by Zane Grey
They all watched Heald wade his sturdy horse into the river. They were all fearful of the unseen perils. But nothing untoward transpired. Heald waded perhaps a hundred steps, before his horse got up to his flanks. Then he returned to say: “Mud bottom. Soft. But not quicksand. If you keep your horse moving, you can make it.”
“What will a heavy wagon do?” queried Slyter dubiously.
“It’ll stick, but not sink,” Dann declared. “We have heavy ropes and strong horses. We can pull out. Come on, Slyter.”
Stanley Dann was the first to lead off in that uncertain venture. Sterl had always respected their leader as a man who would not order anyone else or ask any of them to do what he would not do himself. In a moment more Slyter drove the big teams into the river, accompanied by Dann and six drovers.
Slyter did not get quite so far out as Heald had waded. The wheels stuck. Two of the drovers leaped out of their saddles to unhitch the teams. Dann lifted a pack out of the wagon to his shoulder and waded his horse beyond its depth. That was one quarter of the way across. Bligh and Hod dragged the teams out. Rollie, with a bag in front of him and a cracking stock whip in hand, kept abreast of the teams. Soon they were swimming. Four drovers followed, carrying packs. Slyter stood up in his wagon, rifle in hand, watching vigilantly.
Sterl saw the reeds shake and part. “Grab your rifle, Red,” he shouted, and then to Slyter: “Look out, boss. We’ll watch the bank. You watch the water.”
Suddenly on the opposite bank there was a loud rush in the reeds and then a zoom, as a huge reptile appeared quick as a flash, to leap off the bank and slide upon the narrow strip of mud. But it was not quick enough to escape Red’s shot.
Sterl heard the battle thus, and then the huge reptile flopped up and flashed into convulsions. Sterl let out a yell as he drew a bead upon it and pulled the trigger. The distance was nothing to a marksman. His bullet, too, found its mark. The crocodile sent sheets of water and mud and blood aloft. Red fired another slug into it, as it slid off the slope. The bullet glanced with a spang.
“Ahaw! Look at thet bird,” yelled Red, pointing up the bank to the left of the swimming horses. “Wants to know all about what’s comin’ off! Did you ever see such impudence? Wait, pard, till he comes all out.”
Sterl had seen the reeds part and an ugly snout emerge followed by an immense head, with jaws wide, and a mud-colored, wide-shouldered crocodile crawl down the bank until all of his tremendous proportions were in sight.
“Now, pard! Bust him! Right in the middle!” shouted Red. Another four shots left that reptile rolling in the mud, snapping terrific jaws, lashing to and fro with its powerful tail. Its back must have been broken, for it made no progress into the river.
“Dere, along dere!” shrilled Friday, pointing below.
Slyter was shooting at another one, smaller and nimbler. But there was another rush and zoom as a big one catapulted off the bank to meet a hail of lead. Crippled and slow, he got into the river.
“Good work, boys,” shouted Slyter. “We got some lead into them.”
“Pard, I heah another one somewhere,” said Red, peering up and down the river.
“I heard a splash. Might have been on this side,” rejoined Sterl.
“Gosh! I reckon the critters air up an’ down this river. Holy Mackeli! The size of them! Why, they could eat all our Texas alligators an’ still be hungry.”
Stanley Dann’s horse appeared, wading out, laboring in the mud. But he made the low bank. Dann cheered his followers on. The drovers dragged and yelled at the teams, while Rollie cracked his long whip from behind. The issue was no longer in doubt, unless the beasts that infested the river halted their progress. Those few moments were tense for the watchers, and no doubt infinitely more so for the waders. But they got across and climbed the low bank, evidently to deposit the packs and find a place to land the wagon.
Then, Leslie and Beryl appeared to catch their breath and find their voices. But they did not get their color back. Mrs. Slyter shook an avenging finger at her husband.
“Bingham Slyter, if one of these beasts gets you, it’ll be what you deserve for dragging us on this trek.”
“Oh, Mum, how dreadful!” cried Leslie. “Sterl, here’s one place I won’t ride Lady Jane!”
“I should say not. Makes my hair stand up.”
“Mine, too,” drawled Red. “But I reckon it all depends on how many of them varmints there air.”
