Next day I was up with the sun to see what my burn was like, Terry O'Gorman having let my place go when he burnt a fortnight before. I was assured that I had a good burn, but when I saw the black waste, gridironed with logs and strewn with big stumps, I was a bit dismayed. What on earth could I do with it to make a living? It looked pretty hopeless.
I tried to get a fire going round some of the big stumps, but, of course, they wouldn't burn, being too green. When I looked at the place, and thought how many years it would be before it was clear of refuse, it made me feel despairing. Of course, I know now that I had a really good burn, and was lucky, and that in five years I would be able to plough patches, with no other effort than dropping a match here and there, when the logs had rotted a bit; but experience has to be learned. I tried digging a patch, but that was hopeless, the ground being a network of roots, almost impossible to dig among; so I gave that up too. I could have planted corn easy enough; but then, even if the roads had been decent, the price of haulage to the station would have been more than the crop would fetch; so there was nothing to do but sow grass in the clearing. Plenty of rain lately had brought Braun's paddock into seed, and I set to work to reap it. A week's work gave me more than enough to sow my burn.
Of course, I made a botch of the sowing at first, putting on about five times as much as was necessary, but soon got the hang of it, and a week's work finished it, a faint green sheen down on the creek showing that the seed was good and fertile. Then I got to work on a creek flat where the silt was piled high over the maddening roots, and got a number of vegetable seeds put in. All sorts of garden truck here grow prolifically, almost without cultivation. Terry and Len finished sowing the former's place same time as I did, and next day proposed a trip out to the Range by way of a holiday. As I hadn't been there I was eager to go.
The track lay through dense scrub all the way, being an old road well made forty years ago, and disused for a decade. It was used hauling cedar out to the Range, with a view to shooting it down the mountain side to the Mulgrave River, down which it would be rafted to the sea. As they salved only about one log in twenty the scheme didn't pay, so was abandoned, and the road, with its bridges and box-cuttings, went to ruin. We tramped along and, in an hour or so, saw, as through an open door at the end of the avenue of scrub, the sunlit grass of the open forest at the range head, and a glimpse of a gum tree or two. Presently we were waist deep in the lush grass, clambering over the mouldering cedar logs lying there by the score, with the scent of the gums strong in our nostrils, and the shrilling of the cicadas nearly deafening us. A few minutes more and we were standing among gigantic granite boulders, looking down at such a glorious view as I had never seen before.
The Trade wind was snoring strong on this exposed position, and there was a champagne-like exhilaration about the slightly rarified, gum-scented air which set us laughing and romping like school-kids. The Range went almost sheer down 2000 feet or more to the Mulgrave Valley at our feet. On the other side, facing us, stretched a heavily timbered range of mountains. At each end to right and left was a glimpse of blue sea, and in the background to the extreme right the blue mass of Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest mountain. Winding along the valley floor ran the narrow violet ribbon of river, flecked with white here and there, where were rapids. I found it hard to realise that those low bushes were really tall trees, and that that narrow blue streak of water was half a mile wide in places. I think one could notice a man moving on the white sandbanks, the atmosphere is so clear. Away to the left, where the valley opened out, could be seen the chess-board of cultivated canefields, with Gordon Vale and its mill embosomed among them. Further still, a bit of Cairns, the Inlet and the blue sea, with a tiny speck or two on it, which close investigation showed to be steamers entering or leaving the port.
The Range, steep as it is, is clothed from foot to summit with grass and timber. The ground is gravelly; the formation free granitic. There is plenty of water there, as elsewhere on the tableland. We shot a couple of scrub turkeys (megapodii) on our way home. Good enough eating but gamey, and one soon tires of them. They are about as big as a good-sized rooster. I'd never go after them with a shot-gun unless I was really hungry. When started off the ground the poor wretches just make for the handiest branch, and squat there. A shot-gun is plain murder, while a pea rifle will give them a sporting chance, for if you miss they are off a hundred yards or so to another branch, and one must want a change of diet pretty badly before one will force a way through prickly lawyer-vines after him.
Just before we turned into Braun's a huge cassowary, with three chicks, stalked on to the track ahead. We stopped dead, and the beautiful bird then hesitatingly came towards us with her slow, dainty step, and we had a real good "dekko," as she turned her handsome blue and red head this way and that, eyeing us with eager curiosity. Terry then said "Boo!" and she was off like a shot. Not being "sports," not one of us had even dreamed of raising the gun at her.
Christmas Day was at hand—beautifully fine. Last one I had spent making up for Valparaiso before a howling Southerly; a tremendous sea was on, and it was freezing cold.
Len took me in to his parents' place to spend the day, and I was introduced to Dad, Mum, and a host of strapping brothers and sisters. Dad was a fine-looking, middle-aged man, tall and spare, with short, square-cut, sandy beard, thoughtful grey eyes, good-humoured smile, and spoke concisely and deliberately, laying emphasis on every other word, thus:—"Well, Mr. Senex, I am delighted to make your acquaintance." He was a more or less self-educated, well read man, a most interesting companion and a keen debater, though rather prone to excitement in argument. Lastly, he was the most confirmed optimist I have ever met. Mum was a handsome Junoesque blonde, sharp of eye and tongue, distinctly the boss, and inclined to make the most of it. Rather cold and hard perhaps, but kind-hearted enough. They were very good to me in my early struggling days, and I was glad to accept their ungrudging hospitality.
Christmas Day passed with the usual accompaniment of pudding and other fairly solid comestibles, and I stopped there overnight, as a picnic had been arranged for next day to go and see the famous Lake Barrine. The day was bright and clear, and about twenty of us set out through the dense scrub along a fairly good road. After an hour or two's march we turned into a narrow pad, and presently saw a blue gleam through the trees. It was a steep descent, and the first effect of the sight of the lake was, queerly enough, that of looking right up at it. However, we were soon at the water's edge, and I got my first view of the deep cobalt blue mere, lying calm and peaceful, embosomed in the dense scrub.