Such Is Life

by Tom Collins

  “Seems that, for some reason or other—valuation for mortgage, I’m thinking—the classer had come round a few days before; and Spanker had called in every man on the station, to muster the ewes. You know how thick the scrub is on Goolumbulla? Dan came in along with the rest, leaving his own place before daylight on the first morning. They swept the paddock the first day for about three parts of the ewes; the second day they got most of what was left; but Spanker wanted every hoof, if possible, and he kept all hands on for the third day.

  “Seems, the little girl didn’t trouble herself the first day, though she hadn’t seen Dan in the morning; but the second day there was something peculiar about her—not fretful, but dreaming, and asking her mother strange questions. It appears that, up to this time, she had never said a word about the man that was found dead near their place, a couple of months before. She saw that her parents didn’t want to tell her anything about it, so she had never showed any curiosity; but now her mother was startled to find that she knew all the particulars.

  “It appears that she was very fond of her father; and this affair of the man perishing in the scrub was working on her mind. All the second day she did nothing but watch; and during the night she got up several times to ask her mother questions that frightened the woman. The child didn’t understand her father going away before she was awake, and not coming back. Still, the curious thing was that she never took her mother into her confidence, and never seemed to fret.

  “Anyway, on the third morning, after breakfast, her mother went out to milk the goats, leaving her in the house. When the woman came back, she found the child gone. She looked round the place, and called, and listened, and prospected everywhere, for an hour; then she went into the house, and examined. She found that the little girl had taken about a pint of milk, in a small hilly with a lid, and half a loaf of bread. Then, putting everything together, the mother decided that she had gone into the scrub to look for her father. There was no help to be had nearer than the home-station, for the only other boundary man on that part of the run was away at the muster. So she cleared for the station—twelve mile—and got there about three in the afternoon, not able to stand. There was nobody about the station but Mrs. Spanker, and the servant-girl, and the cook, and the Chow slushy; and Mrs. Spanker was the only one that knew the track to the ewe-paddock. However, they got a horse in, and off went Mrs. Spanker to give the alarm. Fine woman. Daughter of old Walsh, storekeeper at Moogoojinna, on the Deniliquin side.

  “It would be about five when Mrs. Spanker struck the ewe-paddock, and met Broome and another fellow. Then the three split out to catch whoever they could, and pass the word round. Dan got the news just before sundown. He only remarked that she might have found her own way back; then he went for home as hard as his horse could lick.

  “As the fellows turned-up, one after another, Spanker sent the smartest of them—one to Kulkaroo, and one to Mulppa, and two or three others to different fencers’ and tank-sinkers’ camps. But the main thing was blackfellows. Did anybody know where to find a blackfellow, now that he was wanted?

  “Seems, there had been about a dozen of them camped near the tank in the cattle-paddock for a month past, but they were just gone, nobody knew where. And there had been an old lubra and a young one camped within a mile of the station, and, an old fellow and his lubra near one of the boundary men’s places; but they all happened to have shifted; and no one had the slightest idea where they could be found. However, in a sense, everyone was after them.

  “But, as I was telling you, we had some breakfast at the station, and then started for Dan’s place. Seven of us by this time, for another of the Kulkaroo men had come up, and there were three well-sinkers in a buggy. This was on a Thursday morning; and the little girl had been out twenty-four hours.

  “Well, we had gone about seven mile, with crowds of fresh horse-tracks to guide us; and we happened to be going at a fast shog, and Bob riding a couple or three yards to the right, when he suddenly wheeled his horse round, and jumped off.

  “‘How far is it yet to Dan’s place?’ says he.

  “‘Five mile,’ says one of the well-sinkers. ‘We’re just on the corner of his paddock. Got tracks?’

  “‘Yes,’ says Bob. ‘I’ll run them up, while you fetch the other fellows. Somebody look after my horse.’ And by the time the last word was out of his mouth, he was twenty yards away along the little track. No trouble in following it, for she was running the track of somebody that had rode out that way a few days before—thinking it was her father’s horse, poor little thing!

