Wilderness Trek (1988)

Wilderness Trek (1944)

Zane Grey

*

Chapter
I

Across the blue Tasman Sea, smooth and heaving on that last day, the American adventurers eagerly watched the Australian horizon line grow bold and rugged.

"Red, it's land--land," said Sterl, his gray eyes dim from watching and remembrance of other land like that, from which he must forever be an exile. "The mate told me that was Sydney Heads over there."

"Shore, pard, I seen it long ago," replied Red. "This heah sea gettin' level an' that sight just about saved my life... Sterl, no more ridin' ships for Red Krehl."

"But Red, I begged you not to come," replied Hazelton.

"What kind of talk is thet? Do you think I'd ever let you go to hell alone? Pard, this heah Australia begins to loom up kinda big, at thet. But it's English--an' whoever heerd of an English gurl lookin' at a cowboy?"

"Red, someday you'll get enough girl to do you for good and all, as I got."

"Shore I can stand a lot, Sterl... Say, if I'd had a bottle on this ship I wouldn't be near daid now... Sterl, let's have one orful drunk before we hunt for jobs."

"Sounds good, but it's no sense."

"But we never had no sense nohow," protested Red. "You takin' the blame for thet gunplay! An' me fool enough to let you!"

This time Sterling Hazelton did not reprove his friend.--The pang was still there in his breast.--Nan Halbert had loved him as well as his cousin, Ross Haight--Ross, lovable and sweet-tempered except in his cups, the only child of an ailing father with lands and herds to bequeath--Ross, who had shot a man who certainly deserved it. Sterl had taken upon himself that guilt, which to him was not guilt. His family had been gone so long that he hardly remembered them, except his schoolteacher mother who had loved and taught him. There had been only Nan. And what could he have done for her, compared with what Ross could do? It all rolled back in poignant memory to the scene where Ross had confronted him and Red that last night.

"But Sterl!" he had rung out, "Nan will believe you killed this man!... And everybody else. How can I stand that?"

"For her sake! She loves you best... Go straight, Ross... Good-by!"

And Sterl had raced away into the blackness of the Arizona night, followed by the loyal Red.

"Red, you remember the package that Ross forced upon you to give me?" Hazelton said suddenly.

"Shore I remember," replied Red, looking up with interest. "I had a hunch it was money..."

"Yes--money. Ten thousand dollars!"

"Holy mavericks!" ejaculated Red, astounded. "Where'd Ross get it?"

"Must have told his father. Red, I'm asking you to take half of this money and go back home."

"Yeah! The hell you air?" retorted Red.

"Yes, pard, I'm begging you."

"An' why for?" queried Red. "'Cause you don't want me with you?"

"No--no. It'd be grand to have you--but for your sake!"

"Wal, if it's for my sake don't insult me no more. Would you leave me if you was me an' I you? Honest Injun Sterl? Wal, what's eatin' you then?"

"All right, I apologize. Stay with me, Red. God knows I'll need you... Boy, we're getting somewhere. Look. There's a big ship steaming along under the left wall, from the west."

"Gosh, they shore look grand. I never seen ships atall till we got to Frisco... This Sydney must be a real man-sized burg, huh?"

"Big city, Red, and I'm going to take you out of it 'muy pronto'."

"Suits me, pard. But what air we gonna do? We don't know nuthin' but hosses, guns an' cattle."

"I read that Australia is going to be a big cattle country."

"If thet's a fact we're ridin' pretty," returned Red, with satisfaction.

They lapsed into one of their frequent silences while the ship sailed on, her yards and booms creaking. Soon the mile-wide gateway to Australia offered the sailing ship a lonely entrance. Australia's far-famed harbor opened up to Sterl's sight, a long curving bay with many arms cutting into the land. Miles inland, around a broad turn where ships rode at anchor, the city of Sydney stood revealed, foreign and stately, gray-walled, red-roofed.

While Sterl and Red packed their bags, the ship eased alongside a dock, and tied up. From the dock, they were led into a shed, and after a brief examination were free. One of the stevedores directed them to an inn, where soon they had a room.

