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Spring-Cleaning
NEARLY EIGHT HUNDRED rabbit-skins, each stretched over a U-shaped length of stiff fencing wire with the two points thrust into the loose sandy ground, represented the last catch at White Well secured by Dot and Dash.
The partners, having breakfasted late, since that morning there was no skinning to be done, proceeded to pack this last catch in the wool-bale that finally would contain three thousand skins. The four corners of the open bale were secured to stout posts five feet high, and into the bale, already three parts full of skins, climbed Dash, being a heavier man than his partner. Dot now deftly gathered up a dozen skins on the wire bows, with one movement pulled away the wires, and with another handed to Dash the stiff, board-hard pelts. Dash then proceeded to build up a corner within the wool-bale, and to stand on the skins in that corner whilst he built up another. Thus with this human press the bale, when at last it was sewn up, presented a solid mass weighing nearly two and a half hundredweight.
Four other full bales lay near the truck, and, since the price of skins that summer was good, Dot and Dash expected to clear a hundred and fifty pounds on their last consignment for the year.
It wanted an hour to noon when the partners sat down to a pint of tea and cigarettes, having completed the fifth bale and having loaded the five bales on the truck.
“I guess Iain’t looking forward with eagerness to shaving,” the little man observed ruefully, pushing his fingers through a flaming beard. “Ole Samsonmusta felt the heat some afore that tart shaved ’is ’air and ’is whiskers. Me, I’m fearful of catching a chill. Couldn’t we-wot about leaving ’emon?”
Dash frowned with mocking gravity. “When in Rome we must ape the Romans. Out here in our ‘vast open spaces’, surrounded by our inspiring ‘natural resources’, we may please ourselves whether we cut our hair or not. At Windee we find ourselves among civilized human beings, who do not grow red-hot whiskers. In about ten minutes you may have the pleasure of cutting my hair very carefully, and my beard closely and without care.”
“Wot about me?”
“I will render you a like service. It will be the last time we shall so serve each other.”
“Wa’-do’-mean?”
“Precisely what I say. I do not anticipate that ever again I shall grow such whiskers as I now sport.”
“Are yougonna hire avally?” gasped Dot, looking extremely hot, although he had discarded his undervest, the upper part of his powerful body being naked.
“Not in the immediate future. I am, however, earnestly hoping to get married.”
“Married!”
“Is the idea so preposterous?”
“Married!”Dot’s voice was a harsh screech. His expression was a combination of anguish and horror. “Youain’t serious, pardner?” he implored, almost in a whisper.
“Yes, Dot, I am.” The assumed grandiloquent manner fell from the Englishman. It was as though he discarded mask and cloak, and stood revealed in his true personality. Dot received yet a second shock. Dash went on. “In the old days a fellow by the name of Jacob worked for fourteen years for a girl named Rachel. The work he did during that time was identical with the work he had done all his life. Before I became your partner I was and lived as an English gentleman, an allowance made me by my father enabling me to live without having to work.
“Five years ago there came over my house a financial cloud, and in order that my father and my dear mother might continue to live in reasonable comfort, I surrendered to them four-fifths of my allowance, threw up my commission in the finest regiment on earth, and came to Windee as a jackeroo, as you know.
“At Windee I fell in love with a lady with whom you are acquainted. In spite of my poverty, I dared to tell her I loved her. Dot-she accepted me. My next step as a man of honour was to ask Old Jeff for his sanction. What do you think Old Jeff said?”
“Get to hellouter here!” Dot replied promptly.
“He was a little more ambiguous than that, but his meaning was the same,” Dash went on unsmilingly. “In his usual blunt fashion he told me he thought I was hunting his girl’s dollars. Since he was an old man I couldn’t hit him, and, besides, he was Marion’s father. I did tell him, though, that I was prepared for him to test me, and without hesitation he set the test.”
“Wot was it?” Dot asked with interest.
“That I would work with you for two full years.”
