CHAPTER V.

NORTHWARD HO!

The train appeared to go very much faster than it really did, being rather a narrow-gauge line; still fungus didn't grow on the wheels. We stopped at every station, and each stop was hailed by the same enquiry from a half-sozzled bloke in our pen, "Say, g-guard, thish-h North Pi-ine?" When we got there he refused to believe it, saying he didn't "re-rec-kernize" the place. Guard whistled, waited for the engine's answering toot, then hauled the beery one out by the scruff of the neck, jumped aboard, and left him squatting on the gravel.

The press eased at every halt, until finally there were only half a dozen of us left. I amused myself for a while gazing at the countryside lying calm and peaceful in the moonlight, as we rattled along. Then, just as I was thinking about forty winks, up spoke an old chap in one corner, grey-bearded, sunburnt, and attired in dungarees, grey woollen shirt and patched coat.

"Look, blokes! I' ben sufferin' torches with these 'ere dam boots all day, and I'm goinner take 'em orf."

"All right," we grinned; "fire away, Dad."

He shed his canoes, disposed of his "torchered" feet comfortably along the seat with a sigh of relief, and proceeded to fill a villainous old pipe, which presently filled the carriage with fumes.

"Py yingo, Dat!" said a stout, good-humoured Swede next me. "You' tobaggo schmells stronk. Fot brandt is 'e?"

"It's good ol' R----," said Dad, slowly removing the pipe from his gills and waving it about to point his remark. "Some people ses it stinks, but they won't give it a fair go. It'll do me. Smokes good, 'n only 'bout 'alf the price of the other stuff, and grown and mannyfactered right 'ere in the country. I likes it all right."

I asked him for a pipeful to try, and he shoved a plug across. I found it all right, in spite of its strong reek, and have always smoked it since. Subsequent experience makes me think that if Australians only would try their own country's productions a bit oftener, there might be perhaps fewer strikes and more work to be got. However----

"Noo chum, ain't yer?" asked Dad, as I handed his plug back.

"Yes," I answered, "bound up for Atherton."

"Ah!" he returned, "that's the place fer cows n' corn;" then, puffing at his old gumbucket with drowsy contentment, "I mind when I wis up there in '90...," and a small flow of anecdote. He was an accomplished raconteur; had been all over Queensland, mostly mining; possessed the usual retentive memory of the illiterate, and really turned out to be what in more polished circles is usually referred to as a "charming old gentleman." He told us most interesting yarns of his experiences. Mines, sheep, prospecting, scrub-felling, fire and flood--pretty well everything. I must say though that he didn't string me on, but, knowing where I was bound, gave me some sound advice which I laid to heart.

Thus we passed the night, yarning, smoking, dozing; while the train rattled and bumped along. Going up a steep grade somewhere near the Glasshouse Mountains, the carriage got quite a perceptible tilt fore and aft, and the long series of terrific jerks the engine gave, in her efforts to negotiate the pinch, brought my heart into my mouth thinking what would happen if a coupling broke and sent us adrift back down the grade. Daybreak showed us scrubby, measly-looking forest country, flat and uninteresting. Then, about 10 a.m., Bundaberg. A wash, some tea, and a bit of a leg-stretcher along that fine wide avenue, Bourbon-street. Back to the train, more hilly stretches of forest gradually merging into the dismal mangrove-bordered mud flats, and we slowed down and brought up at Gladstone.

Into the main street I went under the guidance of my fellow-travellers, three of whom were Gladstonians, and popped into a pub for lunch (_only_ for lunch, of course), where my Scandinavian acquaintance, who possessed a quiet sort of dry humour, created a bit of a disturbance. The dining room was full. Soup was served, the hostess, distinctly an Irish woman, personally attending to us. Olaf smelt his soup, made a face, cascaded the liquid with his spoon, and generally made it apparent that something was wrong. The hostess, with the danger-signal flying in her cheeks and all the room's attention attracted, bore down on us.

"And is the soup not t' yer liking, sirr?"

"Vell, ma'am," said Olaf, "do you know fot dey gall dis stupf een _my_ contree?"

"An'-phwat-wud-they-be-afther-callin'-the-good-soup-in-yeer-counthry?" with terrific emphasis.

"Soup, ma'am!" said he quietly, and went on drinking it with gusto, for it was good.

Not quite in the best of good taste, perhaps; but the roar of laughter was good to hear, and the hostess joined in with a good-humoured, "Gwan wid ye, y' heathen."

Lunch over, we boarded the train again for the ten minutes' run to the long curve of wharf where the A.U.S.N. boat was lying. A few minutes' bustling confusion, whilst we burrowed in the heap of baggage for our personal belongings, and I superintended the embarkation of my chests, which had miraculously turned up from Wallangarra the previous afternoon. Then myself, Olaf and old Dad boarded the steamer; they were bound for Townsville. Half an hour sufficed to get the mail bags and some odds and ends of freight aboard, then again I heard the old familiar orders, "Single up!" "Let go aft!" etc., and felt quite out of it because it had nothing to do with me. Away we went down the harbour, and bore up towards Mackay as the sun slowly sank behind the landward hills.

It was a fine night, and after tea I spent a good while promenading the poop, watching the dim shapes of the points of land coming abeam and passing in slow procession astern. I built many castles in the air, and I smile as I think how many fortunes I made between Brisbane and Cairns. But wouldn't life be a dreary business if a bloke didn't let his thoughts take wing occasionally and let him forget the monotonous grind of daily routine?

Hallo! Six bells. A musical call from the look out, the staccato answer from the bridge, and I went below, tumbled into a sufficiently comfortable bunk and knew no more until the morning.