Never drunkards
craved more intensely for strong drink! Sam made coffee; but coffee only
increased the headaches and cravings, and so we sat peering into the
forest, hoping for travellers; and all we learnt by the experience was
that tea is a necessary of life out-bush.
On the second evening a traveller came in from the south track. "He
wouldn't refuse a woman, surely," every one said, and we welcomed him
warmly.
He had about three ounces of tea. "Meant to fill up here meself," he
said in apology, as, with the generosity of a bushman, he offered it all
unconditionally. Let us hope the man has been rewarded, and has never
since known what it is to be tealess out-bush! We never heard his name,
and I doubt if any one of us would know the man again if we saw him. All
we saw was a dingy tuckerbag, with its one corner bulging heart-shaped
with tea!
We accepted one half, for the man had a three-days, journey before him,
and Sam doled it out so frugally that we spent two comparatively happy
days before fixing our attention on the north track, along which Billy
would return.
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