Thus murderously inclined, I approached with the weapon. The animal raised its head, cast upon me a look of mingled sorrow and reproach, lazily lifted its upper lip on seeing the threatening inflator, and—tried to eat it!
Of such stuff are the dreams of the bush.
Thus moralising I rode off without my satchel. Had to race back four miles. And there still leaning against the fence, apparently unmoved in so much as a limb, stood the animal, a pitiful monument to the appalling severity of the drought of '96-7.
* * * *
After you leave Cradock the ranges appear to be closing in in front. But they are escaped somehow; and Hawker, 17 miles from the last township, is reached. Of Hawker I have two memories: one of a barber; the other of a "specially prepared" (i.e. warmed-up) dinner. Neither, I suspect, of absorbing public interest.
In the evening, a strong head-wind having calmed down, rode to Hookina (9 miles); thence, being disappointed there in the matter of "accommodation," to a place known as "The White Well," seven miles ahead.
Was it to be the first camp out? Darkness had fallen, and lone travellers who can give no rational account of themselves must ever labor under dark suspicion also. But, at a roadside cottage, the rare bicycle served me as a talisman, and secured me a supper, bed, and breakfast. For the day, 64 miles.
* * * *
The road to Hookina goes through the ranges, and for four miles there are rough and very stony hills to traverse. I took to the railway-line and rode alongside the rails; but the "metal" was destructively sharp-cornered, and the riding unsafe, because of the steep embankments and the frequency of culverts. There was also a tyre-tearing levelling-peg protruding at every chain or so between the lines.