We of the Never-Never

At our appointed time we left the homestead, taking the north-west track for over a mile to continue the dust-throwing; and for the whole length of that mile Dan reiterated the...

Only three weeks before, as we hunted for it through scrub and bush and creek-bed, the Yellow Hole had been one of our Unknown Waters, tucked snugly away in an out-of-the-way el...

As a matter of course, Bertie’s Nellie quietly gathered the reins of management into her own hands, and as a matter of course, Jimmy’s Nellie indulged in ear-splitting continuou...

For over four months we had wrestled with luck for a house, only to find we had very little use for it for the time being, that is, until next Wet. It couldn’t be carried out-bu...

The Quiet Stockman was a Scotchman, and, like many Scotchmen, a strange contradiction of shy reserve and quiet, dignified self-assurance. Having made up his mind on women in gen...

Just before mid-day—five days after we had left the homestead—we rode through the Southern slip rails to find the Dandy at work “cleaning out a soakage” on the brink of the bill...

Soon after the Fizzer left us the horse-teams came in, and went on, top- heavy with stores for “inside”; but the “Macs” were now thinking of the dry stages ahead, and were trave...

Dan was in one of his superior moods. “Let’s see if she knows anything about horses,” he said condescendingly, as the Quiet Stockman opened the mob up a little to show the anima...

“Whatever do you do with your time?” they all asked. “The monotony would kill me,” some declared. “Every day must seem the same,” said others: every one agreeing that life out-b...

When we arrived at the five-mile in the morning we found Mac “packed up” and ready for the start, and, passing the reins to him, the Maluka said, “You know the road best”; and M...

At earliest dawn we were awakened by wild, despairing shrieks, and were instinctively groping for our revolvers when we remembered the fatted fowls and Cheon’s lonely vigil, and...

That finished, the store was turned inside out and a couple of “boys” sent in for “things needed,” and after them more “boys” for more things; and then other “boys” for other th...

“Me savey all about,” he said, with a majestic wave of his hands, after expressing supreme contempt for Sam’s caste and ways; so Sam applied for his cheque, shook hands all roun...

The swim being beyond the horses, they were left hobbled out on the north banks, to wait for the river to fall, and after another swift race down and across stream, Mine Host la...

With the nearest doctor three hundred miles away in Darwin, and held there by hospital routine, the Maluka decided on bed and feeding-up as the safest course, and Cheon came out...

Considering ourselves homeless, the Maluka decided that we should “go bush” for awhile during Johnny’s absence beginning with a short tour of inspection through some of the sout...

The Fizzer was due at sundown, and for the Fizzer to be due meant that the Fizzer would arrive, and by six o’clock we had all got cricks in our necks, with trying to go about as...

Bush chivalry demanding that a woman’s discomfiture should be ignored, Mac kept his eyes on the horizon for the first quarter of a mile, and talked volubly of the prospects of t...

Within a week we returned to the homestead, and for twenty-four hours Cheon gloated over us, preparing every delicacy that appealed to him as an antidote to an outbush course of...

From sun-up to sun-down on Tuesday, the train glided quietly forward on its way towards the Never-Never; and from sun-up to sun-down the Maluka and I experienced the kindly cons...

The homestead, standing half-way up the slope that rose from the billabong, had, after all, little of that “down-at-heels, anything’ll- do” appearance that Mac had so scathingly...

Dan and the Quiet Stockman went out to the north-west immediately, to “clean up there” before getting the bullocks together; but the Maluka, settling down to arrears of bookkeep...

To begin somewhere near the beginning, the Maluka—better known at that time as the new Boss for the Elsey—and I, his “missus,” were at Darwin, in the Northern Territory, waiting...

A Day or two after Christmas, Dan came in full of regrets because he had “missed the celebrations,” and gratified Cheon’s heart with a minute and detailed account of the “Clisym...

The Maluka, The Little Missus, The Sanguine Scot, The Head Stockman, The Dandy, The Quiet Stockman, The Fizzer, Mine Host, The Wag, Some of our Guests, A few black “boys” and lu...

All unaware, that scourge of the Wet crept back to the homestead, and the great Shadow, closing in on us, flung wide those gates of Death once more, and turning, before passing...