It was early in the afternoon. Krehl voted for seeing the sights. But Sterl disapproved, for that meant looking upon drink.

"Pard, we must get our bearings and rustle for the open range," he said.

Whereupon they set out to ask two cardinally important questions--where was the cattle country and how could they get there?

"Outback," replied more than one person, waving a hand, that like an Indian's gesture signified vague and remote distance. At last a big man looked them up and down and smiled when he asked, "Yankees?"

"Yes. It must be written all over us," admitted Sterl, with an answering smile. "Are you drovers?"

"Drovers?" echoed Sterl.

"Horsemen--drivers of cattle."

"Oh! You bet. Plain Arizona and Texas cowboys. We eat up hard work. Where can we get jobs?"

"Any station owner will hire you. But I advise you to go to Queensland. Big cattle mustering there."

"Where and how far?" queried Sterl, eagerly.

"Five hundred miles up the coast and inland three or four hundred more. Board the freighter 'Merrvvale' down at the dock. Sails at six today. Brisbane is your stop. Good luck, cowboys."

Sterl led his comrade down the waterfront to where the big freighter was tied up in the center of busy shipping activities and bought passage to Brisbane. Next morning they awoke to find the sea calm, with the steamer tearing along not five miles out from a picturesque shoreline. And as the partners leaned over the rail of this steamer to gaze at a white-wreathed shoreline, extending for leagues on leagues to north and south, at the rolling green ridges rising on and upward to the high ranges, Sterl felt that beyond these calling, dim mountains there might await him the greatest adventure of his life.

"Dog-gone-it!" Red was drawling. "I wanta be mad as hell, but I jest cain't. Gosh, pard, it's grand country! I hate to knuckle to it, but even Texas cain't beat thet!"

The sailors were friendly and talkative. On the second afternoon, the skipper, a fine old seadog, invited them to come up on the bridge. Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to tell him their plans.

"Boys, you've a fine opening, if you can stand the heat, the dust, the drought, the blacks, the floods, the fires, besides harder work than galley slaves," he said.

"Captain, driving cattle on the Texas plain wasn't just a picnic," replied Sterl.

"You'll think so after droving upcountry here."

"Boss, I reckon we've been up agin' all you said 'cept the blacks. Jest what air these blacks?" inquired Red, deeply interested.

"The natives of Australia. Aborigines."

"You mean niggers?"

"Some people call them niggers. They're not Negroes. But they are black as coal."

"Bad medicine, mebbe?" inquired Red.

"Cannibals. They eat you."

"Boss," said Red, "I've had my fill of fightin' greasers, rustlers, robbers an' redskins on the Texas trails, but gosh! all of them put together cain't be as wuss as black men--cannibals who eat you."

"Captain," said Sterl, "you're sure putting the wind up us, as you Australians say. But tell us a little about cattle, and ranches--you call them stations."

"I've only a general bit of knowledge," returned the skipper. "There are stations up and down New South Wales, and eastern and central Queensland. Gradually cattlemen are working outback. I've heard of the terrible times they had. No drovers have yet gone into the unknown interior--called the Never-never Land by the few explorers who did not leave their bones to be picked by the black men."

"Pard, thet's kind hard to believe," said Red, shaking his head. "No places I ever heard about was as bad as they was painted."

"You are in for an adventure at any rate," went on the skipper. "There's some big movement on from Brisbane. We have consignments of flour, harness, wagons, on board that prove it."

The "Merryvale" docked at dawn. After breakfast Sterl and Red labored ashore, dragging their burdens of baggage, curious and eager as boys half their age. Brisbane did not impress them with its bigness, but it sparkled under a bright sun, and appeared alive and bustling.

They found a hotel, and sallied forth on the second lap of their adventure. They were directed to a merchandise store which was filling orders for a company of drovers making ready to leave Downsville in Central Queensland for points unknown.

Sterl got hold of the manager, a weather-beaten man who had seen service in the open.

"Is there any chance for jobs outback?" he said.

