LOST ON THE PLAINS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 1152, 30 August 1865, Page 5

LOST ON THE PLAINS.

Daylight comes—a bright red dawn. The traveller is convoyed by Jim, the stockman, through the low polygonum scrub that skirts: the river, and is shown the faint marks of a pair of wheels. These he is to follow for twenty miles or so, when he will come to a beaten track, near which he fully expects to finds a little water. He has a bit of " ration" with him, and thinks he will camp at the dug-ho!e that night, and go on to the B. next day. On that river sheep station huts are plentiful, and he need make no more long marches. He has his covered tin pot, or " billy," in his hand; this holds a couple of quarts of river water ; but it is old and battered, and leaks a little. The great grey plain is spread before him; the Fata Morgana is brilliant this morning, as it often ia in very hot weather; and he sees the reversed images of far distant sand-hills, pine ridges, and river timber, refracted above the horizon, and flickering in the heat, radiated from the hot earth. Then, up rises the great fierj sun; the heat in creases suddenly, the fantastic figures fade away, the horizon seems to contract, and lies before him as round and unbroken as that of the sea. There is plenty of life here, near the river. Great flights of cockatoos have posted their yellow-crested sjutries, and are busy digging for their breakfasts. Light clouds of white dust rise far and near, where the cattle, which arc all in on the river now, are congregating on their camps. They have been feeding during the last three hours, and will lie all day, in sleepy groups, upon the hot sand-hills, until, in the late afternoon, the elders among them decide that it is time to march, in long strings, to the accustomed water-ing-place. A dozen giunt black crows fly on before the traveller, mocking him with their fiendish croaking, and wishing in their hearts that evil may befall him to the end that they may pick his bones. They know that a man's skiti is thinner than a bullock's, and that, on such tender meat, their beaks would have a fair chance against the wild dog's teeth. Presently, a kangaroo rat bolts out of a salt-bush, and goes away at a great pace, with z't^-zag bounds, his little fore paws crossed demurely over his breast. The bundlernan's dog pursues him, but is rated by his master, and comes ba;k to heel. He will have far enough to go to-day without hunting wallabys. It is already, though only an hour after sunrise, very hot. There is the coppery glare abou^the north-west portion of the sky which always accompanies a hot wind; there is a dull atnoky look about the horizon that portends a "regular scorcher;" and though he is as yet only about four miles from the fringe of tall trees that skirts the river, they already begin to look cloudy and indistinct. The dray track ia almost obliterated, and the walking among the low salt-bushes and cottonbushes is very bad. The bundleman begins ta think he would have been wiser to have followed round the rivers, where he would have had a beaten track, shade, and water, than to face the plain, for the sake of a short cut. However, he is a god walker, and does not care for the heat; he marches on, with his bundle on his back and his billy in his hand. He has done some twelve or thirteen miles, the sun is nlmost perpendicular over his head, and he U out of sight of the river timber—fairly out to sea, as it were. He throws down V.m roll of blankets, si^s on them, opens the " billey," and finds that a good deal of the precious water has leaked. He drinks a little ; it is very precious, but he pours a few drops into the lid of the pot for his dog, who, poor fellow, is suffering already, and looks strangely dusty, anxious, and dispirited. That dog'd ancestors came from breezy Sjotch mountain?, aad he would be far more at home seeking sheep buried in h snowdrift, than plodding across the scorchiug plain. The traveller stops the leak with a hit of clay, shoulders his bundle, and trudges on. The plain seems endless. No sound of living thing breaks the deadly stillness; the very flies that bo tormenfed him near the river, have disappeared; there is nothing moving sive uaearthly-lookiug columns of red dust, towering high in the hot air, raised from some distant sand-hill by the whirlwinds. On he plods, hour after hour, looking anxiously for the faint wheel marks that guide him. The hot wind burin his eyes and dries his lips, and he moistens his parched mouth now and then with a few drops of the precious water. He is unselfish enou»h, to:), to spare his dog a little. The water does not refresh him much, for it is very warm and mawkish, and the rim of the tin pit almost scorches his lips. At last he sees a dark grey cloud suspended over the horizon, quivering in the glare of reflected heat. He knows that cloud to be the low timber that skirts the dry bed of the twenty-mile lake; he expects to find water in a pit dug oa its ed^e. Drinking the last of his store, he walks on more quickly. Knowing that on such a day the trees would not be visible more than a couple of miles, he begins to have pleasant thoughts of " a pot of tea," a pipe, and a J sleep in the shade of a pine. He hurries i on; the afternoon sun is shining in his t face; he crosses a beaten track almost i without seeing it. Perhnps a thought may t arise within him as to the possibility of i the hole being dry, and perhaps his heart 1 may stand still a moment, but he will not r think it. Everything seems strangely still; why are there no birds about tha 1 water P Not the twittering of a wren, c not the croak of a crow, to break the c silence. He notices, with a qualm of t fear, that there is no footmark of living ■v thing in the dust of the cattle-paths r that lead to the water-hole. Who can tell r what passes through the mind of the lost t sailor as he goes overboard in a gale off t the Horn? Who cau realize whit that I seaman feels, as the great ship leaves him, s far behind, upon the pitiless waves, among c which, he knows too well, no boat can live r to save him. And this shepherd, as he "t looks into the pit, and sees grim death f staring him in the face, from the dry mud 1 at the bottom of the hole ? He has heard j his mates talk of dead men's bones found c on that plain, and he knows what his end t is to be. Poor fellow! He is very thirsty now, his tounge is swelling in his mouth, he feels giddy and sick and throws away his 5 pacrc. He will stagger on a lew -miles 1 more, hardly knowing whither he is going, ( luted on, perhaps, by the treacherous mi- < rage, which will mock hiseye3 with phan- ] torn sheets of clear water, reflecting the ] trees around them, and rippling in the i wind, only a few hundred yards aheid. As ] he becomes weaker* perhaps he will feel his | knife, and think of his dog; but the dog < has lain down to die under a bush, and i that last horrible resource is gone. \ a