THE STORY-TELLER. M. Phie's Bore.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 148, 23 June 1906, Page 10

THE STORY-TELLER. M. Phie's Bore.

'[ JCPhie sauntered outsiclo after tea, .#nd! sat on the *ood-heap. He glanced 'up At the sky as' he sat there smoking. It was a fine dear night. Always fine! ,He listened. It was the trade-wind 'coming through the timber from the 'South-east. "Aye," he said to himself, ."South - east, South-east"! It never '7jhjnges,_T^e same dry weather and ;jSouth-east winds'." "i M'Phie was a North Queensland grazing farmer and had sheep. He had half a lifetime in a dry country. jOoqb, or twice a year it rained, and ran jfchjj Jittle creek tnat meandered through ■'his property. Once or twice, in good ■Jyears, the water had lasted him but more often it had given -out, and then M'Phie had to travel sheep, and his family, They were three girls and a boy. The children -had their pets, a- poddy calf and some ■>heep, and as M'Phie sat there one of the pet sheep came up- by ihe woodpeap and lay down beside him munching away at its cud. r M'Phie put out -Iris handTand; scratched 'the ■sheepjj head. i "It's~ge£ting' dry "again, old Woolly," Jhe said, musingly. M'Phie dreaded drought. ' He'd -[knocked his lambs on the head to save Jxis ewes befqre now, and he'd seen his jnilking cows and working horses staggering and dying for want of water. '.He bad a dam near the house, but the -water wag low in it, not more than •$wo months' supply. Held always had _a hope of being able to put down a ■>bore, but it was beyond his slender '-means. Drillers' price was £1 a foot. :A few miles away there was a bore on .the neighbouring station four v bundred • I|feet deep, but four hundred pounds was ~»s hopeless to M'Phie as was four thousand. Sometimes he had thought of frying to put down the bore by his own .primitive means, but when he spoke with those drillers he was disheartened. -They were lordly fellows, these Canadians, who drovq in buggies, and who looked down on the common mortals of the earth »nd spoke of derricks and ;wolking beams and four-inch sinker :bars,_an,t} .thousands pf feet of wire —rope" -with a blandness that killed 91'Eftie's hopes and sent him back thinking of the fast receding water in the . 4»m, and. his sheep. Once be was able to do a small timely service to a driller by lending him a fresh horse, and the great autocrat of tjia- boring world so far descended from -hif altjtnde of magnificence as to speak a.. few words about shallow bores, which raised M'Phie's, hopes again. The driller spoke with a nasal twang. ife paid : "What you want is a God 4am spring-pole rig. In our counary poor people put down these Gad dam pot-holes in quite a few days." M'Phie hung with Buch homage op his words, and. showed such terrible, ,fearfpl interest in every word he spoke, that ; the great man, not a bad fellow at Jieart, descended further to the extent of taking a leaf from his pocket*b9fi]( §5£L Sketching the outline oi a -;''spring-pole rig." M'Phie thanked him, .^.W]^ gratitnde beaming m every line >«£,fei6.jf t ace. The scrap of paper gave tjuni.-feope. • He might save his sheep • yet. With his boy and the two or .three blacks about the place he would cut the long pole one] fix it as the drillei had described. . »A spring-pole drilling rig, let me here .tell you, consists of a sapling twentyfive or thirty feet long, with the big - end fastened low down to a tree or .post. Then raise tha long end up, put.ting a log under it, as close up to the ;tree as you can get it, so that the •spring-pole hangs over at an angle, like a great fishing-rod. To the high Xend of the pole is attached the rope j^ppon which hangs the iron bar, which ~is the drill. With, another piece of ,'^.rope two men pnll down the pole quick--J]y til] the bit strikes the ground, then let go, and the pole springs up, •,and so on. Up and down the drill cuts its way into tho earth, and is constantly turned to keep the hole round .^and free. Water is poured injo the -no«|j. and the hard eartn is made sludgy -and^mes out until the hole gets deep, S* n " then a "sand-pump" is pat down. - f Tbisvis a piece of pipe with a elack~valve in the bottom, which opens as it the mud, and doses when -rap, -fetching the mud with it, and clean~irigthe lidle. 3 "With- the aid- of! his boyand the' two MThie rigged the spring-pole. 3r» sinker bar he forged an old axle to a drill point on one .en 4, and with a hole punched at the • v othw end for the rope to go through. ; It was a proud day on the place the , day .they had the rig completed and work. Mrs, M'Phie and the ;ggii%TOsre with them, and stood by ad*on«!ingly. \ * "Apd: -will the wafer run down the rgenek as it does a* tbe'etsrfcion?" asked -«one of. tha girls, • ■ X 'TeA • children," r tf " we are successful, T,and there will be no garbed wire fences .*-J?Jl o . throu S h to- gel? to it," answered full of,' h'ppe,' but he was conrwnous as he spoke/ of the immensity of •Jthe ' "if." The girls were happy in the ithought of saving their pets, and the rfTwfe. of the honie .smiled .cheerfully. She ;*knew work , and worry it meant Xior her husband before that water flowin the, "creek, if it ever did. She dq her part, though, She and -the girl* went away back to the house. cThe two.'ljlacks pulled down the pole;rrope, the • boy carrieu water from thb - dam, -MThie turned "the' drill, and so 5-M'Phie'B bore starJteoV ,''".. " Th,e rig worked: well. ' At first there a little .trouble lowering the drill .'ao^.iJie hole went 'deeper and deeper, tbuf M'Phie' got the screw of an old *?'