by Zane Grey
The trekkers stood and sat around the fire, listening, not one in a mood to ask questions or tell what they felt. Eric Dann, sitting with his head drooped, manifested extreme depression. Stanley paced to and fro. The women left off their tasks and instinctively pressed close to the others at the campfire. The black bush, the dank odor, the moaning across the river fell heavily and dishearteningly upon all.
This fearful silence, that was accentuated by the low chant, suddenly broke into a trampling roar of hoofs. The cowboys were as quick to leap up as Larry and Rollie. Slyter came thudding from his wagon. Eric Dann lifted a pale and haggard face. Stanley Dann swore a great oath.
“Aw, I knowed it,” Red said grimly. “Come on, Sterl. Let’s rustle our hosses.”
“Wait, you cowboys,” ordered Dann. “Some of us must guard camp. Larry, Roland. Call Benson and join the drovers out there.”
Slyter made off with the hurrying drovers, shouting something about his horses. Those left at the campfire were joined by Bill and Mrs. Slyter, and all stood listening to that stampede. Friday, at the edge of the circle of light, turned to the others and yelled: “Tinkit mob run alonga here!”
“My God!” boomed Stanley Dann, lifting his great arms in a gesture of horror. “Will they rush camp? Stand ready, all! If the mob comes this way, take to the trees!”
The increasing roar, the quaking sound, held all those listeners fraught with suspense and panic for an endless moment.
“Stampede’ll miss us!” yelled Red Krehl.
Friday stooped to make violent motions with his right arm, indicating that the herd was rushing in that direction. It sounded close, but really was not, although it certainly came toward the river. Gunshots banged faintly out of the black, to leave it blacker. That mob of cattle had evidently rushed straight for the river. The camp happened to be located a little below the point for which they were making. But the terrified women could not yet be sure of that. They clung to the men.
“All right! We’re safe!” yelled Sterl, and then felt himself sag under the release of tension. It had been a terrible few moments of uncertainty.
Then a crashing augmented the trampling roar. The stampede had run into the bush, evidently pointed up the river. What a knocking, cracking, continuous crash! The noise lasted for minutes before it began to lessen in volume. Soon the cattle ran on out of hearing.
“Providence saved us again,” rang out Stanley Dann in immense relief. “But this rush will be bad for the mob.”
“Dog-gone bad for the drovers, too, I’d say,” declared Red.
“You may well think so. One of the worst things a drover can experience is to stop a rush at night in the bush. I’ve known drovers to be killed. But usually a mob does not rush long. I am hopeful.”
“They might stampede into the river,” interposed Sterl.
Eric Dann sat down again and bent his gaze upon the ruddy fire embers. Sterl did not desire to know that man’s thoughts. The mosquitoes buzzed around like dragonflies. Again the mournful wail of the aborigines at their chant became audible and haunting. The flying-foxes swished overhead; up in the trees they rustled and squeaked. In the dim firelight their black grotesque shapes could be discerned, hanging heads and wings spread from the branches.
Someone had thoughtfully rolled a short log to one side of the fire and placed some packs on the other side for seats. It was necessary to sit close to the heat and smoke to be even reasonably safe from the mosquitoes. Eric Dann, however, sat back in the shadow. Not improbably he had too much on his mind to feel bites. The rush of the mob had apparently interested him. Stanley Dann stalked in and out of the circle of light. Presently Slyter returned to camp.
“Horses all right, nothing to worry about there,” he was saying to Dann as they approached the fire. “The rush was bad. But half the mob was not affected.”
“That was strange. Usually cattle follow the leaders like sheep. Uncanny sort of a place.”
“Right-o. I jolly well wish we were out of it. Hello, Mum. You and Les should be in bed.”
“I see ourselves, with the mob threatening to run us down. And Stanley calling to us to climb trees!” retorted his good wife. “But we’ll go now.”
“Beryl, that would be a good idea for you,” said her father.
“I’m afraid to go to bed,” replied the girl petulantly.
“Me, too,” added Leslie. “These sneaky, furry bats give me the creeps. I just found one in our wagon. Put my hand on it in the dark. Ugh!”
“Well, as long as Sterl and Red have to sit up, waiting, I suppose it’s all right for you girls, too. But it’s not a very cheerful place for courting.”
