In the Musgrave Ranges

by Conrad H. Sayce

A short half-hour before? Yes. The sandstorm had lasted barely thirty minutes. It was so local, that Mick, riding along towards Sidcotinga Station only forty miles away, knew nothing about it. Such tremendous fury as these electric storms display is possible only when they concentrate their power on a very small area. This one had probably swept across a thousand miles of desert, and might go on for a thousand more before it spent itself. It had come across the great tableland behind the Musgrave Ranges, had been brought to a narrow point down one of the gorges in the mountains, and had hurled itself at the three defenceless men. It was a messenger of death from the Musgrave Ranges, the mysterious, dreaded, fascinating Musgrave Ranges.

The air behind the storm was cool and bright and clean. Not a spot of rain had fallen, but there was the same new-washed freshness about everything which comes after a sudden summer shower. The blue of the sky seemed clearer and more flawless than it had ever seemed before, in contrast with the depressing sultriness of the morning, and even the sun, shining down without the thinnest veil to lessen its fiery strength, seemed to look with a less unfriendly eye than usual.

And what did it see? Vaughan had been under the sun-shelter when the storm broke. The first gust had blown the flimsy structure down flat, and the weight of sand, which poured immediately on to it, prevented it from being blown away. The frightened white boy had been pinned under the fallen boughs and had been unable to get free while the storm lasted. It had been a fortunate accident for him, for he was compelled to lie still, in perfect safety, while the gale surged over him, instead of trying, as his friend Sax had done, to match his puny strength against it.

Poor Sax had been absolutely winded. In his anxiety to find the canteen, he had exhausted his strength in fighting the storm, and had no power left to breathe in such a stifling atmosphere. He might easily have been choked if Yarloo had not found him.

The native was desert born and bred, and knew how to act in every contingency that could possibly occur in the bush. He had seen Sax blown down with the first effort of the storm, and though he himself could neither see nor hear, because of the sand and wind, he had gradually forced his way towards his master's son, with a sure instinct which did not stop to wonder what he was doing or why he was doing it. He had found him at last, and had held his unconscious body tight, shielding it with his coat and with his own body till the gale should pass over.

A few minutes afterwards, while Vaughan was fighting his way out of the broken-down sun-shelter, and Yarloo was bending over the still body of the other white boy, Sax opened his eyes.

"The canteen," he mumbled. "The canteen."

His friends thought that he wanted a drink, and Vaughan looked round for the canteen. It was nowhere to be seen. Sax was not really hurt, and his anxiety restored him to full consciousness in a minute or two. He sat up and watched Vaughan hunting round for their most precious possession, the canteen. At last he staggered to his feet, tottered about for a step or two because his head was so dizzy, and then began to help in the search. He did not dare to tell the others what he feared, but when he finally stumbled against it, half buried in the sand about twenty yards away from camp, he found that the worst had happened.

The canteen was empty.

Sax had not screwed down the metal cap when the water-carrier had been caught by the wind and hurled along the ground. For several minutes its own smoothness had kept it moving, and had prevented it from lodging against anything and being buried, but each roll and jolt had spilt some of the water, till finally every drop had been wasted on the parched sand. Then, when all the harm which was possible had been done, the useless thing had jammed up against a dead mulga root and had been slowly covered with sand.