Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

back. Still, the curious thing was that she never took her mother into her confidence, and never seemed to fret.

“Anyway, on the third morning, after breakfast, her mother went out to milk the goats, leaving her in the house. When the woman came back, she found the child gone. She looked round the place, and called, and listened, and prospected everywhere, for an hour; then she went into the house, and examined. She found that the little girl had taken about a pint of milk, in a small billy with a lid, and half a loaf of bread. Then, putting everything together, the mother decided that she had gone into the scrub to look for her father. There was no help to be had nearer than the home-station, for the only other boundary man on that part of the run was away at the muster. So she cleared for the station⁠—twelve mile⁠—and got there about three in the afternoon, not able to stand. There was nobody about the station but Mrs. Spanker, and the servant-girl, and the cook, and the Chow slushy; and Mrs. Spanker was the only one that knew the track to the ewe-paddock. However, they got a horse in, and off went Mrs. Spanker to give the alarm. Fine woman. Daughter of old Walsh, storekeeper at Moogoojinna, on the Deniliquin side.

“It would be about five when Mrs. Spanker struck the ewe-paddock, and met Broome and another fellow. Then the three split out to catch whoever they could, and pass the word round. Dan got the news just before sundown. He only remarked that she might have found her own way back; then he went for home as hard as his horse could lick.

“As the fellows turned-up, one after another, Spanker sent the smartest of them⁠—one to Kulkaroo, and one to Mulppa, and two or three others to different fencers’ and tank-sinkers’ camps. But the main thing was blackfellows. Did anybody know where to find a blackfellow, now that he was wanted?

“Seems, there had been about a dozen of them camped near the tank in the cattle-paddock for a month past, but they were just gone, nobody knew where. And there had been an old lubra and a young one camped within a mile of the station, and an old fellow and his lubra near one of the boundary men’s places; but they all happened to have shifted; and no one had the slightest idea where they could be found. However, in a sense, everyone was after them.

“But, as I was telling you, we had some breakfast at the station, and, then started for Dan’s place. Seven of us by this time, for another of the Kulkaroo men had come up, and there were three well-sinkers in a buggy. This was on a Thursday morning; and the little girl had been out twenty-four hours.

“Well, we had gone about seven mile, with crowds of fresh horsetracks to guide us; and we happened to be going at a fast shog, and Bob riding a couple or three yards to the right, when he suddenly wheeled his horse round, and jumped off.

“ ‘How far is it yet to Dan’s place?’ says he.

“ ‘Five mile,’ says one of the well-sinkers. ‘We’re just on the corner of his paddock. Got tracks?’

“ ‘Yes,’ says Bob. ‘I’ll run them up, while you fetch the other fellows. Somebody look after my horse.’ And by the time the last word was out of his mouth, he was twenty yards away along the little track. No trouble in following it, for she was running the track of somebody that had rode out that way a few days before⁠—thinking it was her father’s horse, poor little thing!

“Apparently she had kept along the inside of Dan’s fence⁠—the way she had generally seen him going out⁠—till she came to the corner, where there was a gate. Then she had noticed this solitary horse’s track striking away from the gate, out to the left; and she had followed it. However, half-a-mile brought us to a patch of hardish ground, where she had lost the horse’s track; and there Bob lost hers. Presently he picked it up again; but now there was only her little bootmarks to follow.”

“A goot dog would be wort vivty men dere, I tink,” suggested Helsmok.

“Same thought struck several of us, but it didn’t strike Bob,” replied Thompson. “Fact, the well-sinkers had brought a retriever with them in the buggy; a dog that would follow the scent of any game you could lay him on; but they couldn’t get him to take any notice of the little girl’s track. Never been trained to track children⁠—and how were they going to make him understand that a child was lost? However, while two of the well-sinkers were persevering with their retriever, the other fellow drove off like fury to fetch Dan’s sheepdog; making sure that we would only have to follow him along the scent. In the meantime, I walked behind Bob, leading both our horses.

“Give him his due, he’s a great tracker. I compare tracking to reading a letter written in a good business hand. You must’nt look at what’s under your eye; you must see a lot at once, and keep a general grasp of what’s on ahead, besides spotting each track you pass. Otherwise, you’ll be always turning back for a fresh race at it. And you must no more confine yourself to actual tracks than you would expect to find each letter correctly formed. You must just lift the general meaning as you go. Of course, our everyday tracking is not tracking at all.

“However, Bob run this little track full walk, mile after mile, in places where I wouldn’t see a mark for fifty yards at a stretch, on account of rough grass, and dead leaves, and so forth. One thing in favour of Bob was that she kept a fairly straight course, except when she was blocked by porcupine or supplejack; then she would swerve off, and keep another middling straight line. At