The Great Trek Read online

  “We will go,” added Sterl, and his tone was a pledge. “But gratitude and wonder about the drovers.”

  “Hazelton, I grasp that you think we have no true idea of what this undertaking means,” responded Dann, with a seriousness that matched Sterl’s.

  “Stanley, I could say the same thing,” said Slyter. “Are we wrong and is Hazelton right?”

  “Stumps me. Maybe we allow ambition and greed to blind us. Maybe we idealize this trek.”

  “Have you ever driven cattle into a hard wilderness, months on end, against all the hard knocks a desolate country and forbidding nature can deal you?”

  “No, Hazelton, we have never been on a real trek. But my brother Eric has. He slights the hardships either because he is callous, unfeeling, or because he doesn’t want me to know. In fact, Eric has failed after several starts in Queensland, and he has been instrumental in fostering this great trek.”

  “Then you know little of actual contact with life in the raw, with hard men desperate in a hard time?” queried Sterl.

  “In the way you mean I must admit…nothing at all.”

  “Are you asking my advice?”

  “Indeed, yes.”

  “For God’s sake, leave the women home!”

  “Impossible. They won’t stay behind,” Dann asserted with finality.

  “Well, I had that hunch. So did Red. Dann, in such times as I’ve intimated, a few of which I’ve lived through, when men are faced with primitive, savage things…greed, lust, blood, hate, starvation, thirst, fear, some of them become gods and most of them beasts.”

  Dann nodded his leonine locks. “It’s too late now, even if I would back out. Hazelton, perhaps Providence sent you range men to help us. I believe so…I hope so. Slyter, I suggest that you let these cowboys join my drovers. Ormiston will then join you, I know, and with his drovers you will have eight.”

  “Stanley, I’m sorry. I won’t accept, either,” Slyter replied decisively.

  “You are right not to. I was selfish. Ormiston can join me or stay back, as he chooses. Anyhow, soon all our cattle will be thrown into one great mob. Now, Hazelton, to get down to fundamentals. Tell us just what kind of range you have driven mobs of cattle over…how far…what kind of obstacles…how you worked.”

  “That’s easy, gentlemen, and you can believe what I tell you,” replied Sterl. “Some years ago, just after the Civil War, Texas was overrun with millions of longhorn cattle. The ranchers had no home market. A rancher named Jesse Chisholm conceived the idea of driving herds of cattle from southern Texas across the plains to Kansas. Red here was a boy of eighteen when the trail driving got into its great stride. I came on later. But we both had hard and terrible drives. Chisholm started out with over three thousand head of cattle and twelve riders. The distance was approximately five hundred miles. He made it in something over ninety days, losing four cowboys and two thousand head of cattle. But he sold what was left of his herd at so big a price that he made a huge profit. His success inaugurated trail driving in Texas. Millions of cattle have been driven up the Chisholm Trail, which is now a wide, deep lane across the plains.

  “As for hardships…there are many. I’ll name the important ones. In that early day there were all of fifty million buffalo that ranged from the Gulf in the south to the Dakotas in the north. This vast herd traveled south in the fall, and returned north the next spring. For years stampedes of buffalo were the worst obstacle the trail drivers had to overcome. Next to that were the attacks and raids of savage tribes. The Indians saw that the doom of the buffalo was inevitable, and, as they lived on the buffalo, it meant their doom, also. The Comanches were the fiercest tribe, next the Kiowas, the Apaches, the Cherokees, and so on. Seldom did any trail herd ever escape from an attack. There were many rivers to ford, some of them big and wide, often flooded. Thousands of cattle, with horses and riders, were lost every year in floods. In dry years there were long drives from water to water, often entailing great loss and suffering from thirst. Thunderstorms often stampeded herds. The electric storms struck everywhere, and balls of fire rolled along the ground, and streaks of fire ran across the backs of horses and cattle…these electric storms always stampeded a herd. Dust storms, sand storms were terrible to drive against. Trail drivers suffered from intense heat, and many were victims of sunstroke. In the fall and winter, del norte, the freezing gale that blew out of a clear sky from the north, was something the riders hated and feared. Lastly, there came the development of rustling…the era of the cattle thieves, which is in its heyday right now, and they caused more fighting and blood-spilling than the Indians. There, gentlemen, I’ve covered the main points in regard to what trail drivers had to meet.”

