Free Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton Page B

jes’ as I got out an’ done it!”
    The Konk cantered to them, his horse’s hoofs padded by the dust-cushioned earth. The driver drew back, so as not to impede the newcomer’s view. After a moment or two, the Konk, preferring closer quarters, brought his horse round to the left. Unsophisticated bush wonder in the man’s face met the sophisticated in the girl’s.
    Never had she seen anything so grotesquely monkeyish. And the nose of this little hairy horror, as he slewed his neck to look into her face, blotted the landscape and dwarfed all perspective. She experienced a strange desire to extend her hand. When surprise lessened, her mettle saved her from the impulse to cover her face with both hands, to baffle him.
    At last the silence was broken by the driver drawing a match along his leg, and lighting his pipe. The hairy creature safely arranged a pair of emu eggs, slung with bush skill round his neck.
    â€œAin’t yer goin’ to part?” enquired the driver, indicating his companion as the recipient.
    â€œWot are yer givin’ us; wot do yer take me fur?” said the Konk indignantly, drawing down his knotted veil.
    â€œWell, give ’em ter me fer Lizer.”
    â€œWill yer ’ave ’em now, or wait till yer get ’em?”
    â€œGoin’ ter sit on ’em yerself?” sneered the driver.
    â€œYes, an’ I’ll give yer ther first egg ther cock lays,” laughed the Konk.
    He turned his horse’s head back to the gate. “I say, Billy Skywonkie! Wot price Sally Ah Too, eh?” he asked, his gorilla mouth agape.
    Billy Skywonkie uncrossed his legs, took out the whip. He tilted his pipe and shook his head as he prepared to drive, to show that he understood to a fraction the price of Sally Ah Too. The aptness of the question took the sting out of his having had to open the gate. He gave a farewell jerk.
    â€œGoin’ ter wash yer neck?” shouted the man with the nose, from the gate.
    â€œNot if I know it.”
    The Konk received the intimation incredulously. “Stinkin’ Roger!” he yelled. In bush parlance this was equal to emphatic disbelief.
    This was a seemingly final parting, and both started, but suddenly the Konk wheeled round.
    â€œOh, Billy!” he shouted.
    Billy stayed his horse and turned expectantly.
    â€œW’en’s it goin’ ter rain?”
    The driver’s face darkened. “Your blanky jealersey ’ll get yer down, an’ worry yer yet,” he snarled, and slashing his horse he drove rapidly away.
    â€œMickey ther Konk,” he presently remarked to his companion, as he stroked his nose.
    This explained her earlier desire to extend her hand. If the Konk had been a horse she would have stroked his nose.
    â€œMob er sheep can camp in the shadder of it,” he said.
    Boundless scope for shadows on that sun-smitten treeless plain!
    â€œMake a good plough-shere,” he continued, “easy plough a cultivation paddock with it!”
    At the next gate he seemed in a mind and body conflict. There were two tracks; he drove along one for a few hundred yards. Then stopping, he turned, and finding the Konk out of sight, abruptly drove across to the other. He continually drew his whip along the horse’s back, and haste seemed the object of the movement, though he did not flog the beast.
    After a few miles on the new track, a blob glittered dazzlingly through the glare, like a fallen star. It was the iron roof of the wine shanty—the Saturday night and Sunday resort of shearers and rouseabouts for twenty miles around. Most of its spirits was made on the premises from bush recipes, of which bluestone and tobacco were the chief ingredients. Every drop had the reputation of “bitin’ orl ther way down”.
    A sapling studded with broken horse-shoes seemed to connect two lonely crow stone trees. Under their scanty shade groups of dejected fowls stood with beaks