The Great Trek Read online

  “Look, Red. Up in the tree…. Jones, what are those queer little animals?”

  “Native bears. Koala bears,” said the teamster, when he had located them. “Queensland bush alive with them.”

  “Bears! Well, I’ll be darned,” Sterl shouted, delighted.

  “Pard, pass me yore gun,” said Red.

  “Umpumm, you blood-thirsty cowboy! They look tame.”

  “They are tame,” rejoined Jones. “Friendly little fellows. Leslie has some for pets.”

  “Do you have other Australian bears?”

  “No. The koala is the only one.”

  “Jones, we have bears in Arizona that weigh over a thousand pounds and can kill a steer with one blow of a paw. Grizzlies are bad medicine. I’m sure I like your little Koalas much better.”

  They returned to camp, over which twilight soon settled down, and night made the campfire pleasant. The teamsters, through for the day, sat around smoking and talking. They made a robust, ruddy-visaged group. Campfires in Australia seemed to have the same cheer, the same opal hearths and flying sparks, the same drawing together of kindred spirits that they had on the ranges of America. The great Southern Cross stood almost straight above Sterl, an aloof and marvelous constellation that proved to him, despite the campfire, that he was an exile in a foreign land. How much farther his thought might have drifted did not materialize, owing to a dismal chorus of wild barks from the darkness.

  “Holy Mackeli!” burst out Red. “What next? Heah’s a flock of dawgs.”

  “Dingoes,” a teamster said.

  “Dingoes. Haw! Haw! Another funny one. Any dingoes about heah? An’ jest what air these dingoes?”

  “Wild dogs. They overrun Australia. Hunt in packs. When hungry, which is often, they’re dangerous to man.”

  “Sterl, didn’t our coyotes come from wild dawgs?” asked Red.

  “No. I’ve heard that our domesticated dogs descended from coyotes and wolves. Listen, isn’t that a dismal sound? Not a yelp in it. Nor any of that long, wailing, sharp cry we range riders love so well.”

  “Say, will them durn’ dingoes keep thet up all night?” Red asked.

  “You’ll get used to them.”

  “Wal, I kinda like it at thet. Shore is wild an’ lonesome. Sterl, let’s go to bed. Come to think of it, we forgot about our muskeeter nets.”

  “A little too cool tonight to be bothered,” Jones said. “We’ll run into some farther Outback. And on the Never Never there are mosquitoes that bite through two pairs of socks.”

  “Gee! I never even have one pair. But thet’s nothin’ a-tall, Rol. We have muskeeters in Texas thet can drill through a copper kettle. Fact! I heahed about one cowboy who struck ’em bad one night, when he was left alone. A flock of them big, white-winged ’skeeters flew down on him. Smoke an’ fire didn’t help none. By golly, he had to take refuge under a copper kettle thet the cook had. Wal, the sons-of-guns bored through the kettle. The cowboy took his gun an’ riveted their bills on the inside. An’ damn me, if them ’skeeters didn’t fly away with the kettle.”

  Red’s listeners remained mute under the onslaught of that story, no doubt beginning a reversal in serious acceptance of all the cowboy had said. Sterl followed Red toward their tent.

  “Knocked ’em cold, hey pard?” whispered Red in great glee.

  “You knocked ’em, Red, but I couldn’t swear it was cold.”

  “Good night, Yanks,” Jones called. “Breakfast early tomorrow. We leave at daylight. Long drive.”

  “Red, old bedfellow, you could always make friends easily. You’re just a no-good, likable cuss. But for cripe’s sake don’t start any of your Texas cowboy tricks on these Australians.”

  “I reckon not, pard,” Red responded soberly. “I’m shore leery of them. But all the same I like them. Gosh! I’m skeered of sleepin’ in this heah tent. Why, an elephant could get in. I reckon I ain’t gonna sleep a wink.”

  But Red was slumbering soundly not long after he stretched out with a grateful groan. Sterl was weary, too. His eyes shut as if glued. Still he was aware of the strange Australian sounds. And his consciousness knocked at the door of the past, which he had closed forever. There were ghosts coming down the dim aisles of memory, when he fell asleep.

