Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/20

Geoffrey started and laughed; then a flush deepened in his cheek, and he muttered, ‘What a damned shame!’ and thereafter jogged along in silence.

The road wound gradually upwards round the hillsides, presenting a clay bank on one hand, and a steep, scrub-covered slope on the other. Down in the hollow the river lay like a silver octopus, its tentacles stretching far into the black bush-covered lands. Here and there were clearings, dwarfed into insignificance by the immensity of the virgin landscape from which they had been hewn. Some were black from a recent burn, others vividly green with the newly sown grass; in their midst slab or weatherboard huts marked the abodes of the pioneers. The river itself was deserted—not a boat or sail was visible, and save for a pair of black swans drifting in with the tide there was no sign of moving life within the compass of the horizon.

Geoffrey’s eye scanned the scene as he moved forward. ‘Poor devils!’ he said presently, ‘working their hearts out, and for what? What we want here is an army. Why are there not armies of peace as of war? Man’s the most astonishing kind of fool, if you come to reflect upon his ways. He could land an army corps here, and for an amount no greater than it costs to keep the beggars in idleness, convert the wilderness into a garden where men could live contentedly.’

‘Perhaps some day he will think of that,’ said Robert.

Reaching the brow of the hill, the tea-tree came to an end, and they began to descend through mixed bush, the road rapidly degenerating into a quagmire