The Barrakee Mystery

Chapter Thirty-Four

Crossing the Paroo

DUGDALE RODE Tiger, the deep-chested, powerful-loinedgrey gelding, at an easy canter. At the least he had nine or ten minutes’ start of Sergeant Knowles, and was confident that, should the policeman overhaul him, he could keep well ahead. His plan was to cross the Paroo directly east of his hut, and, when through the boundary of his block and on Barrakee Station territory, to strike north-east to Thurlow Lake homestead, a distance of about forty-five miles. He calculated that Mr Watts would willingly loan him a good mount for the remaining fifty miles to Barrakee homestead.

This route, doubtless, he would have altered had he known that Sergeant Knowles, instead of pounding after him, rode south of Eucla for twelve miles, to a hut where he knew there was a telephone. For the sergeant of police was no fool. He knew his district thoroughly. Therefore it was easy for him to deduce the fact that Dugdale was making for Thurlow Lake by following his tracks for a mere mile. Also he realized that he was in no way fit for a gruelling pursuit Indeed, he was a very sick man.

The rain had stopped, though the sky was still overcast and threatening. The clay-pans were full, the hard places treacherous and like greasy boards, so Dugdale rode circumspectly, choosing the softer, drier ground of the sand ridges. Constantly glancing behind, he came at last to the wide circular plain in which Sinclair’s encounter with Knowles had taken place, and, passing across this, mounted to the summit of the mulga ridge bordering the Paroo.

The Paroo is like no other river in the world. It has no defined channel other than a strip of flat grey-black country varying in width from half a mile to three miles. Only once during the memory of the white man has the Paroo run the whole of its course. This was the second time. Subjected to mere local rains, the creeks draining the surrounding country empty their water into the Paroo, where, after running a little way, it disappears down the wide erratic cracks. Someplaces, notably that to which Sinclair tried to escape, are so criss-crossed by cracks a foot wide and many yards deep onrubbly subsiding ground that no horse could possibly cross them. The cracks scar all the remainder of the flat ribbon of river country in lesser degree, and anywhere where stock cross they have made a beaten track.

At the point opposite that where Dugdale rode over the sand ridge there was one such pad, a few hundred yards above the place where Sinclair had thought to defy Sergeant Knowles. It was the pad both he and the sergeant had used the day before. Now it was covered with water.

The young man reined in and gasped. Whilst he knew that the flood down the Paroo was approaching, he was astounded to see that already it was between him and Thurlow Lake. Slowly, irresistibly, it was moving down to join the floodwaters of the Darling.

How far down was the head of it? Would he have to ride forty miles to cross by the bridge three miles above Wilcannia? Aghast, he turned his horse south, and followed the stream. Two miles down he was halted by a creek discharging a bank-high stream of reddish water from the clay-pans a few miles westward, water accumulated by the rain of the last night and not by the general flood rains of a few weeks earlier. The chances were that the creek waters would fall in five or six hours-but the Paroo water would be rising.

“Tiger, old man, you’ve got to swim,” Dugdale remarked to his restive mount. The creek banks were steep, but where the flow entered the flat country they shelved away into gentle slopes. The current was strong, and the horse objected to entering it; yet there was no time to be lost in gentle persuasive methods. Dugdale dismounted and cut himself a switch.

Only after punishment from switch and spurs did the grey abandon his resistance and sidle into the rushing torrent. He whinnied with fright when swept off his feet, but swam gamely while being swept out into the broader stream of the Paroo. With voice and rein his rider urged him towards the same side of the Paroo as the creek, well knowing that once in the Paroo proper the water would be only a foot or two in depth, but the grey black bottom would be almost as bad as a quicksand.

Even as it was, when the horse, having swum the creek stream, found bottom on semi-black soil and sand, it was only with difficulty that it reached dry land. After that Dugdale rode at a hand-gallop for four miles, and then, crossing a sand-pit at a wide bend, he gave an exultant shout; for there, but half a mile ahead, was the edge of the creeping flood.

The edge of the flood consisted of a floating mass of logs, boughs, and sticks, branches of trees and rubbish. Even from the shore he could see that the mass was crawling with snakes, bulldog-ants, goannas, lizards, and even rabbits. It was being carried along at about four miles an hour.

He rode on a further mile. The main course there was a little more than a mile across-dry ground, butrubbly and soft from the recent rain. Was it possible to cross before the flood travelled that one mile? He thought not, and rode on.

For another half-mile he cantered, deciding to cross where a dead box-tree stood at the point of a wide bend; but when he reached the tree he pulled up sharply, for, beyond it, the Paroo bed was covered with water, which, whilst mainly flowing down, was also creeping up to meet the main flood.

