by Zane Grey
There was no hum of insects, no bark of dingoes, no sound that Sterl could distinguish. The silence seemed eternal. The solitude magnified anything of that nature that Sterl had ever encountered. It had a solemn and grand quality, a relentless aloofness to the state of man, that repudiated his little struggles, his ambitions, his brief days on the earth. Sterl could have loved it had not his mind cried out, like a child lost in the dark. He did not halt again to listen.
Two hours and more of steady riding brought Sterl to the edge of an escarpment which fortunately presented no steep step down from a level. Declivities always meant difficulties for the trail driver, especially when they were not discovered until too late. The void beneath Sterl appeared majestic in its immensity. Apparently land and sky never met. The slope was gradual. Far below a shining ribbon of a river made Sterl’s heart leap. It could not be sand or a strip of grass or rock. It was water, and surely the long-hoped-for Diamantina River. But how far? At home on the western ranges Sterl had often distinguished water from land at considerable distances under similar circumstances. In that rarified atmosphere, under a soaring full moon, this river might be a few miles away, and it could be a dozen. But it was within reach of a twenty-four hour trek.
Some time after midnight Sterl arrived back at his starting point to find the mob somewhat quieted and snatching much needed sleep. Red received his good news with characteristic expression, after which he appended: “Wal, pard, you was gone so dog-gone long thet I was about to say hell with the cattle an’ go hunt you.”
Before dawn the cowboys and the black had a couple of hours’ sleep. At daybreak the drovers came riding in by threes to get breakfast. Sterl lost no time telling Slyter the good news. The drover and Red accompanied him to Dann’s camp. The partners had just finished their morning meal. Here was evidence that water or no water the trek had to go on. But dark grave visages attested to the heavy burden of worry.
“Boss, I rode ahead last night. Found water,” Sterl announced bluntly.
“You did? Good-o, Hazelton,” boomed Stanley Dann with joy, as he jumped up.
The others all asked questions in unison. Sterl waved them quiet. “It’s a big river. Surely the Diamantina. I couldn’t tell how far. Twenty miles, at the most.”
“Twenty miles? Two days’ trek?” Eric Dann ejaculated, disheartened. “We’ll have a big loss.”
Ormiston cursed roundly, apparently venting his rage at Sterl, as if he could be blamed for a dire calamity. Sterl deigned not to notice him, and addressed their leader: “We can make it in one trek.”
Stanley Dann appeared checked by Sterl’s terse speech. The other drovers united in negative calm.
“Keep quiet. Let me talk to our boss,” shouted Sterl. “Dann, we can make it.”
“All right. We’ll have to,” agreed the drover, and he swallowed hard.
“I’ve made worse drives than this will be,” went on Sterl. “Ranges where there was little dew, but not so hot as this…. We must drive straight through to water.”
Ormiston headed a furious opposition, in which, however, Stanley Dann did not concur. Sterl endeavored to convince the disgruntled and almost hopeless drovers, silencing all except Ormiston. He let Ormiston have his say out.
“Ormiston, you’re a disorganizer,” Sterl flashed steely and cold. “You’re glad of anything that hinders us! You shut up, or I’ll shut you up as I did once before.”
Ormiston took the threat sullenly, but it was obvious that he was mostly concerned with what Sterl had called him.
“Boss, listen,” went on Sterl. “We can make this drive. We could do more if we were called upon.”
“I like your talk. How should we make this long trek to water?”
“Take it slow all day. Ease the mob along. Careful during the hottest hours. Then, after sunset, push them. When the dew falls, they can travel without breaking down.”
“You heard Hazelton,” Dann thundered. “His plan is sound. We’ll adopt it. Tell every drover. Wagons to go ahead and make camp. Trek through to water!”
On Sterl’s return to Slyter’s camp, Red appeared supremely elated. “Pard, did you see Beryl?”
“No. Was she there?”
“I should kiss a pig she was. All eyes. Jest as if she never seen you before. Sterl, she’d like you, if it wasn’t for Ormiston. Mebbe she does anyhow. But she’s scared of thet geezer. Wasn’t he sore as a stubbed toe? It was hard for him to swaller what you called him. Disorganizer? Fits him to a T.”
“Red, will that showdown with him ever come?”
