Description
The Pioneers
CHAPTER I
The wagon had come to rest among the trees an hour or two before sunset.
It was a covered-in dray, and had been brought to in a little clearing
of the scrubby undergrowth. Two horses had drawn it all the way from the
coast. Freed of their harness, they stood in the lee of a great gum,
their flanks matted with the dust which had caked with the run of sweat
on them. The mongrel that had followed at their heels lay stretched on
the sward beside them. A red-dappled cow and her calf were tethered to a
wheel of the wagon, and at a little distance from them were two battered
crates of drooping and drowsy fowls.
On a patch of earth scraped clear of grass and leaves, the fire threw
off wisps of smoke and the dry, musky incense of burning eucalyptus and
dogwood. It had smouldered; and a woman, stooping beside it, was feeding
it with branches of brushwood and sticks that she broke in her hands or
across her knees.
A man was busy in the interior of the wagon, moving heavy casks and
pieces of furniture. He lifted them out, piled them on the ground and
spread a couple of sheepskins over them. Then he threw a sheepskin and a
blanket of black and brown tweed on the floor for the night’s resting.
Product ID: 9781776767946
Sku: 9781776767946
