In a quarter of an hour each fence, building, and shed of a well-improved homestead was in flames. So great was the heat that after the first flight of the inmates from the dwelling-house, it was impossible to re-enter. Nothing of the contents was saved but a desk and a picture, while the household stood awestricken in a plot of garden vegetation, moistening their parched lips from time to time, suffocating with heat and smoke, and holding much doubt as to their ultimate safety. As they gazed around they could see the wild birds dropping dead from the forest trees, the kangaroos leaping past with singed and burning fur, while cattle, bellowing with fear and astonishment, dashed wildly to the river-bank, to plunge into the deeper pools.
At Dunmore a better look-out had been kept. By the united efforts of the establishment the flames were arrested on the very verge of the homestead; but so close and desperate was the contest that the garden gate was burned, and Mr. Macknight was carried indoors insensible, having fainted from the severity of the protracted struggle. Had he died it would not have been the only instance on record of the danger of over-exertion with the thermometer at more than a hundred and fifty degrees of Fahrenheit in the sun.
We at Squattlesea Mere were more lucky than our neighbours, inasmuch as the fire took a turn southward, behind Dunmore, and continued its devastating progress through the heaths and scrubs which lay on the north bank of the Shaw. It was in a manner shunted away from our homestead by the region of marsh country which stretched around and beyond it.
CHAPTER XII GRASMERE
What tales came in from far and near of ruin and disaster—farms and stations, huts and houses, rich and poor!—all had equally suffered in the Great Fire, long remembered throughout the length and breadth of the land. However, a bush fire is not so bad as a drought. A certain destruction of pasture and property takes place, but there is not the widespread devastation among the flocks and herds caused by a dry season. Heavy rain set in a short time afterwards, in our district at any rate. The burned pastures were soon emerald-green, and Mr. Chamberlain, who had been compelled to flee to Port Fairy homeless, and there abide till a cottage was built at Tarrone, made sale of a thousand head of fat cattle in one draft before the year was out.
If the system of moderate alienation of Crown lands then prevalent could have been carried out in after years—viz. the disposing of agricultural areas from time to time, as the demand increased—no great harm would have accrued to the pastoral interest, and the legitimate wants of the farmers would have been fully supplied. The owners of the stations referred to, as the wave of population approached, chiefly applied themselves to secure the purely pastoral portions of the runs, leaving the arable land for its legitimate occupiers. No squatter was then suddenly ruined, while all intending farmers were satisfied. Good feeling was maintained, as each class of producers recognised the necessity for compromise, when the mixed occupation had become a fact. It was far otherwise when the whole land lay open to the selector, who was thus enabled to enter at will into lands which other men's labour had rendered valuable, or to exact a price for refraining.
In good sooth, the pioneer squatter of that day had many and divers foes to contend with. Having done battle with one army of Philistines, another straightway appeared from an unexpected quarter. We had had trouble with our aboriginals: a canine "early Australian," the dingo, had likewise disturbed our rest. He used to eat calves, with perhaps an occasional foal, so we waged war against him. We were not up to strychnine in those days. The first letter I saw in print on the subject was from the ill-fated Horace Wills, whose sheep had been suffering badly at the time. He had come across the panacea somewhere, and lost no time in recommending it to his brother squatters. With the help of our kangaroo dogs, and an occasional murder of puppies, we pretty well cleared them out. As cattlemen, taking a selfish view of the case, we need not have been so enthusiastic. Though he killed an occasional calf, the wild hound did good service in keeping down the kangaroo, which, after his extinction, proved a far more expensive and formidable antagonist.
We had more than once seen a small pack of dingoes surrounding an "old man kangaroo" in the winter time, when from weight and the soft nature of the ground he is unable to run fast. They also kill the "joeys" or young ones, when too small to run independently, though not to feed. I saw this exemplified on one occasion when returning late from a day's stock-riding. There was still light enough to distinguish surrounding objects, when a doe kangaroo crossed the track in front of me, hard pressed by a red dog close at her haunches. At first I took the pursuer to be a kangaroo dog, but seeing at a second glance that it was a dingo, I pulled up to watch the hunt. The forest was clear; rather to my surprise he gained upon her, and, springing forward, nearly secured a hold. She just got free, and not till then did she rid herself of the burden with which she was handicapped, and without which the dog could not have "seen the way she went," as the stock-riders say.