Dann and his six drovers piled into the river pell-mell, keeping close together, some of them with drawn guns held high.
Slyter yelled: “Make all the commotion possible.”
They crossed in short order and, loading heavily, turned back in haste, crossed again. It was skittish work while they were in deep water. Sterl was more than relieved to see them wade out again.
Suddenly Friday screeched out something aboriginal. Then Slyter roared unintelligibly, and began to pump lead into the water. A thumping splash followed, then a vicious churning of the surface, yellow and red mixing.
“I got him!” shouted Slyter, peering down. “Right on top of me. Longer than the wagon. Never saw him till he came up!”
“How terrible!” cried Beryl, shaken anew. “Red, what can we do?”
“I haven’t an idee, Beryl. You girls might pray for me.”
When the drovers arrived at the wagon again, Stanley Dann called out lustily: “Boys, that was splendid work. I heard your big bullets hit. It’s not so bad having Yankee gunmen with us!”
“Oh, Dad, come ashore,” Beryl cried appealingly.
He waved a reassuring hand, and heaved a load to his shoulder. The drovers did likewise. They made that trip uneventfully, and the tension relaxed somewhat. During nine more trips, while the cowboys with Slyter, Larry and the black kept vigil from several points, nothing untoward happened. Dann, with three of the drovers, then remained on the far side with the teams backed out into the shallow water, while the other three, dragging the tackle and ropes, swam their horses back to make fast to the wagon. They made it.
“Tramp all around!” shouted Slyter. “I shot a big croc’ right here. Look out, for heaven’s sake.”
Bligh slid off his horse and, waist-deep, groped about with his feet to find the wagon tongue. To watch him thus exposed made the cold sweat ooze out all over Sterl. Bligh found the tongue, and went clear under to lift it up. In a moment more, the heavy tackle was fast. He yelled and waved to Dann. The two teams sagged down and dug in; the drovers in front of the wagon laid hold of the thick rope. Slyter lifted his arms on high, swung his rifle, and added his yell to that of the others. A moment of strain and splash—then the wagon lurched and began to move. It gathered momentum. Soon it was moving and sinking below the wheels. Then as luck would have it, the empty wagon half floated. Slyter stood up on the driver’s seat, balancing himself, still peering into the water for crocodiles. The two teams and the six single horses dragged the wagon across the deep channel and did not slow up until the wheels touched bottom again. But there was no halt. In a very few moments the wagon was safely up on the bank, and yells heralded the success of the drovers. Despite the crocodiles, the achievement augured well for the success of the operation.
Chapter Twenty-five
All this time the tide was slowly going out. The channel split wide, bare stretches of mud. Sterl observed that the big crocodile he had thought surely killed had disappeared from the bank opposite. It seemed reasonable, however, to believe that a mortally wounded or crippled crocodile would not attack. The one Slyter had shot lay on its back, claw-like feet above the shallow water. Its dimensions, added to its hideous appearance, might well have shaken the stoutest heart. But these drovers were desperate and invincible.
Some of Dann’s party repacked the wagon, others cut poles and brush to lay lengthwise on the mud over the plowed-up tracks of wheels and horses. Bill sat about erecting a canvas shelter to work under; Larry limped out to have a look at the mud. Sterl, Red, and Friday hurried at camp tasks the
crossing had halted. The womenfolk could not remove their fascinated eyes from the river. Their movements in fighting the flies appeared mechanical. Time flew by. Presently, Dann’s drovers, all except Roland, who had been left on the far side of the river, arrived muddy and wet, noisy and triumphant, back in camp. Slyter had returned on Roland’s horse, and he had considerable to say about the huge reptile he had killed.
“Bing, stop looking at the beast,” boomed Dann. “After all, we are only human.”
“It’ll be harder work, but safer to cross while the tide is out,” replied Slyter.
“Volunteer wanted to drive the small dray,” called the leader.
They all wanted that job. Dann chose Benson, the eldest. Six men cut slim brushy trees while two riders snaked these down to the river. Dann and Slyter built the corduroy road. Eric Dann lent a hand, like one in a trance. Larry returned to report the mob not so restless as on the preceding day. Friday pointed to aborigine smoke signals far back in the bush, and he shook his shaggy head. These signals were calling aborigines far and wide.
