From day to day they travel on, often losing the count
of the days, with those hues always above them, and
those beckoning posts ever running on before them ;
and as they travel, now and then they touch a post for
company — shaking hands with Outside : touching now
and then a post for company, and daily reaUsing the com-
pany and comfort those posts and wires can be. Here
at least is something in touch with the world something



158 We of the Never-Never

vibrating with the lives and actions of men, and an ever-
present friend in dire necessity. With those wires above
him, any day a traveller can cry for help to the Territory,
if he call while he yet has strength to climb one of those
friendly posts and cnt that qmveiing wire — ^for help that
wiU come speedily, for the cutting of the telegraph wire
is as the ringing of an alarm-bell thronghout the Territory.
In all haste the break is located, and food, water, and
every hnman help that suggests itself sent out from the
nearest telegraph station. There is no official delay —
there rarely is in the Territory — ^for by some marveUons
good fortune, there everything belongs to the Department
in which it finds itself.
