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Title: Collected Short Storiess Volume 2 Author: Edward S. Sorenson * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 2000601h.html Language: English Date first posted: July 2020 Most recent update: July 2020 This eBook was produced by: Walter Moore Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg Australia Licence which may be viewed online.GO TO Project Gutenberg Australia HOME PAGE
“We struck Brody’s station one evening about sundown,” said
Tarkalson, resting his arms on his knees and gazing into the bed of red coals
with a smile that had something grim in it. “There was me an’ Jim
Scully an’ Mat Conyers. We ’ad a pound or two among us at th’ time,
but our ’orses wur fair knocked out, an’ the grass-bearin’ country
ahead warn’t none too good, so we wur ready to tackle anything on
offer at Brody’s to give ’em a spell. Conyers was th’ only
one of us who had two mokes. He carried Scully’s pack an’ his
own. I was walkin’ as usual, but I ’ad a pack-’orse, leadin’.
Took ’im for wages owin’ last place I worked. Le’s try
a fill o’ that new terbacca o’ yours.
“Brody was a fine-lookin’ man at this time. ’Ad the name o’ bein’ a
straight goer, but he was a darned hard nail all the same. We went up to
him with our coats off, an’ our sleeves rolled up to show our muscle,
an’ we kinder took Brody’s eye. ‘I think I ken put you
on to something that you’ll make good money at,’ he ses. ‘This
place is overrun with wallabies—’ad to wire-net my horse-paddock
to keep the brutes out. I’ve just sent a mob o’ blacks out to
Lorry’s Lagoon; but if you go anywhere north-west you’ll be clear
o’ them. I’m payin’ tuppence each for scalps, an’ buyin’ all
skins at market rates less 30 percent, for commission an’ carriage.
Yer ken get what rations you want ’ere, an’ th’ amount ’ill
be deducted from your account,’
“We cottoned on at once. Scully an’ Conyers ’ad a rifle each, an’ I got one from Brody, cheap. ’Twasn’t much of a concern, but I wasn’t much of a shot, so it didn’t matter, Scully was no dab either; but Matthew, ’cordin’ to his own skite, was a crack shot. Could put a bullet in the bung-hole of a beer-cask every time it turned up rollin’ down hill. ’Ad been buffalo shootin’ in the Territr’y, too—shootin’ with one hand at full gallop. Just a matter of nerve, he sed. We wanted t’ ’ave a few practice shots at a tree next mornin’, but Matthew wouldn’t hear of it. There was no sense in wastin’ good ammunition like that. He was surprised at me an’ Scully.
“’T any rate, he ’ad a proposition to make. He was mostly bristlin’ with new-fangled ideas at times like this. We’d gerra supply of opium from the Chinaman, he sed; then we’d go out to Lorry’s Lagoon an’ get th’ blacks to hunt f’r us. They’d do anything for opium in that part—’specially when it was on the spot. We’d give ’em a little terbacca too—not too much—an’ promise ’em a divvy when we got th’ cheques. I agreed it was an easy way o’ makin’ a rise. ‘One thing certain,’ I ses to Scully. ‘they’d get as many in a day as we’d get ’n a week.’
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully, in his slow, deliberate way.
He warn’t never very eloquent, but when he sed anything it was convincin’ like. ’S
good a man as ever I met was Scully. Mostly shaved clean, an’ his face
was splashed with freckles, just ’s if brown paint ’ad been sprinkled
on ‘t. Conyers was a reg’lar beauty in comparison, but he warn’t
half the man Jim was.
“‘Wot I don’t like about the bizness is this,’ I sez to Mat. ‘they’ll be doin’ all the hard work an’ we’ll be gettin’ the profits.’
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully.
“‘I don’t hold to that,’ I ses. ‘I believe in doin’ me share.’
“‘But they’re only niggers,’ ses Conyers.
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully agin.
“But Matthew’s forcible logic floored me in two ups, an’ in the end he had his way; an’ armed with opium, terbacca an’ rations, we goes out to Lorry’s Lagoon. He spent our last few bob on a set o’ books, pens, ink, an’ other darned things that we could ’a’ done without.
“‘With so many employ-ees, an’ doin’ bizness on a gi-gantic scale,’ he explained, hitchin’ the blamed ledgers up under his arm, ‘there’ll be a lot o’ bookkeepin’ to do—receipts an’ disbursements, an’ that sort o’ thing. We ought t’ ’ave scales for weighin’ too, but we’ll get them next time. I’ll look after th’ books an’ scores, measure out opium an’ terbacca, check the takings an’ give receipts, an’ superintend operations gen’ally. That ’ill keep me purty busy. You bein’ the best cook, Bill,’ he ses to me, ‘you’ll attend to the colander department and string scalps, an’ Jim ’ill peg out th’ skins. Ye’ll find we won’t have much time to scratch ourselves—if th’ hunters are any good at all.’
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully; but I noticed there was a mystified; half-vacant sort o’ look showin’ between the freckles.
“We fell in with Conyers’ plans. We mostly did. Conyers was
a Barwon native, an’ to hear him talk ye’d think he’d
been over half the earth. I yooster try at fust to gerrim bushed about Australia,
but my ‘umble remarks would only remind him of something in Borneo
or Brazil, or some such place that was a week o’ Sundays off my track.
Besides bein’ able to ride outlaws an’ class wool, he could
survey land an’ navigate a ship. Learnt ’em at the Yooniversity,
I s’pose. He ’ad plenty o’ push, an’ an impressive
way with him that always put him in front—so far’s me and Scully
wur concerned.
“Well, Matthew talked the blacks over all right—there wur about
40 of ’em. He read out an agreement to ’em (verbal agreement
it was), an’ took down their names—which wur mostly Sandy’ an’ Jacky.
They wur all to be purpendiklar by sunrise every nornin’—strict,
an not to show back from work afore night. I forget wot th’ penalties
wur now; ‘instant dismissal’ applied to a lot o’ cases,
I know. Anyhow, he made ’em pull down their gunyahs fust of all, an’ build ’em
in two long rows. He ’ad original ideas, you’ll understand.
Then they helped him build an office an’ storehouse with bark, an’ a
galley for the cook. Wonder he thought of such a ‘umble person as
th’ cook at all. He spent most of his time in the office, postin’ an’ balancin’ accounts.
There was no end o’ rows over them accounts, too. Sandy’s notched
stick seldom tallied with Matthew’s ledger. But it was the billet his
soul hungered for, though bizness got so pressin’ after a time that
he, ’ad to get ’n assistant. Her name was Avelina. Gerls, he
sed, wur more gen’ally useful than boys. She cleaned the office out
purty often, brushed his hat, an’ greased his boots. Mat was purtiklar ’bout
his appearance, lemme tell you. Made a good impression on the servants, he
sed. Avelina also fetched the mails. Mat subscribed to the local paper, an’ he
gorra letter, now ’n’ again from a piece down be Gunnedah somewhere.