Many energetic hands made short work of the road on the camp side of the river. It was significant that Slyter covered his dead crocodile with brush. Then Benson drove the one-team dray off the bank. The brush road upheld both horses and wheels as long as they moved. Once in the channel, however, both sank in the mud until the wagon stopped, wheel-deep. The drovers unhitched the team and started it across. They each got a sack of flour from Benson, and, packing it on a shoulder, they yelled and drove the team into deep water. A yelling, splashing mêlée ensued. The cowboys and Friday kept sharp lookout for crocodiles. The black man espied one far down the river. Fear, no doubt, spurred the drovers on. They emptied that dray of sacks and bags in what seemed to Sterl a short and trying hour. When the dray was dragged into the channel, it sank. Benson stood knee-deep in the water, and, when it got to his waist, he climbed on the driver’s seat. It was a grotesque sight to see him crossing without effort of his own, both ropes and wagons out of sight. Soon the dray was hauled high up on the bank. A fire was built and the wagon reloaded. Then Dann left Roland and Bligh over there, and returned to camp with the others. By this time the afternoon was far spent, and Bill had supper ready. Benson volunteered to pack supper across to the two drovers, and remain over there with them.
“Keep your fire burning,” said Slyter, “and take turns on guard. But get away from the wagons a bit. Better to risk mosquitoes, snakes, and crocodiles than blacks!”
The drovers were spent, bedraggled, a slimy mess from the river mud. They ate like wolves, but were too tired to talk. Not even Dann or Slyter changed wet clothes, but hung around the fire until their garments dried and caked upon them. Friday and Larry were given the job to guard camp. Sterl and Red went out on duty with the mob.
Again the night was uncanny, dark and silent, except for the bark of dingoes far away and the silken swish of flying-foxes overhead. But the mob appeared to be free of the fears of the night before. They grazed and rested by turns. Sterl and Red kept together, and after a few hours, when all was quiet, one of them would watch while the other slept. Thus, the night did not seem interminably long. But Sterl’s wakeful intervals were fraught with the same sinister sense which had settled upon him at Doré’s Bush. He could not rid himself of misgivings. They had been wonderfully fortunate so far at the crossing. But still something cold clutched his vitals. His watch fell through the darkest hour before dawn, and of all the innumerable times he had held that watch, this one seemed the strangest, the most haunted and inscrutable with fantasies and phantoms. He listened and he observed as the blackness slowly paled to gray. Kangaroos and owls and bats could not get by him unnoticed. A stir in the mob brought him up alert. But his mind worked beyond all these things, and it conjured up fateful events for which there seemed no reason.
At last the dawn came, from gray to daylight, and then a ruddiness in the east. He awakened Red from his hard bed on the grass. The cowboy sat up, haggard and blinking, his red beard and red hair a queer combination. “Aw, my Gawd! Why was I borned?” he groaned, yawning wide.
“Surely not to waste your life following an outcast cowboy all over the earth,” rejoined Sterl bitterly.
“Say, what ails you? Why, pard, I jest eat this up. An’ I’ll bet my spurs, it’ll come off today.”
They rounded up the remuda, and changed their mounts for King and Duke.
“Red, it’s dirty business to risk Leslie’s horses in that river,” said Sterl, as they rode campward.
“Wal, I was thinkin’ thet same. We won’t do it, ’cept to cross them. We’ll fork two of these draft horses. But, Holy Mackeli, they cain’t keep one of them croc’s away! I swear, pard, I never had my gizzard freeze like it does at thet thought.”
“Nerve and luck, Red?”
“Them drovers shore had it yestiddy.”
They met some of the drovers mustering horses from Dann’s herd. Camp was astir. The fragrance of frying ham—seldom encountered these rationing days—greeted their nostrils. The girls were up, slim and dark in their boys’ garb, their eyes fearful, yet somehow strangely keen for the day’s adventure. Stanley Dann boomed hopefully. Friday stood high, watching the river. Mrs. Slyter had slept in Sterl’s tent and looked none the worse for the night’s dread. Halloos came from across the river. Rollie and his comrades waved all was well. Breakfast was over at sunrise. Friday approached the fire to get his fare.
