Pelican Pool: A Novel

by Sydney Loch

"Don't take him cheap on that lay. He'll be rid of yer yet. He'll give yer all you know one of these days, and I'm taking no odds on who's the better."

It had just turned eight o'clock when Power began the ride, but already the sun was powerful, and the birds flagged at their songs. He journeyed at walking pace, watching the horse carefully the first few miles. Last traces of early cool were departing. A few threads of gossamer shimmered among the spikes of the grasses, and blundering hoofs tore them apart. A few feeding kangaroos sat at late breakfast. The homestead moved behind the trees, and he and the beast he rode were all that passed across the plain.

He grew contented at once now he had made a beginning of the day's work. As another man forgets his ill-humours in the counting-house, or the library, or his mistress's bower, so Power turned for distraction to his saddle and his whip. A bushman's heart was his birthright; a bushman's cunning was the legacy of fiery summer afternoons on horseback, and frosty winter dawns spent abroad. In the dreariest page of Nature he found reading. His eye was quick to read the riddle of the ways. The fall of a hill, the sweep of a dry creek bed, a few patterings of passage in the dust—these answered most questions he asked. In that country was no better judge of where to come up with a mob of cattle, nor one, be it night or day, who rode straighter to a point. He passed over the plain sitting easy in the saddle, pipe in mouth, whip on arm, his head fallen forward, as a man sits asleep. But his eyes peered abroad, and his brain was active. He rode to muster as the knight of old rode to the tourney.

His way led by a short cut through the ranges. The trysting place lay just beyond. At a few miles end, he was entering a pass of magnificence. The ranges lifted up on either hand, with mighty boulders resting about their sides, and difficult caves—home of bat and wallaby—opening dark mouths. The way took him below stunted trees, and over brittle fallen boughs, and across stones which slipped beneath the horse's feet. A second gully crossed the head of the pass, and escapes led into the hills. Here was an old watch-ground of the blacks. The difficult part of the journey had come. Power left the saddle for the ground. The path turned left-handed, to clamber over a multitude of rocks to easier country. In the rains a waterfall swirled this way. Here and again here a pool of clear water was lodged in a basin of rock, and above one such pool Nature had scooped a shelter in the hill. Past tribes of men had left rude paintings on the wall. With snorts and steadying cries the journey was done, and man and beast came out into a wide timbered prospect.

It was a fair spot to hap on in that desolate country, with a good gathering of trees about a dry creek bed, and one or two late birds twittering in them, and a muster of insects going about their day's work over the hot ground. There were grateful patches of shade. This was Ten Mile. At noon O'Neill had vowed to be at hand with the mob. Power looked at the sun and guessed at ten o'clock. He turned over whether to go farther; but a wait in the shade was better argument than a ride in the open. He took the saddle from the black horse, and tethered the beast in a cool place, and he himself lay down at hand for a pipe and his thoughts. Presently a thread of smoke curled into the hot air, driving away disappointed the flies which came in their hosts a-visiting.

It was pleasant work lying here in the shade with nothing to disturb a fellow for an hour or two until the cattle came along, and the sunshine heat finding a way into the shadow to make a man drowsy. It was good to lie flat on one's back, blinking at the sunbeams through the leaves. It was good, too, to suck at a pipe and watch the blue smoke go up. And again it was good listening to the twitter of a few birds, and—opening eyes—to see insects examining the ins and outs of the tree trunks. It brought memories of other such lazy hours, snatched between a hard morning and a hard afternoon. Give a man good health and work, and there was little else he wanted to bring content.

How the smell of the scrub lingered this morning. Ordinarily the sun drove it early away. If he lived too long and became an old blind man, he would get someone to lead him to a patch of scrub at early morning that he might sharpen memory there.

It must be hot in the open. The sunlight was burning him wherever a break in the boughs let it through. He was a lucky chap to own this great stretch of country, and every head of cattle on it, to have good horses to ride, and to be his own master. No doubt there were unlucky devils who never had these good things. A man knew little enough of other men when all was said and done, and cared little enough for their troubles either, if truth be told.

Yet things were a shade out of tune to-day, pretend as he might; put the feeling by as he would. Presently he sat up. With an oath, he knocked out his empty pipe on a stone. He whipped himself for a fool. He was a man with a mind of his own, he was in love with another woman; and a girl twenty years old, who had not spoken a dozen words to him, was taking up his thoughts all day. Ah! but she was the most perfect thing he had known.

The heat of the day came into the spot of his choosing, the sun climbed into the sky, and he judged the hour towards noon. He rose to his feet, pushed a handkerchief about his face, and grew busy gathering sticks on a square of barren ground.