  “Wonderful! Wonderful!” Dann exclaimed, his eyes shining. “Jesse Chisholm was a man after my heart. A savior of Texas, yes?”

  “Indeed, he saved Texas and built the cattle empire.”

  Red emitted a cloud of smoke, and drawled: “Boss, I rode for Jesse once. He was a great hombre. Harder than the hinges on the gates of hell! Sometime I’ll tell you stories about him…one thing special, his jingle-bob brand, thet was so famous.”

  “Boys, I’ll eat your stories up, when time permits,” boomed the drover. “I thank the good Lord for sending you to Australia, and, Slyter, I thank you for fetching them here. Hazelton, one thing more. How did you drive your mobs?”

  “We rounded them up into a great triangle, with the apex pointing in the direction we had to go. Pointing the herd, that was called. Two of the nerviest and hardest-riding cowboys had the lead at the point. The mass of cattle would follow the leads. Two cowboys on each side at the center of the herd, the rest at the broad base where stragglers and deserters…drags, we call them…have to be carefully watched and driven.”

  “Were you one of those cowboys who rode at the head and pointed the herd?” queried Dann, a warm light from his big eyes shining upon Sterl.

  “No, but Red was, always. I was a good hand after the drags. Then, I could handle a rifle.”

  “Shake hands with me, cowboys,” bellowed Dann, and his giant clasp nearly wrenched Sterl’s hand, sinewy and hard as it was. Red bent double and let out a yell. “Aw, boss, I’m gonna need that mitt!”

  “Slyter, I’ll go home and cheer up my womenfolk with a word about these God-sent Yankee cowboys you found for us,” Dann concluded. “I’ll order my drovers to start my mob tomorrow, positively. I’ll tell Ormiston come with us, or go to hell, as he chooses…. Meet us out on the trek. Good bye.”

  He was gone, his swift, heavy steps resounding. Slyter’s keen gaze on the cowboys seemed to ask tribute for this pioneer Australian. It would have been forthcoming, without solicitation.

  “Boss, he’s another Chisholm, shore as we’re born,” Red said.

  “Slyter, I like him,” added Sterl warmly, “his heart matches his body. He’s the leader for such a trek.”

  “Fine!” exclaimed Slyter. “You fired Stanley Dann as no one ever did before. Boys, go home and set your hands to things. Tell Leslie we leave day after tomorrow.”

  Slyter’s tenseness, his pallor and thick voice silenced the cowboys and gave them another intimation of the colossal enterprise at hand. Sterl and Red were young, without attachments or duties, free to answer the call of adventure. Slyter and Dann and their partners were men of family, with great responsibilities. To abandon homes, to tear up ties by the roots, to risk the lives of loved ones along with their own, all for the chimera of fortune, to go forth to seek and find the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow—what splendid courage, what faith, what greatness!

  Sterl became aware that the store was full of curious people. He and Red were the cynosure of all eyes. Red enjoyed such attention, but Sterl hated it, especially, as had happened so often, when he had just engaged in a fight. He shivered when he thought how closely he had come to shooting Ormiston’s leg off or worse; a sinister move on the man’s part would have meant his death. Sterl felt the heritage of the hard life of a trail drive
r. How easily for the leap of tigerish blood that had been developed and fostered in him. He had hoped Australia had not bred the type of badmen whom he had been compelled to work among. But this Ormiston was a man to inspire instant hate.

  Outside the store the crowd began to disperse. Leslie met them with her arms full of packages. Sterl promptly relieved her of some of them, while Red took the rest. Red made a drawling remark about being a pack horse, but Sterl, after one look at Leslie’s white face and eyes blazing almost black, felt too dismayed to speak. Leslie had seen his encounter with Ormiston. If he were not mistaken, the girl betrayed singular manifestations of anger. He wondered if these Outback Australians, well educated and poised as they seemed to be, had under their veneer the primitive instincts natural to such a wild, primitive country. Of course, they would. No race could escape its environment.

  As Leslie walked along between him and Red, she had a hand on Sterl’s arm. And it was not a light touch. They came to a point opposite the horses.