  He awakened at the crackling of fire without. Dark, moving shadows on the yellow tent wall told that the teamsters were stirring. But daylight had not come. Boots and coat were all Sterl had to put on to be fully dressed. He rolled over Red, saying the while—“The day’s busted, old-timer.”—which elicited murderous reply from his comrade.

  Sterl parted the tent flaps and went out to find it dark as pitch beyond the blazing fires, air cold, stars like great, white lanterns through the trees, fragrance of ham and tea wafting strong.

  “ ’Morning, Hazelton,” was Jones’s cheery greeting. “Was just going to yell that cowboy call…‘Come and get it!’ We’ll have a good early start.”

  Sterl observed with satisfaction that there was hot water to wash in, a fact which Red greeted with exultation. In a moment they were kneeling at the spread tarpaulin, where all conversation ceased as if by magic.

  In the gray of dawn Jones drove out, leading the caravan. Sterl could not recall when he had faced a day with such exuberance. This far country, this extraordinary contrast to all he had known, began to earn a singular response. Red could not fool him with his dry complaints. The cowboy was trying to hide his glad surprise.

  A long, gradual ascent through thick bush offered no view, but the melodious carol of magpies, the squall of the cockatoos, the sweet songs of thrush and other birds were worth the early rising. The stars paled and died, the gray lightened, the brightening in the east grew rosy, and soon it was day.

  Topping the long ascent Jones drove out of the bush into the open. “Kangaroo Flat,” said the teamster. “Thirty miles. Good road. We’ll camp at the other end tonight, unless you cowboys go gun berserk.”

  “Gun berserk?” shrilled the ever-touchy Red, apparently insulted. “What the hell you mean?”

  “Lots of game to shoot at,” Jones replied mildly.

  “Aw, that’s fine. Holy Mackeli, pard, air you seein’ what I see?”

  Sterl was, indeed, and quite speechless. The scene was lovely in the extreme. A soft, hazed valley, so long the far end appeared lost in purple vagueness, stretched out beneath them, like a sea burnished with golden fire. It was so fresh, so pure, so marvelously vivid in sunrise tones. The enchanted distances struck Sterl anew. Australia was prodigal with its endless leagues. He imagined he gazed through a crystal-clear, painted veil. As the sun came up above the low bushland, a wave of flame stirred the long grass and spread on and on. The cool air blew sweet and odorous into Sterl’s face, reminding him of the purple sage uplands of Utah.

  “Wal, heah we air, pard, an’ I gotta admit it’s pretty nifty,” Red said, which encomium from him was, indeed, flattering.

  Down on a level again their view was restricted to space near at hand. A band of dingoes gave them a parting chorus where the bush met the flat. Rabbits began to scurry through the short, gray-green grass and run ahead along the road, and they increased in numbers until there appeared to be thousands.

  “One of Australia’s great pests,” said Jones.

  “Yeah? Wal, in that case I gotta take some pegs,” replied Red, and he proceeded to raise the small caliber rifle and to shoot at running targets. This little rifle and the thousands of shells had been gifts from Sterl, and the cowboy had at once put his enjoyment into effect. Sterl could see Red did not hit any of the rabbits. Deadly shot with a hand gun, as were so many cowboys, Red could not hit a flock of barns with a rifle. Sterl’s unerring aim, however, applied to both weapons.

  That was the beginning of a wonderful day, in which time stood still or flew swiftly by, Sterl could not tell which. Some miles out on the flat, kangaroos made their appearance, sticking their heads out of the grass, long ears erect, standing at gaze watching the wagon go by, or hopping with
their awkward, yet easy, gait along ahead. In some places they slowed the trotting team to a walk, and, here, Red began to yell at them and shoot at their long tails, to both of which they appeared oblivious.

  The sky was dotted with waterfowl. Jones explained there were water courses through the flat and a small lake in the center, where birds congregated by the thousands. With the sun soaring on high and the light growing brilliant, the winged and four-legged life of that grassy expanse took on what appeared to be an incredible manifestation of the fecundity of nature.

  The cowboys were used to sterile ranges where, for days, there would be a dearth of life, and where herds of buffalo, bands of antelope, and colonies of jack rabbits and coyotes were few and far between. Whereforth this fertile and fecund meadow was a joy to behold. Sterl reverted to the boy in him and Red to the savage. The wagon rolled along the level road that wandered from a straight line at times to go around sedgy low places and streams, and behind it crawled the other wagons and drays, spread far apart.

