THE SQUATTER AND THE SETTLER. 217 



we go ? We might as well be burnt here, beside the old place, as any- 

 where else.' So I got the boys around me, and I dropped on my knees 

 just here and prayed to the Almighty God that it should be His will to 

 spare us, and not leave us again without a home over our heads. The 

 clothes of one of the boys caught fire, as you see, so did the pigstye, and 

 the eighteen bags of grass-seed that I had put in the little garden in 

 front of the house. I expected it to go every minute, but the house stood 

 through it all. It took fire in four places inside and out, but it did not 

 burn, and the roof was left to cover us, in answer to my prayer. It was 

 too hot to go into the house, and I stayed under the blackwood tree ; 

 and the wind changed, and the drenching rain came and doused the fire. 

 If the rain had not come, there is no knowing where the fire would have 

 stopped." 



' The rain, which will be remembered as one of the greatest downpours 

 ever experienced in the colony, did indeed save the forest selectors from 

 annihilation. It came just when the fire was at its height, when the trees 

 were crashing to the ground in all directions, and when the fire, not merely 

 scorching and singeing the bark of trees, as bush fires usually do, was 

 consuming thousands of huge boles to charcoal, and the ground, as can still 

 be seen, was at white heat, like a smelter's crucible. The mournfulness of 

 the gaunt, weird scene which the fire has left is peculiarly striking and 

 depressing. Such a mingling of night and day as the sunlight lighting the 

 pitchy blackness of the landscape, as far as the eye can reach, is indescribably 

 grotesque and desolate. It is hard to conceive anything like this contrast 

 of the sunshine sparkling brightly upon the wide, inky, silent waste. It is 

 almost like a smile upon a ghastly death's-head. There is not a bird to 

 flutter a wing or to break the oppressive silence with a single note. There 

 is no sign of life or what has been life, except here and there the roasted 

 carcase of a wallaby or kangaroo. The dense forest of straight black bare 

 boles alone reveals the might and fury of a bush fire.' 



More frequent than the fire, and as thrilling, is the episode in bush life 

 of 'the lost children.' This is a drama that is constantly enacted in the 

 one place or the other. Australian children are quick, and they learn in a 

 wonderful way how to travel about country, but still, where there is scrub in 

 the neighbourhood or much undergrowth of any kind, the younger members 

 of the family are terribly apt to go astray. The father or mother returns 

 home to learn that 'little Johnny and the girl' were playing about, and did 

 not come in for their evening meal. They could not have tumbled into the 

 water- hole, for that is fenced off. They have not found their way to 

 neighbour Dean's. There is no time to be lost. The biggest boy jumps on 

 the colt and rides in hot haste to the nearest police-station, and rouses up 

 neighbours on his way. The policeman telegraphs all about for aid, but 

 faster still ' the bush telegraph ' spreads the intelligence that ' Big Giles, of 



