you ----"

The singer's voice or memory seemed suddenly to have failed him at this
point, but whether his mates hit him on the back of the head with a
tomahawk, or only choked him, I do not know. Mitchell was inclined to
think, from the sound of it, that they choked him.

THE LOST SOULS' HOTEL

Hunqerford Road, February. One hundred and thirty miles of heavy
reddish sand, bordered by dry, hot scrubs. Dense cloud of hot dust.
Four wool-teams passing through a gate in a "rabbit proof" fence which
crosses the road. Clock, clock, clock of wheels and rattle and clink of
chains, crack of whips and explosions of Australian language. Bales
and everything else coated with dust. Stink of old axle-grease and
tarpaulins. Tyres hot enough to fry chops on: bows and chains so hot
that it's a wonder they do not burn through the bullock's hides. Water
lukewarm in blistered kegs slung behind the wagons. Bullocks dragging
along as only bullocks do. Wheels ploughing through the deep sand, and
the load lurching from side to side. Half-way on a "dry-stretch" of
seventeen miles. Big "tank" full of good water through the scrub to the
right, but it is a private tank and a boundary-rider is shepherding it.
Mulga scrub and sparse, spiky undergrowth.

The carriers camp for dinner and boil their billies while the bullocks
droop under their yokes in the blazing heat; one or two lie down and
the leaders drag and twist themselves round under a dead tree, under
the impression that there is shade there. The carriers look like Red
Indians, with the masks of red dust "bound" with sweat on their faces,
but there is an unhealthy-looking, whitish space round their eyes,
caused by wiping away the blinding dust, sweat, and flies. The dry
sticks burn with a pale flame and an almost invisible thin pale
blue smoke. The sun's heat dancing and dazzling across every white
fence-post, sandhill, or light-coloured object in the distance.

One man takes off his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of
them, and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in
dust and sweat; he absently scrapes it with his knife, and presently he
amuses himself by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it,
as if he were vaguely curious to see if he is still a white man.

The Hungerford coach ploughs past in a dense cloud of dust.

The teams drag on again like a "wounded snake that dies at sundown,"
if a wounded snake that dies at sundown