  While looking back, Sterl’s quick eye caught a broken column of smoke rising from the bushland in the rear.

  “By golly! Red, look at that. Like Indian smoke signals.”

  “Shore, I was wonderin’ about that. How about it, Rol?”

  “Black men, signaling across the flat. Look over there. They know all about us twenty miles ahead. The aborigines talk with smoke.”

  “All the same desert stuff,” Red announced. “Dog-goned small world.”

  Far ahead, somewhat to the left, toward which the road appeared to turn, Sterl made out two dim, broken columns of smoke, miles apart. He studied them with foreboding interest.

  “Jones, I’ve a hunch these black fellows are going to cross our trail,” he said soberly.

  “Yes, you’ve reason to. Stanley Dann, who’s mustering this big trek, says the abos will be our worst obstacle.”

  “Has Dann made a trek before?”

  “No. This will be new to all the drovers.”

  “Do they believe there’s safety in numbers?”

  “That is one reason for the large muster of bushmen and cattle.”

  “Like our wagon trains crossing the Great Plains. They have caravans with as many as two hundred wagons. This ensures reasonable safety from the Indians. But driving cattle is a different thing. The Texas trail drivers found out that ten or twelve cowboys and up to three thousand head of longhorns moved faster, had fewer stampedes, and lost fewer cattle.”

  “Ours will be a great trek,” rejoined the teamster ponderingly.

  At noon Jones made a halt at a water hole and waited for the other wagons to come up. The cook had hauled a supply of firewood, which augured for the importance of brewing tea. The halt, the rest, and a bite of lunch seemed regular to Red, although he was not used to that kind of travel, but this solemn and evidently necessary “boiling the billy” intrigued and interested him exceedingly.

  “Say, what’d you hombres do if you ran out of tea?” he asked bluntly.

  “We’ve never suffered that misfortune yet,” replied Jones.

  “An’ you’re gonna muster a mob of seven thousand steers, drove ’em three thousand miles over Never Never Land where there ain’t never no water, no whiskey, no air you can breathe, never nothin’ but heat, dust,’ skeeters, an’ cannibals?”

  “Red, it sounds ridiculous, spoken out like that, but it’s just what we are going to try to do,” returned Jones gravely.

  “Uhn-huh. No…not…never! But I gotta hand it to you all for nerve,” concluded Red.

  After a short rest the cavalcade proceeded onward across the rippling sea of colored grass. Sterl’s satiated sense of pleasure soon had a revivifying shock. The road passed along streams and pools where thousands of wildfowl lent animation and varied hues. Jones appeared to have quite a fund of bird knowledge. The herons were not new to Sterl, but white ibis, spoonbills, egrets, jaribu, and other wading fowl afforded him lasting wonder and appreciation. The storks particularly caught his eye. Their number seemed incredible. Many of them let the wagon pass by within a few yards. They were mostly gray in color, huge crane-like birds, tall as a man, and they had red on their heads, and huge bills. The problem of the enormous amount of food they consumed had a solution in the action of these waders. These waters, however, must be extremely prolific of frogs and fish.

  Beyond the wet center of the flat both birds and beasts thinned out. Sterl exchanged places with Red, and, drowsy from excessive looking, he went to sleep. He was awakened by yells. Sitting up, he found Red waving and wild. Sterl saw that he must have slept quite a while, for the blue gleam of water, like a mirage, showed dim and far back along the road. All the wagons were in sight. Almost the same instant Sterl attended to his excited friend.

  “Ostriches! Black ostriches!” Red yelled, beside himself. “Whoever’d thunk it? Dog-gone my pictures! Sterl, wake up. You’re missin’ somethin’, or I’m shore loco.”

  Wheeling to the fore, Sterl did not need Red’s extended arm to sight a line of huge, black bird-creatures, long-necked and long-legged, racing across the road. They were certainly ostriches, and they made the dust fly. Sterl found himself calculating on the possibility of running down these fleet birds with a fast horse and lassoing one. It could have been done.

  “Emu,” said the teamster laconically. “You run over them Outback.”

  Sterl watched the emus go out of sight in the heat-hazed distance. Next thing to inflame the dynamic Red was a band of dingoes that boldly raced close—sleek, nimble, tan-colored, vicious dogs. Red emptied the magazine of his rifle at them, the last shot of which elicited a wild howl from one.

