CHAPTER XI.

HOME AGAIN!

I went straight across to the ocean beach, and swung along at a good bat over the hard sand of that beautiful curve of foreshore. Made my camp that night on the sand just south of Corrumbin. The mosquitoes were as the sands for multitude and tigers for ferocity, and I went to sleep completely covered up, head and all. Damme! They bit through the blanket! Woke up somewhere about midnight to find it raining hard. Pitch dark, no shelter and no tent. What a night! I sat there in the pouring rain, huddled in a blanket, wet, shivering and miserable until dawn appeared, the sun, shortly springing from the ocean, bringing a fine warm day with him. I stripped, tied all my wet belongings to bushes, where they soon flapped themselves dry, and, as soon as I got sufficiently warm, raced across the sand and plunged into the foaming surf. Ten minutes in the water, then, panting and refreshed, I dived back and collected my duds. Was scrambling into them when I heard a chatter of voices, and a bevy of ladies with attendant squires, all in fantastic bathing rig, hove in sight on the beach. Thank the Lord for those sheltering bushes! If I'd only been a couple of minutes longer in the surf--oh, Lord! I didn't have any bathing trunks. I didn't know of the big hotel on the creek just back of me.

That night sickened me of carrying "Matilda," so I took the evening train from Corrumbin, and arrived in Brisbane late at night.

On the journey an unpleasant, shabbily smart individual fastened to me. A terrible talker, whiskered, dressed in white ducks, with somewhat "busted" white pumps on his hoofs, and with a swaggering, boastful air, he combined a habit of pointing his remarks with a contortion of his features and a clearance of his nasal organs. Of course he was an importation, informing us in a loud voice that he was from 'Ome, and I blushed for him. He alighted for a refresher at nearly every station, having to race violently after the train, and board it under way. It got quite interesting at last to the other occupants of the carriage.

"He'll miss her this time." "Ay, she don't stop long here." "There's the whistle! He's done." "'Ere he is. Look at him running. Two to one he don't do it." "He will!" "He won't!" "He--begob, he's just managed it!" and presently the nuisance was among us again, stinking of whisky and more voluble than ever. He hung on to me until next morning, when he asked me as a special favour to lend him a pound. I told him his price was too high, but I'd give him five shillings to go away. He took it and went. He got to windward of me though, for I found when settling up at the pub that he had told them "his mate" would foot the bill. I did so, to avoid trouble--like a fool. He had held forth on the train about his politics, which were Liberal; but his dealings with me were a regular War Profits Act.

At the pub I heard a chap asking for pick and shovel men for a job out Laidley way--rate eight shillings a day. I had heard a lot of this district, and thought it a good opportunity to see it and earn tucker as well, so I volunteered.

I stuck it ten days, being by that time so blistered, sore and generally used up that I could hardly crawl. I therefore handed in my resignation and left, richer by about L3, and the knowledge that the Atherton country looked heaps better than this, at that time of the year, anyhow.

I waited in Brisbane a while for a mate who wrote he would join me there and come North with me, but when my funds had reached L4 I gave him up, and cadged another railway concession to Gladstone from the Lands Department after making futile efforts to work my passage on shipboard. Got the boat at Gladstone and arrived in Cairns on 3rd December, 1912, with just enough to pay the fare to Atherton, where I arrived at noon next day without sufficient to buy a feed.

I slipped into the lavatory, hastily doffed my glad rags, and climbed into flannel and dungarees once more. Ten minutes after leaving the train I was gaily tramping the long road out to my selection, my old friend "Matilda" caressing my shoulders, penniless, happy and blithely whistling, glad to think I would soon be home again.

I stopped at a cocky's house a mile or two out, and offered him an hour's work for a feed.

"Righto, bloke," he said. "Freeze on to Douglas there and cut us some firewood."

I cut him a good pile, and the decent pot not only gave me a good square feed, but enough to carry along for another as well. Armed with this I marched along to the Barron River, where I found the river was up owing to recent rain, and I nearly got drowned crossing the atrocious ford of slippery stones which the "powers that be" consider safe, wading waist deep in the rushing stream.

I finally reached the barn at 7 p.m., where I found Len and Terry just finishing tea. Their welcome made the welkin ring. I don't quite know what the welkin is, but anyhow it rang. And wasn't I just glad to get back to where I was known and there were friendly faces to greet me! We talked sixteen to the dozen, and at ten o'clock, with hearty good-nights, we turned in, and again I slept the heavy sleep of the tired under the hospitable roof of Braun's old barn.