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And Nature, in taking this mirthless rise out of the spectator, never repeats herself in the particulars of distance, area or configuration of her simulacre; it may be a mere stripe across the road the brown, sinuous track disappearing beneath its surface, to re-appear on the opposing shore it may be no larger than a good gilgie; or it may be the counterfeit presentment of a sheet of water, miles in extent, though this last is rare.
However, next morning after verifying the tracks of the thirsty bullocks so near the gilgie that it seemed a wonder they hadn't walked into it I looked for the clump of mallee. I don't believe there was a stick of it within miles; but there was a clump of yarran where it should have been.
Next day, still following the line of posts, we dropped the rest of the wire; and, before Dan left me, I made him repeat again and again his directions for finding a gilgie, which he knew to be full of first-class water, and which I ought to strike about sunset. Next day I would reach the station in good time, thus completing a loop journey of thirty-odd miles in four days.
The weather was hot; and they had barely sipped the alkaline water at last camp. I was absently observing one white bullock close by, when, with a low bellow, he suddenly darted forward eight or ten yards, and began drinking at the gilgie. That bellow was answered from all sides; and in two minutes his nineteen mates were sharing the discovery.
"It was coming on evening when I met him; and, says he, 'I 'm making for the Old-man Gilgie haven't you come past it? So I told him if he wanted to camp on water, he'd have to turn back five mile, and come with me to where I knew of a brackish dam. I'd just been disappointed of water, myself, at the Old-man Gilgie.
"So we camped late at night," he resumed, in a relieved tone; "and this friend of yours cleared-off early in the morning. He was n't interested in anything but the Diamantina track, and I was nasty over the gilgie, so we did n't yarn much. However, that chap 's no more off his head than I am. Bit odd, I daresay; but that's nothing.
"Well, you are gauging him by a standard that's foreign to his class of mind," replied Andrews. "If he had been as strange to that gilgie as you were, and had got the same directions he gave you, he would have found it first shot. When a certain class of bushman says 'mallee', he means any sort of scrub except lignum; and when he says 'mulga', he means any tree except pine or currajong.
Me father hed consitherable mains, so he hed; an' A har'ly ivver done a han's turn, furbye divarsion, to A come out here. However, you will now understand why I made him repeat his topographical notes half a dozen times before I let him go. Just at sunset I struck the partly-plain patch of sixty or eighty acres, where the gilgie ought to be.
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