yanda station was situated in a wild country, and when edgar foster arrived there he thought he had never seen such a dreary spot. accustomed to the green fields of old england and her charming rural landscapes, edgar found the barren plains and scraggy trees monotonous. instead of miles upon miles of green, undulating pasture-land, he saw brown, hard-baked ground, the stunted grass growing in patches, and looking parched and dry for want of water.
although the first glimpse of yanda disenchanted edgar of the ideas he had formed of ‘up-country’ scenes, the reception he met with from the station hands reconciled him to the prospect before him. captain fife had written to benjamin brody, the manager at yanda, informing him who edgar foster was, and how he had behaved at the wreck of the distant shore. he also stated that edgar was the son of the famous cricketer, robert foster. this was quite sufficient to ensure edgar a hearty reception, and his arrival was quite an event on the station.
ben brody was a born colonial, a man accustomed to take the rough with the smooth of life and weld them into an even existence. brody’s temper was none of the best, but he kept it under control. he was a sober man in the accepted sense of the word; that is, he never took more liquor than he could conveniently carry. there was no better rider at yanda than ben brody, and the toughest buck-jumper generally found he had met his match when brody got on to his back.
fearless and determined, he was the very man to manage the somewhat mixed lot of hands on yanda station. they had some ‘queer customers’—brody’s expression—on yanda. it was a wild country, and far out of the beaten track. the wonder to most people who took the trouble to think about such an outlandish place as yanda was how it was kept going, for they would never have been so rash as to argue that yanda paid its way.
but yanda, thanks to good management, did pay its way, and captain fife and others were perfectly satisfied with their investment. yanda was bought cheap at a time when station property in the far west was going begging, and the installation of ben brody as manager had resulted in its turning out a good bargain. brody was a great believer in sheep, but he had not much faith in cattle on yanda. the hands firmly believed that ben brody had been reared from a very early age upon lean mutton, and that the taste for any other kind of meat was foreign to him.
ben brody had a horror of fat sheep. he preferred sheep “all wool,” because wool was worth considerably more than flesh. the slaughtering of a bullock at yanda was the signal for much joy on the part of the hands. when ben brody received the news that edgar foster would arrive on a certain day at yanda, he resolved to duly celebrate the event, just to give the ‘new chum’ a better idea of the country.
‘what’s come over brody?’ asked will henton. ‘he’s actually ordered the slaughtering of a bullock. i am overwhelmed with joy.’
will henton was a young fellow who discovered town life too fast for him, so had found his way to yanda, and turned out a useful man.
‘there’s a new hand coming,’ said harry noke. ‘brody’s told me about him. he’s the young fellow who rescued that little lass at the wreck of the distant shore, and he’s a son of robert foster the cricketer.’
‘no!’ said will henton. ‘you can’t mean it. what a slice of luck! he’s sure to play cricket well, and we’re short of a man or two.’
‘you know the reason of the slaughter now,’ said harry. ‘i must confess beef will be a change from brody’s everlasting mutton.’
‘we must give young foster a good reception,’ said will.
‘he deserves it,’ said harry, ‘and he’ll be able to spin us some yarns about the wreck.’
‘plucky young beggar,’ said will. ‘i’m open to bet you a trifle he can box.’
‘you’re mad on boxing,’ said harry. ‘it would be a blessing if some disguised fighting-man came here to knock the conceit out of you.’
the hands at yanda talked the matter of edgar’s arrival over, and agreed to make things pleasant for him; occasionally they made matters rather rough for a new hand, until he paid a substantial footing.
so it came about that there was much feasting and rejoicing when edgar arrived, and he thought them a set of jolly good fellows.
‘the hospitality makes up for the barrenness of the land,’ thought edgar.
there were a good many blackfellows about yanda, and they were as keen on the scent of fresh-killed meat as a hound after a fox. towards night, when the feasting was over, and ben brody, edgar, and several of the hands were sitting on the wide[96] veranda running round the homestead, dusky forms were seen advancing across the open plain.
‘have you black men about here?’ asked edgar in some surprise.
‘thousands of ’em,’ said brody, without moving a muscle of his face.
edgar looked at him, smiling, and said:
‘they must be pretty tame if there are thousands of them. i suppose when you first arrived here you brought an army to conquer the country.’
‘we’ll say hundreds,’ said brody; ‘i must have been thinking of sheep.’
‘mutton again!’ whispered will to harry noke. ‘he lives on mutton, consequently he thinks of sheep.’
‘how many hundred blacks have you on yanda?’ said edgar, who had been somewhat prepared for ben brody’s exaggerations by wal jessop.
‘well, really, i couldn’t say for certain,’ replied brody; ‘i’ve not had ’em mustered lately. when we’ve a bit of spare time i’ll have ’em counted for you.’
‘thanks,’ said edgar; ‘it is always interesting to ascertain what likelihood there is of the original inhabitants of a country becoming extinct.’
a roar of laughter greeted edgar’s reply, and will henton said:
‘the young un’s a bit too much for you, brody. you had better not spin him any of those well-seasoned aboriginal yarns of yours, for i fancy they won’t wash.’
‘you swallowed some of them, anyway,’ said ben brody.