I got hold o’ one of her letters one day. He’d dropped it among
th’ scalps. Seems he’d been tellin’ her he was head manager
of th’ ‘North Queensland Marsupial Company, Unlimited,’ an’ had
140 men an’ 60 odd gerls under him; an’ she was askin’ for
some purtiklars. She trusted Matthew wouldn’t be gettin’ mixed
up with any o’ the fact’ry gerls. So far as I could see there’d
been no mention of Avelina.
“At night time Mat would stand in front of the office, with his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his weskit, an’ look down the street. Looked just like a street with th’ fires goin’ in front of the gunyahs. When th’ bucks wur singin’ corroboree songs, an’ the dogs wur fightin’, an’ the kids chasin’ ’em, an’ the gins yellin’, ’twarnt unlike Paddy’s Market. Then he’d stroll down an’ view the effect from the other end. I think Matthew did really consider himself a big employer—if he didn’t feel like a bloated capitalist. He liked effect, anyway an’ was partiklar on style. I’m methodical meself, an’ Scully ses he’s systemataic. Dunno; he upsets the billy purty often. ’Tanyrate, after doin’ th’ block, Matthew’d give us th’ latest wallaby quotations from th’ BILLABONG BANNER, an’ reckon up our wealth. We wur makin’ 25 quid a week. After you with th’ firestick.
“Well, everything went swimmin’ for about a month. Then we ’ad
to render our accounts an’ square up, ’cordin’ to agreement.
Scully an’ me wanted to get a conveyance from Brody, but Conyers sed
there was no necessity for that. It ’ud mean th’ loss of a day,
an’ meantime the employ-ees would be idle, ’T was bad
management to leave the employ-ees idle. So wot does he do but pack
each blackfeller with a bundle o’ skins an’ scalps, an’ send ’em
off fust thing in the mornin’ to Brody. The gins follered wi’ the
campware, ’es we wur goin’ to shift to new ground next day. We could
a-got in simul-taneous ourselves, but Conyers ’ad a balance-sheet an’ a
capital account an’ some profit-an’-loss to make out yet, an’ the
day-book to rile off.
“‘We must ’ave these matters in order when go to th’ office,’ he explained, ‘so we’ll be able to check th’ station account an’ see that all’s square. I don’t say es Brody would do a man of a scalp, mind you; but no man’s infallible, an’ figures is things th’ best o’ ’em might easily blunder at—often do. Just as well to be sure.’
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully, starin’ at th’ ground.
“We got th’ horses an groomed ’em, an’ pottered about till dinner time. Mat was still in the office, perched on a saplin’ seat an’ bent over a bark desk, subtractin’ from a pile o’ matches in front of him. There was scraps o’ paper an’ ink splotches all over th’ ship, but th’ blamed accounts warnt balanced yet. We has dinner, an’ he goes at ’em again. ’Twas four o’clock ’fore we gorra move on.
“‘Wot’s th’ sum total?’ I asks him as we rides along, Mat with th’ ledgers under his arm, some papers stickin’ out of his top pocket for effect, an’ a pencil stuck behind his ear.
“He ses proudly it was £126 7s. l0d. We wur surprised.
“‘How much is that each?’ I ses.
“Mat opens th’ ledger an’ examines several pages—folios he called ’em.
“‘It’s £42 2s. 11¼d.’ he ses. ‘That’s ten guineas a week we’ve been makin’. In a year’s time we’ll be worth £500 each.
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully.
“We leaves our ’orses in th’ stockyard when we gets in, an’ Matthew sails into th’ office with th’ ledgers. Me an’ Scully stopped at th’ door, there bein’ no need for all to speak at once.
“‘Well, wot d’yer make of it, Mr. Brody!’ asks Mat, his face one big smile.
“‘Make of wot?’ ses Brody,
“‘Th’ skins an’ scalps, of course.’
“‘Wot skins an’ scalps?’ ses Brad, surprised like.
“‘Why, them es we sent in with th’ blacks this mornin’.’ The smile was wastin’, an’ looked sick.
“Brody leaned back in his chair an’ looked mystified. ‘I’ve not heard anything about ’em,’ he ses.
“Mat’s jaw dropped an’ his eyes jumped ’s if he’d been hit on th’ back o’ the neck.
“‘Th’ only blacks that have come in wur those I sent to Lorry’s lagoon,’ ses Brody. ‘They brought their lot in, an’ I paid them. You’ll find them in town.’
“‘My Gawd!’ ses Scully, turnin’ his head round
slowly like a bogged cow does. Poor chap— ’e was stunned.
“‘Th’ scamps ’ave took us down, Jim,’ I ses in a whisper.
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Jim, an’ he looked sad.
“‘You paid ’em!’ gasps Conyers, an’ he seemed to get something in his throat wot he couldn’t swaller—p’rhaps th’ dead smile. ‘Well, that’s a dem fine go! Them was our skins,’ he ses. ‘We employed th’ blacks to hunt for us’—
“‘I know nothing about that,’ Brody chips in, cold-like. ‘I employed them to hunt for me, an’ I paid them accordin’ to results. In any case, as th’ law is in Queensland nowadays, you can’t employ aborigines without a special license.’
“‘Wot are we to do, then?’ asks Conyers.
“Brody opens an account-book, an he ses, ‘There’s ‘leven
pounds against you an’ your mates for supplies. You ken pay that.’
“That floored Conyers proper. He walked out with his head down, tryin’ to hide them blamed ledgers under his coat. Scully was squattin’ agin th’ wall now, chewin’ a bit o grass an’ starin’ at the floor. I goes up to Brody to arrange for the liquidation o’ the darned company.
“‘It’s purty evident we’ve been had.’ I ses. ‘We’re left without a bean, so I s’pose you’ll allow us time to settle that little account.’
“‘Well, yes,’ he ses; ‘I’ll allow you three months’—
“‘Thank you, Mr. Brody,’ I ses. ‘It’a unfortunit’—
“‘In th’ meantime,’ old Brody goes on, ‘I’ll look after your gear for you, an’ yer ’orses ken be fatt’nin’ in my paddock. I won’t make any charge for that.’
