The Project Gutenberg EBook of "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The
Pacific, by Louis Becke

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Title: "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific
1901

Author: Louis Becke

Release Date: February 18, 2008 [EBook #24642]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE HEAD CREEK ***

Produced by David Widger

"FIVE-HEAD" CREEK; and FISH DRUGGING IN THE PACIFIC

By Louis Becke

T. Fisher Unwin, 1901

"FIVE-HEAD" CREEK

I

I had ridden all day through an endless vista ot ghostly grey gums and
ironbarks, when I came in sight of the long wavering line of vivid
green foliage which showed me that I had reached my destination--a
roughly-built slab hut with a roof of corrugated iron. This place was
to be my home for six months, and stood on the bank of Five-Head
Creek, twenty-five miles from the rising city of Townsville in North
Queensland.

Riding up to the building, I got off my wearied, sweating horse, and,
removing the saddle and my blanket and other impediments, led him to
the creek to drink, and then hobbled and turned him loose to feed on the
soft lush grass and reeds growing along the margin of the water. Then
I entered the empty house, made a brief examination of it, and wondered
how my mate would like living in such an apparently comfortless abode.

I must mention that I had come from Townsville to take charge of
Five-Head Creek cattle run, which had suffered so severely from a
terrible drought that it had been temporarily abandoned. We were to
look after and repair the fencing, many miles' length of which had been
destroyed by fire or succumbed to white ants, to search for and collect
the remnant of the cattle that had not perished in the drought, and see
after the place generally. My mate was to follow me out in a few days
with a dray-load of stores.

I lit a fire, boiled a billy of tea, and ate some cold beef and damper.
Then, as the sun dipped below a range of low hills to the westward, I
filled my pipe, and, walking down to the bank of the creek, surveyed my
environs.

"What a God-forsaken-looking country!" I thought as I gazed around me;
and, in