  “Apparently she had kept along the inside of Dan’s fence—the way she had generally seen him going out—till she came to the corner, where there was a gate. Then she had noticed this solitary horse’s track striking away from the gate, out to the left; and she had followed it However, half-a-mile brought us to a patch of hardish ground, where she had lost the horse’s track; and there Bob lost hers. Presently he picked it up again; but now there was only her little boot-marks to follow.”

  “A goot dog would be wort vivty men dere, I tink,” suggested Helsmok.

  “Same thought struck several of us, but it didn’t strike Bob,” replied Thompson. “Fact, the well-sinkers had brought a retriever with them in the buggy; a dog that would follow the scent of any game you could lay him on; but they couldn’t get him, to take any notice of the little girl’s track. Never been trained to track children—and how were they going to make him understand that a child was lost? However, while two of the well-sinkers were persevering with their retriever, the other fellow drove off like fury to fetch Dan’s sheep-dog; making sure that we would only have to follow him along the scent. In the meantime, I walked behind Bob, leading both our horses.

  “Give him his due, he’s a great tracker. I compare tracking to reading a letter written in a good business hand. You mustn’t look at what’s under your eye; you must see a lot at once, and keep a general grasp of what’s on ahead, besides spotting each track you pass. Otherwise, you’ll be always turning back for a fresh race at it. And you must no more confine yourself to actual tracks than you would expect to find each letter correctly formed. You must just lift the general meaning as you go. Of course, our everyday tracking is not tracking at all.

  “However, Bob run this little track full walk, mile after mile, in places where I wouldn’t see a mark for fifty yards at a stretch, on account of rough grass, and dead leaves, and so forth. One thing in favour of Bob was that she kept a fairly straight course, except when she was blocked by porcupine or supple-jack; then she would swerve off, and keep another middling straight line. At last Bob stopped.

  “‘Here’s where she slept last night,’ says he; and we could trace the marks right enough. We even found some crumbs of bread on the ground, and others that the ants were carrying away. She had made twelve or fourteen mile in the day’s walk.

  “By this time, several chaps had come from about Dan’s place; and they were still joining us in twos and threes. As fast as they came, they scattered out in front, right and left, and one cove walked a bit behind Bob, with, a frog-bell, shaking it now and then, to give the fellows their latitude. This would be about two in the afternoon, or half-past; and we pushed along the tracks she had made only a few hours before, with good hopes of overtaking her before dark. The thing that made us most uneasy was the weather. It was threatening for a thunderstorm. At this time we were in that unstocked country south-east of the station. Suddenly Bob rose up from his stoop, and looked round at me with a face on him like a ghost.

  “‘God help us now, if we don’t get a blackfellow quick!’ says he, pointing at the ground before him. And, sure enough, there lay the child’s little copper-toed boots, where she had taken them off when her feet got sore, and walked on in her socks. It was just then that a tank-sinker drove up, with Dan and his dog in the buggy.”

  “Poor old Rory!” I interposed. “Much excited?”

  “Well—no. But there was a look of suspense
in his face that was worse. And his dog—a dog that had run the scent of his horse for hundreds of miles, all put together—that dog would smell any plain track of the little stocking-foot, only a few hours old, and would wag his tail, and bark, to show that he knew whose track it was; and all the time showing the greatest distress to see Dan in trouble; but it was no use trying to start him on the scent. They tried three or four other dogs, with just the same success. But Bob never lost half-a-second over these attempts. He knew.

  “Anyway, it was fearful work after that; with the thunderstorm hanging over us. Bob was continually losing the track; and us circling round and round in front, sometimes picking it up a little further ahead. But we only made another half-mile or three-quarters, at the outside—before night was on. I daresay there might be about twenty-five of us by this time, and eighteen or twenty horses, and two or three buggies and wagonettes. Some of the chaps took all the horses to a tank six or eight mile away, and some cleared-off in desperation to hunt for blackfellows, and the rest of us scattered out a mile or two ahead of the last track, to listen.

