Sterl mutely gazed at them, as if they were an unreal picture. Red, however, was more interested in gray forms, bobbing about.

  Jones made a halt here to rest and water the horses, he said, and let the other wagons catch up. Sterl got out to stretch his legs, mindful to be cautious about snakes. Upon his return, Red was making friends with the other teamsters, always an easy task for the friendly, loquacious cowboy. These Australian drivers appeared to belong to a larger, brawnier type than most American outdoor men, and certainly were different from the lean, lithe, narrow-hipped, round-legged cowboy. They built a fire and set about making tea, “boiling the billy,” Jones affirmed. Sterl sampled the beverage and being strange even to American tea he sagely and humorously said: “Now, I savvy why you English are so strong.”

  “I should smile,” Red drawled, making a wry face. “Stronger ’n aquafortis. I shore could ride days on thet drink.”

  The afternoon journey was a repetition of the morning, the only difference existing in an exaggerated sameness for some miles and in others a monotony of green and dearth of life. Only one other station was passed. Densely wooded hills at last spread away to permit of another green valley, marked at the far end by a huge tree that must have been a landmark for leagues around. Upon arriving at this monarch, which stood on the bank of a creek, Jones drove into a cleared space under the enormously spreading branches and called a halt for camp.

  “Wal, Rol, what air there for me an’ my pard to do?” queried the genial Red.

  “That depends. What can you Yankees do?” Jones replied simply, as if really asking information.

  Red took that query dubiously. He cocked a blazing blue eye at the teamster and drawled: “Wal, it’d take a lot less time, if you’d ask what we cain’t do. I reckon, though, I’d better make you acquainted with our gifts. Outside of possessin’ all the cowboy traits such as ridin’, ropin’, shootin’, we can hunt, butcher, cook, bake sour-dough biscuits an’ cake, shoe hosses, mend saddle-girths, plait ropes, chop wood, build fires in wet weather, bandage wounds an’ men with broken bones, smoke, drink, play poker, an’ fight. I reckon Sterl an’ I can do about anything ’cept wash pots an’ pans an’ dig fence post holes.”

  “You forgot one thing, I’ve observed, Red, and that is you can talk,” replied Jones, still sober-faced as a judge.

  “Yeah? I reckon I ain’t so pore at that, either,” Red rejoined, just a little crestfallen. “But fun aside, what can we do?”

  “Anything you can lay a hand to,” answered the driver cheerily.

  Sterl set out to do something useful, but outside of helping unhitch the team he did not get anywhere. One by one the other wagons rolled up. These teamsters were efficient and long used to camp tasks. The one who evidently was cook knew his business. “Easy when you have everything,” he said to Sterl. “But when we get out on trek, with nothing but meat and tea, and damper, then no cook is good.”

  Suddenly a wild yell from Red startled Sterl, and, running around the wagon, he saw the cowboy making prodigious leaps. He stopped, his red hair standing up like a flame, and his language was blasphemous.

  “What’d you see, pard?” called Sterl.

  “Snake! Long as my laig. He made a pass at me. Hit my boot. I’m gonna kill th
et hombre.”

  “What color?” Jones asked.

  “He was blue-black. Slim an’ long. Did he slip through the grass? Come on, Sterl, let’s waylay the son-of-a-gun. You go first, pard. You never been bit by a snake. He was in there.”

  Diligent search, however, failed to discover the serpent, much to Red’s chagrin. “Rascal might crawl in my bed.”

  Sterl and Red had time to put up their tent and unroll their beds before they were called to supper. It proved to be a good, wholesome repast, the first appetizing repast the cowboys had enjoyed since their arrival in Australia.

  “Cook,” said Red, “thet grub was so darn’ good I gotta help you wash up.”

  Sterl got out his rifle and, loading it, strolled away from camp along the edge of the creek. The sun was setting gold, lighting the shiny-barked gums and burnishing the long, green leaves. He came upon a tree fern where high over his head the graceful, lacy leaves drooped down. That was Sterl’s first sight of a giant fern. The great gum tree, too, came in for a share of his reverence and admiration. All riders of the bare ranges loved trees. This red gum, as the guide had named it, was by far the most magnificent tree Sterl had ever seen. It stood over two hundred feet high, with no branches for half that distance, and then they spread wide as large in themselves as ordinary trees. The color was a pale green with round pieces of red-brown bark sloughing off. In one lofty notch Sterl saw a bushel of slivers of bark that had lodged there.

  All at once Sterl’s keen eye caught a movement of something. It was a small, round, furry animal, gray in color, with blunt head and small ears. It was clinging to a branch, peering comically down at Sterl. It did not look afraid. Then Sterl espied another one, farther up, and then another way out on the same branch, and at last a fourth, swinging gently upon a swaying tip. Sterl yelled lustily for Red and Jones. They answered, and directly came running through the grass and brush.