He heard the whirr of wings preceding the splash of hydroplaning ducks. After a long time a curlew vented a long screaming cry as it passed above him. There was something almost human in that.
As he carried no watch he had no means of telling the time. He guessed that it was eight o’clock when he heard a car or truck cross the creek on its way to Carie, and he guessed again that it was taking the Storrie girl and her brother to the dance.
After that Fisher dozed fitfully. Some time during the night he heard the curlew scream again, now towards the track by the fence. Quite an hour afterwards the car or truck returned from the township.
It was altogether a most uncomfortable night spent by this swagman, with his back pressing against a tree-trunk. Hence he slept long after the new day dawned. He was eating breakfast when another car reached Nogga Creek from the south. The rising wind prevented Fisher from hearing it. He did not know that it stopped for several minutes when it gained the northern bank of the creek.
Chapter Two
The RulerOf Carie
NELSON’S HOTEL STOOD at the southern extremity of the township of Carie. It was the only two-storied building in the town, and from its upper veranda it was possible to enjoy a wide if, perhaps, not always interesting, view.
Southward from the hotel the track to Broken Hill wound like a snake towards the bluebush covering the town Common, then disappeared among it towards Nogga Creek. A bare quarter-mile distant it passed through the left of two gates set in the Common fence, thence skirted the east boundary-fence of Wirragatta Station for fourteen miles. It was the fence now familiar to Joe Fisher. Just before the Common fence was reached a branch track took the right-hand gate and led one to the homestead of Wirragatta.
Beyond, far beyond the Common fence, the arc of the level horizon of the bluebush plain extended from the eastern tip of Nogga Creek’s box-trees round to the north, where lay the distant township of Allambee, and thence farther round to the line of mulga forest, and so to the south and the tall red gums of the river. Here and there over this great plain were low, sprawling sand-dunes which had not been there when Mrs. Nelson was in her teens.