“Not any even break meetin’, as we’re used to in Texas. But it’ll come! Be shore you have eyes in the back of yore haid.”
Leslie was at her morning chore of feeding her pets. Jack, the kookaburra, and Gal were jealous of the new bird pets, and Cocky squalled from the top of the canvas-covered wagon.
“What was going on over there at Dann’s camp?” she asked keenly.
Sterl told her of his trip during the night and his report to Dann. “We nearly had a row. But the boss accepted my plan to drive all day and all night. You go with the wagons.”
“Umpumm. I’m good for twenty-four hours, and then some.”
“But I’d rather you’d take it easy, whenever possible. You’re in grand trim, Les…. Still, you go with your dad.”
“Are you my boss, Sterl Hazelton?” she retorted rebelliously.
“Not yet…. But considering the remote possibility of my becoming that…and your cantankerous disposition…don’t you think it’d be a good idea to get some practice?”
Her smooth nut-brown face grew suffused with a coursing red blood, and her wide eyes fell. She was tongue-tied. Her breast was swelling. Then Red’s vociferous mirth did not appear conducive to a recovery of her equilibrium.
“Haw! Haw!” laughed Red. “Dog-gone, Les, thet was a jawbreakin’ speech. You got it on him now, if you play yore cairds. He cain’t back out of thet if….”
“Shut up, you cowboy devil,” Leslie interrupted, and she fled, leaving her pets in noisy clamor.
“Always tickles me, the way a girl falls down over a crack like thet, if she’s stuck on you,” observed Red. “Why, when Beryl is so uncommon sweet, which does happen, I can trip her up.”
“So you are progressing, Red? Go on. Faint heart never won fair lady! But, honestly, the only way I can offset Leslie’s temper, or make her do something she ought to do, is by some crazy, high-handed speech like that.”
“Wal, you can always add more, when it’s necessary. Women air weak on thet one question. Pard, what hoss will you ride?”
“King. You fork Jester. We’ll need shod horses, maybe.” Then Sterl approached Slyter to tell him there was a break in the plateau about ten miles from camp and from there a grade down to the river. “And say, there’s something I forgot to tell Dann. When you reach the river, be sure to drive to either side of the trek for camp, because this mob of cattle are liable to stampede when they smell water.”
“Hold them back till daylight,” replied the drover.
At sunset that day Sterl sat astride King on the rim of the plateau not far from where he had seen the valley by moonlight. Close at hand the front of the great mob of cattle, like a dust-clouded flood, was pouring wearily over the brink. As Sterl had hoped and predicted, they had ended the day’s trek with something to spare. Downgrade, in the night, with the dew falling, the beasts could plod away until the scent of the water energized them. And then, if they were at all like cattle of the Western ranges, they would stampede for the river. Sterl had seen ten thousand buffalo pile into a river to enact a spectacle he had never forgotten.
The basin beneath Sterl lay clear in his vision, as far as the river. The slope down to it showed no serious obstacle that he could see. What a sigh of relief he heaved! If the mob and remuda belonged solely to him, he could not have taken their safety and well-being more to heart.
Weeks on end, almost every sunset, a different spectacle had spread out befo
re his tireless gaze. This one was sublime. The basin was a red world with a black-bordered, ragged line of fire that was the river, winding away to the north. If all his vision encompassed was the whole of Australia, it would have been vast and grand enough. But Sterl knew, though he could not grasp, that it was but a grain of sand in the immensity of this continent.
Red rode along to upset his reverie and its parallel trance. “Howdy, pard. Where the hell you been all day?” he drawled as he bent his hawk-like, red head over a cigarette, and straightened to flash his blue-flame eyes over cattle, descent, and basin. “A-huh. Pretty dog-gone-good! I’m handin’ it to you, pard. There’s the river, shinin’ away in our direction. Water for many a long day!”
“Is that all you can say for this?” Sterl queried with an Indian gesture which embraced the void below.
“Wal, not so bad, now you tax me. End of the world! Fierce an’ flamin’ as the hell we’re both slated for! How’s that?”
“Not so good, pard,” returned Sterl with a tinge of disappointment.
“All right, if you must drag a fellow’s gizzard. It’s this sort of night thet has made me love Australia an’ reconcile me to the loss of Texas.”
“Red, in a pinch you never let me down.”
