BUSH HEROINES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22629, 22 July 1935, Page 11

BUSH HEROINES

WOMEN'S BIG HEARTS The tour recently completed by Mr lon Idriess, the well-known author, of the country about the Diamantina, the Georgina, and Cooper's Creek, and in the vicinity of Lake Eyre in Central Australia, was for the purpose of gathering material for a book of the life of Sir Sydney Kidman. He regards him as the greatest cattleman in the world. "No one in Argentina or in the United States," he says, " controls anything like the amount of country or runs so much stock. And he did it all with a start on, 55."

The Kidman stations visited by Mr Idriess are spread all over the map of the inland country. He called in on the properties and homesteads, talked to men and managers, and found the reputation of " the Australian cattle king" growing as he progressed, and he heard many stories of this remarkable man.

One story was related to Mr Idriess when he stopped at a settler's home, where a woman was just managing _to look after a property with some growing lads. She told the author that some years ago, after her husband had died, she was at a well, the children playing about. She was toiling at a windlass, drawing water for the few cattle and goats—skeletons of animals in the drought-stricken country. A tall man in a buggy drove up and unharnessed to camp. " I'll pull the water; you put' on the billy and make some tea. There's plenty of stuff in the buggy," said the man, and he took the windlass handle and began. She told him her story, how her husband had just died, and she was trying to keep her home together for the sake of the children. When he went on he left her most of the provisions and other stuff he had in the buckboard. A fortnight later some men came out from Broken Hill. They brought a big windmill, a long line of troughs, and other things. They rigged the windmill, fitted up and explained everything to her, and went away. The man who had visited her in the buckboard buggy had given the order. He was Sydney Kidman. "They're game, those women out there." said Mr Idriess. "Living in drought-stricken country, they have big hearts. They need them. There's one little old woman out in the heart of the sandhills eountvv, on the edge of what was called by Sturt, 'The Great Stony Desert.' At the present time no words can describe it better. There she is with a bright-faced young girl, living on, and waiting—isolated in that desert country, not a blade of grass or bit of herbage to be seen. "It is on the Birdsville track, down which come the cattle from far away up north to the Adelaide market, and they make a living with a bit of a store, sellinc things to the drovers. It was a stock route when the seasons were good, but now there is no feed, and there are no cattle, and the water holes are dried up. Only two drovers have been through this year, and unless this last rain has reached that country that woman will see no more cattle until rain does come. "And yet those people greet you with a smile and a welcome —'the real bush welcome—and the billy is put on. Tt only needs rain to transform the country, and when the transformation comes it's a miracle. Butane tragedy i,s that what used to be drought-resisting herbage has had its roots eaten out, and it will take many seasons for the stuff properly to grow again."