“ Darn his eyes, but that knocked me. I believe to this day the old
dog put them blacks up to it. He went with us to th’ yard. There was
only Scully’s hack an’ my pack-’orse there; Conyers an’ his
live stock ’ad fled. I took possession of me swag, an’ Brody
took possession of the rest. We squatted down an’ filled our pipes
then. ’Twas ’n occasion when a draw was comfortin’— though ’twarn’t
much of a draw out of a hundred an’ twenty-six quid.
“‘Wot are we goin’ to do about it, Bill?’ ses Scully.
“‘Damfiknow, Jim,’ I ses. ‘Don’t see es we’ve gorra hope
“Warn’t no use hangin’ round, anyway, so we got goin’ purty soon on Matthew’s tracks. Come on to him, camped, at sundown. He ’ad th’ day-book left, an’ was tearin’ out th’ leaves an’ feedin’r th’ fire with ’em.
“‘Pity yer didn’t boil yer billy, with ’em at fust,’ I ses. ‘This is where yer management o’ th’ great Marsupial Company ’as landed us;’ an’ I throws me swag down, with emphasis.
“‘Never mind. Bill, he says, very quietly; ‘we’ll get even with old Brody one o’ these days.
“‘We want £3 13s. 4d. from you, anyway,’ I ses. ‘That’s your share o’ the bill yer left us to foot.’
“‘Eggs-ackly,’ ses Scully.
“‘Oh, that’ll be all right,’ ses Mat, softly. ‘I’ll
fix that up. For the present I’ll carry your swags along on my horse.’
“He carried ’em along right enough—for severn weeks;
then, bein’ mostly ahead of us, he poked into the one solitary vacancy
that was out that way, an’ me an’ Scully wur left to hump our
own. But Matthew was mag-nanimous, after all. ‘I’ve fixed that
little account up for you,’ he ses, handin’ me a sealed envelope
es he was goin’ away. When I opens it I finds this—writ on a
survivin’ folio of th’ company’s books:—
“Th’ balance herewith was his share o’ th’ bit o’ rations we had, an’ three tucker bags.”
A long sharp sweep of the Richmond embraced three scrub farms known as Muddle’s, Scully’s, and Don Garry’s. Muddle’s was wedged in the bight; Scully’s was the first arm. above him, and Don Garry’s the first below him, the three slab-walled, shingle-roofed houses being less than a mile from each other, with the one narrow flat for their front view.
Don Garry was an old bachelor, and had for years lived a hatter on Lone Farm. That was the name given it by his neighbors. The name fitted in one sense, for no lonelier man planted corn on the river than Don Garry. He had no relations. Only Jim Scully and Octavius Muddle called on him, and once in a blue moon he attended a husking party at one of their barns. This only made him lonelier and more discontented afterwards.
His neighbors were newly married, and he desired above all things to emulate their good example. He had made a halfhearted bid for Sarah Muddle, but Sarah, true and homely, and proud of the ring that Bill Tarkalson had placed on her finger, would have nothing to do with the Lone person. He had been laughed at and belittled so long that Sarah considered herself insulted if he was mentioned to her in the light of a suitor. Thereafter he sat in his big fireplace at night, and talked discouragingly to his dogs and his cat, and smoked his pipe, and stared wistfully at the ballet girls on the news-papered wall.
He was not an ill man to look at; he had a frank, ruddy face and a twinkling eye; yet, with a goatee as solitary hirsute adornment, it was a frontispiece that influenced his friends to be jocular. He was a reserved, backward man; he had none of the dash and boldness that a woman likes. There was in him a strange mixture of modesty and pride that impelled him to avoid any initiative in regard to a feminine acquaintance who did not openly encourage him. At the same time he imagined himself a most desirable parti, and would have given the world to appear as a hero in her eyes. If he could only have appeared before her, if he could have spoken and acted in her presence as he did in his day dreams, he would have been a model light in the Big Bend; but his imaginings were never realised. He was a smart, intelligent worker, but he was unobtrusive and seldom understood. There are men whose real nature, whose true inwardness, is never revealed, men who are capable of great sacrifices, of big acts of kindness, which, accomplished, they would shrink from mentioning. These are not the sort who make conquests in Cupid’s realm; they must be led from the jump. Such a man was Don Garry when the first tinge of romance came to throw its glamour over Lone Farm.
It was early summer time. The flat was a golden blaze of buttercups, and over and among them fluttered millions of beautiful butterflies. The Round Swamp, alive with waterfowl, was picked out in huge clusters of reeds and rushes, broom and water-lilies, with here and there on the margin a clump of tea trees, their tops white with blossoms, and patches of swamp oak and red bottle-brush; and beyond, joining the scrub that fringed the winding river, a deeper clump of wattle crowned with a glory of golden bloom.
Don was out in the bush getting wood with a horse and slide, meanwhile admiring the beauty around him, and blissfully inhaling the fragrant air, when he came suddenly upon a young woman lying prostrate in the long grass. Such a thing would have startled anybody; its effect on Don Garry was akin to that of an electric battery.
“Good Gawd!” he ejaculated, and sprang back as though from a snake. A moment’s observation reassured him, and he stepped forward again. “My! but she’s sweet,” he murmured. “Wonder if she’s dead!”
She was unconscious. At first he thought she was dead, and stood staring at her in an awe-struck manner for several minutes.
“Sth, sth, sth!” he clicked with his tongue, walking slowly round her. “Fine woman wasted! A fine young woman. I wonder how it ’appened?”
He bent down and touched her hand gingerly. It was warm. That brightened him a lot, and dropping on his hands and knees he held his cheek over her mouth. The warm breath thrilled him, his own breathing became short, and his heart was palpitating. Raising himself like a kangaroo, he looked round, then suddenly bobbed down again and kissed the pretty mouth.
It was the first time his lips had ever touched a woman’s since his mother died years and years ago, and for a moment he felt like a man intoxicated. She seemed to him as a vision dropped from heaven in the last shower—dropped at his feet when all the land was bright, and he was lonely. “Now, I do wonder!” he mused. Then he threw the wood off the slide, and five minutes later he was driving home with the girl stretched on the rude conveyance on a litter of grass. A new light shone in his eyes; he was excited, his big frame a-tremor as he lifted her out at the house and laid her tenderly on the rough pine stretcher on the verandah, and put a pillow under her head.
What to do with her now puzzled Don Garry. He’d never had any dealings with women, and what ailed this one he had no idea. He thought of taking her boots off, as they looked like things that pinched; and he had heard that the proper thing was to undo all tight-fitting clothing—he could see she was tightly-corseted, and they should come off; but on second thoughts he shrank from taking such liberties. With a man he would have been at ease, but every suggested step here was delicate ground.
“Never was in such a blamed fix as this afore, never!”