The cowboys rode down the slope as red dusk mantled the scene. Then, as night fell, they drifted apart, yet within calling distance. Friday for once had ridden on a wagon. Larry was ahead, at the left of the mob, and Drake was behind Sterl. The moon came up to lighten the shadows, and the dew fell. As that was the salvation of the trekking stock, so was it of that grassy land.
Downgrade, through thick grass, dew-laden, the mob labored and the trekkers followed. King had a liking for grass that did not appear so bleached out and dry. But then he was thirsty, too, and that accounted for the fact that Sterl had to dismount twice to loosen the saddle girths. By midnight the fairly steep slope had begun to level out. Kangaroos, wallabies, rabbits, emus were roused from their beds, to scamper away. King jumped out of his tracks more than once at the hiss of a snake. Only the tedium of that trek down into the valley wore on Sterl. There was nothing to do but sit his saddle. King did not need direction or urge. He had become like a shepherd dog. Often Sterl fell asleep for a few moments. Two nights without rest or sleep reminded him of the Texas cattle trail when the rivers were up.
The hours wore away, the stars grew wan, the bark of dingoes that followed the herd grew desultory, the warm air, a radiation from the heated earth, gradually grew cool. But the bawling of cows and calves, the bellowing of steers augmented as the miles grew unbearable and the mob had to be driven. Then followed the dark hour before dawn, with its ebbing vitality of man and beast.
Sterl huddled in his saddle, half asleep, his eyes closed, his mind almost a blank. A yell from Red, however, the old Comanche war whoop, brought him erect and startled. Daylight had come. He had slept some. A ruddy glow colored the eastern sky. Red was waving his sombrero. Spurring his horse, Sterl quickly reached his comrade. Red pointed toward the river, marked by a line of timber.
“Look, pard! Leslie ridin’ down on us hell-bent for election! Larry’s meetin’ her.”
Chapter Thirteen
Leslie pulled Lady Jane to a halt beside Sterl. The horse was dripping water in little streams. Leslie was wet to her waist. Her eyes glowed dark with excitement. Larry, who had accompanied her, reined in alongside.
“Girl, you didn’t swim that river for fun?” demanded Sterl.
“Dad sent…me,” panted Leslie. “Roland was…with me…. There he goes…making for the far side of…the mob.”
“I seen him, pard,” Red interposed.
“We’re camped on this side…down there,” went on Leslie, pointing with guantletted hand. “We couldn’t cross. River too deep…with steep banks. Dad said we’d have a job. Stanley Dann’s orders are to hold the mob on this side…to drive them that way…two miles up, where the banks are not so steep.”
“Leslie, you should have met us five miles out, at least,” Sterl rejoined seriously. “These cattle are thirsty. They’re tired and cross. If they smell water….”
“When they smell it,” interrupted Red. “Rustle, Sterl. Tell the drovers. They gotta be quick. Come, Larry. We’ll try to turn the leaders upstream.”
Sterl urged King into a gallop to the rear, with Leslie racing beside him. They passed Cedric, Heald, and Monkton, to whom Sterl yelled Dann’s orders in warning voice. The next guard was Drake. “Come with me!” shouted Sterl. They rode on swiftly to meet a bunch of Dann’s drovers.
“Dann’s orders. Push the mob upriver. To the east. High banks! When they smell water, we’ll have hell!”
Between the larger mob and Ormiston’s there were four drovers, two on each side, far up the wide lane. In the rear rode Ormiston and Hathaway. Far on the right side Sterl recognized Jack and Bedford, who had been stopped by Roland. The cattle plodded along, heads down, as if every step would be their last. The dust was caked on their wet flanks. Sterl caught the hot odor of the herd. He ran down on the partners, with Drake and Leslie at his heels.
“We’ve orders from Dann. Cattle must be turned upstream. River deep. High banks. Get your drovers out from between.”
Ormiston added a dark frown to his forbidding expression. “We won’t have our mob mixing with Dann’s.”
“You can’t help it,” Sterl declared curtly.
“That’s what you say, Mister Cowboy. We will keep them separated.”
“Hathaway, you have some sense, if this man hasn’t,” went on Sterl, trying to keep his patience. “This third dry day has been hot. Cattle are parched. When they smell water, they can’t be held or turned. They’ll stampede!”
