This time I’d been riding on, hour after hour, till the horses began to get a bit slack. Not beat or anything like that, it wasn’t one 24 hours, or near it, that would bake two such horses in regular good buckle, but any hack after you’ve been on him 16 hours or so, begins to go a bit stiff, and is none the worse for a spell. However, I’d reached the place I was making for, and if I wasn’t tired, I was all as well pleased to stop.
Where I’d made for was a curious bit of water, 20 miles back from the river, called the Bird’s Nest. A big deep lagoon, like a small lake, full of ducks and all that sort, and a noted watering place for wild cattle in the dry summers. The water was deep enough now, but the old hands used to say that there’d been drier seasons than had ever been known yet. Being the Bird’s Nest was full of trees, and not very small ones neither. They were all dead, and no white man had ever seen them alive. These kind of gums won’t grow in water. So they made out that there had been a lot of bad seasons running, when the bed of the lake was dry and these trees had time to come up from the seed and grow up to the size they were. Then the first real wet year there was when the overflow of the river filled up the Bird’s Nest, of course they all died. But as some of ’em were over two foot through, and must have taken 20 years to grow to that size in, it would be a blue lookout for the country, if ever such a dry time came round again.
I didn’t trouble myself about these notions much, the squatters were well able to take care of themselves. It was no business of mine. All I cared about was, that it was a first-rate shop for feed and water, and that there was an old hut there where the men used to stop when they were mustering out back. When I rode up to it no one had been there lately. The stars were shining on the water between the gloomy-looking forest of dead trees with their branches sticking out against the sky, and a wind coming up before the dawn, whistling through them. Lonely and deserted enough it looked—my word—as if no one had ever been there since the beginning of the world.
I jumped down and took the saddles off and led the horses down to the water. There they took a good drink. I hadn’t been riding fast the last hour. Then I short hobbled them on the wild trefoil that grew up to their knees on the shore. It had rained in those parts lately, and the feed was knee-high everywhere. I made a fire after that, boiled myself a pot of tea, had a bit of bread and meat, and turned in. I had blankets with me, and there was a bunk or two in the hut, with a hide nailed across—that weren’t so bad for a man that had ridden 90 miles.
When I woke up the sun was middling high. I didn’t care about turning out early, as it was a hundred to one about any police coming that way—in fact there were deuced few people that knew their way to the Bird’s Nest and back again to the frontage. So I settled to let the horses spell there that day and start towards sundown. They weren’t far off. I could see them from the door; one was lying down and the other one standing close by him. Both as full as ticks and good for another long day—bar accidents.
I boiled my quart pot, and had my breakfast as comfortable as you please. I hadn’t done so bad the first day. I was clear away from our own side of the country, and if I could get over to Willaroon I might hang about there for a bit and get smuggled over to Cunnamulla, with a mob of store cattle or some horses going to Queensland. Men that could ride and knew their work was scarce then, and people didn’t bother finding out where they’d come from last.
Terrible still and quiet it all was as I sat there munching my damper and cutting off slice after slice of the boiled corned beef I’d brought with me. Now and then a flock of black duck or teal would fly out of the lagoon and wheel round and round. After a bit they’d drop again. The gray and crimson galah parrots would come and settle on the outside trees or on the flat, or a dozen crested pigeons rise whirring out of the long grass like quail.
I had nothing to do but smoke, and take it easy all the time. Then up comes a mob of brumbies—wild horses—charging out of the scrub full hot, as if they’d not had water for a week. I knew better than that, but they get into a way of doing all their travelling fast. I’ve known ’em come 30 miles in a night for water and be back again by daylight. The leading stallion came neighing and prancing up to my two. I had to run for my life and put their bridles on, else he’d most likely have run ’em off, hobbles and all. Wild horses often do that, and pretty foolish I’d have looked, shouldn’t I? I had to fire a shot at him at last before he’d leave off botherin’ ’em, and then away he goes and his mob after him, heads and tails up, full split. You could hear ’em crashing through the scrub like a windstorm.
The day