He was holding her hand, half fondling it, half rubbing it, when she opened her eyes. Don sprang up, and his face went a deeper red; but he could have danced like a schoolboy.
“Are you hurt much anywhere?” he asked, compassionately.
She motioned feebly for a drink. He ran in and got a dipperful of water from the cask, and raising her head with one hand, held the clumsy vessel to her lips with the other. She swallowed a deep draught, then sank back and put her hand to her head.
“Yer any better, dear?” Don inquired, and turned away immediately, abashed at himself, He had no right to call her “dear,” She only smiled and asked if his wife were in.
“No-no—that is,” said Don, painfully confused, “I ain't never married.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she returned, “Are there no women about? I’m sorry to be so much trouble to you—,”
“Don’t mention it — no trouble at all,” said Don, quickly. “Jest you rest there, an’ I’ll rush Sarah over ’ere in nex’ to no time, you bet. ’Ere’s the water if yer should want a swig. Blamed dry weather this.”
Saying which he left her, and ran all the way to Muddle’s. It took him some time to make them understand; he had run himself out of breath. Finally, grasping the situation, Mrs. Muddle and Sarah accompanied him back. He led the way with hurried strides, and was tearing round and through the house when they came up. He met them at the door, the most puzzled and alarmed-looking man they had ever seen.
“What’s up?” they asked in unison.
“She aint ’ere!” he cried, his eyes roiling. “She’s been ’an slithered.”
The women laughed. “Was she ever ’ere?” asked Sarah.
“Sure you didn’t dream it all?” Mrs. Muddle inquired.
“’Taint no jokin’ matter, Mrs. Muddle,” said Don, much hurt. “I left her on that there stretcher with th’ dipper o’ water handy. There’s th’ dipper, but the water’s gone, an’ she’s similar. Blamed queer thing that!”
The women looked at one another incredulously. “Where did she come from?” asked Mrs. Muddle.
“I got her in th’ grass, I tell y’r.”
“An’ don’t you know anything about her?”
“Nothin’—dunno her from a crow.”
“You fetched her home an’ left her here, just returned to her
senses, a matter of a few minutes ago, and there's no trace of her?”
“That’s so! That’s so!”
“Such a cock-an’-bull story I never heard,” Sarah remarked.
“What was she like?” asked Mrs. Muddle.
“She was the purtiest critter I ever looked at. Big brown eyes?—”
They laughed immoderately, and Don, abashed, turned into the house again. He searched it through and through; he searched the barn and the fowl house and the pigstye; he looked in the water-butt, and in the hollow log in front of the house, and round the woodheap, and along the river bank, the pained, mystified look on his face never changing. Coming back he saw the fresh tracks of two horses on the bare ground near the end of the verandah. The two women were sitting on the stretcher, hardly knowing what to make of it.
“See ’ere,” said Don, pointing to the hoof prints. “Dang me if she ain’t been took.”
They examined the tracks; they followed them some distance, and returned to the verandah. “I can’t make it out,” said Mrs. Muddle. “She must be some sort of freak to go off like that.”
“’S a queer caper,” Don admitted. He sat down, took his
hat off, and ruffled his damp hair. “Never knowed th’ like o’ that
before, never!’ he said; and, folding his arms across his knees, dropped
into a brown study.
“If she should come back,” Sarah remarked after a while, “tie her up, or shut her up, so we can see her.”
Don straightened up and said, as though he had not heard her: “I
do wonder—” Then he dropped back into his former attitude without
saying any more.
When the women went home, he saddled his horse and tried to follow the tracks. He lost them on the hard, short-grassed flat, and then he galloped round and about like a busy butterfly; but he found no trace of Brown Eyes — which was the only name he could apply to her.
Later he called upon several people he didn’t know, in the hope that
he might come across her. He did not state what his real errand was; as an
excuse for calling he pretended to he looking for a farm hand. To his chagrin
he found that person. He thought to put him off by offering him a miserably
low wage, but the man accepted, and started straightaway for Lone Farm. Don
kept him a week, and then got him a corn-pulling job up the river.
Months went by, and nothing was heard of her — except jocular references to the matter by his neighbours. Jim Scully and Octavius Muddle, whenever they saw him, inquired if he had found his girl yet. The farmers up the river, and the farmers down the river, heard of it, and when any of them met him, they too made inquiries about his lost girl. This told severely on a sensitive man like Don Garry, and in one sense he was about the maddest man on the river. He never went near any of them now, and he encouraged none of them to put foot on Lone Farm. Even when Octo, his most confidential friend, showed near, he hid in the corn, or bobbed down behind the pigstye. He pined for Brown Eyes; he dreamed of her day and night, and often he looked at the stretcher and pictured her as she had lain there, but he didn’t want disrespectful people asking after her as though it was a huge joke.
It was no joke to Don, he was too sorely smitten. It seemed dead out of the proper order of things that he should lose her after the way he had found her.
“If ever I clap eyes on her again, I’ll know something about her, you bet,” he confided to his brute companions, Blucher and Towser. “Just like an angel she come— an’ gone like a whiff o’ smoke. Queer thing that.”
The dogs looked up and wagged their tails. “Warn’t no delusion about it, Blucher,” he went on. “You saw her with your own eyes. . . A be-yoo-tiful reality she was. . . Didn’t I bring her home on th’ slide an’ lay her on th’ stretcher, an’ give her th’ dipper? Aye, an’ them fools thinks I dreamt it. . . They think yer boss ’es gone cracked, Towser. . . He’s dead shook, an’ dunno who th’ gel is, nor where she’s at. . . but old Don knows what he’s doin’, Blucher, you bet. . . Only let me clap eyes on her again.”
After a long wait, when hope had almost died within him, he got his wish; as unexpectedly as she had come into his life, as suddenly as she had gone out of it, she flashed across his view again.
He had seen her on the deck of the little steamer as it passed up stream, while he leaned on his hoe in a patch of young corn. She stood near the wheel, looking at the wild growth that fringed Lone Farm. She was neatly garbed in a grey material, with a green veil thrown back over her hat.
Don was not versed in dress fabrics; but he knew that face in an instant — it was frescoed on his brain. He started violently, and let the hoe drop. He went cold and hot by turns, and his eyes never left her till the steamer disappeared behind the fringe of scrub. Then he rushed up to his hut, saddled his horse, changed his clothes, mounted, and rode hard after the steamer.
“She ain’t goin’ to slip me this time; blow me if she is!” he muttered as he thundered across the flat. “I’m goin’ to see where she leaves th’ puffin’ jinny, you bet!”