The drover, impressed by Sterl’s force, turned to his partner and spoke with hesitation. Roland came galloping up, red-faced and sweating. He called on Ormiston to drove his mob to the east. Then Drake added his voice.
“Mind your own business!” he shouted. “We’ll take care of our own mob.”
“You will like hell!” returned Sterl. “Rollie, ride through and warn Dann’s drovers to rustle out of there. Back this way!”
Sterl wheeled King and was away like the wind. Leslie came along on her fleet Lady Jane. It was a race without intention. Drake followed, slowly losing ground. Halfway round the bigger mob, Sterl waved the drovers on that side to ride up toward the front. They strung out after Drake. Soon Sterl, accompanied by Leslie, came up with Larry and Red.
“Stubborn as mules!” shouted Red.
“No wonder. But we’ve got to push them, or they’ll dam up the river. How far, Red?”
“A good coupla miles. But too close. An’ downhill at thet.”
“Ormiston doesn’t know cattle, Red. He refused to help. Said he wouldn’t let his mob mix with Dann’s.”
“Haw! Haw! Shore this’s gonna be orful funny. About as funny as death for them drovers between.”
“Roland rode through to tell Dann’s….” Sterl stood up in his stirrups to gaze across the mob. “Good-o! They’re riding out. The last two of Ormiston’s men. But that fellow up front….”
“We cain’t wait, pard,” Red yelled, pulling his gun. “Leslie, keep back a little.”
Then Red rode up to the herd, gun high over his head, to yell and shout. Larry took his cue from that and did likewise. Sterl, riding back a hundred feet, followed suit. Cedric and Drake, with the drovers farther back, let loose with guns and lungs.
The front of the great mob, like the sharp end of a wedge, roused to lunge and thud away from the din. It headed away from a direct line toward the river. That relieved Sterl exceedingly. The turn was not enough, but it had started. Cattle, like sheep, blindly followed the leaders. Every few seconds Sterl would fire his gun and whoop. Dust clouds began to lift. The trampling of many hoofs, the knocking of horns, the increase in hoarse bawling, indicated the start of the milling Sterl was so keen to accomplish. He had his doubts. The herd was too big, too immobile, too ponderous. But he h
oped. The cattle had quickened out of their weary walk. Something like a current ran all the way back to the rear. That frightened Sterl. He yelled and fired and waved his sombrero. The way Red worked corroborated Sterl’s fears. They had the apex of the mob quartering away from a direct line to the river bed. But the river took a bend to the east there, and looked less than two miles away!
Suddenly from the far side of the herd waved a trampling roar that drowned yells and gunshots. Sterl’s piercing yell was a whisper in his ears. He had heard that kind of roar. His blood ran cold. Icy thrills chased up his spine. Standing in his stirrups, he saw Ormiston’s mob charging straight ahead to meet the milling front of the vast wedge of cattle. The sight made Sterl curse. Ormiston’s mob would all but defeat the work Sterl and his allies had started.
Then Sterl espied the one drover trapped in the swiftly narrowing space. The man saw his peril, but made the mistake to dash to the fore, hoping to get out of the closing gap. He should have gone back down the wider end of the space. This drover made a frantic break to escape. His calculation, however, did not allow for the curving front of the larger mob and the speed of the smaller mob. He was headed off, hemmed in. A moment later there was a terrific impact—a head-on collision of these two fronts. Sterl saw the white horse and its rider go down in a sea of horns and heads. Dust clouds hid the scene.
An increasing rattling crash of Ormiston’s mob, colliding with Dann’s all down the line, drowned the trample of hoofs. Still, only the head of Dann’s mob and the far edge appeared to be affected. A smash-up like that did not necessarily mean a stampede. What had started Ormiston’s mob? Sterl hated to admit this suspicion to his consciousness.
The clashing of thousands of horns merged with the pounding of hoofs. For the first time on that great trek nearly eight thousand cattle mingled in one mob. Sterl thought derisively of the bull-headed Ormiston. He was the one who would suffer most. His mob of branded cattle were taking the lead. They would be the first to run over the river embankment. It would serve him right, thought Sterl with accompanying curses, but what a pity so many cattle must be drowned and trampled! Sterl’s hopes would not down. He kept at his job, as he saw his comrades doing. There remained still a chance of the main herd holding to their blind action.
