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The Fizzer was due at sundown, and for the Fizzer to be due meant that the Fizzer would arrive, and by six o'clock we had all got cricks in our necks, with trying to go about as usual, and yet keep an expectant eye on the north track. The Fizzer is unlike every type of man excepting a bush mail-man.
"So I've noticed," he shouted as, improving on Mac's ogle, he singled him out from the company, then dropping his voice to an insinuating drawl he challenged him to have a deal. Instantly the Sanguine Scot became a Canny Scot, for Mac prided himself on a horse-deal. And as no one had yet got the better of the Fizzer the company gathered round to enjoy itself.
The first batch of travellers had little news for us. They had heard that the teams were loading up, and couldn't say for certain, and, finding them unsatisfactory, we looked forward to the coming of the "Fizzer," our mailman, who was almost due. Eight mails a year was our allowance, with an extra one now and then through the courtesy of travellers.
When the Fizzer came in he came with his usual lusty shouting, but varied his greeting into a triumphant: "Broken the record this time, missus. Two bags as big as a house and a few et-cet-eras!" And presently he staggered towards us bent with the weight of a mighty mail.
The chestnut was standing near the creek-crossing, and every one knowing him well, and sure of that "something" up Mac's sleeve, feared for the Fizzer as Mac's hand came out with a "Done!" and the Fizzer gripped it with a clinching "Right ho!" Naturally we waited for the denouement, and the Fizzer appearing unsuspicious and well-pleased with the deal, we turned our attention to the Sanguine Scot.
"Half-past eleven four weeks," the Fizzer had said; and as we returned to our mail-matter, knowing what it meant to our Fizzer, we looked anxiously to the northwest, and "hoped the showers" would come before the "return trip of the Downs." F. BROWN, Esq., IN CHARGE OF STUD BULLS GOING WEST VIA NORTHERN TERRITORY.
No hesitation: horse after horse rejected or approved, until the team is complete; and then driving them before him he faces the Open Downs the Open Downs, where the last mail-man perished; and only the men who know the Downs in the Dry know what he faces. That is the Open Downs. "Fizz!" shouts the Fizzer.
Sixteen days is the time-limit for those five-hundred miles, and yet the Fizzer is expected because the Fizzer is due; and to a man who loves his harness no praise could be sweeter than that.
"Four, they call it," says the Fizzer, "forgetting I can't leave the water till midday. Takes a bit of fizzing all right"; and yet at Powell's Creek no one has yet discovered whether the Fizzer comes at sundown, or the sun goes down when the Fizzer comes.
And every letter the Fizzer carries past that well costs the public just twopence. A drink at the well, an all-night's spell, another drink, and then away at midday, to face the tightest pinch of all the pinch where death won with the other mail-man. Fifty miles of rough, hard, blistering, scorching "going," with worn and jaded horses. The old programme all over again.
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