More important, still, there were my men. I knew that if they attempted to go eastward they would find themselves hemmed in by the great creeks, and must be drowned or perish for want of food. I did not take two minutes to make up my mind. I was young, of a girth that is denied to most men, and the love of adventure ran hot in my blood. It was now late in the evening, but I would start before sunrise in the morning, and some time on the following day, if I had luck, would reach my place. I had swum dozens of swollen rivers before, with a horse and without a horse; and as for the blacks, I had got used to them like the flies, and I had my Colt.
Next morning, while it was yet grey-dark, I strapped a small knapsack on my back, containing a quart bottle full of powder, some small shot, and other essentials, and prepared to start out. I told my partner to push round to the Calvert River with the schooner as soon as the gale abated, and was rowed to the eastern bank of the river in the dinghy. The landing was bad, and here I had my first accident; for while the man who rowed the boat was throwing after me the packet of bread and meat that was to sustain me on my sixty-odd miles walk, it fell short and splashed into the river. Back to the boat for more I would not go; there was a considerable vein of old Highland superstition deep down in my composition somewhere. I had gone, on more than one occasion, without food for two or three days; I could surely do it now for some thirty-six hours or so, even although I had not troubled about breakfast before starting.
Sixty-odd miles of partially-flooded country infested by niggers! It hardly gave me a thought in those days. My revolver was in my belt, the cartridges were waterproof, the load on my back was light, and had it not been for the thought of those poor chaps on the banks of the Calvert my heart would have been still lighter.
I had traversed that uncertain track before on horseback, and, being a fairly good bushman, there was not much danger of my losing it. I wended my way through a gloomy pine-scrub, but as the rain had packed the sandy soil the walking was fairly good, and I did my first few miles as easily as if I had been walking on a macadamized road. Then I came to an open patch of lightly timbered country, and sat down on the crooked stem of a ti tree for a few minutes to fill and light my pipe.
A sickly, wan light had by this time appeared in the eastern sky. A laughing jackass crashed into the tender spirit of the dawn, and startled me for the moment by shrieking hysterically from a high gum tree. A pale lemon glow showed over the tree-tops to the east, spread upwards and outwards, and then gave place to a tawny yellow; the few faint stars went out one by one, like lights in a great city at break of day; a little bird among the boughs called sleepily to its mate, and in another minute a noisy flock of parrakeets flew screeching past. It was a wet, melancholy world, and when the sun showed behind the trees like a great white quivering ball of fire, and a thin, gauze-like mist arose from the damp sandy soil, I knew that the fierce tropical day had once more set in.
I stepped gaily out again. Dangers? Why, the walking was almost as good and pleasant as it was in any settled part of the country. Then, all at once, my feet went splash! splash! into what seemed to be a large pool of water; still on I went. In a few yards the water was over my ankles; some fifteen or twenty yards more, and I realized that it was up to my knees—fresh, warm, pellucid rain-water with dead leaves and forest débris floating through it. It was heavy wading, and I paused for a moment to gain breath and look around.
There was water everywhere; it spread out like a great carpet over the fairly level ground, and only the fine points of the very highest grasses could be seen. Soon the flood was up to my armpits, and then I began to swim. Even had I not been a strong swimmer, I could hardly have been drowned, for all I had to do was to climb into a tree and rest in the branches. In a few minutes more I came to a comparatively open space and was swimming among the shaggy, drooping heads of Pandanus palms. Then, all at once, I found I was being carried away by a powerful current. I must get across that creek, wherever it was, or else my strength must necessarily give out. Luckily my light linen trousers and cotton shirt did not impede me much; my watertight knapsack was but a trifling inconvenience; it was my boots that were tiring me. I did not want boots, anyhow, in that sandy soil. I swam hand over hand to a gum tree that reared its head above the water, and, grasping a strong limb, drew myself up. I left my boots, tied together by the laces, dangling over a bough, and was descending the limb when, to my consternation, I saw just beneath me one of the largest tiger-snakes I ever in my life had the good or ill fortune to meet. It had doubtless been coiled round one of the upper branches when I first came to the tree, and, being as much afraid of me as I now was of it, had again made for the trunk, only to find its retreat cut off. There was no time to cut a stick and have a sportive five minutes; besides, I had but scanty footing and room to fight nimble tiger-snakes, and so there was only one thing for it. The reptile, when I threw a small piece of dry wood at it, positively refused to budge. I took one last disgusted look at its gleaming, mottled, sinuous coils and flat, repulsive head, from which its black, wicked, basilisk eyes looked dully out, and flopped into the water from my perch, a distance of some ten or twelve feet. At one place the current resembled a mill-race; this was doubtless the creek proper. In ten minutes more I touched bottom with my feet, and soon, to my great joy, I was stepping along on the firm sand again. I soon found the track, but on it I also found what I least desired to see—the tracks of savages going in the same direction as myself. I kept a sharp look-out after that.
The sun shone out all through that long, arduous day with a fierce, intense heat, but there was no time for rest. I swam several creeks, which carried me hundreds of yards down stream at a pace which meant certain death if I ran against the business end of a snag; and I waded and swam for many hundreds of yards at a stretch along the track in places where it was flooded. By drinking copiously of the lukewarm water I kept off the cravings of a healthy hunger. My pipe had slipped from my pouch, and, anyhow, my tobacco and matches, which I carried inside my hat, had got wet when I dropped from the tree; and this, to me, was the greatest drawback of the situation. The sun rounded slowly towards the west, and it was fast becoming dark, when suddenly I heard the jabbering of blacks at some little distance. To climb into a thick pine tree and conceal myself in its branches was the work of a few minutes. I had hardly done so before a straggling mob of blacks passed slowly underneath; the bucks, or warriors, went first with spears and boomerangs in their hands, and the gins followed, carrying the piccaninnies and household goods slung in numerous dilly-bags over their backs. A few wretched half-tame dingoes brought up the rear, snarling and fighting with one another. It seemed strange to me that these savages should be journeying along the track, for at other times they were rather anxious to avoid it. Perhaps they did it for the sake of the novelty of the situation, naturally supposing that their enemies, the whites, would not be travelling during the wet season. There might have been fifty or sixty of them altogether in the band. To my intense annoyance they went on about a couple of hundred yards, and halted, to camp for the night, on what was evidently a drier piece of ground than usual. There was no help for it—I should have to pass the night in that tree. It would be folly to wander about in the dark; besides, I was dead tired and could hardly keep my eyes open.
"WHEN I THREW A PIECE OF DRY WOOD AT IT, THE REPTILE POSITIVELY REFUSED TO BUDGE."