on lightly as hardly worth mentioning; while “eating yourself out of tucker, and getting down to water-rats and bandicoots,” compared favourably with a day or two spent in trees or on stockyard fences. As for crossing a river on a stout wire rope! After the first few reminiscences, and an incident or two in connection with “doing the horse’s-tail trick,” that appeared an exceedingly safe and pleasant way of overcoming the difficulty, and it became very evident why women do not travel “during the Wet.”
It was a singularly beautiful night, shimmering with warm tropical moonlight, and hoarse with the shouting of frogs and the roar of the river—a night that demanded attention; and, gradually losing interest in hair-breadth escapes from drowning, Mac joined in the song of the frogs.
“Quar-r-rt pot! Quar-r-rt pot!” he sang in hoarse, strident minims, mimicking to perfection the shouts of the leaders, leaning with them on the “quar-r-rt” in harsh gutturals, and spitting out the “pot” in short, deep staccatos. Quicker and quicker the song ran, as the full chorus of frogs joined in. From minims to crotchets, and from crotchets to quavers it flowed, and Mac, running with it, gurgled with a new refrain at the quavers. “More-water, more-water, hot-water, hot-water,” he sang rapidly in tireless reiteration, until he seemed the leader and the frogs the followers, singing the words he put into their mouths. Lower and lower the chorus sank, but just before it died away, an old bull-frog started every one afresh with a slow, booming “quar-r-rt pot!” and Mac stopped for breath. “Now you know the song of the frogs,” he laughed. “We’ll teach you all the songs of the Never-Never in time; listen!” and listening, it was hard to believe that this was our one-time telegraphing bush-whacker. Dropping his voice to a soft, sobbing moan, as a pheasant called from the shadows, he lamented with it for “Puss! Puss! Puss! Puss! Poor Puss! Poor Puss!”
The sound roused a dove in the branches above us, and as she stirred in her sleep and cooed softly, Mac murmured drowsily: “Move-over-dear, Move-over dear”; and the dove, taking up the refrain, crooned it again and again to its mate.
The words of the songs were not Mac’s. They belong to the lore of the bushmen; but he sang or crooned them with such perfect mimicry of tone or cadence, that never again was it possible to hear these songs of the Never-Never without associating the words with the songs.
The night was full of sounds, and one by one Mac caught them up, and the bush appeared to echo him; and leaning half drowsily, against the pack-saddles and swags, we listened until we slipped into one of those quiet reveries that come so naturally to bush-folk. Shut in on all sides by bush and tall timber, with the rushing river as sentinel, we seemed in a world all our own—a tiny human world, with a camp fire for its hub; and as we dreamed on, half conscious of the moonlight and shoutings, the deep inner beauty of the night stole upon us. A mystical, elusive beauty difficult to define, that lay underneath and around, and within the moonlight—a beauty of deep nestling shadows, crooning whispers, and soft rustling movement.
For a while we dreamed on, and then the Măluka broke the silence. “The wizard of the Never-Never has not forgotten how to weave his spells while I’ve been south,” he said. “It won’t be long before he has the missus in his toils. The false veneer of civilisation is peeling off at a great rate.”
I roused as from a trance; and Mac threw a sharp, searching glance at me, as I sat curled up against a swag. “You’re right,” he laughed; “there’s not a trace of the towney left.” And rising to “see about fixing up camp,” he added: “You’d better look out, missus! Once caught, you’ll never get free again. We’re all tethered goats here. Every time we make up our minds to clear out, something pulls us back with a jerk.”
“Tethered goats!” Mac called us, and the world must apply the simile as it thinks fit. The wizard of the Never-Never weaves his spells, until hardships, and dangers, and privations, seem all that make life worth living; and then holds us “tethered goats”; and every time the town calls us with promises of gaiety, and comfort, and security, “something pulls us back with a jerk” to our beloved bush.
There was no sign of rain; and as bushmen only pitch tent when a deluge is expected, our camp was very simple: just camp sleeping mosquito-nets, with calico tops and cheese net for curtains—hanging by cords between stout stakes driven into the ground. “Mosquito pegs,” the bushmen call these stakes.
Jackeroo, the unpoetical, was even then sound asleep in his net; and in ten minutes everything was “fixed up.” In another ten minutes we had also “turned in,” and soon after I was sound asleep, rolled up in a “bluey,” and had to be wakened at dawn.
“The river’s still rising,” Mac announced by way of good-morning. “We’ll have to bustle up and get across, or the water’ll be over the wire, and then we’ll be done for.”
Bustle as we would, however “getting across” was a tedious business. It took nearly an hour’s hustling and urging and galloping before the horses could be persuaded to attempt the swim, and then only after old Roper had been partly dragged and partly hauled through the back-wash by the amphibious Jackeroo.
Another half-hour slipped by in sending the horses’ hobbles across on the pulley that ran on the wire, and in the hobbling out of the horses. Then, with Jackeroo on one side of the river, and the Măluka and Mac on the other, swags, saddles, packbags, and camp baggage went over one by one; and it was well past mid-day before all was finished.
Then my turn came. A surcingle—one of the long thick straps that keep all firm on a pack-horse—was buckled through the pulley, and the Măluka crossed first, just to test its safety. It was safe enough; but as he was dragged through the water most of the way, the pleasantness of “getting across” on the wire proved a myth.
Mac shortened the strap, and then sat me in it, like a child in a swing. “Your lighter weight will run clear of the water,” he said, with his usual optimism. “It’s only a matter of holding on and keeping cool”; and as the Măluka began to haul he added final instructions. “Hang on like grim death, and keep cool, whatever happens,” he said.
I promised to obey, and all went well until I reached mid-stream. Then, the wire beginning to sag threateningly towards the water, Mac flung his whole weight on to his end of it, and, to his horror, I shot up into the air like a sky-rocket.
“Hang on! Keep cool!” Mac yelled, in a frenzy of apprehension, as he swung on his end of the wire. Jackeroo became convulsed with laughter, but the Măluka pulled hard, and I was soon on the right side of the river, declaring that I preferred experiences when they were over. Later Mac accounted for his terror with another unconscious flash of humour. “You never can count on a woman keeping cool when the unexpected happens,” he said.
We offered to haul him over. “It’s only a matter of holding on and keeping cool,” we said; but he preferred to swim.
“It’s a pity you didn’t think of telegraphing this performance,” I shouted across the floods; but, in his relief, Mac was equal to the occasion.
“I’m glad I didn’t,” he shouted back gallantly, with a sweeping flourish of his hat; “it might have blocked you coming.” The bushman was learning a new accomplishment.
As his clothes were to come across on the wire, I was given a hint to “make myself scarce”; so retired over the bank, and helped Jackeroo with the dinner camp—an
