A Squatter at Home
JEFF STANTON was working at his own particular table in the Windee office on the morning Bony paid his visit to Mount Lion. Spread before him was a large-scale map of Windee Station, with every paddock named thereon, every well and dam and natural water-hole. The map was affixed to a drawing-board, and in it were stuck two-colour pins and miniature white flags bearing black numbers. From data supplied him every evening by his overseer at Nullawil and his lonely boundary-riders, he could tell at a glance the condition of the natural feed in a paddock, the supply of water, and the number and classification of the sheep within its five-wire fences. The map served the squatter as other maps serve a military commander.
A sheep-run of over a million and a quarter acres is not exactly a farm, and the well-being of seventy thousand sheep calls for constant attention and thorough experience, for, whilst a man can go bankrupt in a year or two through bad farming, it is possible for a squatter to fail in one month when drought is beginning to grip the country and the water supplies are failing. Allow sheep to remain-say three thousand-in a paddock when a hot sun has sucked up what has been considered a week’s supply of water in a dam, and, because those sheep have become used to a drink every day, they will all have perished within a week. And wow! there goes four thousand pounds.
Now and then Jeff Stanton scribbled a note on a sheet of foolscap. A flock of four thousand sheep in such or such a paddock will have to be yarded-two thousand drafted off and put into another paddock where the water supply is greater. From yet another paddock the sheep will have to be removed to an emptypaddock, and these for three days shepherded near the well till they have learned to find their way to the water without being driven.
Such decisions were taken at these times only at the last minute that permitted a margin of safety, for, so soon as the sheep were concentrated into a comparatively small number of paddocks having abundance of water, the increased number would the more quickly eat down the available feed, which would not be replenished until the rain came. If as much thought were given, when transferring the unemployed of Great Britain to the Dominions, as a successful squatter is obliged to give to his flocks, the British Empire would be far more prosperous than it is.
Here and there over Jeff Stanton’s map were placed tiny red flags. There were five of these flags, and they indicated the dams and wells at which the rabbits were watering in force. Observations have shown that forty rabbits will drink one gallon of water when there is no green feed for them to subsist on. It will be understood, therefore, that when two thousand rabbits pay a nightly visit to an open dam, or water-trough supplied by a well, the water supply for the sheep will be affected. Whilst such a drain on a well that is fed by an underground stream is a matter for consideration, such a drain on a surface dam with its limited bulk is of vital consequence, for the nightly presence of a vast number of drinking rabbits means that the water of the dam will become far more quickly exhausted than if it were taken by sheep only.
Stanton picked up the telephone on his desk and gave two long rings-for Nullawil, since there were half a dozen boundary-riders’ huts connected by the same line. Then: “Good day, Mrs Foster! Put me through, please, to Carr’s Tank. Very warm this morning.”
“It is, Mr Stanton,”came the feminine voice of the bride, oblivious of Stanton’s objection to “mistering”. “Our thermometer is up to ninety-eight already.”
“You’re lucky. Ours registers just a hundred… Yes, all right!”
Another wait followed while Jeff restudied his map. Thencame the pleasant drawl of Hugh Trench.
“Good day, Dash! How’s things out there?” inquired the squatter.
“We have almost finished for the time being,”came the reply.
“Good! How many have you got?”
“Not quite seven thousand. We have cleaned up all the ’roos.”
“Humph! Well, look here, Dash. I’m told the rabbits are watering in millions at the Frenchman. Will you go along there as soon as you can, say to-morrow?”
Dash demurred.“Can’t very well. You see, we have three wool-packs ready for dispatching, and it won’t do the skins any good to keep them. They will lose weight.”
“I’ll send a truck out this afternoon,” Stanton countered. “You could load it up this evening, and the driver could come back to-morrow and take ’eminto Broken Hill. I’ve got to send a truck to the Hill for iron. How will that do?”
“That will suit us. There is no netting at the Frenchman, is there?”
Stanton pondered. “No,” he said.
“Well, what about sending out about four hundred yards? The driver could drop it when he reaches the branch track to the Frenchman, and it would save us the time rolling up the netting in use here. Besides, in a month’s time there will be a fresh mob of rabbits drinking here, and we can come back.”
“Good-oh! I’ll do that,” Jeff agreed. “And you’ll go to the Frenchman to-morrow?”
“Yes. It’s keeping dry, isn’t it?”
“It is, but we are not feeling the pinch yet. Ned tells me that the feed your way is knee-high and dry as tinder. It’ll be a good year for a fire. Dry thunder-storms now will be a worry.”
“We may be lucky,” Dash pointed out. For four seconds he was silent, then: “I shall be in at the homestead on Christmas Day. You will remember that this Christmas marks the end of the probation period.”
“Does it?” asked Stanton slowly.
“You know it does. I’ve kept my word made to you nearly two years ago. You cannot say I haven’t proved myself. Jacob didn’t do more in his seven years than I’ve done in my two.”
