"All my fortune was a shirt That was ragged and full of dirt."
I walked about the streets for some time, trying to make a song in honour of the occasion, which was to begin with the above words, and set it to music, and as I succeeded better than I thought I correspondingly got into high spirits, and took it all as an immense joke. There seemed to me only one way out of the difficulty. I could walk to Port Mackay, which is another and larger town, more prosperous than Port Denison. It lies on the coast also, and the distance by road between the two places is one hundred and thirty miles. The road, however, is very little frequented, as what little communication there is is all by water. There were, however, half a dozen stations on the road, and I made no doubt I should be right somehow. The blacks in that district had, indeed, a bad name for spearing cattle and being very wild and ferocious; but of that I took no heed. The most important thing just then was for me to get away from my countryman's house without exciting in him any suspicions about the state of my exchequer. I felt some strokes of conscience certainly over thus repaying his kindness with such insincerity, but I could at least truthfully say that I had not meant it, and that circumstances over which I had no control, &c. So the next morning I put on a reserved, dignified air, and after breakfast told my host that I intended to shift my quarters. They both kindly protested, until I had to say that I had business somewhere in the bush, and would come back to their house as soon as I came to Port Denison again, but that I had to go now, and might not be back for some time. Then Mrs. —— pressed me to take some sandwiches with me for dinner, for which I was not sorry, and then I started for Port Mackay. The first station on the road was thirty miles out. That place I meant to reach before evening. The sandwiches went down like apple-pie long before dinner-time, and a little before evening I gained the station. I was even at that time so much of a "new chum" that I took it for granted that a traveller would be made welcome anywhere in the bush whenever he might call. In the gold-fields where I had been people were ashamed of refusing hospitality—at least, I had not seen it done. This was the furthest south I had yet been in Queensland, and as I stood by the creek that evening and looked over to the neat little homestead lying there so isolated, it seemed to me quite a beautiful place, and I congratulated myself that I had reached it just before I got tired and in good time for supper. I had a bath in the creek and straightened myself up all I could before I went up to the house. It was getting nearly dark as I came up the track leading into the garden. I heard some one crack a whip close behind me, and saw a man on horse-back coming along with nearly a dozen big dogs, who now barked in angry rage all round me. I stood there a complete prisoner while the man on horseback looked daggers at me. I suppose he had been out after cattle and had not found those he looked for; anyhow, he did not appear in a good humour. "Where are you going?" asked he.
"I thought I might have a bit of supper and a camp here to-night," said I.
"Supper and camp!" cried he. "Why the —— don't you camp in the bush? Ain't you got no rations, neither?"
"No," said I. "I should be obliged to you if you would sell me something to eat."
"Would you not be obliged to me if I would show you a public-house?" cried he.
I was too innocent to see his jeer, only I perceived that he did not want me, so I said, "Public-house? yes, I should be glad;" and added, "I did not know there was any; how far is it?"
"Oh, not far," said he, and he moved on, and at last called his dogs off me.
I was in a rage as I moved on, but just past the house the road branched off, and I thought it necessary to find out which to take, so I sang out to him, "Which is the Mackay road?"
"The right one," cried he. And along the right-hand track I went mile after mile, but no hotel was there. At last I found it was only a cattle track, and that I had come out to a big creek, where it branched off everywhere. The moon was just going down, and it was far out in the night when I laid myself down to sleep. It was raining heavily by this time, so that I could light no fire, but, tired and worn out as I was, I slept as well as if I had lain on a feather bed.