  “They had been sending lots of tucker from the station; and before the morning was grey everyone had breakfast, and was out again. But, do what we would, it was slow, slow work; and Bob was the only one that could make any show at all in running the track. Friday morning, of course; and by this time the little girl had been out for forty-eight hours.

  “At nine or ten in the forenoon, when Bob had made about half-a-mile, one of the Kulkaroo men came galloping through the scrub from the right, making for the sound of the bell.

  “‘Here, Bob!’ says he. ‘We’ve found the little girl’s billy at the fence of Peter’s paddock, where she crossed. Take this horse. About two mile—straight out there.’

  “I had my horse with me at the time, and I tailed-up Bob to the fence. He went full tilt, keeping the track that the horse had come, and this fetched us to where a couple of chaps were standing over a little billy, with a lump of bread beside it. She had laid them down to get through the fence, and then went on without them. The lid was still on the billy, and there was a drop of milk left. The ants had eaten the bread out of all shape.

  “But Bob was through the fence, and bowling down a dusty sheep-track, where a couple of fellows had gone before him, and where we could all see the marks of the little bare feet—for the stockings were off by this time. But in sixty or eighty yards this pad run into another, covered with fresh sheep-tracks since the little girl had passed. Nothing for it but to spread out, and examine the network of pads scattered over the country. All this time, the weather was holding-up, but there was a grumble of thunder now and then, and the air was fearfully close.

  “At last there was a coo-ee out to the left. Young Broome had found three plain tracks, about half-a-mile away. We took these for a base, but we didn’t get beyond them. We were circling round for miles, without making any headway; and so the time passed till about three in the afternoon. Then up comes Spanker, with his hat lost, and his face cut and bleeding from the scrub, and his horses in a white lather, and a black lubra sitting in the back of the buggy, and the Mulppa stock-keeper tearing along in front, giving him our tracks.

  “She was an old, grey-haired lubra, blind of one eye; but she knew her business, and she was on the job for life or death. She picked-up the track at a glance, and run it like a bloodhound. We found that the little girl hadn’t kept the sheep-pads as we expected. Generally she went straight till something blocked her; then she’d go straight again, at another angle. Very rarely—hardly ever—we could see what signs the lubra was following; but she was all right. Uncivilised, even for an old lubra. Nobody could yabber with her but Bob; and he kept close to her all the time. She began to get uneasy as night came on, but there was no help for it. She went slower and slower, and at last she sat down where she was. We judged that the little girl had made about seventeen mile to the place where the lubra got on her track, and we had added something like four to that. Though, mind you, at this time we were only about twelve or fourteen mile from Dan’s place, and eight to ten mile from the home-station.

  “Longest night I ever passed, though it was one of the shortest in the year. Eyes burning for want of sleep, and couldn’t bear to lie down for a minute. Wandering about for miles; listening; hearing something in the scrub, and finding it was only one of the other chaps, or some sheep. Thunder and lightning, on and off, all night; even two or three drops of rain, toward morning. Once I heard the howl of a dingo, and I thought of the little girl, lying worn-out, half-asleep and half-fainting—far more helpless than a sheep—and I made up my mind that if she came out safe I would lead a better life for the future.

  “However, between daylight and sunrise—being then about a mile, or a mile and a half, from the bell—I was riding at a slow walk, listening and dozing in the saddle, when I heard a far-away call that sounded like ‘Dad-dee!’. It seemed to be straight in front of me; and I went for it like mad. Hadn’t gone far when Williamson, the narangy, was alongside me.

  “‘Hear anything?’ says I.

  “‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Sounded like ‘Daddy’! I think it was out here.’

  “‘I think it was more this way,’ says I; and each of us went his own way.

