There is always a great deal of vexation, and often danger, in waterless country, attending the loss of horses whilst travelling in the bush, and we pause in our narrative to remark upon a certain marvellous faculty possessed by many Australian bushmen of long experience.
During many years, often for months at a time, these men have listened anxiously for the sound of their horses’ or bullocks’ bells,—at sundown when they turned in, during their wakeful moments through the night, and with redoubled anxiety in the early morning. It is therefore hardly surprising, taking all this into consideration, that these men gradually get into the habit, if we can correctly designate the new-born power by that term, of still being able to hear the bells, even when fast asleep, in which they resemble Erckmann-Chatrian’s murderous innkeeper, in The Polish Jew. But what is far stranger, having done so they can remember all about it next morning; in which they differ from those gifted somnambulistic individuals one reads about who write poetry and solve difficult problems during their slumbers.
Many bushmen will wake up out of the deepest sleep if their bells wander too far away, or if these cease their jangling for too long a period; but those “old hands,” who are the particular object of these remarks, will be able in the morning to tell you as much about the wanderings that the horses have made during the previous hours of darkness, as if they had been watchfully awake all night; will unhesitatingly state to the “boys,” when these youths go horse hunting in the morning, where Bob, with the “condaminer” bell, has got to, and which direction Boco, with the goat-bell, took with his part of the mob, when the horses began to feed at two o’clock.
It is still dark when Claude gives the usual bush signal for all hands to wake up, by shouting out “Daylight!” Little Don gives Angland a wide, steady look, till, his wits gathering themselves together, he repeats the word interrogatively, and after sleepily rubbing his eyes, proceeds to put on his boots, thus completing his attire.
Far away across the dark plain, upon the bush-fringed edge of which the party have camped, the faint tinkling of several of the horse-bells can be heard,—blessed sounds; and, more to the left, the thump, thump, of the big “frog” bell on Claude’s horse Charlie. Another hour and the buzz of the awakened insect world will drown all sounds more than a few hundred yards away, and therefore it behoves those who perform the matutinal horse-hunting duties of a caravan, such as that which Billy is about to pilot across the desert, to imitate the policy of the proverbial “early bird,” ere the daily plague of flies have made their noisy appearance.
So whilst Claude and Williams are preparing breakfast, Billy and the two boys are away after the horses; and these animals, being all good campers, are soon rounded up and unhobbled, and come racing in towards the smoke of the camp-fire, biting and kicking, as if they highly appreciated the delightful feeling of being rid once more of those horrible gyves of chain and leather.
“Say, boss, I want to speak to you bime-by,” Billy observes to Claude, after breakfast, as he leans across the saddle of a pack-horse to give a finishing pat to one of the pack-bags before he tightens up the surcingle.
Claude nods a signal that he has heard the remark, from where he is fixing a bunch of hobbles to another horse’s neck, and presently intimates that he can give the black youth his attention, by begging him to “fire away.”
“You know, boss, I was very sick gin I come up to station,” Billy observes in a slow, sulky sort of voice.
“Yes, I expect you were pretty bad when you’d finished your journey from my uncle’s grave,” replies Claude.