In the Musgrave Ranges

In the Musgrave Ranges.

by Jim Bushman.

CHAPTER I

A Tornado

Towards the end of a long hot day, a shabby mixed train stopped at one of the most wonderful townships in the world, Hergott Springs, the first of the great cattle-trucking depots of Central Australia. It was dark, but a hurricane lantern, swung under a veranda, showed that the men who were waiting for the train were not ordinary men. They were men of the desert. Most of them were tall, thin, weather-beaten Australians, in shirt sleeves and strong trousers worn smooth inside the leg with much riding. A few Afghans were there too, big, dignified, and silent, with white turbans above their black faces; while a little distance away was a crowd of aboriginal men and women, yabbering excitedly and laughing together because the fortnightly train had at last come in. The same crowd would watch it start out in the morning on the last stage of its long journey to Oodnadatta, the railway terminus and the metropolis of Central Australia.

There were very few pa.s.sengers on the train, and all of them seemed known to everybody and were greeted with hearty handshakes and loud rough words of welcome back to the North. Two pa.s.sengers, however, did not get out of the carriage for a time, being unwilling to face that crowd of absolute strangers. They were Saxon Stobart and Rodger Vaughan, boys of about fifteen, who were on their way to Oodnadatta.

It was their first sight of the back country.

Presently a big man with only one eye climbed back into the carriage where they were sitting. "Here, don"t you lads want a feed?" he asked.

"You won"t get it here, you know."

"We don"t know where to go," said one of them. "We thought we"d wait a bit."

"Don"t you do too much waiting in this part of the country," said the man kindly. "You just hop in and get your cut. See? You"ll get left if you don"t. Now, get hold of your things and come along. I"ll fix you up."

The result of the stranger"s kindness was that the two boys shared a room with him at the only hotel in the place, and had a hearty meal in a room full of men in shirt sleeves, who shouted to one another and laughed in the most friendly manner.

After tea the two friends went out into the sandy street to stretch their legs after the long day"s railway ride, before going to bed. It was so dark that they couldn"t see anything at first, and nearly ran into a knot of men who were standing and smoking. They recognized the voice of one of them as that of the man who had taken them over to the hotel. They knew him only as Peter, a name which his companions called him.

"I never saw it look so bad," he was saying. "Just look at the moon, too."

"How far away d"you reckon it is?" asked another man. "It"s a long way yet, I reckon. You can"t hear any thunder. I wonder if it"s coming this way."

Vaughan nudged his companion. "What are they talking about, Sax?" he asked.

Stobart pointed north into the darkness. Overhead, and nearly to the horizon, the sky was a ma.s.s of stars, but just on the northern horizon was a patch where no stars were to be seen. As their eyes became accustomed to the night, they saw that this patch looked as if it was alive with flashing, coiling, darting red things. It was like a ma.s.s of snakes squirming in agony, and now and again a clear white jet of light came out of the darkness, as if one of them was spitting venom at the sky. In reality, the boys were looking at one of those terrible electric storms which tear across Central Australia after a severe drought, and the lurid colours were caused by lightning flashing inside a very thick cloud.

But no interest was strong enough to overcome the healthy weariness of the boys, and they went to bed soon afterwards and fell asleep almost at once.

Saxon Stobart was the son of a famous drover who took huge mobs of cattle across the centre of the continent, and who was noted for his pluck and endurance, and for his skill as a bushman, which enabled him to travel through parts of the country where very few white men have ever been. His son had many of the qualities of mind and body which had made his father such a fine man. He was tall and thin, but was as active as a cat and stronger than most boys of his size and age. His friend Vaughan was a different-looking boy altogether. He was short and thick-set. Although Vaughan was not fat, he was so solidly built that his nickname "Boof" suited him very well indeed. His father used to own Langdale Station, a big sheep run in the Western District, but a series of bad droughts had forced him to sell the place.

The two boys had been great friends at school, and when Drover Stobart wrote to his son: "Come on up to Oodnadatta for a bit of a holiday before settling down, and bring your mate along with you", they both accepted the invitation with enthusiasm.

The boys were suddenly roused from sound sleep about three o"clock next morning by someone in the room shouting at them; "Hi, there! Hi! Get up, it"s coming. Get up quick."

The next instant the bedclothes were jerked back and a man was pulling them roughly to their feet. It was all so sudden and unexpected that each boy thought that he was dreaming; but as the man shook and punched them into activity, they became aware of a terrifying noise coming at them across the desert through the black darkness of the night. The air vibrated with a tremendous booming which affected their ears like the deep notes of a huge organ, and the loudest shout was only just heard.

"It"s me. It"s Peter," said a voice at their side.

"Come for your lives. The tornado"s right on top of us."

He caught each boy firmly by the wrist and dragged them, dressed only in pyjamas just as they had tumbled out of bed, out of the room, down the corridor, and out at the back of the hotel. Everything was in confusion. They b.u.mped into people and upset chairs and things in their mad rush. Now and again Peter"s voice rose above the din, shouting, "The tank! The tank!" but n.o.body paid any attention, even if they heard the voice of a man above that other and more dreadful voice which was coming nearer and nearer and striking terror into the hearts even of the brave dwellers in the desert.