“I’m not arguing the point!” the old man suddenly roared, causing Mr Roberts to mar his ledger with a blot of ink. “My word’s my bond. I said you could speak again in two years’ time, if you were of the same mind, and proved yourself a man by roughing it during that time as I had to rough it when I was your age. Damn it, I’m not growling! Come in on Christmas Eve, and do your damnedest first thing Christmas morning.”
“All right!”Dash cut in, happy laughter in his voice. “I think you and I will get on all right.”
“Get on all right?” Stanton snorted. “Don’t I get on with anyone all right? Why, I haven’t sacked a man these last twelve years. But don’t you be too cocksure. It takes two to start a lifelong argument, remember.”
“It does. But-but-it will be damned hard if I come a cropper.”
“Well, well!” Stanton said more gently. He waited, but evidently Dash had broken the connection, for he did not speak again. For a long while the squatter sat and smoked, and looked vacantly down on the map. He did not see Mr Roberts close his ledger, go over to the typewriter-table and begin to type letters, nor did he hear the clacking of the machine until half an hour later, when, the book-keeper having finished, the silence brought him out of his reverie. Then he looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was a quarter to twelve.
“Put me through to Bumpus,” he requested abruptly.
Three minutes later he heard the publican’s voice.
“Has Ron reached town yet?” Jeff asked.
“He came in an hour and a half ago.”
“Is he leaning up against your bar?”
“No, he’s up at Hugo’s.”
“Is Bony drunk yet?”
“Not him. He went over to the Padre’s quarters some time ago, but the sergeant called him into his office.”
“Oh, what’s he done?”
“Nothinkthat I knows of.”
“Been there long?”
“Heain’t left yet, to my knowledge, whichain’t saying heain’t left.”
“Well, well, it’s none of our business, Bumpus. Don’t you let either of ’emgetdrunk. I want ’emback here to-day. Send out a dozen of port, will you?”
“Good-oh, Jeff!”
Once more the old man fell into a reverie. He wondered. He had wondered a lot about Bony ever since Dash had mentioned casually over the telephone that Ned remembered Bony as being a successful police-tracker. Why was Bony in New South Wales? A half-caste so seldom leaves his native State, and rarely the district where he was born. Bony’s long interview with Sergeant Morris seemed significant.
He was still thinking of Bony when the station lunch-gong sounded, and on Mr Roberts saying something about the heat it took a mental effort to banish Bony and make a suitable reply.
Together the two men walked to the bath-room, the young man erect and soldierly in movement, the squatter lithe yet strangely sluggish, as though he felt momentarily the onset of old age. In the dining-room they found Marion, cool and lovely, awaiting them. Mrs Poulton was pouring out tea at a separate table, and when she had set the cups before them she, too, became seated.
“I shall be glad when Christmas is over,” she exclaimed, fanning herself with a handkerchief. “I always think it is so much hotter before Christmas than after.”
“It is hotter after Christmas, but by January our blood has thinned and we feel the heat less.”
“I suppose you are right, Jeff,” she said in her cheerful way. “We should be thankful to be living in a large cool house instead of one of those dog-kennels you call boundary-riders’ huts.”
“It is surprising what you can get used to,” he said grimly. “In my youth I lived in an affair which was no better than a black-fellow’s humpy. Anyway, my lads are better housed than the majority.” With that Jeff relapsed into silence. An unaccountable foreboding was pressing on his mind, but he put the feeling down to a touch of liver. Mr Roberts and Marion started to talk books, a subject that served throughout the meal.
Afterwards Stanton passed out through the wide-openfrench windows to the cool, blind-shaded veranda, where he sank into a wickedly luxurious lounge-chair and proceeded to roll a cigarette. He was not thinking of Bony now, but of his daughter. He was still thinking of her when she came and sat on the arm of his chair, saying:
“Will Jeff be here to-day, Dad?”
“No. He has to move sheep out ofWhittocks into Deep Bend. By the way, I am sending a truck to Broken Hill to-morrow. If there is anything special you want for Christmas, send in your order.”
“Very well, Dad,” she said, smiling softly. “Christmas is a long time coming. I think I will buy you a cigarette-making machine. That one you are now smoking looks like a camel in a fit.”
Stanton laughed ruefully. “Perhaps you will be so kind as to make me a handsomer one,” he said. “Christmas is not so far away, and afterwards you may not have the time to make me cigarettes.”
“Why not?”Deft fingers were busy at cigarette-making.
“Because Dash will be here on Christmas Day.”
For quite a little time Marion gazed searchingly at her father. “You think he has not forgotten or changed his mind?”
“I know that he has not forgotten and that he has not changed his mind. Have you?”
Marion’s dark eyes closed for a second. When they opened they were like stars.
“How could I forget when I have been counting the days?” A blush dyed her cheeks. Slipping off the chair-arm she stood looking into his grim, life-scarred face, and added: “You are a hard man in some ways, Dad, but you’re a wise man. I’ve come to see that.” Then she fled.
Jeff Stanton sat on the veranda until Ron with his passengers arrived. He watched the truck pull up before the house-gate, and when he saw a lady descend he leaned forward in his chair and stared. And in the flight of a few seconds Jeff’s face was drained of its colour, and his eyes became glassy with fear.