Beryl let out a scornful little laugh. “Courting! Whom on earth with?”
“Sometime back it was royalty condescending. Now it’s how the mighty have fallen,” returned Mrs. Slyter subtly, and left them to join her husband and Dann for a cup of tea.
“Leslie, what ever did your mother mean by that cryptic speech?” asked Beryl, annoyed.
“Oh, Mum’s got softening of the brain,” returned Leslie, and she dropped down on the log very close to Sterl. He could not move over for her, because he was at the end. Red, who sat across the fire from them, gave them a glance and then looked up at Beryl, who was standing. In the firelight against that eerie background with her fair hair and her great, dark eyes, she made an arresting picture.
“Say, all you women have softenin’ of the brain,” he drawled.
“Yeah?” queried Leslie.
“Is that so, Mister Krehl?” added Beryl.
“Yes, it’s so. Take thet crack of Leslie’s mother, for instance. She meant spoonin’, didn’t she?”
“That’s what you crude Yankees call it,” Beryl retorted, spoiling for a fight.
“Beryl, haven’t I told you lots of times that Sterl an’ I air not Yankees?”
“You have. But I don’t care.”
“Wal, Les’s ma an’ you girls air of one mind, I reckon, so far as men are concerned. The idee is to collar a man, any man temporarily, till you meet up with one you aim to corral for keeps.”
“That’s true, Red. Disgustingly true,” admitted Beryl, suddenly frank and earnest. “But Les and I are not to blame for this female of the species business.”
“I reckon not, Beryl,” returned Red, conciliated by her sincerity.
Leslie laid her head back on Sterl’s shoulder, and he, sympathetic as well as devilish, put his arm around her. Both actions were plain to Beryl and the cowboy, and seemed, in fact, like waving a red flag at belligerents.
“Go on, Red. You were going to say something,” went on Beryl.
“I was, an’ though mebbe I’m kinda ashamed of it, I won’t show no white feather,” rejoined the cowboy, ponderingly for him. “It seemed to me kind of far-fetched an’ silly…thet sentimental yearnin’ of yores, if it was thet. Heah we air lost in this gawd-forsaken land. Aw, I know Eric there swears we ain’t lost, but that doesn’t fool me. An’ this hole is as spooky an’ nasty a place as I ever camped. It’s more. It’s a darned dangerous one. We jest escaped somethin’ tough. Thet stampede might jest as well run over our camp. Shore we’d all got safe up in trees, but no matter. What might had happened to our supplies an’ belongin’s? I hate to think of it, because I’ve been in camps thet buffalo stampeded over. Bad enough without girls on yore hands! What with that an’ the alligators an’ the blacks, why, we’ll have the wust hell yet. An’ thet’s why I jest wondered at you womenfolk, feelin’ thet soft, sweet, mushy sentiment in the face of hell, an’ mebbe death.”
“Red Krehl, that’s the wonder of it…that we can feel and need such things at such a time,” returned Beryl eloquently. “I left such things behind, to come with my father, to help make a new home for him. I could have gone to live in Sydney. I could have married there in Downsville. But I came with Dad…with you. And you’ve seen something of what I’ve suffered. But you have no appreciation of how I feel. Even if I were the most selfish girl, which I
am not, I could have not deserved the misery I’ve already endured. This hard experience has not wholly destroyed my sensitiveness, my former habits. I can see the point of Sterl’s old argument about us going bush. I can see that we’ll turn into aborigines, if we’re stuck here forever. But just now, I’m a dual nature. By day I’m courageous, by night I’m cowardly. I can’t sleep. I’m afraid of noises. I lie with the cold chills creeping over me. I am morbid and fearful. I conjure up the most horrible imaginings. I can’t forget what…what has already happened to me. I nearly went mad, you know. It was this sensitive side of me I’m trying to explain about…Red Krehl, you said you wonder at me. But I say it’s a wonder you cannot see how I’d welcome any kindness, any attention, any affection, any boldness, even from you at least, to keep me from thinking.”
It was a long speech, although quickly spoken, one that Sterl took to his heart in shame and self-reproach. He was intensely curious to see how Red would take it, and somehow he had faith in the cowboy’s greatness of soul, if not intelligence.
