“You will find that a woman alone in a camp of men is decidedly out of place,” the Darwin ladies had said; and yet that day, as at all times, the woman felt strangely and sweetly in place in the bushmen’s camp. “A God-forsaken country,” others of the town have called the Never-Never, because the works of men have not yet penetrated into it. Let them look from their own dark alleys and hideous midnights into some or all of the cattle camps out-bush, or, better still, right into the “poor dark souls” of the bush-folk themselves—if their vision is clear enough—before they judge.
Long before our midnight had come, the camp was sleeping a deep, sound sleep—those who were not on watch—a dreamless sleep, for the bullocks were peaceful and ruminating, the Chinese drovers having been “excused” from duty lest other beasts should stray during “some one’s” watch.
Soon after sun-up the head drover formally accepted the mob, and, still inwardly marvelling at the Măluka’s trust, filled in his cheque, and, blandly smiling, watched while the Măluka made out receipts and cancelled the agreement. Then, to show that he dealt little in simple trust, he carried the receipts and agreement in private and in turn, to Dan, and Jack, and the Dandy, asking each if all were honestly made out.
Dan looked at the papers critically (“might have been holding them upside down for all I knew,” he said later), and assured the drover that all was right. “Which was true” he added also later, “seeing the boss made ’em out.” Dan dealt largely in simple trust where the boss was concerned. Jack, having heard Dan’s report, took his cue from it and passed the papers as “just the thing”; but the Dandy read out every word in them in a loud, clear voice, to his own amusement and the drovers’ discomfiture.
The papers having been thus proved satisfactory, the drovers started their boys with the bullocks, before giving their attention to the packing up of their camp baggage, and we turned to our own affairs.
As the Dandy’s new yard was not furnished yet with a draughting lane and branding pens, the mixed cattle were to be taken to the Bitter Springs yard; and by the time Jack had been seen off with them and our own camp packed up, the drovers had become so involved in baggage that Dan and the Dandy felt obliged to offer assistance. Finally every one was ready to mount, and then we and the drovers exchanged polite farewells and parted, seller and buyer each confident that he knew more about the cash for that cheque than the other. No doubt the day came when those drovers ceased to marvel at the Măluka’s simple trust.
The drovers rode away to the north-west, and as we set out to the south-east, Dan turned his back on “them little darlings” with a sigh of relief. “Reckon that money’s been earned, anyway,” he said. Then, as Jackeroo was the only available “boy,” the others all being on before with the cattle, we gathered together our immense team of horses and drove them out of camp. In open order we jogged along across country, with Jackeroo riding ahead as pilot, followed by the jangling, straggling team of pack-and loose horses, while behind the team rode the white folk all abreast, with six or eight dogs trotting along behind again. For a couple of hours we jogged along in the tracks of Jack’s cattle, without coming up with them, then, just as we sighted the great rumbling mob, a smaller mob appeared on our right.
“Run ’em into the mob,” Dan shouted; and at his shout every man and horse leapt forward—pack-horses and all—and went after them in pell-mell disorder.
“Scrub bulls! Keep behind them!” Dan yelled giving directions as we stampeded at his heels (it is not all advantage for musterers to ride with the pack-team) then as we and they galloped straight for Jack’s mob every one yelled in warning: “Hi! look out there! Bulls! Look out,” until Dan’s revolver rang out above the din.
Jack turned at the shot and saw the bulls, but too late. Right through his mob they galloped, splitting it up into fragments, and in a moment pack-horses, cattle, riders, bulls, were part of a surging, galloping mass—boys galloping after bulls, and bulls after boys, and the white folk after anything and everything, peppering bulls with revolver-shots (stock-whip having no effect), shouting orders, and striving their utmost to hold the mob; pack and loose horses galloping and kicking as they freed themselves from the hubbub; and the missus scurrying here and there on the outskirts of the mêlée, dodging behind bushes and scrub in her anxiety to avoid both bulls and revolver-shots. Ennui forsooth! Never was a woman farther from death by ennui.