III
Jack wrote a letter to his old friend, the vet with the “weakness,” in England.
“We are out at a place back of beyond, at a place called Gum Tree Valley, so I take up my pen to write as I have time.—Tom Ellis is here bossing the clearing gang, and he has a lot of Aunts, whom he rightly calls ants. One of them has a place near here, and we go to dinner on Sundays, and to help when wanted. We stayed all last week and helped muster in the sheep for the shearing. We rode all round their paddock boundaries and rounded in the sheep that had strayed and got lost. They had run off from the main—about a score of flocks—and were feeding in little herds and groups miles apart. It’s a grand sight to see them all running before you, their woolly backs bobbing up and down like brown water. I can tell you I know now the meaning of the Lost Sheep, and the sort of joy you have in cursing him when you find him.
“You told me to let you know if I heard any first hand news of gold finding. Well, I haven’t heard much. But a man rode into Greenlow’s—that’s Tom’s Aunt—place on Sunday, and he said to Tom: ‘Are those the Stirling Ranges?’ Tom said: ‘No, they’re not. They’re the Darling Ranges.’ He said: ‘Are you sure?’”—and got very excited. The black-fellows came and stood by and they were vastly amused, grinning and looking away. He got out a compass and said: ‘You are wrong, Mr. Ellis, they are the Stirling Ranges.’ Tom said: ‘Call ’em what you choose, chum. We call ’em Darling—and them others forty mile southwest we call the Stirling.’ The man groaned. Minnie Greenlow called us to come in to tea, and he came along as well. His manners were awful. He fidgetted and pushed his hat back on his head and leant forward and spat in the fire at a long shot, and tipped his cup so that his tea swobbed in his saucer, then drank it out of the saucer. Then he pushed the cake back when handed to him, and leaned his head on his arms on the table and groaned. You’d have thought he was drunk, but he wasn’t, because he said to Tom, ‘Are ye sure them’s not the Stirling Ranges? I can’t drink my tea for thinkin’ about it.’ And Tom said: ’Sure.’ and then he seemed more distracted than ever, and blew through his teeth and mopped his head, and was upset to a degree.
“When we had finished tea and we all went outside he said: ‘Well, I think I’ll get back now. It’s no use when the compass turns you down. I’ll never find it.” We didn’t know what he was talking about, but when he’d got into his buggy and drove away the blacks told us: ‘Master lookin’ for big lump yellow dirt—He think that very big fish, an’ he bury him long time. Cornin’ back no finda him.’—While the boys were talking who should shout to have the slip rail let down but this same stranger and he drove right past us and away down the long paddock. When he got to the gate there he turned round and came back and drew up by us muttering, and said: ‘Where did you tell me the Stirling Ranges were?’—Tom pointed it out, and he said, ‘So long!’ and drove off. We didn’t see him again. We didn’t want to. But Tom is almost sure he found a lump of gold some time back and buried it for safety’s sake and now can’t find it.
“That’s all the gold I’ve heard about out here.
“Now for news. One day I went out with tucker to old Jack Moss. He’s keeping a bit of land warm for the Greenlows, shepherds sheep down there, about forty miles from everywhere. He talked and talked, and when he didn’t talk he didn’t listen to me. He looked away over the scrub and sucked his cutty. They say he’s hoarded wealth but I didn’t see any signs. He was in tatters and wore rags round his feet for boots, which were like a gorilla’s. Another day we had a kangaroo hunt. We all chased an Old Man for miles and at last he tinned and faced us. I was so close I had no time to think and was on him before I had time to pull up. I jumped to the ground and grappled, and we rolled over and over down the gully. They couldn’t shoot him because of me, but they fought him off and killed him. And then we saw his mate standing near among the stones, on her hind legs, with her front paws hanging like a helpless woman. Then Tom, who was tying up my cuts, called out: ‘Look at her pouch! It’s plum full of little nippers!’ and so it was. You never saw such a trick. So we let her go. But we got the Old Man.
“Another day we rode round the surveyed area here, which Mr. Ellis is taking up for the twins Og and Magog. I asked Tom a lot of questions about taking up land. I think I should like to try. Perhaps if I do you will come out. You would like the horses. There are quite a lot wild. We hunt them in and pick out the best and use them. That’s how lots of people raise their horse-flesh. They are called brumbies. Excuse me for not ending properly, the mailman is coming along, he comes once a fortnight. We are lucky.
Jack.”