Dugdale knew then what was happening, and what he would have to face if he attempted to cross between the two masses of water. The main flood was flowing through the cracks, deep below the general surface. Somewhere below him the subterranean stream had met an obstacle in the shape of a sand-bar, and, being unable to pass, was rising up the cracks to the surface. In very short time the dry ground opposite would be covered by the rising water and the meeting of the main with the subsidiary flow. If he was to cross, he must cross instantly.

He was fully aware of the risks he ran. He knew that when the water in the ground cracks rose to a certain distance from the surface, the surface would dissolve in mud exactly as sugar dissolves in tea. If that occurred whilst he was crossing, his horse would be inevitably bogged and he himself likely enough to be bogged as well, and finally overwhelmed by the water while stuck fast. Yet these risks were dismissed from his thoughts almost as soon as they occurred. Sinclair’s urgency for the letter and wallet to be delivered to the Little Lady as quickly as possible was sufficient spur to one who almost worshipped her.

Whipping his horse to a gallop, he retraced his tracks for a quarter of a mile, to where the red sand-hills along the east side of the river were a mile and a half distant. Here he reined his mount to the right and dashed out on therubbly, sticking mullock intersected by a mad mosaic pattern of cracks yards deep.

Having been bred on Barrakee, where no such country existed, Tiger was at once at a great disadvantage. The irregularly spaced islands of firm rubble hindered his swinging stride so much that he was forced to proceed in a series of hops and jumps. More than once a hind-hoof slithered into a crack, and only by a miracle did he keep his feet.

His attention divided between the treacherous ground and the coming water, Dugdale helped his horse as much as possible with rein and knees. So imminent was the danger around and below him that he then did not notice the sun shining through the first rift in the clouds, forgot entirely Knowles’ probable pursuit, even his own mission.

The recent rain had made the rubble-in size varying from marbles to small oranges-pudgy outside but still as hard as flint inside. This rubble clogged the horse’s hoofs, forming great balls beneath each which eventually flew off, whereupon the clogging process was repeated. Tiger broke out into a white lather of sweat; his breathing rasped through scarlet nostrils and grinning teeth. The first half of the crossing was far worse than a ten-mile gallop.

And it was about halfway that the animal misjudged a short leap and dropped both hind feet into a crack. Prepared though he was, Dugdale was sent hurtling over the gelding’s withers and landed with stunning force. In his turn he felt in a lesser degree the sensations of Sergeant Knowles when hit by Sinclair’s waddy and later tricked by Dugdale in the hut.

Dazed, semi-conscious, the young man lurched to his feet, the reins fortunately still in his grip. The horse scrambled forward and out of the crack, mercifully uninjured, but the rider swayed on his feet with giddiness. For an entire minute the earth spun round and over and under with the sky, and only his iron will prevented him from lying down until the effect of the fall had passed.

Knowledge, however, of the creeping waters kept him up, whilst clinging to a stirrup-leather for support.

“Gad, Tiger, that was a buster, to be sure!” he gasped at last, and then when his vision cleared he added: “You’re in a nice state, old boy, but we’re not across yet.”

Once more in the saddle he urged Tiger, trembling and afraid, again into the leaps and hops, so unnatural to an animal of Tiger’s youth and freedom of action.

Three minutes later, when yet more than a quarter of a mile from high ground, he heard the sinister rush of water down in the cracks, water that “clucked” and “guggled” and “swished”, water that was rising slowly to the surface.

The rubbish-littered lip of the main flood was less than a quarter of a mile from him. He could see the sinuous movement, the rise and fall of dead limbs and branches rolling over and over. And at less, much less than that short distance, he saw the silver glint of the water lower down moving upward to meet the main flow.

At that instant Dugdale knew that he had about one chance in a hundred of ever gaining firm ground. The beckoning sand-hills looked so close that it seemed possible to lean forward and touch them.

Now the upper surface of the ground was beginning to sink. He could discern the sheen of water less than a foot down in the cracks, water of a million eyes winking up at him malevolently. Tiger floundered worse and worse every second. Pools were forming between the two waters, ahead, behind, and on each side-pools that assumed sinister personalities. Dugdale felt as perhaps the escaped convict feels with a circle of armed warders creeping upon him.

Fifty, forty, thirty yards off now was the barrage of rubbish, with its six-yard vanguard of frothy water. Three hundred yards now separated horse and rider from the shelving red sand. Tiger’s speed, in spite of prodigious efforts, had dropped to the pace of a walking man.

The next hundred yards took an eternity of terrific effort. A million times worse was the second hundred yards, and before ten of the remaining hundred were covered Tiger suddenly sank.

The mud and water reached Dugdale’s knees. The horse screamed once, just before the whirling, floating, reptile-covered barrage rolled upon horse and man.