“Alligators alonga eberywhere,” he announced.
That shut down upon the trekkers like a clap of thunder. Slyter, the cowboys, and the drovers followed the striding Dann out to view the stream. The river area was flooded except for a fifty-foot lane of bare mud along each bank. A dead steer floated by in mid-channel, gripped by several crocodiles. Downstream a cow or steer had stranded in the shallow water. Around it ugly snouts and notched tails showed above the muddy water. Crocodiles were trying to drag the dead animal into deep water. Upstream on the far side a third cow had stuck himself in the mud and was surrounded by the reptiles.
Larry explained: “Night before last a number of cattle rushed into the river. We heard them bawling and plunging.”
Slyter said: “Blood and meat scent in the river will have every croc’ for miles down upon us…. Stanley, it looks worse than ever this morning.”
“But it may not be as bad as it looks,” replied the leader. “Let’s cross Bill’s dray at once. Tell Bill to keep out food and tea for today and tomorrow.”
“Bill has to butcher fresh beef,” said someone.
“We have ’roo meat ready,” added Larry. “Friday fetched that in yesterday…or was it the day before?”
“Enough. I’ll have him broil it all. One of you remember to put tucker on the dray for Bligh and the other boys across there. A kettle of hot tea! Who’ll drive Bill’s dray?”
Red Krehl elected himself for that job. But Dann preferred to have the cowboy on shore, rifle in hand. Before Sterl could offer his services, Dann selected Heald for this office.
They lost no time. The feverish energy of the drovers attested to their desire to have this job over and done with. Heald drove in until the water came almost to the platform of the wagon. Then the procedure that had proved so successful the day before was followed and carried out with even more celerity. It struck Sterl that in their hurry and fury of labor the drovers were forgetting about the crocodiles, which might have been just as well. The peril for them lay more in the shallows than in the channel where the violent actions of hoofs and the splashes might hold the brutes off.
Nevertheless, when this big job terminated, the drovers took time out for a cup of tea. That inevitable gesture amused Sterl. He wondered if these drovers would pause in a battle with murderous aborigines to indulge in their favorite brew.
“Ormiston’s wagon next,” boomed Stanley Dann. “It’s evident the former owner cannot very well drive so that duty falls to Eric.”
Dann’s brother made no comment for or against t
he duty. He seemed thick of comprehension or at the end of his rope. Yet Sterl’s penetrating gaze delved into the man’s desperation.
The drovers hitched two teams to the wagon, while others, at the leader’s order, unpacked a goodly half of its contents. Flour in special burlap sacks and other food supplies came to light. These were deposited upon a ground cloth and covered with canvas.
At the take-off the leading team balked, and upon being urged and whipped they plunged and gave Eric a bad few minutes. No doubt a scent of the dead crocodiles came to them. Drovers on each side slapped their haunches with whipping bridle ends. Eric laid on the stock whip. The horses plunged and reared, nearly upsetting the wagon. It was a scene of great excitement. Shouts and yells rang in the air. Stanley Dann boomed orders that Eric did not hear or could not obey. About a hundred steps out was as far as either of the other wagons had been driven. But Eric drove as if he meant the teams to wade the river. At length they halted of their own volition, with the front team submerged to their shoulders. This was extremely bad, because it was immediately evident that the team was sinking in the mud. Half a dozen drovers urged plunging horses to the rescue.
At that critical moment Friday hit Sterl and let out a wild stentorian yell. Sterl saw a dead steer, surrounded by crocodiles, drifting down upon the teams.
“Back Heald! Back Hod!” shouted Sterl, at the top of his lungs. “Croc’s!”
Then the drovers and their horses, too, saw this mess drifting down upon them. Snorting, lunging, the horses wheeled and sent mountains of water flying. They reached the shore just as the dead steer drifted upon the teams and lodged. Pandemonium broke loose then, on shore and in the water. Even Stanley Dann’s big voice could not be distinguished. But he was yelling for his brother to climb back over the wagon and leap for his life. Eric might have heard, as well as have had sense enough to think of that, but shrieking in terror, his gaze was glued to the mêlée right under him.