  “Heah we air, Jester, a-gonna make a pack hoss out of you fust thing,” spoke up Red, and Sterl knew the cowboy was talking to ease the situation. Sterl could see, too, how Red had a vigilant eye on all points. No surprising that trail driver at home or abroad! Red did not like the situation.

  “Leslie, have you finished your buying?” asked Sterl.

  “Not quite. But I’ll not stay longer…in town,” she replied in a thick, unsteady tone. She mounted her horse as Sterl remembered seeing Comanches mount. “Let me have a couple of packages.”

  Handing these to her, Sterl looked up into her face, impelled by its stress.

  “Leslie…you were there?” he asked.

  “Yes. I ran after you…to tell you something…I forget what…and I saw it…all.”

  “I’m sorry. Bad luck like that always hounds me.”

  “Who said it was bad luck?” she retorted. “I never…had such a thrill. But Sterl…you jumped at that chance to smash Ormiston…on my account!”

  “Well…Friday’s first…and then yours. Still I’d have interfered, if I’d never heard of either of you. I’m built that way, Leslie.”

  “You’re built greatly, then. A thrill hardly does justice to what I felt…when you hit him. But, afterward…when it looked like a gun fight…I nearly fainted. And Sterl, I’ve seen gun fights, at the races…without being squeamish…it was…something else.”

  “So that’s why you’re so pale?” rejoined Sterl, endeavoring to speak lightly, and he turned to King. The black champed his bit and pranced a little, but gave Sterl no trouble. Red led off the street, saying: “Pard, this heah burg ain’t Dodge or Lincoln, but I shore don’t trust it.”

  The horses were skittish for a spell, but beyond the busy sector of the town they toned down, so that Sterl and Leslie could resume their conversation.

  “Am I pale, Sterl?” she asked.

  “Not so much now. But for a few minutes back you were white as a sheet. And your eyes black!”

  “Sterl, I ran into Ormiston.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “I’ll never tell you,” she replied.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s easy to see you…and Red, too…would be worse than Dad.”

  “Leslie, are you keeping secrets for Ormiston’s sake or ours?” asked Sterl with constraint.

  “Yours. I’ll stave off that fight as long as I can. But, oh, I know it will come!”

  “So do I. Well, Leslie, what did you say?”

  “I don’t remember everything. One thing, though, was what you called him…a yellow dog.”

  “Leslie! That will tickle Red. It’s not calculated to make Ormiston love me any better.”

  “How he could hate you so fiendishly…all in a moment…is beyond me.”

  “I slugged him…dared him to draw…showed him up before all those people, and you. Wasn’t that provocation enough to make his breed do murder?”

  “Sterl, I mean the man is two-faced. I felt it just now. He’s not what he made himself out to be to Mum and Dad and me.”

  “Don’t doubt it,” Sterl replied thoughtfully. “Do you think he’ll make good his threat not to be on the trek?”

  “I do not,” said the girl positively. “Ash Ormiston couldn’t be kept from going. I wouldn’t say wholly because he’s so keen after Beryl Dann and me.”

  “Beryl, too? Well! He’s what Red would call an enterprising gent.”

  “He’s deep, Sterl. And he doesn’t love either cattle or horses. I can’t explain what I feel. And I distrust his attitude toward the trek.”

  “Not a born pioneer, eh? Leslie, if he does go, I’ll bet he doesn’t last long.”

  “Oh, you’ll fight!” she cried.

  “Not that I’ll provoke it. I’ll say, though, if Ormiston joined one of our trail drives in Texas, he’d get shot pronto. Leslie, what had he against Friday?”

  “He had enough. I should have told you that. One Sunday, several weeks ago, when Mum and Dad were in town, Ormiston came out and found me in my hammock. He made violent love to me. I was scared, Sterl. He…I…I fought him…and I must have cried out. For Friday ran up with his spear. It was all I could do to keep him from killing Ormiston.”

  “So that was it? No man, drunk or sober, could have the passion I saw Ormiston show without some cause. Leslie, you met Friday…tried to stop him. Did he say anything?”

  “He said…Black fella killum bimeby! Friday will do it, too, unless somebody else does. These aborigines are wonderful people, Sterl. You’ll think so, when you learn to know them.”