  “When I got to where I thought was about the place, I listened again, and searched round everywhere. The bell was coming that way, and presently I went to meet it, leading my horse, and still listening. Then another call came through the stillness of the scrub, faint, but beyond mistake, ‘Dad-de-e-e!’. There wasn’t a trace of terror in the tone; it was just the voice of a worn-out child, deliberately calling with all her might. Seemed to be something less than half-a-mile away, but I couldn’t fix on the direction; and the scrub was very thick.

  “I hurried down to the bell. Everyone there had heard the call, or fancied they had; but it was out to their right—not in front. Of course, the lubra wouldn’t leave the track, nor Bob, nor the chap with the bell; but everyone else was gone—Dan among the rest. The lubra said something to Bob.

  “‘Picaninny tumble down here again,’ says Bob. ‘Getting very weak on her feet.’

  “By-and-by, ‘Picaninny plenty tumble down.’ It was pitiful; but we knew that we were close on her at last. By this time, of course, she had been out for seventy-two hours.

  “I stuck to the track, with the lubra and Bob. We could hear some of the chaps coo-eeing now and again, and calling ‘Mary!’”—

  “Bad line—bad line,” muttered Saunders impatiently.

  “Seemed to confuse things, anyway,” replied Thompson. “And it was very doubtful whether the little girl was likely to answer a strange voice. At last, however, the lubra stopped, and pointed to a sun-bonnet, all dusty, lying under a spreading hop-bush. She spoke to Bob again.

  “‘Picaninny sleep here last night,’ says Bob. And that was within a hundred yards of the spot I had made-for after hearing the first call. I knew it by three or four tall pines, among a mass of pine scrub. However, the lubra turned off at an angle to the right, and run the track—not an hour old—toward where we had heard the second call. We were crossing fresh horse-tracks every few yards; and never two minutes but what somebody turned-up to ask the news. But to show how little use anything was except fair tracking, the lubra herself never saw the child till she went right up to where she was lying between two thick, soft bushes that met over her, and hid her from sight”—

  “Asleep?” I suggested, with a sinking heart.

  “No. She had been walking along—less than half-an-hour before—and she had brushed through between these bushes, to avoid some prickly scrub on both sides; but there happened to be a bilby-hole close in front, and she fell in the sort of trough, with her head down the slope; and that was the end of her long journey. It would have taken a child in fair strength to get out of the place she was in; and she was played-out to the last ounce. So her face had sunk down on the loose mould, and she had died without a struggle.

  �
�Bob snatched her up the instant he caught sight of her, but we all saw that it was too late. We coo-eed, and the chap with the bell kept it going steady. Then all hands reckoned that the search was over, and they were soon collected round the spot.

  “Now, that little girl was only five years old; and she had walked nothing less than twenty-two miles—might be nearer twenty-five.”

  There was a minute’s silence. Personal observation, or trustworthy report, had made every one of Thompson’s audience familiar with such episodes of new settlement; and, for that very reason, his last remark came as a confirmation rather than as an over-statement. Nothing is more astonishing than the distances lost children have been known to traverse.

  “How did poor Rory take it?” I asked.

  “Dan? Well he took it bad. When he saw her face, he gave one little cry, like a wounded animal; then he sat down on the bilby-heap, with her on his knees, wiping the mould out of her mouth, and talking baby to her.

  “Not one of us could find a word to say; but in a few minutes we were brought to ourselves by thunder and lightning in earnest, and the storm was on us with a roar. And just at this moment Webster of Kulkaroo came up with the smartest blackfellow in that district.

  “We cleared out one of the wagonettes, and filled it with pine leaves, and laid a blanket over it. And Spanker gently took the child from Dan, and laid her there, spreading the other half of the blanket over her. Then he thanked all hands, and made them welcome at the station, if they liked to come. I went, for one; but Bob went back to Kulkaroo direct, so I saw no more of him till to-night.

  “Poor Dan! He walked behind the wagonette all the way, crying softly, like a child, and never taking his eyes from the little shape under the soaking wet blanket. Hard lines for him! He had heard her voice calling him, not an hour before; and now, if he lived till he was a hundred, he would never hear it again.