“Come heah, girl,” said Red gently, and held out his hand. Beryl stepped to him and leaned, as if compelled. He drew her to a place beside him on the narrow pack, and he put his arm around her to draw her close. “Now, look at them silly fools acrost there an’ think all the dreamy things you can about them. I’m sorry I made all them hard cracks about this place. Only I’m glad, ’cause I understand you better. But Beryl, I reckon you cain’t figger me out. When all was goin’ fine back on this trek…it seems long ago now…you gave me plenty bad times. I don’t forget them, as you seem to have done. Thet’s one reason why I cain’t help you not to think. On the other hand, this trek has worked deep on me. I’ve seen all along what was comin’. I see it heah, an’ wuss than ever. I’m a queer duck thet way. Sterl calls me psychic, what ever thet is. But I do have queer hunches. So, even if I wanted to be sweet an’ soft about you, which I shore can’t after the way you treated me, I couldn’t be on account of what this damn’ trek has made me. All thet’s opposite to soft an’ sweet, Beryl! I’ve saved yore life a coupla times, an’ I reckon I’ll have to do thet a heap more. If I wasn’t a hard-ridin’, hardshootin’ cowboy, a killer, grim an’ mean, I couldn’t do thet much for you. Thet ought to make you see me clear, and be glad that I am as I am.”
“Oh, Red,” Beryl cried poignantly, as she gazed up at him in the fading light, “I don’t want you any different.”
They had forgotten Sterl and Leslie, and Eric Dann back in the shadow, and the others. For Sterl it was sweet and exalting to see Beryl leaning to his friend, yearning to be forgiven and taken in his arms, to see Red shaken by his Homeric mood, yet still proof to her allurement. The thud of hoofs disrupted this scene with its potentialities, and in another moment Larry rode up to the fire. Friday came running to throw brush upon the blaze. The cowboys disengaged themselves to leap to their feet. Larry almost fell off his horse. Slyter and Dann came thudding out. The fire blazed up brightly.
“Larry, you’re all bloody!” exclaimed Sterl.
“What came off, you?” added Red, taking Larry’s arm. “Have you been speared?”
“No. Just ran into a snag,” panted the drover. “Let me sit down.”
Dann arrived to bend over Larry. “Bad scalp cut. Girls, fetch water and linen. Larry, are you all right?”
“Yes, sir…except played out.”
“Where are the other drovers?”
“Back with what…was left of the mob. That rush got away, sir.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Benson said one third of the mob. They rushed into the bush. We drove after them…hell for leather! They were a crazy lot of cattle. They crashed through the bush…some into the river. We drove them by sound. It was pitch dark. Bad going. We couldn’t hear them. They got away. So we yelled to come together…then rode back. That mob will work out of the bush by morning. Maybe we can ring them then.”
Meanwhile, Dann had unwound the bloody scarf from Larry’s head and began to dress the wound. Slyter told the girls to go to bed, and this time they obeyed. Red was sent off to take Larry’s place with the drovers, and Sterl told to stay in camp. It developed that the night was far spent. Sterl sat beside the campfire while the black stalked into the bush and out again, listening, peering. He did not trust the place. All sounds but those of the flying-foxes ceased, and the silence seemed more pregnant with the meaning of Doré’s Bush.
When toward dawn Red and Rollie came in, relieved by two of Dann’s drovers, Sterl lay down beside the cowboy. They got a couple of hours’ sleep. The sun was up, when Friday called them.
“Where’s black fella, Friday?”
“Alonga dere. No good. Hidum about. Watchum white man.”
“Sterl, these aborigines up heah ’pear to be a different breed. All same Comanche Injuns,” said Red.
“I’d rather they came out in the open. What will Dann do today?”
“Hah! Thet guy will do things. Take it from me.”
“And if we judge from how Larry was cut up, all those drovers will be crippled.”
“Right-o. Did you ever see a rider as ragged as Larry was?”
“Game fellow, Red, and don’t you forget it.”
“I ain’t forgettin’, pard. Nor am I forgettin’ about those girls.”
“Oh, Lord! I never saw their beat. Beryl, used to luxury, comfort, adulation…fighting all this bush life! Leslie, girl of the open, horse-lover, game as any man, and almost as strong!”
“Yeah? I reckoned thet much wasn’t left in you, pard. So what the hell will we do?”
