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IN THE BUSH COUNTRY

By DAVID DONNISON (Magdalen College, Oxford)

Aswe drove down to the auction the road ran out ahead of us, straight and hard, to the corner where it turns into the hills. And down it came the traffic—people on holiday, loaded up with camping-gear and fishing-rods ; cars with Victoria number plates, running through from Melbourne and passing in a

gulp of dust and sound on their way to Sydney ; big trailers groaning up the slope with freight for South Australia. Grey ridges of bush country lay blue in the haze, but, nearer, the hills were green and bare. A tall gum grew close to the road, its smooth white trunk showing through the tatters of bark that hung from it ; and sheep crowded in the shadow underneath. Beyond them there was wheat, a hundred-acre stretch of it that curved across the hillside, and at one corner of the field stood a homestead. Roses climbed over its iron roof. The road disappeared behiftd us into a dark avenue of pine trees and the red houses of a town.

We turned off two miles further on, through a belt of young firs and into the auction yards. A line of cars was pafked against the , trees, and we nosed in among big, dusty Chevs, Fords and cattle- trucks. Then, getting out and slamming the doors, we walked over to join the crowd. Dust rose in the sunlight between gathering groups of men ; its fine powder settled in the corners of our lips and eyes, and we breathed the hot dryness of it in our throats. Over in the pens there were sheep crammed tight against the rails. Men moved down the narrow alley-ways and paused to lean on the fences, examining the stock. A clerk was entering up details of a sale as the auctioneer climbed into a scattering mob of wethers. Broad- brimmed hats closed in round him, the men chatting in low voices and rolling cigarettes between brown, hard fingers.

But talk faded as the auctioneer ran the price up. Out in the sun he crouched, watching to pounce on the lifted finger, the wink or nod, that meant a hid. I.eaning forward a little, with open hands hanging low and feet apart, he knew bis buyers, sensed their impulsiveness and their hesitation ; he lowered his advances to half- crowns, shillings and threepenees, punching out each figure brisk and dear. You could see the words shake his body as he fired them at his audience. Behind him the clerk and his assistant shouted when they saw the bids, and he caught them up, added in a few of his own if the pace flagged, and played one buyer off against another, giving no one time to think. But the price stuck, and he went across to ask if the owner were willing to sell. Flies crawled on the faces of the sheep.

" Yes, gentlemen. These wethers are on the market. Twenty-two shillings I have been bid." Heads remained bent as the men thought it over, and the auctioneer found encouraging remarks to fill the silence. " A hundred fine Merino wethers—they ain't showin' up well after the dip—at only twenty-two shillings. . . . I don't know where you could get 'em for less."

A bid was made and one to beat it, and another. And no more. " Are you done ? Are you done ? " There was no reply. " All done ! Sold for twenty-two and nine ! All done ! All done ! "

The clerk came forward to ask the buyer's name, sheets of paper fluttering in his white hands, and men began moving on to the next pen. The auctioneer took a flask from his hip pocket and tipped it for a moment, as groups drew in again round a couple of restless steers. Tobacco pouches were unbuttoned and conversation spread. " Hullo, Allan. How're they treating you ? " " Good enough, John. Brought anything in for the sale ? " "No. Picked up two thousand cross-breds last month. . . . "

At the other end of the yards a man was catching sheep. He clutched their thick wupl and held them between his knees ; then forced open their mouths to count teeth and check the animal's age.

" . . So this cove says he would bring the bulldozer round, but it'd be three pound an hour and thirty bob for travelling time.. . ."

" Don't know why they put Toshack in. He's just the sort of bowler the pommies like. . . ." But the next sale had begun, and the auctioneer was in the ring once more, moving back and forth. " Two beautiful steers, gentlemen—quiet as lambs. You could lead 'em on a piece of cotton. Shall we say forty pound for the pair ? It's not for me to choose ; it's in your hands, gentlemen."

A little whirlpool of wind hovered along the far end of the yards, raising the acrid yellow powder of dung and dirt. It snuffed out for a moment ; and then another gust picked it up, spinning a column of sand and leaves that went sheering back among the firs.

A man walked over to quieten the horses tethered there, and I went to help him, untying and untangling the twisted reins. Out between the sheltering branches you could see two homesteads with a wind- pump's steel lattice-work standing over each ; and grass paddocks stretched for miles across the low hills beyond. The skeletons of a few dead trees reached up into the sun glare. A bus glinted on the

road, drawing a flurry of sand behind it, and in the distance the grey brown of a dusty land merged into the grey-blue of a dusty sky. It was a hard country, but rich—and the old fears of drought and loneliness were ended.

As we tethered the horses up I turned to ask what sort of a year it had been. "Oh, pretty fair—wool prices going up every day.

But there's never enough rain." I leant on the fence and watched the crowd. It was beginning to move. Groups started walking away towards their cars, and men paused for a last few words, then climbed in and revved their engines. Buyers and sellers were settling up as sheep poured out from the pens, and dogs and drovers got yelping to work. Horsemen jingled off ; trucks swung out through the gate ; and dust was left drifting across the empty trodden earth.

The man beside me lifted a saddle over the back of his horse and bent down to tighten the girths. I stood watching him, and said, " There must have been some changes made here " ; but got no reply. I said, " Have you been long in these parts ? "—and struck lucky. He took his hand from the pommel and waved it wide across the valley.

" Sixty years ago that was the bush ; before the Campbells and the MacDonalds and the rest of them came up from the coast with their axes and ox-teams—big teams with a dozen pairs to each wagon. Their drovers brought in cattle. They cleared the scrub ' and ringed the trees. They built homes and filled them with children. Their families have made a lot of money ; and you'll have heard all about that. But there were other coves, too, who were not so lucky. Nobody hears about them."

I kept quiet, feeling there must be more to come. "Now, if you go out there in the hills—beyond the open flats and the ridge they have planted with pines—you reach tangled scrub ; gums rooted between butt-ends of rock, with fallen branches buried in the under- growth. The track goes over a spur, and a path leads off. It's almost washed away by the rain, but it winds down through trees and out among the bones of a house that used to stand in the valley. A big fireplace blocks the middle of the clearing, and blackened stones lie where the chimney fell. Whoever lived there planted pears and cherries, and sour small fruit still hang in a stunted orchard. Wombats dig in the roots.

" Further down there is a creek full of weeds and silt, but the frogs still talk of water along its dry bed. A broken fence marks the edge of the home paddock. The man who cut those rails knew his timber ; but the bush is coming back down the hillsides again— briars and wattle and hard red ant-mounds, spreading back across the pasture he cleared.. In ten years' time there'll not be a thing left.

" What happened to him ? I don't even know who he was. I don't expect there's anyone left who remembers him now. Maybe the dingo dogs got in and killed off his sheep. There might have been a drought or a big fire, rabbits or foxes—or anything. Maybe he just got tired and died. 1 don't know."