Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/477

 spring, the long summer—till the days shorten and (even here) the nights grow cold—unprecedented losses must occur in certain localities. Still, hope is not dead. The dry zone is restricted in area. Outside and around it, what the shepherds term 'fine storms' have refreshed the pastures. Even yet there is corn in Egypt. There is grass and to spare beyond the Queensland border. Thither will many a sorely-oppressed proprietor send a section of flock or herd, availing himself of the time-honoured institution of 'travelling for feed.' Such, neither more nor less, was the last resort of those grand historic sheiks of the desert, even Abraham and Lot, when 'the land was not able to bear them'; and to such an alternative must the latter-day, salt-bush sheik turn in his need, or see his live stock perish before his eyes, in thousands and ten thousands.

He will improvise a nomadic establishment with dray and tent, shepherds and cooks, stock-riders and bullock-drivers, horses and cattle, everything save camels, needed in a patriarchal migration. Even these last ungainly thirst-defiers are now bred in Australia. Hard by the tropic he will pass into a land of grass prairies and flooded streams—the promised land of the desert-worn hosts. He will here find himself—'most ingenious paradox'—in a region where live stock are high-priced, but where 'country' is cheap. He will rent, perhaps purchase another run. The drought which drove him forth may so and in such manner make his fortune yet. Let us hope so, in all sympathy and good fellowship. There he will reach his haven of rest. He may sell out again, or decide to cast in his fortunes with the newer colony, but in any case he will remain there until, as far as King Sol is concerned, 'this tyranny be over-past.'