He cut across a big bight, in which were half a dozen farms, and when he
reached Dougherty’s Point there was no sign of the steamer. He knew
she hadn’t passed, for there was no froth on the water, and no marks
of the wash along shore; but she had whistled away down in the bight before
he left home, and she only whistled when she was calling somewhere.
While he sat waiting to see if Brown Eyes was still on board, Jim Scully rode up from Brand’s, carrying a crosscut saw on his shoulder.
“Wal, Don,” he drawled. “Wot ’ave yer found?”
“Thought I heered th’ Triton,” said Don. “Was just wonderin’ if she ’ad any passengers.”
“Heered any more o’ the brown-eyed mystery?” asked Scully.
“I’m makin’ for town,’ Don went on, ignoring the impertinence. “Run out o’ flour.”
“Eggsackly,” said Scully, with a grin. “I could a lent yer some—”
“’Ere she comes,” Don interrupted. “I thought I heered her.”
“Lady on board,” said Scully, standing in his stirrups.
“Ah, I do wonder now who that ken be?” mused Don. “Fancy I’ve seen th’ like of her afore, somewhere.”
“It’s Lucy Barmon,” Scully announced as the boat come opposite.
“Is that her name?” cried Don, growing excited.
“Eggsackly,” said Scully. “Yer know Horry?”
“Aye.”
“That’s his sister. Very nice gel, Lucy.”
“Wal, I be danged!” Don ejaculated. “An’ they live just on five mile from my place.”
“About that,” said Scully, wondering.
Don suddenly recollected himself.
“’F I could cop her anywhere now ’t ’ud save me
a ride this week. Got a message for ’Arry. He was wantin’ t’ exchange
me some duck eggs for a rooster. ’Ave yer any idea where she’s
bound f’r?”
“T’ town, most likely,” drawled Jim. “Can’t say
for certain, but she goes up to Sleepy Hollow occasion’ly for a day
or two — sometimes ridin’, an’ sometimes be boat.”
“Where does she put up at?”
“Rooney’s Corner, I think — mos’ly.”
The steamer whistled near Brand’s, and without another word Don started away at a gallop. There was no road this way, and he lost much time breaking through fences, reefing through scrubs, and plunging through swamps and creeks. When he got to Brands’s the steamer was far ahead. He rode up to the house to make sure.
“Good day, Harry, Y’ any Manhattan spuds for sale?”
“Haven’t any at all, Don,” Harry replied, leaning against the doorpost.
“Wanted to get a few for seed to try ’em,’ Don explained. He struck a listening attitude. “Is that th’ Triton I ken hear?”
“Well, she passed half an hour ago. If you can hear her now you must have surprisin’ good ears.”
“I’m purty sharp in the ear yet,” Don said, “but
not wot I used to be. Wal, so long. Must try an’ get some o’ them
spuds somewhere.”
At the next point he touched he assured himself that Miss Barmon was still on board; and thence he jogged leisurely into town. The place known as Rooney’s Corner was a boardinghouse, with a little shop in front. An hour after dark Don limped slowly across to the shop door, using a stout stick to lean on. He wore only one boot, the other foot being encased in a huge pile of bandages. Two ladies were behind the counter. One of them was Lucy Barmon, but Don did not notice her.
“I was wonderin’,” he said to the other, “if yer sold pocket knives?”
“We do keep them,’ he was told, “but we haven’t one in stock at present.”
Inwardly he rejoiced to hear it.
“Just my luck,” he said. “Got a bad foot —trod on a rusty nail, an’ I don’t want to walk too much on it. May be in town a day or two with it, as ’tis.”
He was turning away when he pretended to notice Lucy Barmon for the first time. “I b’lieve I’ve seen you, before,” he said. “Ain’t you th’ young lady I took ter Lone Farm?”
“Oh! you’re Mr. Garry!” she cried, springing up, and with a vivacity that banished his nervousness.
“I am,” Mr. Garry admitted. “An’ I’ve been much troubled — I mean I couldn’t make out—”
“Of course, you couldn’t: Indeed, I must apologise, Mr. Garry. I’m so sorry. It was all Horry’s fault. You see, we were after horses that day, and mine turned turtle and left me stunned. We were to have met in front of your place. Horry came along with my horse while you were away, and, having a restless mob on the fence, he would have me get on at once an’ go with him. He said he’d be round again in a day or two an’ would thank you for me, and I only found out this week that the wretch never went near you. What must you have thought of me?”
“‘Twarn’t what I thought,” said Don. “’Twas what th’ neighbors thought when I fetched ’em over an’ then couldn’t find yer. They got a notion that I was cracked, an’ nothin’ will satisfy ’em now as I ain’t — unless,” he added, hesitatingly, “yer’d drop in an’ straighten out th’ kinks, for ’em.”
“I’ll do so as soon as I get home then, Mr. Garry,” she assured him. “Mr. Garry saved my life, Julia,” she informed her companion. Julia nodded sympathetically, and offered him a chair.
“Sit down, Mr. Garry, an’ rest your foot. I’m sure it must be painful.”
“I’ll run over an’ get the pocket knife for you,” Lucy added. “I know it’s a smoke you want.”
Don protested vigorously, but Lucy ran off and purchased one. It cost 7s 6d. He had a good one in his pocket, and could have bought one to suit him for a shilling. But he paid the 7s 6d willingly, and when he got to his room that night he kissed it many times because her hands had held it.
He saw her again next morning, when he bought a package of matches he didn’t want, and yet again that night, when he bought a tobacco pouch he had no use for. He saw her twice more on the following day, which cost him a new pipe and a pocket book, neither of which he wanted; and the acquaintance was further augumented on the morning after, at the expense of a lead pencil.
By this time he was now quite comfortable in her presence. When he called
the third night—for tobacco—she was gone. That hit him hard.
Her brother had come in unexpectedly with a trap, he was told and she had
gone back with him to save the coach and steamer fares. She had left “good-byes,” but
Don didn’t want “good-byes.”
“There ain’t goin’ to be no good-byin’ with me an’ Lucy. She an’ me’s goin’ whacks, you bet!
He tore off the bandages then, threw his stick under the bed, put his boot on, and rode home in the starlight.
For a week he kept a close eye on the track that led to Barmon’s. One morning she came. She called on the Scullys and the Muddles, and thus reestablished him in their good opinion. She stopped a couple of hours at Lone Farm, while her horse fed ravenously on Don’s corn. He showed her the pigs and the fowls; they inspected the barn and the crops, and they gathered wild gooseberries and sat in the shade of a dead gum tree husking and eating them.
“I’m goin’ to titivate th’ house up,” he told her on the way back, “an’ put a lot of improvements on the farm.”
“That will be nice,” said Lucy. “‘It’s a real pretty place as it is.”