"Chance? Young man, they'll welcome you with open arms. Report is that the drovers can't find men enough to start. Bing Slyter is here with his teamsters. He's one of the drovers and he's buying supplies for the Danns. I'll find him for you."

In a moment they faced a big man whose wide shoulders made his height appear moderate. If he was an Australian cattleman, Sterl thought, he surely liked the type. Slyter had a strong face cast in bronze, a square chin, and eyes that pierced like daggers.

"Good day, young men," he said, in a voice that matched his size. "Watson here tells me you're American cowboys looking for jobs."

"Yes, sir. I'm Sterling Hazelton, from Arizona, and this is Red Krehl, from Texas. I'm twenty-five, and he's a year younger. We were born to the saddle and have driven cattle all our lives. We rode the Chisholm Trail for three years. That's our recommendation."

"It's enough, after looking you over," returned Slyter, in booming gladness. "We Australians have heard of the Chisholm Trail. You drove mobs of cattle across Texas north to new markets in Kansas?"

"Yes, sir. Five hundred miles of hard going. Sand, bad rivers, buffalo stampedes, electric storms, hailstones, Indians and rustlers."

"Rustlers? We call them bushrangers. Cattle thieves just beginning to make themselves felt. I'll give you jobs. What wages do you ask?"

"Whatever you want to pay will satisfy us," replied Sterl. "We want hard riding in a new country."

"Settled. If it's hard riding you want you'll get it. We drovers are undertaking the greatest trek in Australian history. Seven or eight thousand cattle three thousand miles across the Never-never!"

"Mr. Slyter," burst out Sterl, "such a drive is unheard of. Three thousand Texas longhorns made hell on earth for a dozen cowboys. But this herd--this mob, as you call it--across that Never-never Land, if it's unknown and as terrible as they say... Why, man, the drive is impossible."

"Hazelton, we can do it, and you're going to be a great help. I was discouraged before I left home. But my daughter Leslie said: 'Dad, don't give up. You'll find men!' Leslie's a grand kid."

"You're taking your family on this trek?" queried Sterl, aghast.

"Yes. And there'll be at least one other family."

"You Australians don't lack nerve," smiled Sterl.

"Do you need money to outfit?"

"No, sir. But we need to know what to buy."

"Buy rifles, and all the ammunition you can afford. Tents, blankets, and mosquito nets, clothes, extra boots, socks, some tools, a medicine kit, bandages, gloves--a dozen pair, some bottles of whiskey, and about a ton, more or less, of tobacco. That goes furthest with the blacks. You needn't stint on account of room. We'll have wagons and drays."

"But, Mr. Slyter," exclaimed Sterl in amaze, "we don't want to stock a store!"

"Boys," laughed the drover, "this great trek will take two years. Two years droving across the Never-never Land to the Kimberleys!"

"It will be never!" cried Sterl, staggered at the import.

"Whoopee!" yelled Red.

Chapter
2

The remainder of that stimulating day Sterl and Red spent in the big merchandise store, making purchases for a two-year's trip beyond the frontier. Investment in English saddles, two fine English rifles to supplement Sterl's Winchester .44 and thousands of cartridges broke the ice of old accustomed frugality, and introduced an orgy of spending.

It took a dray to transport their outfit to the yard on the outskirts of town, to which they had been directed. Late in the afternoon they had all their purchases stowed away in the front of one of the big new wagons, with their baggage on top, and the woolen blankets spread. Before that, however, they had changed their traveling clothes to the worn and comfortable garb of cowboys. Sterl had not felt so good for weeks. It was all settled. No turning back! That time of contending tides of trouble was past. He would be happy, presently, and forget.

They had scraped acquaintance with one of Slyter's teamsters, a hulking, craggy-visaged chap some years their senior, who announced that his name was Roland Tewksbury Jones. Red's reaction to that cognomen was characteristic.

"Yeah? Have a cigar," he said, producing one with a grand flourish. "My handle is Red. Seein' as how I couldn't remember yore turrible name I'll call you Rol, for short. On the Texas trails I knowed a lot of Joneses, in particular Buffalo Jones, Dirty Face Jones and Wrong-Wheel Jones."