“Humph!” The little man lit a cigarette and smoked pensively. Whilst inhaling and exhaling the tobacco-smoke he regarded his partner as though he had met him for the first time, and during that regard it dawned on him that Jeff Stanton’s test was unduly severe. He knew how Dash hated the killing and skinning of kangaroos and the skinning of rabbits but nevertheless never shirked his share of the work. At that moment Dot realised what his own mode of living must have meant to one with his partner’s upbringing. Two years is quite long enough for a man to gain an intimate knowledge of another man’s habits, mental outlook, and ideals. Yet now was the first time it was borne in on him that Dash must have suffered mental degradation every time he handled carcasses, every time he ate and drank from tinware, every day he had to deny himself a bath, and all the time he had to associate with such ashe.
“Iain’t surprised at youracceptin ’ the test,” he told Dash, “but I amkinda surprised that you’ve won out. I’m mighty glad you’ve won out, anyway. You an’me have got on well. No arguments, nothing. I’ll feelkinda at a loose end when I’m on me own. You see, a man sort of gets used to a bloke.”
“I know, Dot, how it is,” Dash said earnestly. “Our partnership has been successful, and it has smoothed away the rough edges of a rough life.”
“When’s the two years up?”
“To-night at midnight,” Dash replied. “Old Jeff knows that, and knows, too, that we are going to Windee to-day, and that to-morrow I shall, with his sanction, ask Marion to marry me.”
“Wot are yougonna do then?”
“I don’t know, really. I thought of buying a small place in the hills out of Adelaide, a fruit-farm probably. I have enough money for that.”
“Well, if your bank runs dry, don’t forget I am your milking-cow. I got a lot o’ money wot you’re welcome to. I gotmore’n you think.”
“Then you must possess a great deal,” Dash said, getting up with a smile, to add with sudden earnestness: “Nevertheless, old man, although we dissolve partnership, we do not and never will dissolve friendship. Where are the scissors, do you know?”
They spoke but little whilst each worked on the other. Dot evidently was somewhat depressed, for he shaved without his usual humorous complaints. The metamorphosis that was accomplished within half an hour was not a little surprising. From wild-looking bushrangers Dash became a well-groomed Army officer, and Dot’s round shining face bespoke a priest in disguise.
The coming severance with his partner weighed heavily on him, for he esteemed Dash, and held him in great affection. Nevertheless, there was something else which weighed on his mind, and after a while Dash became conscious of it. He said quietly:
“What has gone wrong, Dot?”
“Well, seeing as ’owwe’re going to bust up, I’d like to sort of confess me sins,” came the somewhat surprising answer. “We shall have to wind up the business part of it properly, and give each other a receipted bill. It seemskinda right that we should part, too, with receipted minds, if you get me. Do you?”
“Well, not quite.”
“I shall have to touch on a matter which we have made taboo,” Dot said in a strained voice.
“Oh!” The other’s voice was suddenly metallic.
“Yes. It’sgotta be done. I guess I was a fool, a poor avaricious boob. You’ll sort of jump on me when I tells you, and I’m thinking I’ll deserve it. You remember the money wot I was supposed to have burnt?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“Well, I didn’t burn it, that’s all.”
Dash, who was lacing up his expensive shoes, with greatdeliberateness rose to his feet and stood looking down at Dot with amazement, chagrin, and alarm all expressed in his clean-cut face.
“What did you do?” he inquired calmly.
“I hid it. I put the notes in a kerosene-tin box and buried ’emin the fire ashes at our camp.” The little man’s blue eyes winked with the force of his self-condemnation.“Gawd! I just couldn’t burn good money. I just couldn’t destroyorl them thousands of dollars-” He broke off suddenly, to continue looking at Dash with appealing eyes. Then: “Woter wegonna do, bo?”
“We are going to sneak along to that camp to-night, and I am going to watch you burn those notes one by one,” Dash said slowly.
“Orlright! I reckon Iain’t gotno kick coming if you orders me to eat ’em.”