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Updated: May 28, 2025
Monotony! when of the thirty days that followed these three every day was alike only in being different from any other, excepting in their almost unvarying menu: beef and damper and tea for a first course, and tea and damper and jam for a second. They also resembled each other, and all other days out-bush, in the necessity of dressing in a camp mosquito net.
But their joy was short-lived, for as soon as the homestead affairs had been seen to, and a fresh swag packed, we started out-bush again to look for Dan and his bullocks, and, coming on their tracks at our first night camp, by following them up next morning we rode into the Dandy's camp at the Yellow Hole well after midday, to find ourselves surrounded by the stir and bustle of a cattle camp.
The bearer of the chief's message had also carried out all extra mail for us, and, opening it, we found the usual questions of the South folk. "Whatever do you do with your time?" they all asked. "The monotony would kill me," some declared. "Every day must seem the same," said others: every one agreeing that life out-bush was stagnation, and all marvelling that we did not die of ennui.
Just as we were preparing to go out-bush for reports, Dan came in with a mob of cattle for branding and the news that a yard on the northern boundary was gone from the face of the earth. "Clean gone since last Dry," he reported; "burnt or washed away, or both." Rather than let his cattle go, he had travelled in nearly thirty miles with the mob in hand, but "reckoned" it wasn't "good enough."
All agreed that "you couldn't beat cold boiled duck by much"; but in the morning grilled fish was accepted as "just the thing for breakfast"; then finding ourselves face to face with Lot's wife, and not too much of that, we beat a hasty retreat to the homestead; a further opportune "catch" of duck giving us heart for further brumby encounters and another night's camp out-bush.
It couldn't be carried out-bush from camp to camp, and finding us at a loss for an answer, Dan suggested one himself. "Of course!" he said, as he eyed the furnishings with interest, "it 'ud come in handy to pack the chain away in while the dog was out enjoying itself "; and we left it at that.
Let them look from their own dark alleys and hideous midnights into some or all of the cattle camps out-bush, or, better still, right into the "poor dark souls'" of the bush-folk themselves if their vision is clear enough before they judge.
I cried reproachfully, but the next moment was "toeing the line" even to the Head Stockman's satisfaction; for with a look of surprise Johnny had added: "I I thought you'd reckon that travellers' water for the Dry came before your rooms." Out-bush we deal in hard facts. "Thought I'd reckon!" I said, appalled to think my comfort should even be spoken of when men's lives were in question.
We had spent one week out-bush, visiting the four points of the compass, half a day at the homestead packing a fresh swag; three days riding into the Katherine, having found incidental entertainment on the road, and on the fourth day were entering into an argument by wire with Chinese slimness. "The monotony would kill me," declared the townsfolk.
Sam made coffee; but coffee only increased the headaches and cravings, and so we sat peering into the forest, hoping for travellers; and all we learnt by the experience was that tea is a necessary of life out-bush. On the second evening a traveller came in from the south track. "He wouldn't refuse a woman, surely," every one said, and we welcomed him warmly. He had about three ounces of tea.
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