The shock of the night air did more than anything else fully to arouse the boys. It was like a dash of cold water, and though Peter still kept a tight grip of them, they ran along level with him of their own accord. Out into the yard they dashed, round one or two corners, over a fence at the back of an outhouse, and suddenly the man stopped dead and began pulling at something on the ground. It was a grating with a big iron handle. It stuck. The approaching tornado roared with anger while the man put out all his great strength. The booming sound rose to a shriek of triumph, as if the storm actually saw that these escaping human beings were delivered into its power. But Peter"s muscles were like steel and leather. He strained till the veins stood out on his forehead like rope. At last the thing loosened and came up, and the bushman sprawled on his back. But he was on his feet again instantly. Speech would have been no good, so he gripped Vaughan by the collar of his pyjamas and swung him into the hole in the ground, and only waited long enough for the boy to find a foothold before he did the same with Stobart. Then he scrambled down himself. They were in a big cement rain-water tank built in the ground at the back of the hotel. There was no water in it.

n.o.body spoke. n.o.body _could_ speak. The air was so packed full of sound that it seemed as if it could not possibly hold one sound more.

It was like the booming of a thousand great guns at the same time; the shock, the recoil, and the rush of air across the entrance to the tank was as if artillery practice on an immense scale were going on. There was a screaming sound as if sh.e.l.ls were hurtling through s.p.a.ce. Now the pitch blackness of the night was a solid ma.s.s; then it was red and livid like a recent bruise; and then again, with a crackle like the discharge of a Maxim, vivid flashes of white fire split the air.

Thunder rolled continuously and lightning played without stopping, in a way which is seen and heard only on a battle-field or during a tornado in the desert. It sounded as if the pent-up fury of a thousand years had suddenly been let loose upon that little collection of houses on the vast barren plain.

Down in the tank it was as dark as a tomb. The boys were close to one another, crouched against the wall, unable to move through sheer amazement. Peter stood up and looked out through the entrance, expecting every moment to hear the sound of houses being torn up from their foundations and flung down again many yards distant, mere heaps of splintered wood and twisted iron, with perhaps mangled human corpses in the wreckage. But such a sound did not come.

The tornado lasted about three minutes--that was all--and then it pa.s.sed, and all those tremendous sounds became m.u.f.fled in the distance as it retreated.

Gradually the stunned senses of the boys began to recover, and they heard Peter speaking. "It missed us," he was saying. "It came pretty close, though. I thought the hotel was gone for a cert." Then he struck a match and held it to his pipe. The little light flared up steadily and showed two boys in pyjamas, the smooth cement walls of the tank, and the bushman in his shirt and trousers, but without his boots.

It showed also a cat which had died a long time ago, and which had been dried up by the great heat. The sight of the squashed cat was so funny, down in the tank, that the boys started to laugh. It was a relief to do so after the strain of the last few minutes.

"We"d better get out of this," said Peter, throwing the match at the cat and starting to climb up an iron ladder. "Were you lads much scared?"

It was so evident that they had been very much scared that their emphatic denial of it made them all laugh again. "I tell you, I was,"

confessed the bushman. "I reckoned the whole town was going to glory.

It would have, too, if the wind had struck it. The thing must have turned off before it got here."

Such tornadoes as the one described occur in Central Australia just before the breaking up of long droughts. Sometimes they are mere harmless w.i.l.l.y-w.i.l.l.i.e.s, which have not enough power to blow a man off his horse, but now and again a bigger one comes along, which travels at thirty or forty miles an hour at the centre and sweeps everything before it. These tornadoes may not be more than a quarter of a mile across, and look from the distance like huge brown waterspouts coiling up into the air till they are lost in the clear blue of the sky.

Sometimes the whirling column of sand leaves the ground for a time and goes on spinning away high over the heads of everything, but it usually comes down again and goes on tearing across the country. The Central Australian tornado must not be confused with the tropical typhoon or cyclone, which is sometimes three or four hundred miles across.

Peter was right about the tornado turning off before it reached Hergott Springs. It came across the country from the Musgrave Ranges in the north-west till it reached the Dingo Creek. Here it turned and followed the dry depression, wrecked the Dingo Creek railway bridge, leaving it a ma.s.s of twisted iron and hanging sleepers, and then tore on down the line, doing a great deal of damage and making straight for the helpless township.

There is a very deep and wide cutting about a mile north of Hergott Springs, and the fury of the wind that night completely filled it up with sand from bank to bank. This undoubtedly saved the town, for, after this exhibition of its power, the tornado turned slightly to the east, and missed the houses entirely. The fringe of it, however, touched the end of the station yard, where the great water-tank stood.

The wind caught this tremendous weight, lifted it from the platform, and threw it fifty yards, while the steel pillars of the stand were twisted together as if they had been cotton. A tool-shed which used to stand near the tank was moved bodily, and no trace of it was ever found. No doubt it was buried deep in one of the many sandhills which these terrific winds leave behind them.

CHAPTER II

Camels

It was not till next morning that the boys saw that the tornado had completely upset their plans. During the few terrible minutes of the storm, and for an hour afterwards, till sleep finally claimed them again, excitement drove all thoughts of the future clean away. But when they awoke late next morning, and looked out at the sky, which was blue and without a cloud, and across the sandy street at the collection of iron station buildings and the train by which they had arrived and which still stood waiting, and saw, beyond and around everything, the tremendous stretches of yellow sand already blazing in the heat, the affairs of the night seemed only a dream.

The reality of things was suddenly brought home to them when Peter came into the room with a cheery, "Good morning! How"re you getting on?"

Both boys were feeling fine and said so, and then their friend told them: "You"d better hurry on a bit. The train starts back for town in about an hour."

Sax was using the towel at the time, and when he heard what Peter said, he stopped rubbing his face and looked at him in surprise.

"Back to town!" he exclaimed. "But we don"t want to go back to town.

We"re going on to Oodnadatta."

"Going on to Oodnadatta, are you?" asked Peter, with a smile. "And how are you going to get there?"

"Why, by train, of course," broke in Vaughan. Then suddenly the events of the night appeared to him in a new light. "That is--of course--if it"s running," he stammered.