That is the Open Downs.
"Fizz!" shouts the Fizzer. "That's where the real fizzing gets done, and
nobody that hasn't tried it knows what it's like."
He travels its first twenty miles late in the afternoon, then, unpacking
his team, "lets 'em go for a roll and a pick, while he boils a quart pot"
(the Fizzer carries a canteen for himself); "spells" a bare two hours,
packs up again and travels all night, keeping to the vague track with a
bushman's instinct, "doing" another twenty miles before daylight; unpacks
for another spell, pities the poor brutes "nosing round too parched to
feed," may "doze a bit with one ear cocked," and then packing up again,
"punches 'em along all day," with or without a spell. Time is precious
now. There is a limit to the number of hours a horse can go without
water, and the thirst of the team fixes the time limit on the Downs.
"Punches 'em along all day, and into water close up sundown," at the
deserted Eva Downs station.
"Give 'em a drink at the well there," the Fizzer says as unconcernedly as
though he turned on a tap. But the well is old and out of repair, ninety
feet deep, with a rickety old wooden windlass; fencing wire for a rope; a
bucket that the Fizzer has "seen fit to plug with rag on account of it
leaking a bit," and a trough, stuffed with mud at one end by the
resourceful Fizzer.
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