Suddenly he caught her hands, and they stood.
“Lucy,” he said, his heart in his mouth, “would yer like to share it with me?”
Her eyes drooped. “I don’t know, Mr. Garry,”
His words came tremulously. ‘If you don’t, Lucy, I’ll sell Lone Farm, an’ clear out. Dang me if I ken stand this racket any longer. Which is it to be, Lucy?
Then her big brown eyes met his. “I wouldn’t sell Lone Farm,” she said. “It needn’t be lonely — Don.”
Lavert’s pub stood just across the Gap, where the narrow macadamised road swung sharply round an abrupt spur of Wombat Range. On the verandah in a brown study, sat Davie Bramell, the shearer. He had knocked down his cheque during the fortnight he had been there, and was now getting himself straight again for the track. He was thinking over his chances of getting another stand, when Mick Rooney—an old acquaintance—came plodding round the curve, and presently threw his swag down at the pub corner. Davie was glad to see him. His pot-companions had gone two days ago, and even the bummer had decamped the day before when he found that Davie was “flyblown.” With the exception of some carriers camped a mile down the range, there was not another soul about the place to talk to, or to fly to for protection when the sportive blue devils, came romping down the ranges at night. Lavert had been a jolly fellow, always willing for a rubber at euchre, and with a fund of information that beguiled the time; but when Davie had parted with his last sprat Lavert left off playing cards. He also left off talking. It was plain to Davie that he wasn’t wanted any longer. Even the range seemed to frown at him to begone. It was a week since the last mob of cattle had crossed the Gap, and not even a swagman had brightened the prospect till now. So Davie welcomed him as a long-lost brother. They had drink and Lavert started talking again.
“I think I’ve seen you before?” he said, leaning on the bar and beaming across at the newcomer. “Wasn’t you pressin’ at Toonbar one year?”
“I was—me an’ the Cockroach. That’s a good few years ago now,” said Mick reflectively.
No one could easily forget Mick who had once known him. He was short and thick set, with a big nose—dumped in the middle—and a squint in one eye; a rather comical-looking man on the whole. Davie was a giant beside him, but he had a slouching gait, and was slow and dull, in comparison.
“I was havin’ a bit of a yarn with the old gel round the corner,” Mick presently resumed, as he thrust his glass back and wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve.
“Mother Donelly?” queried Lavert, dipping the glasses in the tub.
Mick nodded. “She tells me Gummy Gale, the hatter, scragged himself in the old hut somewhere about three year ago.”
“Aye, he went off his onion at the last, and took a drop from the crossbeam.”
“Poor old Gummy! I didn’t think he’d come to that. What did he pan out?”
“Next to nothing. The yarn goes that he had a pile stowed away somewhere, but I think it was only skite. They found nothing anyhow—unless it was Mother Donelly.” He laughed softly. “Did yer ever hear of th’ ghost on the Wombat?”
“No?” said Mick expectantly. The publican laughed again and waited. It was one of the little intermissions where he might “fill ’em up again,” but Rooney didn’t catch on.
“The old gel used to go every evening at dusk an’ squat down on a big rock on the side of the range,” Lavert began. “’Twas just below her place, an’ overlookin’ the caboose where Gummy Gale hung out, There, she’d smoke her pipe—she was always fond of her pipe was Mother Donelly—an’ sometimes jabber to herself for an hour or more. Donelly, yer, see, is away through the week workin’ on Toonbar, an’ of course she feels it a bit lonely always bein’ by herself. She an’ Gummy were great chums, an’ they used to visit one another reg’lar. If the truth was known the old fool was shook on her. Anyhow, he went off his nanny, an’ took a short cut across th’ boundary. It was with her dog chain he done the trick. I remember the barney she ’ad with the bobby to get the chain back. Well, after that it was a common thing to see blokes come peltin’ round the point there at night ’s if the devil was after ’em. They’d seen Gummy Gale’s ghost. Most of ’em saw him sittin’ on the rock, smokin’, as he used to at his door, an’ talkin’ in serpulkral tones; an’ some would see him rise up, sudden like, with a long sigh (sometimes it was a groan), an’ glide away like a shaddler to look for Mother Donelly. Of course, I knew it was Mother Donelly herself, but they wouldn’t have it. Not them. Every benighted son of a gun that streaked round that corner swore black an’ blue as it was Gale’s ghost, an’ the yarn spread till Wombat Range got such a bad name that no one but a total stranger would come by there at night. Even the drovers reckon that no mob of cattle can be made to camp within five miles of it. It got about that Gale had a bit of stuff planted about his humpy, an’ Mother Donelly put pincher on it; so the old chap can’t rest, an’ goes moanin’ around night after night. It just shows what fools some people are,” Lavert concluded, re-wiping a dry glass.
“That’s right enough,” said Mick, fingering the half-crown in his pocket, “but all ghosts ain’t Mother Donelly’s. Now, I’ll tell you a queer thing that ’appened to me one time. Mind yer, there’s no gammon about this lot.” He paused, while he fingered the half-crown again, and looked hungrily at the rows of bottles. “Come on, Davie, we’ll ’ave another,” he said suddenly. “This talk’s a bit dry.”
“Of course there’s many a rummy thing happens that no one can account for,” said Lavert, brightening up again; but my faith in spooks was a good bit shook by this Wombat Range affair.”
“Wal,” said Mick, his eyes sparkling with, the fire of backblock rum as he set down his glass and made the sign of the cross with his arm as before. “I was camped one night by the mailman’s track on the side of Mt. Lindsay. I was out of tobacco. I s’pose yer know what a lovely plight that is when yer alone? I was praying to Gawd someone would turn up that smoked, when all at once I hears the rattle of dray wheels down through th’ timber, an’ after awhile I sees a dray comin’ up the track. There was an old joker sittin’ in it, moody like, with one hand proppin’ his chin, an’ th’ other holdin’ the reins. I reckoned I was in luck’s way at last, an’ waits till he comes close by. Then I gets up an’ sings out ‘Good night!’ The clock clock of the wheels stopped, an’ th’ ’orse, dray an’ driver disappeared like a whiff of smoke. I went to the road an’ looks about; but there wasn’t a sign of anything—not even a wheel track. I skedaddled out of that mighty slick, believe me, an’ when I gets to Unumgar they tells me about a murder wot happened on the mountain years ago. It was the time of the Taroom diggins, an’ a rough shanty was opened on the road ’tween Noogara an’ Koreelah Creek. An old bloke with a horse an’ cart stopped there one night, an’ it leaked out somehow that he had pretty close on a ’undred
quid on him. He left next mornin’; an’ hours afterwards th’ ’orse comes back with the the cart—but no driver. They found him dead on the Range—fleeced of every bean. Wal, after the shanty was deserted, people used to see a ghost there pretty often, but it mostly took the form of an old chap sittin’ on a log, patchin’ his pants. I s’pose the loss of his money left th’ poor devil dog poor, an’ he had to get down to that or go naked, an’ naked ghosts somehow don’t seem to be in th’ fashion.”