  “Is Friday going on the trek?”

  “Dad wants him. To track lost horses. The blacks are marvelous trackers. Dad claims Friday is the greatest he ever knew. But Friday says, no. Maybe you can persuade him, Sterl. A black never forgets a wrong or fails to return a service.”

  “I sure will try. What a lot I could learn! Hello, there’s Red beside one of those Dann wagons. Leslie, I’ll bet he stopped to see Beryl again.”

  “Good-o!” squealed Leslie merrily. “Red’s not letting any grass grow under his feet.”

  They soon reached Red, who evidently had waited for them.

  “Howdy, folks,” he drawled with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “Reckoned I’d wait for you.”

  “Red, you’ve seen Beryl again,” declared Leslie.

  “Me? Umpumm! I was jest watchin’ them pack the wagon,” returned Red innocently.

  They rode on at a canter without any incident except the dropping of a package by Red, whose horse required some riding. And soon they arrived at the valley, to cross the creek and halt at the paddock.

  “Boys, I’ll go on to the house,” Leslie said, dismounting. “I can carry these bundles. I’ll be helping Mum for a while. Suppose you try out some of your own horses. And come up later for tea. Oh, yes, and to see my pets.”

  “Don’t care if I do, unless I want to be spoiled riding King. Leslie Slyter, mark my words, you’ll be to blame,” declared Sterl.

  “Wish I could spoil you, Sterl Hazelton,” Leslie said, her eyes betraying what she seemed wholly unconscious of.

  “Yeah? Wal, I can stand some, too,” drawled Red. “Heah, gimme some of them bundles. Pard, I’ll run along with Leslie, far as our tent. I’ve got a couple jobs to get done, one in particular, sewin’ on thet canvas floor. There was some kind of a varmint come in last night, an’ skeered me stiff.”

  “Opossum. They are as tame as cats. I like them, especially the furry, brown ones with the rings round their eyes.”

  Left to his own devices, Sterl went among the horses he had selected for the trek, which Roland had tethered in the shed, and set about the slow and pleasing task of making friends with them. He had always been one cowboy that did not deliberately ruffle the temper of horses the wrong way. And while he engaged in this friendly task, he mused over the momentous ride to town. He could no more keep things from happening to him than he could stop breathing. He recalled only one man, out of th
e many rustlers and hard characters who had crossed his trail, who had incited as quick a hatred as had this man Ormiston. After a little pondering Sterl decided that, if possible, he would keep out of the man’s way, and as always be vigilant to avoid friction. Offsetting Ormiston’s peculiar power to engender base and resentful feeling was thought of the inspiring presence of Stanley Dann. Here was a man. Sterl harkened to the chief drover’s need. And Sterl did not pass by the fair-haired Beryl, with her proud, dark-blue eyes and the poise of her head. Leslie, however, occasioned him more sentiment than he thought could be possible for a cowboy who had broken his heart and ruined his life for another girl, whom he had renounced forever. Leslie was appealing in many ways, but the charm she had, which he found vague, sweet, and disquieting, was the fact of his apparent appeal to her, of which he felt she was wholly unconscious.

  When the sun stood straight overhead, Sterl wended a meditative way down along the creek toward camp. Of one thing he felt unalterably sure—he was in the open again, away from the restraint of walls and ships, already in contact with Nature, with trees, birds, beasts, snakes, horses, about to ride out on this incredible trek, that menaced with all Australia’s interior, primal perils. That was enough. That was all left him in life, this strenuous action of the natural man. Sterl discounted any lasting relation to these good white folks who needed him.

  While gazing into a clear pool, watching the fish, he fancied he heard a loud, prolonged laugh. But there did not appear to be any of the men within sight or hearing. He was glad he had included some fishing tackle, and everything else he could think of, in that orgy of spending at Brisbane. As long as the wagons held up on that trek, some of these useful purchases would last.

  Sterl found Red sitting before the tent, profoundly thoughtful and solemn. He did not even hear Sterl’s approach.

  “Say, cowboy, has that blonde girl locoed you? I can remember when you were all for brunettes.”

  Red apparently did not catch the import of Sterl’s good-natured taunt. “Pard, did you heah anythin’?” he asked almost in a whisper.