  Mile after mile Jones drove on, until at length even the sensitive, imaginative Sterl began to feel the dominant note of endless distances that brooded over this sunny land. It grew upon him. And he received his first intimation of the absolute need for patience. This was like the mañana land of the Mexicans, the land where it is always afternoon. After sober reflection Sterl was glad the hours bade fair to stretch out to treble their normal length and his life in Australia, if it did not come to an untimely end, be prolonged indefinitely, surely long enough to blot out the mess he had made of it in Arizona.

  “As I’m a born sinner, heah comes a bunch of hosses!” Red exclaimed, pointing. With the Texas cowboy on the lookout there was not much chance of anyone beating him to sight of moving things. On the range Red had been noted even among hawk-eyed riders and vaqueros for his keen sight.

  “Brumbies,” Jones declared.

  “What? What you say?” shouted Red. “If they’re not wild hosses, I’ll eat ’em.”

  “Wild, surely. But they’re brumbies,” said the Australian.

  Red emitted a disgusted snort. “Brumbies! Who in the hell ever heahed of callin’ wild hosses such an orful name? Ain’t you English supposed to have originated the English language? I can stand for a lot, Jones, but wild hosses air wild hosses anywhere. Once in our outfit we had a grub-line rider who called every band we run into broomtails. Broomtails! Imagine that to a Texas hoss-lovin’ hombre! By gosh, I had finally to lick that feller, an’ he was a tough nut to crack.”

  “Red, it was sort of a silly name…that broomtail,” responded Jones with his rare grin. “Brumbies is quite as bad. I suggest we have an interchange and understanding of names, so you won’t have to lick me.”

  “Wal, I reckon I couldn’t lick you, at thet,” Red retorted quick as a flash to meet friendliness. “You’re an orful big chap, Rol, an’ could probably beat hell out of me pronto. So I’ll take you up.”

  “What does pronto mean?”

  “Quick. Right now. I heahed you say pad. In my country a pad is what you put under a saddle to ease yore hoss. What is it heah?”

  “A pad is a path through the bush. A narrow, single track.”

  “Uhn-huh. But thet’s a trail, Rol. Say, you’re gonna have fun ediccatin’ us. Sterl heah had a mother who was a school-teacher, an’ he’s one smart hombre.”
/>   While the horses trotted along, the harness jingled, the wheels creaked, the sun slanted toward the far horizon, the brightness changed to gold and rose. It was some time short of twilight when Jones hauled up at the edge of the bush, which had beckoned for so many hours. A bare spot on the bank of a deep, slow-moving stream attested to many campfires.

  “Made it fine before dark,” Jones said with satisfaction. “I was sure you cowboys would run hog-wild across the flat and hold us up.”

  “Hog-wild? Wal, I don’t have to have thet translated. But, Rol, when you spring a lot of names on us thet mean two things, you’d better smile.”

  “Look!” interposed Sterl, coming out of his trance to point at the forms that had transfixed him. They were natives, of course, but a first actual sight was stunning.

  “Black man, with gin and lubra, and some kids,” said Jones.

  “Holy Mackeli!” Red ejaculated. “They look human…but…?”

  Sterl’s comrade, with his usual perspicuity, had hit it. The group of natives stood just at the edge of the bush on the far bank of the stream. Sterl saw six figures out in the open, but he had a glimpse of others back in the bush. The man was exceedingly tall, thin, black as coal, almost naked. He held a spear upright, and it stood far above his shaggy head. A scant beard covered the lower part of his face. His big, bold, somber eyes glared a moment, then with a long stride he went back into the bush. The women lingered curiously. The older, the gin, was hideous to behold. The lubra, a young girl, gained immeasurably by contrast. She appeared sturdy and voluptuous. Both were naked except for short, grass skirts. The children were wholly nude, with distended potbellies their distinguishing features. A harsh voice sent them scurrying into the bush.

  “Saw that old black on my way in,” Jones said. “He’s not too bad. But there are some mean ones in his tribe.”

  “I’d hate to meet that long-laiged hombre in the dark,” rejoined Red.

  “Hope they come around our campfire,” Sterl added with zest.