“Red, you ask me that…for the hundredth time?”
“Shore I ask you…you aborigine.”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Wal, we gotta get madder’n hell. Madder’n we ever was. Full of thet somethin’ which keeps Dann an’ Slyter up.”
“Red! How can we? They are Australians. Their incentive is great. We’re only a couple of adventure-seeking outcasts.”
“Hell, no! We ain’t nothin’ of the kind. These people shall be our people…their ways our ways…their cause our cause.”
“Red, you have me tied to a hitching post for being a real man,” returned Sterl with a sigh.
“I ain’t so damn’ shore. Come on. It’s another day.”
They found the drovers straggling in. Benson reported two thirds of the mob left. With ragged garb, scratched hands, bruised faces they gave evidence of what strenuous effort had been given to heading that rush. Bligh and Derrick were the last to come in. And their torn and blackened appearance spoke eloquently.
“We headed the rush, five miles west,” reported Bligh wearily. “They’re out in the open, not many on their feet. De-horned, crippled, snagged…a sorry mess!”
“Bligh…Derrick!” exploded the leader. “What can I say?” Obviously there was nothing to say. But it did not seem an anticlimax for Dann to offer them a choice between whiskey and tea, and that they chose the latter.
Friday appeared carrying a kangaroo that he had speared.
“Plenty ’roo,” he said. “Ribber full up. Plenty croc’.”
“What’s he mean?” queried Red anxiously. “ ’Gators or croc’s?”
“Both species in these northern rivers,” replied Slyter. “But only the crocodiles are big and dangerous.”
“Friday, see any more blacks?” asked Sterl.
“Black fella imm alonga bush. Bimeby.”
“Men, eat and drink all you can hold,” said Stanley Dann. “Stuff your pockets full of damper and meat.”
That order elicited no reply. Manifestly Dann had made his plan, and the suggestion was ominous. One by one the drovers gorged themselves, and then waited for they knew not what. Eric Dann moved among them, yet strangely did not see any of them. At length they were all through, waiting fatefully upon their leader’s words.
“Listen sharp,” he began, and his voice rang. “We’ll leave those cattle that rushed last night until th
e last. If they stray too far or scatter, we’ll abandon them. Our mob has been too large…we’ll break camp now. Move all the wagons and horses to the open break in the bush below. Then drove the main mob closer. Two guards on and off for two hours. We’ll ford the river with the wagons, split up our party, and camp on each side until the last job, which will be to drove the mob across.”
It was a bold and masterly plan, Sterl conceded, as far as purpose was concerned. The execution remained to be an inspiration of genius and an heroic job. They mounted and rode away.
In less than two hours the wagons had been hauled to the new campsite. The cowboys and Leslie drove Slyter’s horses. The Dann horses, still a hundred odd in number, were moved by two of his drovers, and then all, except Larry and Sterl, mustered the mob and drove it within sight of camp.
The day was perfect. Wildfowl, parrots, cockatoos, flocks of other birds, and kangaroos everywhere, enlivened the scene, and robbed the bush and downs of the menace that abided there by night.
But the river! The drovers, even their leader, had only to go within sight of that reed-bordered, mud-sloped, yellow-swirling tide to be affronted by seeming impossibilities. These, however, had no place in Stanley Dann’s lexicon. The courage of men could accomplish what their doubts and fears made hopeless.
“Friday, where are the crocodiles?” boomed Dann.
“Alonga here,” replied the black, his spear indicating the river and the margins of reeds.
“Slyter, do they hide in the grass?”
“Yes, indeed. These big croc’s live on animals. This water is brackish. I tasted it. Kangaroos, wild cattle, brumbies would drink it. I’ve been told how the croc’s lie in wait and with one terrific lash of their tails knock an animal or an aborigine into the water. They will snap at the nose of a drinking or swimming animal and drag it under.”
“They may not be plentiful. But all of you use your eyes. Have you guns ready. Slyter, you will drive your wagon in first. Send a drover ahead to test the bottom. Larry, Krehl, Hazelton…help Bill pitch camp while Friday keeps an eye on the mob. The rest of you make ready to go with Slyter. Unhitch his teams. Drove them across. Pack ropes and tackles. Come back to unload his wagon. Make haste, while the tide is in.”