The publican nodded approval, and Davie seemed to recognise that it was up to him to shout. He edged along the bar a bit closer, and coughed.
“How do I stand for a shout, boss?” he asked.
Lavert shook his head. “Slate’s broke, Davie,” he said, and became interested in the view through the doorway.
“Right!” Davie returned in an aggrieved tone, and slouched out of the bar hitching up his trousers. Lavert turned to Rooney.
“Give you a shake, Mick,” he said affably.
“No, I’m darned if you do!” said Mick, and walked out.
Davie had returned to his seat on the verandah. Mick joined him. “Pretty mean old cuss, I think,” he remarked, jerking his thumb towards the bar.
Davie straightened up as though for a supreme effort. “He’s a fair cow, Mick!” and having said which he settled down again.
“We’ll do a get at jackass to-morrer, Davie,” Mick declared, making methodical cuts at a stick of black tobacco. “But . . . touching this racket round the bend,” he continued. “I knew old Gummy Gale years ago, an’ I know for a positive fact he ’ad whips o’ stuff. If Mother Donelly hasn’t copped out on it, I’ll take my dyin’ oath it’s buried about that there humpy. I’ll
tell yer for why. Me an’ him swagged it once from Tallerawang to Mudgee, an’ every bloomin’ night as soon as we’d fixed camp, he used to chop a hole with his tomahawk an’ bury his bunce. When we’d settled down for any length o’ time he’d ’ave gold an’ silver an’ copper planted all over the shop. The ground about some of his camps was like a ploughed field, which come of his huntin’ after plants he’d lost the run of. He’d been robbed once on the Turon in the diggin’ days.”
“An’ yer think his swag’s still buried at the humpy?” asked Davie, with greedy eyes.
“I’ll stake my 40 years’ gatherin’ on it—providin’, of course, Mother Donelly ain’t been an’ nailed it. She was always a pryin’ old cat; but still Gummy was fly enough for her, an’ he was pretty close fisted.”
“Gawd, Mick, a haul like that would be a chuck in now!” Davie exclaimed.
“WaI, I’ll tell you wot I was thinkin’,” said Mick, with a quick side glance towards the door. “Don’t want his blooming nabs to get wind of it,” he added cautiously. “Is there such a thing as a pick about, d’yer know?”
“Aye,” said Davie, “there’s a couple leanin’ agin the ’orseyard at th’ back. They’re not up to much an’ I think one o’ the handles is a bit wompy.”
“That don’t matter a hang. Wal, look ’ere, you collar the picks as soon as it’s dark, an’ we’ll go down an’ prospect. The haul’s worth havin’.”
“An’ we’ll have it if there’s a possible,” Davie added. “We want a lift bad enough, Gawd knows.”
“We’ll go an’ get supper—I think you’re about played out ’ere by th’ look o’ things?”
“Just about,” Davie admitted sulkily.
“Wal, get yer traps, an’ we’ll doss down at the waterhole. I’ve only gorra bob or two left, an’ I must hold tight in case we don’t strike it lucky.”
There was no moon that night, but still it wasn’t very dark. A cloudless sky bedizened with countless stars rendered it an easy matter, for one thing, to pick put the squat form of Mother Donelly perched on the rock above Gale’s humpy. She was smoking as usual, and enjoying the cool night breeze that came in little puffs along the range. Further down the slope, the carriers’ fires glowed redly, while the jangle of horse bells came incessantly from the surrounding timber. Nothing stirred about the humpy, which stood in the deep shadow of the hillside. The two men crept towards it hugging the slope to escape the owl-like eyes of the woman. The hut was in ruins; many of the slabs had fallen in, leaving huge gaps in the sides; and storm winds had stripped half the bark from the roof. Davie shuddered as he looked in, then glanced nervously around him. He had a horror of any place where murder had been committed, or a suicide had taken place. More than that, like most bushmen, he was a trifle superstitious, and he did not like the idea of searching by night for a dead man’s gold. Every strange object that caught his eye on a sudden gave him a violent shock. He was suffering, too, from the effects of his two weeks’ spree and his mind was in a fit condition to conceive a semblance of the uncanny in the most commonplace objects about him. Rooney, though disliking the neighbourhood, was too intently bent on business to harbour any such foolish thoughts. His only fear was of discovery by the crone on the hillside.
Stooping low in the gloom, they began a systematic search for the miner’s hoard, starting at the door and working outward with the pick point, one to the left and the other to the right. Rooney opined the money would be wrapped in cloth or bagging, which would be easily felt with the pick.
Hours they toiled, till the whole surface was broken up for several feet around the humpy. Every boulder in the vicinity was overturned, and the ground well proved where it had lain. But nothing was discovered.
“Looks like huntin’ for a mare’s nest,” whispered Davie, leaning wearily on his pick,
“Don’t give in yet,” said Mick encouragingly, though he too began to lose hope. “We’ll try inside. I don’t like the thought o’ missin’ it.”
“We’d stand a better show in daylight,” Davie went on, staring hard at a phantom-like bush he had not noticed before.
“If we could work it in daylight,” added Mick. “But we’d
be twigged in half a jiff. I’m beginnin’ to think that old’ hag
up there got away with the swag years ago, an’ the loss of it drove
Gummy Gale off his pannikin. Anyhow, we’ll ’ave a root about
inside afore we give it best. Yer not knocked up, are yer?”
“Oh, no!” said Davie, with a sigh of resignation.
The air within was ahum with mosquitoes, and a jubilant cricket chirruped shrilly in the fireplace. It was too dark to work, and their only hope was to light a fire. Before taking this risk Rooney stole up the slope and ascertained that the old woman had gone home. Then they gathered some wood and lit a fire, and as soon as it began to blaze they resumed operations, working from one end in the same systematic order as they had done outside. Many a trouser button turned up with the glint of a sovereign and helped in some way to keep their interest alive; and now and again they scooped up bits of bag that lured them on with the same delusive hope.
They had broken up half the caked floor when a rustling outside caused Davie to look round sharply. “My Gawd!” he gasped the next instant, and the pick dropped from his nerveless hands.
“Wot’s up?” whispered Mick. “Have yer found it?”
But Davie, with bulging eyes, was staring through a gap in the eastern wall. “Look—lo—o—ok! W—what’s that?” he gasped hoarsely.
