| Chapter | Page | |
| I. | Where to Find Surprise Valley Camp | [1] |
| II. | How They Pass the Evening at Surprise | [10] |
| III. | Pelican Pool | [37] |
| IV. | Kaloona Run | [54] |
| V. | The Hut by Pelican Pool | [77] |
| VI. | The Coach comes to Surprise | [92] |
| VII. | The Return to Surprise | [118] |
| VIII. | The Banks of the Pool | [145] |
| IX. | How the Days pass by at Surprise | [159] |
| X. | How the Days pass by at Kaloona | [176] |
| XI. | The Parting by the Pool | [190] |
| XII. | Selwyn hears some News | [205] |
| XIII. | The Journey to the Pool | [221] |
| XIV. | The Halt by the Road | [233] |
| XV. | The Parting of the Way | [237] |
| XVI. | Summer Days | [241] |
| XVII. | The Errand to the Pool | [250] |
| XVIII. | The Bottom of the Valley | [264] |
| XIX. | The Selwyns return South | [272] |
| XX. | The Farewell by the Hut | [282] |
| XXI. | The Coming of the Rains | [296] |
| XXII. | The Meeting by the River | [319] |
CHAPTER I Where to Find Surprise Valley Camp
Where the equator girdles the earth, the Indian Ocean and the amorous waters of the Pacific have their marriage bed. Afire with the passions of the tropics, excited by breezes from a thousand islands of palm, of spice, of coral, of pearl, jewelled for the ceremony with quick-lived phosphorous lights, the oceans move to each other, and mingle hot kisses under high red suns and fierce white moons. They have begotten many children; and one of these—the Sea of Carpentaria—leans deep into the northern coast of Australia, and wears itself against a thousand miles of barren shore.
As a young girl, dreaming her dreams, spends affection careless of the cost, so these romantic waters woo the stern northern land with warm and tireless embrace. And, as a man, busy on his own affairs, cares nothing for such soft entreaty, so the north land gives no sign; but remarks in silence the passage of the years.
Yet who shall say that passion has no place there—because a giant broods, dreaming a giant's dreams? Who shall say—because long waiting may have brought crabbed age—that the north land has not its sorrows? Morose countenance it keeps, yet freely can it spend. Its pulse beats no feeble strokes. Fierce suns travel across it, the heavens are torn for its rains, its floods laugh at restraint, the drought is slave of its ill-humours.
Its face is rough with frequent ranges where scanty vegetation climbs, where barren rock-faces catch the sunlight, and clefts run in, and shadowy cave-mouths open out. Here the wallaby finds harbourage, the bat hangs himself in the shadows, the python unrolls his coils, and the savage stays a space for shelter.
Its face is smooth with dreary plain. Stunted trees find living there, and hold out narrow leaves to cheat the suns. The spinifex battles with the thrifty soil, and porcupine grass weaves its spikes for the unwary. Score of miles by score of miles the country rolls away, brown or red where shows the bare earth, grey or yellow or smoky blue where the sun weds the dried grassland, shining white where the quartz pushes out of the ground. Through half the hours the sun stares from the centre of the sky, the leaves hang unmoved, the grasses are unstirred: silence only lives. The savage is dreaming of the feast to come, the kangaroo has taken himself to the roots of a tree in the dried water-course. The sun passes to the journey's end: life again draws breath. The kangaroo seeks the tenderer grasses; the dingo rises in his lair to stretch, and loll his tongue; the parrot screams from the tree-top; tiny finches, in splendid coats, swing among the bushes; a brown kite takes high station in the sky. Yet the waste seems empty, and the white ants only may boast of conquest where their red cones rise everywhere about the plain.