*B& : bs k *> aid forged -it so that he •JfW ">Wer tha drill, without stopping, i by getting out a. turn of tha screw from .. f tbe -top. ;Jt wa.s tedious work after a —week of it-, and- it w*e hard! too, pulling up the sand-pump by hand, hard on the ..arms. The bjacka took, a Jot of encouragement. "Plenty tumbacca, by- - and,bye," eaid M'Phie, and they'd pull away. ' * * •«.., , tbough M 'P u ie encouraged hia blacks, yet his heart smote him. It '.might be he'd miss the water-bearing ", strata. He read everything he could find on artesian water rocks and strata. They bad struck the water at four hundred " feet in the station bore. He knew 'where the cropped, out fifteen miles away northward of his place. The inferenco was that, the, strata rose, and he,. should "get it at a shallower depth, bat was it the same fsandrock? The dreadful thought of failure, of missing tljtp water, was evrr in his mind. Those 'whom he ep&ke with only laughed at him. "Yon'd better leave boring to them that understand it," they said. TJ»ey joked at his expense, and "M'Phie'a Bore" bccauio a byword in the country. "M'Phie Walks abput all night, talking to the bloomin' trees," eaid Slippery, down at the pub. But M'Phie pegged away with the spring-pole, and kept his own counsel. He had forsaken the woodheap after tea, and used to walk up to the bore, and sit thcro for hours in the evenings. The hole was down now below the alluvial into the' blue shale. The sand-rock containing the water -was below the shale. It was a long way off yet. ' On a Sunday bis boy and he paced off four hundred feet on the ground, and put in two long pegs. They then put in' another peg between.. That was. tha dep#i of; thfe. bde. Dailx. to the work^

went on — if there was light enough to see, when they knocked off — this peg was shifted, showing how far to go. At the end of a. month's work it was past tho centre of the space — half the work was done, It was terribly heavy pulling up the drill and the sand-pump, but M'Phie never tired His arms were strained and his face was haggard and worn. Meantime the water' in the dam lowered day by day, and the ewes took to straying round it lingeringly, instead of drinking and going away to feedThe water was getting bad. The wife of the home had been putting ashes into it, ' and making no complaint. The work got heavier and heavier. They struck soft bands in the shale that clogged the drills, MThie had rigged a "windlass to heave up the sand-pump, but even with that it was dreadfully heavy work. The blacks were weary and exhausted, and M'Phie, eager and untiring as he had been, was failing. More than once he had etaggered and fallen. The drill clogged more and more, and at last there came a time when it would not work. The spring of the pole was not enough to lift the drill. They tried again and again. M'Phie urged and poured more water into the hole to soften the 6ludge, but no, it came not, and the work of the "spring-pole rig" nad reached its limit. There was yet a hundred feet to go to reach the sandrock, where M'Phie had hoped to strike the water. He was beaten. That evening he sat by the hole. Long into the night he sat there, thinking, devising some scheme to continue the work. If he only had a little engine of somo kind. M'Phie knew little of steam power, moreover he was afraid of it. - The water in the dam was terribly low now, and there was green scum on jt. The bullfrogs dabbled about in it. The sheep got bogged, and had to be pulled out. M'Phie hid been carrying water out to a trough for the horses and cows for some time now, for if the big stock got in, they would puddle the water and destroy it. It was necessary to devise some new rig. M'Phie had now mastered enough of the drilling operation to know what was wanted, The drilj must be lifted and dropped. He thought out many appliances, then "he decided to try a long lever in a fork, working as a whip works in a well. He rigged this, and set to work again. It was practicable, and the blacks could pull it down. He wanted a heavier drill, though. He abandoned the old axle, and got a railway rail that he'd once used as a lever for a wool-press. But the dreadful heaving on the . sand-pump had yet to be done. Sometimes it took all four heaving at the windlass to get it up. Then he thought of a new plan, and be rigged up three long shear legs, and borrowed a. pulley-block. He tried pulling it up, with a horse. It was a troublesome job to get the horse to work it /steadily. Sometimes he'd pull it half-way np, and stop, and Mien he could not start it again, and they had to hold the awful weight by hand until they got it feed on the windlass, and M'Phie began to think of the disastrous consequences if the rope broke wffh the jerking of the horse, He'd never be able to get the sand-p\jmp up again, or get hold of the rppe. It would ruin every, thing if th& rope broke, and it wasn't very strong, ' Sometimes, too, the horse would stop with the sand-pump halfway up, and commence to, jig about until he turned round, then the harness and collar would pull on to his ears, and he'd plunge about, and he'd pull back struggling, by the neck, until they flew to the rope and took the strain, whilst they got the rope to the windlass again, and the horse free. At last, though, M'Phis got a steady old mare that would pull it right up, and so they worked 1 away in all the hours of