Shuffling along the grass was a huge white object that seemed to be sniffing
and scratching at the broken ground. It resembled a man lifting himself along
on his hams, and the rustle of his snow-white garments sounded ghostly weird.
Even its breathing they could hear—deep horrible breathing that made
them shudder. The clink of a chain sounded clearly with every movement, and
their very hair bristled at the recollection that it was a dog chain that
Gale hung himself. Suddenly it rose straight up from the ground, and stood
waving its white arms as though beating off an invisible foe.
“My Gawd!” gasped Davie again, as he clutched the back of Rooney s shirt.
“Lemme go?” hissed that person fiercely. “What—wha—what yer frightened o’?”
“It’s Gale’s ghost!” came tremulously from Davie?
“Lermme go; you blamed fool. Lemme go!” whispered Rooney prodding him in the ribs with his elbows and retreating towards the door. His face was now as bloodless as the white horror that held his eyes fixed like balls of glass, and in his superstitious terror it assumed the phantom image of the defunct Gale. Its arms and body were covered with a long white robe, and on its head was a fantastic covering that looked like a white frilled bonnet. Straight and gaunt it stood, gazing at them with eyes that seemed to look through and beyond them.
With trembling knees, and a cold creepy sensation permeating their quaking frames, the treasure hunters crept slowly to the doorway. Gripping his pick in his hands under some vague idea of protection, Mick Rooney darted suddenly from the hut and rushed wildly along the hill. After him, groaning in abject terror, staggered Davie, his knees doubling and bumping together, and his breath coming in short hard gasps. Almost immediately they heard a peculiar bump, bump, and the rattle of chains behind them, and glancing over their shoulders they saw the awful thing flying through the air with a greater flutter of white. Now and again it would bump the earth hard, as though gambolling in its glee, then leap into the atmosphere again, its arms waving and its white robes flowing. Such peculiar antics utterly demoralised the two mates, and their pace dwindled to a tottering walk. They were no longer capable of speech; fright gripped their throats and shackled their legs.
As they neared the turn in the road, Davie collapsed and fell heavily against a bush. The white horror flew past him with a jingle of chains that sounded like a death rattle, and the next instant he saw it clutch Mick by the back of the shirt and jerk him to a sudden standstill. Something like a half-strangled howl came from the victim; he struggled feebly for a moment, then Davie saw him lift the pick and send it with a wild fierce drive into his ghostly assailant. He expected to see the pick cleave as though it were empty air; but it plunged deep into a solid body, and with a sharp grunt of agony the creature toppled over and lay struggling on the road. Rooney staggered a few yards away, and sank down on the bank, bathed in cold perspiration. Davie, with a new fear gripping his heart-strings, now scrambled to his feet to join him, beating wide of the dying phantom.
“My Gawd, Mick, you’ve done it! You’ve done it!” he
cried as he sank down beside him.
“Done wot?” demanded Mick, hoarsely.
Davie groaned. “You’ve done murder!”
“You gibberin’ idiot, wot yer say it was a ghost for?” Rooney wailed in an agony of remorse, for he was now dead certain that it was a man, who had probably been playing a lark on them, whom he had killed. Its struggles had ceased, and it lay a still white blob on the road.
“O, Gawd! wot are we to do? You’ve done murder!” Davie repeated, in the tone of one half demented.
“Shut yer mouth, you idiotic—gorilla!” hissed Rooney fiercely, his squint eye fairly scintillating, and the bulbous point of his broken nose expanding like the head of an angered snake. “There’s only one thing to do. Roll up an’ clear out at once. Come along, get an adjective move on for God’s sake.”
Filled now with the horror of a gallows crime, he hurried down to his camp, with the big man, equally concerned, panting at his heels. Never before had their swags been bundled together and rolled in such a slipshod hurried manner, and in ten minutes, with their boots in their hands and strips of torn shirt wrapped round their feet, they were tramping at the rate of knots with their faces set doggedly to the Western sky.
“We’ll ’ave to travel all night an’ spell all day for the fust week,” panted Mick, pulling up five miles away for a breath. Davie was too exhausted to speak. “Must ’ave been one o’ them pumpkin-headed carriers actin’ the goat,” Mick continued, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.
“But the blamed thing was flyin’!” Davie gasped.
“Flyin’ be hanged!” sneered Mick. “We wur too flamin’ slow to get out of his way, an’ he was doin’ the hop, skip an’ jump trick, comin’ down with a great whop behind us to make the thing more impressive.” Pause. “The darned cow deserved pick-axin’!” Another pause. “He was th’ two ends an’ the middle of a blanky lunatic!”
He clutched his swag again, and they went on—onward and Westward into the solitudes of the Never Never, till the phantom police and the spectral trackers were outwitted and beaten.
Toward noon the next day Mrs. Donelly came waddling up to Lavert’s. She was mumbling, and when Lavert came out, she pointed down the road with her stick.
“What d’yer think o’ them blasted carriers that cleaned out this mornin’?” she cried with a vicious ring in her voice.
“What’ ave they been doin’?” asked Lavert.
She planted the stick hard on the rubble before her and folded her hands on the knob. “They killed Barney O’Bryan last night, an’ left him laying stiff an’ dead on th’ road at the pint there. That’s what they did, the dirty dogs!”
“What for?” asked Lavert.
“What for?” Mrs. Donelly snorted; “’Cos they’re a lot o’ crawlin’ curs. They took Donelly’s white shirt an’ my Sunday bonnet off the line, an’ put em on Barney, an’ they untied his chain (I tied him up at sundown), an’ they tuk him down to the road there an’ kilt him as dead as a door nail by drivin’ a pick through his soul case. The dirty dogs, they did!”
“What a d— shame!” said Lavert. “They want six months.”
“Gaolin’s too good for ’em,” Mrs. Donelly declared. “They want rollin’ in a spiked cask down Wombat. Brutes like them as would steal a lone woman’s kangaroo for no reason but to take it away an’ kill it ought to be hounded off th’ roads. So they ought! I want you now, Lavert, to come an’ help me carry him to th’ cemetery.”
Lavert, got his hat and went at once, for the Donellys often had their little picnic at the pub; and they burled Barney O’Bryan by the side of Gummy Gale.
With the return of the teams they learnt that it was the carriers’ boys who had dressed Barney and let him go, what time the old woman was having her evening smoke on the rock; and then, Barney evinced a desire to follow them, they had cut back to camp. But it was not till years afterwards that they learnt how Barney had met his death, and it was told by a harmless crank who had a squint in one eye and a broken nose, and who was looking for a dead man’s gold.
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