‘merely to oblige you,’ said will.
ben brody glared at him, and then said:
‘meat is bad for you, will; i must in future restrict you to a mutton diet.’
‘what are these fellows coming for?’ asked edgar, as about thirty blacks, including a few females, advanced to within a dozen yards or so of the veranda.
‘they are on the war-path,’ said will henton. ‘the slaughtering of a bullock at yanda is an event of such magnitude that even the natives of the country assemble to give thanks on the occasion.’
‘never mind his chaff,’ said ben brody to edgar; ‘you will have plenty of it if you remain here very long. would you care to see these fellows dance, hold a “corroboree” as they call it?’
‘yes,’ said edgar, ‘i should very much like to see it.’
‘then you shall. they have not given us anything in that line lately,’ said brody.
he called a big, powerful-looking black, and spoke to him, and made signs.
‘i’ve promised them a good square meal if they give us a dance,’ said brody.
edgar thought it a wild scene as he looked at the dusky forms in the moonlight. as far as he could see the endless plain stretched out before him. the white, gaunt trees were ghostly and weird, and the hum of many insects was in the air.
in a few minutes edgar heard a low, crooning sound, which gradually swelled into a hoarse roar, and then, with a loud shout from their leader, the black fellows commenced to dance. they stamped upon the hard ground with bare feet until the sound became like the tramp of soldiers. having worked themselves up to a proper pitch of excitement, the wild fellows threw their limbs about in the most extraordinary fashion. some of them leaped high into the air, and the women sat and clapped their hands and beat them on the ground.
the black men whirled their arms, and waved heavy sticks over their heads. their faces became most repulsive. most of them had thick, curly black hair, which hung down in shaggy locks. their noses were big, coarse, and wide, and their cheek-bones high, while their mouths were of great size, and their lips thick.
as edgar watched them dancing in this strange fashion in the moonlight he thought it was the wildest scene he had ever looked upon.
‘do they never get tired?’ he asked, as the dance continued, and the efforts of the blacks did not relax.
‘they have great powers of endurance,’ said ben brody. ‘you see the big fellow there, to the right? i’ve known him go ninety miles between sunset and sunrise without so much as a halt. they are treacherous fellows, some of them, but yacka is a cut above the others. he’s a strange fellow. he hails from south australia, and the blacks around here seem afraid of him. strange to say, he speaks english well, and is far better looking than the others. my own impression is that there’s a bit of white blood in his veins, although his skin is black. eh, yacka, come here!’ he shouted.
the black, who was standing alone looking at the dancers, who were now slowing down, stepped quickly on to the veranda without an effort.
‘this is yacka,’ said brody to edgar, and then turning to the black, he said: ‘a new hand, only arrived to-day. you’ll be able to show him a thing or two about yanda, i reckon.’
yacka nodded and, holding out his hand towards edgar, said:
‘he says true. i know much about this country. much about other country far off. ah, you shake my hand! good fellow! yacka your friend.’
edgar had taken the black’s proffered hand, giving it a hearty shake; this he did without a moment’s hesitation.
‘you’ve made friends with yacka,’ said brody; ‘that is the way he tests a man. i’ve known fellows come here and refuse to shake hands with yacka. not a blessed black in the whole tribe would help the man who declined yacka’s hand. i dare say it’s quite as clean as a good many white men’s hands.’
‘i like the look of him,’ said edgar, ‘and how well he talks! have you ever tried to make him work as a hand on the station?’
‘bless you, he wouldn’t demean himself to work like these fellows, and if he did they’d buck against it,’ said brody.
‘quite right, too,’ said harry noke; ‘we don’t want a lot of infernal blacks doing station work; they are good for nothing but thieving and every sort of iniquity.’
‘perhaps white men have driven them to it,’ said edgar; ‘i dare say they managed very well before australia was discovered by captain cook.’
‘you cannot make these black fellows understand what civilization means,’ said brody.
‘rum,’ grunted a quiet-looking man, who had scarcely spoken during the evening.
‘when jim lee offers a remark, which you may have observed is seldom,’ said brody, ‘it is generally to the point. undoubtedly rum and civilization go hand in hand where the blacks are concerned. apart from rum, however, the beggars are too infernally stupid to learn anything.’
‘yacka seems fairly intelligent,’ said edgar.
‘i make an exception of yacka,’ said ben. ‘he’s sharp enough, and the way he carves emu eggs and boomerangs is a caution. the ideas that chap can put on an emu egg beat creation. but he’s a thorough wild man, although he does talk english well, and has ideas above his fellows. you could no more get yacka to conform to our idea of civilized behaviour than you could train a monkey to keep out of mischief. yacka is full of mischief, but it’s a humorous sort of mischief, and does not do much harm.’
‘yacka’s the only useful black we have around here,’ said will henton. ‘he’s a splendid fag in the cricket field, and when he’s extra good we let him handle a bat. he shapes well, too, and i’m inclined to think yacka might be developed into a decent cricketer. he rides well, and that’s more than the other fellows do; and when he’s handled my gun i’ve seen him make some fair shots. the rummy part of the business is that yacka won’t be civilized, as ben says, and you can’t get him to leave the camp.’
edgar foster thought a good deal about yacka that night, and resolved to try and make friends with him, and learn something of his past life, which he felt sure would be interesting.