light, day after day, until at last the intermediate peg got nearer and- nearer to the end of the 400 feet- pegged out. If -the ' water-bearing strata rose, aa M'Phie anticipated they did, he should strike water at 380 feet, and as they Beared this depth his hopes were high. The mental strain and the worry were .telling on him as much as the physical work. Strange to say, his blacks, after many promises from him, worked steadily. He had told them of gifts when the hole was down, and their understanding did not go beyond seeing the pegs on the surface come nearer and nearer, " Close up pinish urn now," they said. They had none of M'Phie's doubts, none of his worry, nothing of the fearful thought of missing the water, and the struggle to get the sheep away alive when this happened. The water was drying up on the roads. If M'Phie had to go at last, there was twenty miles of a dry stag« for a start, and with his sheep weak, would he ever get them over it? He had thought of hiring a bqrse-driver, and sending bis family away with the team, but when this was mentioned the vife of the home stood her ground. She'd stay to the last, she said, for who would cook for them when she and the girls w«Te gone? The blacks worked well. At 385 feet they were ip great glee, and they'd bring the big lever down with a swish. " Close up now. Big fella water boggy, by-and-bye," and they'd laugh together, and down would go the drill. " Plump, plump." They did not know the dread that was at M'Phie's heart. The boy, too, was expectant. M'Phie had kept his doubts to himself; only his wife knew, and she, poor woman, gave no outward show of her dread misgivings. Sometimes she'd stand at the humpy door and look up towards the bore. She could see the big lever yping up and down, and see them slaving away. Her eyes would moisten, but no one knew she cared. When meal-tjme came, 'she was cheerful The ration-Hags were low. There was no milk. 'It woa' too dry to milk the cows now, and the water was bad. The girls had taken to w»tching the dam and pulling out bogged sheep, and yet M'Phie punched away. •" Plump, plump!' The sound was never out of his ears. Night pr day, sleeping or waking, he heard the sound of the drill. ■ Daily he watched the gradually wearing rope. If it should break! And bo 390 feet was reached. The next day was 393 feet, and yet no change, the same blue shale. M'Phie's heart failed him, but he stood there turning the drill. 396— 397*-399 ! The sheep were all hanging about the dam now, the water was rotten. They just Eippcd it and ran around bleating. Four hundred feet! M'Phio staggered bick to th,e drill-rope. He was done. Tho dreaded climax was reached. He had missed the w.iter-bearing strata. Tho blacks looked askance at him. He signed to tho lad to go to the drill-rope, and ro on turning, then walked away to the luwo. He had played his game and had lost. Aj he walked on, everything seemed hazy and dim. Ir his mind's «ye he caw the sneer of the neighbours. He heard the coarse joke at the publicliouvs. He recalled the warnings of bis friends. A great silence seemed to have fallen on hi* home as he entered the door. It was dinner-time, and they put forward his chair. He took it in si'lenoe. He could not eat. Every morsel of food seemed to stick in his throat. Hio wife never spoke Through an open door into the store-room ho saw new ration-bags packed, and travelling-gear, hobbks amd bells, Bet out. Quietly the girls and their mother had been making ready for the road. As they sat tlierc, tho eldest girl put up her hand &n4 listener. 1 .. Then she roee and went to the door. " What is wrong up at the bore?" she said. "They are shouting and running.'' 'M'Phio rose and went to h«r side. Looking, out be.

beard the blacks yelling and saw them dancing about. "Jemini 1 " They had struck it. M'Phie waa half-way to the bore. Hatless, with his eyes starting from his head, he ran on. As he neared the derrick, he saw the gleam, he saw the rush of water, he saw the blacks and his boy wild with delight. After him come his wife and the girls. Aye, there it was, the great stream, rushing out of the bore, and already making its way to the creek, and M'Phie rushed into it, muddy and blue with the shale as it was at first, and bathed his face in it, and threw it over himself, and splashed in it, and the blacks corroboreed round and round, and yelled, and the boy started playing a mouth-organ he had, and the girls compierced to jump to and fro over the water, and slipped and fell in, and the wife of the home stood by and enjoyed it aU, and Ctf'Phje came out of the mud and said, " Well, old woman, we've got it, after all!" She laughed heartily at him, wet and covered with mud, and said, "Tee, now you'd better come and change your clothes," and then she remembered the dinner, and said, "Bun, girls, *" U JJ quick, The fowls will be on tbo table. And M'Phie brought the boys along, " Plenty tumbacca," he said. <r An new fella- chjrfc, an' spell." But the worries jjf this life never end, and after dinner M'Phie got the horses in, and made ageneral muster of the sheep on to the now water. And that night M'Phie sauntered up to the bore, and eat down in his old seat and listened to the gurgling of the stream. He smoked, an<* almost dozed, wearied and tired as he was, and out of the stil night air, audible to him alone, there came the sound, " Plump, plump." M'Phie started and rose, shaking his head, and went home.— J. R. Chishpjm, in the Sydney Mail.