I got along at a good pace now, as rain was threatening and it was getting dusk, keeping my weather eye open for a likely place to camp. Presently a "tick-gate" barred the way, and just beyond was the tent of a road maintenance man, where I craved shelter for the night. With typical Australian hospitality he not only granted it at once, but insisted on my sharing his tucker as well. I was glad of the shelter that night, for the rain poured in torrents, and I slept all the sounder for the row it made outside.
Next morning I left my hospitable host and made tracks for the Tweed. Passed through Murwillumbah, a pretty little rather sleepy town, about noon, and boarded a boat for the Heads, being instantly asked for my fare, and regarded with dark suspicion while I was forking it out. Got down to the Heads at 4 p.m., getting a glimpse of boiling white surf on the bar as we shot out of the swift current into a quiet little dock, where we disembarked, and once more my ready foot pressed the soil of Queensland.
CHAPTER XI.
Home Again!
I went straight across to the ocean beach, and swung along at a good bat over the hard sand of that beautiful curve of foreshore. Made my camp that night on the sand just south of Corrumbin. The mosquitoes were as the sands for multitude and tigers for ferocity, and I went to sleep completely covered up, head and all. Damme! They bit through the blanket! Woke up somewhere about midnight to find it raining hard. Pitch dark, no shelter and no tent. What a night! I sat there in the pouring rain, huddled in a blanket, wet, shivering and miserable until dawn appeared, the sun, shortly springing from the ocean, bringing a fine warm day with him. I stripped, tied all my wet belongings to bushes, where they soon flapped themselves dry, and, as soon as I got sufficiently warm, raced across the sand and plunged into the foaming surf. Ten minutes in the water, then, panting and refreshed, I dived back and collected my duds. Was scrambling into them when I heard a chatter of voices, and a bevy of ladies with attendant squires, all in fantastic bathing rig, hove in sight on the beach. Thank the Lord for those sheltering bushes! If I'd only been a couple of minutes longer in the surf—oh, Lord! I didn't have any bathing trunks. I didn't know of the big hotel on the creek just back of me.
That night sickened me of carrying "Matilda," so I took the evening train from Corrumbin, and arrived in Brisbane late at night.
On the journey an unpleasant, shabbily smart individual fastened to me. A terrible talker, whiskered, dressed in white ducks, with somewhat "busted" white pumps on his hoofs, and with a swaggering, boastful air, he combined a habit of pointing his remarks with a contortion of his features and a clearance of his nasal organs. Of course he was an importation, informing us in a loud voice that he was from 'Ome, and I blushed for him. He alighted for a refresher at nearly every station, having to race violently after the train, and board it under way. It got quite interesting at last to the other occupants of the carriage.
"He'll miss her this time." "Ay, she don't stop long here." "There's the whistle! He's done." "'Ere he is. Look at him running. Two to one he don't do it." "He will!" "He won't!" "He—begob, he's just managed it!" and presently the nuisance was among us again, stinking of whisky and more voluble than ever. He hung on to me until next morning, when he asked me as a special favour to lend him a pound. I told him his price was too high, but I'd give him five shillings to go away. He took it and went. He got to windward of me though, for I found when settling up at the pub that he had told them "his mate" would foot the bill. I did so, to avoid trouble—like a fool. He had held forth on the train about his politics, which were Liberal; but his dealings with me were a regular War Profits Act.
At the pub I heard a chap asking for pick and shovel men for a job out Laidley way—rate eight shillings a day. I had heard a lot of this district, and thought it a good opportunity to see it and earn tucker as well, so I volunteered.