Bony Lights a Fuse
CHRISTMAS EVE was a day of intense heat, the oppressive heat presaging an electrical disturbance. Until eleven o’clock the sky was clear of clouds. Then, in the manner peculiar to Central Australia, they began to appear. When Bony, working with Withers at the new sheep-yards, first saw the first cloud, it was less than the size of a man’s hand. Nature, the Great Enchantress, made and fashioned it from nothing: in the beginning a wisp of white smoke that grew and grew into an enormous white-capped solid-looking mass. Other clouds were born and magically expanded, and for quite a long while hung motionless in their distinct, solitary grandeur.
The workers watched them during work, wishing earnestly that one would move across the sun and shield them from its scorching rays. At times it looked as if their wish would be granted, when a cloud was seen moving towards the sun with stately slowness, but always to move round and past it. Not until four o’clock did the many clouds begin to find mutual attraction and drift into huge blue-black masses, within which the shimmer of lightning flickered and thunder rumbled.
When Bony and his companion returned to the homestead it was to see the arrival of Sergeant Morris and his trooper, both mounted on magnificent police horses. Their advent set up speculative comment among the hands who were preparing themselves for dinner, and the number of the men at Windee that evening was far in excess of that at any other time of the year.
The two policemen were met by Marion Stanton, astride Grey Cloud. They saluted her and spoke with her, the three horses bunched. Then Marion rode away up along the creek, seizing the opportunity thus early-since later she would have to welcome her guests-to take her daily ride. From the door of his bunk-room Bony smiled, and watched the uniformed men ride to the stockyards, where they left their horses, thence to walk with military stiffness to the station office.
Having set the match to the gunpowder train, he prepared himself to enjoy the spectacle of the explosion.
For nearly twenty minutes the office door remained closed. Then emerged Mr Roberts, hatless and carrying a notebook. He moved in his usual deliberate fashion round the house towards his room. For two seconds the angle of the walls concealed him, and when he reappeared Bony saw him pass out of the side wicket-gate, glance back once, and hurry away up the creek.
A few minutes after that the sergeant and the trooper came out. With significant purposefulness they crossed to the men’s quarters and asked for Bates, the custodian of the Windee plant, and of him required a half or three-quarter inch wire rope. Neither so much as glanced at the amused Bony.
He watched them accompany Bates to one of the store-huts, and saw the three of them come forth carrying a long length of wire rope, which they took down the curving road leading out over the plain and to Nullawil.
“Surely theyain’t going to hang Bates,” Withers suggested.
“Naw, they’re going to put up a swing for the Christmas party,” Ron announced, making motions with a toothbrush.
“I’ll go along and see what is doing,” Bony said loudly, and proceeded to follow the police party by slipping from tree to tree. He found them stretching the rope across the track, securing it to a tree-trunk on each side so that a car-driver coming to the homestead would see it just before he would be obliged to decelerate in order to get over a fifty-foot stretch of loose sand.
Facing along the outward track from the rope through the western fringe of creek trees, the vast expanse of plain appeared as though it were a grey patchwork carpet. Vast irregular areas were darkened by the cloud shadows, and between the areas the low salt-bush gleamed and shivered in the mirages. At a great distance, probably ten miles, a slowly mounting cloud of dust appeared stationary. It was, in fact, caused by a rapidly moving automobile.
“They are coming now,” announced the trooper.
Morris grunted, and satisfied himself that the blocking rope was securely fixed beforehe, too, gazed out over the plain. To Bony these preparations for the arrest of Dot and Dash seemed almost absurdly excessive, yet he also foresaw the difficulties that the partners in their truck could raise against mounted men. They had but to see them to drive at and past them and escape. Morris, seeing the danger of frustration or resistance, had cleverly selected a place where the driver of the truck would be obliged to stop, and that place being sandy would prove exceedingly awkward for a man to turn a truck, for, once out of the formed wheel-tracks, it would bog, and before he could reverse out on the hard ground the policeman would be able to board him.
For no definite reason Bony remained carefully concealed, now a mere onlooker, amused and entranced, his mind busy with speculation as to the various possibilities of his coming arrest.
The gong for the men’s dinner was struck by Alf the Nark, yet Bony felt it impossible to leave his chosen post of vantage. Bates moved away at its call, but Sergeant Morris halted him, saying that he might need his assistance, and in any case did not wish a crowd to collect there, as assuredly would be the case if it became known what was pending.
The approaching dust-cloud became appreciably nearer, and it was some five miles away when the waiting men saw a second dust-cloud far beyond it. Separated by four miles, two motors were speeding to Windee, but whether the first was the partners’ truck or the overseer’s car was not known, since the stock-riders at Range Hut were then at the homestead and there was no one at the house in the hills to answer the telephone.
Now, had not the small pinion-wheel in the differential of the car first seen shed its cog-teeth, subsequent happenings on Windee might have been quite different. The breakdown occurred about one mile from the homestead, and it was signalled to the watchers near the wire rope by the nearer dust-cloud, which suddenly dwindled and vanished. The second machine came on steadily, and with obvious impatience Sergeant Morris rolled a cigarette blindly, his attention fixed on the plain. At that distance it was impossible to tell whether it was the car or the truck which had broken down, but it mattered little, since the passengers by the first would assuredly be brought on by the driver of the second.
Twenty minutes elapsed. By that time the second machine was quite near the stationary first. Bony then saw that the attention of the sergeant and his trooper was taken by something north of them, and on the edge of the plain. Bates’s round face was alive with interest. Two minutes passed slowly before Bony’s curiosity was allayed.
Across the plain, from a point above the homestead, there sped a grey horse and a white-dressed rider. The flying hooves sent up a long trail of greyish dust. The animal’s head was low: its rider sat a little crouched forward, a rose-pink veil floating out horizontally behind her head. Riding Grey Cloud, Marion Stanton was rushing towards the disabled car.
With no uneasiness but a thrill of admiration, Morris watched the beautiful action of the horse and the easy seat of his rider. It was natural to surmise that Marion Stanton, having observed the breakdown, should determine to ride and learn the fault. The significance of Mr Roberts leaving the office before the policemen and hurrying up the creek when Marion Stanton had already ridden that way was not realised till later.
They saw her reach the stationary machine at the same instant as the second drew up. The two machines, now that the dust-cloud had left them, looked like a pair of black ants, about which tiny objects moved no larger than pinheads. With his keen vision Bony distinguished two people about Grey Cloud. No effort was made to examine the faulty machine, which indicated that the fault was serious and not to be repaired in a hurry.
Precisely what was going on out there the watchers were unable to decide. Nothing happened for several minutes. Then Grey Cloud moved a little apart. There arose a faint haze of dust. Through the still air Bony’s ears just caught the hum of an engine. One of the machines was moving. A cloud of dust arose and hid it. The dust-cloud became elongated, lengthened as though a destroyer was creating a smoke-screen. And the machine that raised the dust was going away from Windee, was racing back to the hills towards Nullawil.
The grey horse came slowly towards the watchers. Time seemed to drag. Eventually they could see that Grey Cloud carried two riders. Two men moved about the broken-down car. The other car was speeding westward. Bony was delighted. Marion Stanton had warned Dot and Dash of their impending arrest, having been informed of it by Mr Roberts.