The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-05-31
BURIAL OF "SUNDOWNER."
Incident Of the Dry season in Aus
tralja.

An Incident OF the Dry season in Aus
tralia.
A traveller draws near n station home
stead. His feeble horse pulls itself together
for another effort and whinnies as from
the homestead he secs II solitary bromide
in a paddock just ahead. At the right hand
is a water tank. great hole dug in the
ground-flled eighteen months ago BY rain.
Hundreds of sheep lie dead and dying
round it. and thousands stencil the plains.
The sheep awe either died in reaching the
tank, or, getting to it, have plunged in. and
have then persisted, too weak to get up the
bank again. PhalanxeB OF stated crows
stand in line upon the bank, II black and
menacing barricade, and kites and maRpies
hover overhead.
The traveller has passed empty wells, and
has shuddered at the tales told him in some
shepherds hut where he sought shelter.
He nears the homestead; he dismounts and
enters the garden, kept nlive by q woman's
hand till water ran low. then she forsook
1t sadly, this one touch of her past now
withered and dead. Is there no one here?
Is it, too, a scene Of tragedy, with human
victims? No; and yet tragedy. too. To a
sharp 'Coo-e-e," there comes an answering
call, II the manager appears at the door,
a bearded, gruff, but kindly soul, and over
his shoulder peers the face of a woman, sad
and drawn. The great exhaust pipes of
nature in that burning lane soon take the
bloom from the cheek and the light from
word" of apostrophio welcome, and the
traveller says, How goes the unlucky
gamer"
With a swift sign of relief and a sudden
uplifting of the arms, comes the reply:
1.-THE last lamb is dead. Thank God. that's
out and see how things look" Outside he
added: 1--WE were just going to plant a
Sunaowner when you coo-e-ed. Didn't
want to say anything about it before the
missus." Then he told the o~ft-repeated
record of a wanderer creeping to the very
hand upon the gate Of that little withered
garden.
By the grave they stand, the manager
with the Bible in his hand, a book rarely
used by him, perhaps, but reverenced after
his fashion and necessary now. He wishes
but the traveller declines. With coarse
fingers laundering through the leaves in an
uncertain kind OF way, the manager began
to read at random from Ecclosiastes. A
half dozen verses gruffiy fall, and then the
words come:
of the vexation of his heart, wherein he
hath labored under the sun.
For all his days are sorrow, n his travail
grief; yea. his heart taketh not rest in the
night. This is also vanity.
Then he closed the book and said: "Well,
he was a goner afore he was a conner, and |
don't know as there's need to pitch a long
yarn. He hadn't much for his labor under
the sun, and a hot sun it is up here at ITO
degrees in the shade. He came q long way
over the country rock. He hadn't a drop
in his water bottle, nor a bit of damper in
his swag. He'd got his fingers on the slip
rails, and was without a coo-e-e of drink
and tucker when he went out sudden to the
N~evernever land, and went it alone. He
couldn't have had much vanity, not with
them features: but, nv word! the
Lord knows all about that. l hope
If he gets rs near to the home
stead gate up there as he did down
here last night, though he isn't very fit, one
of the hands will see him and open it, and
let him in, even if it has to be on the sly.
1t was at night he got here, and in the
morning we found him; it's at night we
cover him, and rest or no rest. he'll not
have to work in the morning. There isn't
a place that's hotter than here. and this one
amt sent to that quod for punishment.
Let him down easy and slow. Drop in his
shiralee and water bag by him.. That's
right. Scatter some sandal leaves over his
face. Now scrape in the country sand.
The dingoes can't touch him there. What's
that you've put III the board, Jim? "A Sun
downer Gone And God forgive him where
ever he's gone. In the midst of life we are
in DEATH Amen" And another of several
such tragedies that the traveller saw was
hidden away, a nameless refugee of misfor-
tune i'll q nameless grave.-Gilbert Parker
in Harper's Weekly.