The long days of early summer went by on Kaloona Station. While the last stars were leaving the sky, Jackie, the black horse-tailer, let down the slip-rails of the house paddock and cantered into the dusk, whip in hand, the sound of his horse dying slowly and solemnly in the distance. The stars would faint, the first glow of dawn would spread behind the trees upon the river, one or two birds would their throats a little while. Light would grow. Presently, advancing horse-bells cried across the distance, Jackie's whip banged out in the stillness, and the thud of many striking the ground from afar. With a brave chiming of bells, the horses would come home.
Mrs. Elliott, the cook, and Maggie, the maid of all other work, arose betimes on these long days. There was much to do. Mr. Power would come looking for breakfast; breakfast called for a lighted fire. There was the woodbox to visit, and little Scandalous to dress down should it be empty. Mrs. Elliott, ample and beaming, and very gay when you knew her well, pushed her leg from the sheets of a morning while the world was still grey. "Come on, Meg; it's time we was moving."
The place was well awake when the sun looked over the edge of the plain; a going forward in the kitchen, the parrots whistling in their cage by the window, the gins yabbering at the of their hut, the voices of men raised down at the yards. There Power gave O'Neill the orders for the day, and Scandalous Jack moved everywhere, full of importance and loud talk. The horses stood in the yard, and a man or two went about the morning feed.
Kaloona stands upon the river in a noble stretch of timbered country. The timber shelters the homestead on three sides, and falls back to the of the water. At high noon on a summer day you will find cool places under the trees where a man may lie in fair content. There is always a bird or two flitting among the , with a bright call in his bill.
Very fair grows Kaloona by moonshine or by starshine on summer nights; the water sleeping, the night loud with insect voices, the sound of splashes in the shadows.
Summer finds it a fair spot; but winter brings it loveliness with both hands. The breath of the frost comes down at night, and sends a man abroad at dawn blowing his fingers, and throwing an eye to the East for the lie-a-bed sun. It comes at last, big and red, tumbling over the country in long jolly beams. Now in tree and bush begin the birds, calling, whistling, crying, mocking. The is his breast in the river, and the spoonbill in the mud.
After breakfast comes the saddling up, and many a clever rider can lose his seat when the frost is in the air and the young horses leave the yards.
Spring is nigh as lovely. The parrot flashes his colours in the sun, the bright-breasted finches swing in the bushes. The slim black cockatoo sweeps overhead, and the sulphur-crest screams in the high branches. A fair spot is Kaloona by the river.
Life has ups and downs there. Much work there is to do sometimes—hard days in the saddle, with short now and then, and a bed at the end under the sky. Slack times come in their turn, when the hours arrive empty-handed—and those first long summer days, when the musterers had come back from Morning Springs, supplied little employment after the round in the morning. It was the[Pg 179] season for a man to look about and put himself in repair; mend his whip, teach his dog manners, patch his boots and the like. When the sun was in the middle of the sky, and the iron roofs of the homestead and the huts cracked out loud in the heat, a man could lie on his back and smoke a pipe, and so find content until evening.
It was never Power's way to hang about the homestead, unless work kept him there; but some evil spell had fallen on him these latter times, causing him to prowl at home at idle end. He grew crotchety these days, hard to please and poorly pleased even when things were well. There were mornings when he saddled a horse and rode over to Surprise, returning as gloomy as he went, and again, as evening came on, he rode away, leaving those behind him to guess his errand.
"Mrs. Elliott," said Maggie one breakfast, putting her hands to her and talking very straight, "the boss has turned cranky of a sudden. There's no getting yes or no out of him. It's no good to me. I'll be letting fly."
Mrs. Elliott gave answer. "Don't be in a flurry, Meg. All men are alike. They get took that way now and then. They're as hard to get forward sometimes as a full-mouthed ewe in the dipping yards. Don't be too quick on him yet.[Pg 180] Maybe he's fell out with Miss Neville at Surprise, and is in the sulks."
Unlucky Scandalous pushed his face through the kitchen doorway. "What's come to the boss of a sudden? He's as cross-grained as you like. Took it out of me just now because he reckoned the place was untidy down there."
"And a good thing too," said Mrs. Elliott, turning sharp about. "If you spent more time on the woodheap, instead of up here minding other people's business, you might be took up less often."
One morning at breakfast, when Mrs. Elliott had to put something special on the table and had not had "Good morning" for her pains, as Power sat gloomy, despising his food and chewing thought, she took him to task.
"Mr. Power," she said, putting down a new cup of tea, and taking up a stand before him, "what's come on you that you give up the horses and stand twiddling your thumbs?"
"There's no work outside."
"That's the first time that's ever been. What are them horses doing in and out of the yards every day, and not a leg put across them?"
"It's too hot to ride about for nothing."
"Nothing? The best horses in the country hanging their heads because nothing doing? I never heard of a run which wasn't the better for[Pg 181] looking after. Do you know what they say at Surprise? They say Simpson gets half his meat cheap, so cheap that it only takes him a quiet ride at times when Kaloona's asleep to fill his yards for the morning. They say he is a quicker man at hiding a branded beast than any feller on Kaloona is at finding one."
"I've heard that story. He doesn't get many, and he'll drop in in good time."
But Mrs. Elliott had her way, though, like a wise woman, she raised no flag of victory. Breakfast over, Power found the way to the yards, caught a horse, saddled it, took a waterbag, some midday tucker and a whip, and rode away at a foot pace across the plain. He spent all day in far places, leaving the homestead when the sun was low, and finding himself several miles away from home when the sun again was climbing down the sky. He never pushed his horse beyond walking pace, but neither did he rest it; and many miles were put behind before the day was done. He passed from point to point, wherever there was water or a clustering of timber, wherever there was chance of coming up with a mob of cattle. He knew that wide country as another man knows the floor of his office, and when he wished kept course as the arrow flies. Once or twice he drew the , and stared at faint prints upon the ground; and such halt[Pg 182] might bring change of direction. He spent the middle of the day on his back in a fair of timber, but saddled up again while the sun was far up in the sky.
He judged it to be five o'clock at last, and he was still an hour's ride from home. He was heated to his bones by the long journey in the sun, the coat of his horse was curled with sweat; he was , fagged and thirsty.
He took his hat from his head, and pushed it between the surcingle and the saddle. The sun was losing strength at last; a breeze was finding the way from the South. His shadow and his horse's shadow were growing longer; the crickets were their orchestra against the evening, but in spite of their cries, the plain, which had been hushed all day, had grown more hushed.
He looked again at the sun, which was a bare half-hour from its going down. The red glare dazzled him, and when he dropped his eyes, the white stones on the ground changed to blue. He looked up to get the light from his eyes, and found he was passing under the crag of one of those sudden hills which climb high out of the plain all over that country. It stood above him, lofty, sheer and lonely, grass-covered for a hundred feet of the journey, thence forward to[Pg 183] the summit, piled with immense bare , carrying a few shrunken trees.
Looking up, a freak of mind urged him to stand on the highest point there. He............