The Strike
VERY SOON it was evident to the waiting men that the riders of Grey Cloud were women, obviously Marion Stanton and Mrs Foster. Beyond them several figures moved about the broken-down car, and later it was learned that these were Harry Foster and the two stockmen, merely waiting for a station truck to arrive and tow them to the homestead. Why the fur-getters had gone back was a mystery that only the women could solve.
When a quarter of a mile from the waiting policemen, Grey Cloud was turned off the track on a more direct line to the big house, and Bates was then asked to remove the obstructive wire rope while the sergeant and his trooper went to intercept the riders between the creek and the stockyards. Outside the homestead they met Marion and her companion, who dismounted.
“How do you do, Sergeant Morris?” Mrs Foster said gaily, with the faintest trace of mockery in her tone.
“Very well, Mrs Foster. What has happened?” Morris’s voice was sharp. He was visibly annoyed. The flush on Marion’s face, her obvious excitement, aroused his suspicions. Mrs Foster, standing before him and looking up at him, smiled with her mouth but revealed in her eyes a flash of malice.
“Something went wrong with the differential,” she explained, when Marion had led her horse away. “Naturally we counted on coming along on Dot and Dash’s truck; but when Dot and Dash learned that you were after them they turned tail and fled. Oh, what have they done, Mr Morris?”
“From whom did they learn we were to arrest them?” the sergeant barked.
“Why, Marion”-the hard eyes resting for a moment on the white-clad figure near the yards. “You see, Marion rode out to find what was wrong, and happened to mention to Mr Dash that you were here.”
“Oh she just told them that we were here?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“But a moment ago you said they learned from Miss Marion that we were here to arrest them.”
“Did I? Well, really, perhaps I should not have said that. I must have imagined it. Do you-what are you arresting them for?”
“There seems to be a mystery here,” Morris growled. “I cannot understand how Miss Marion came to learn that we wished to arrest Dot and Dash. Rowland, ask Miss Stanton to join us.”
Across the open space in which they stood a voice roared out for “Mister Roberts”, and, turning his head, Morris saw Jeff Stanton standing on the veranda outside the office door. Waiting for Marion, Morris impatiently looked in the direction of the men’s quarters, to see the bookkeeper hurriedly leave and walk swiftly towards his employer. When Marion came back, he said in his bluff manner:
“Who told you, MissStanton, that we are here to arrest Dot and Dash?”
Peculiarly defiant, she answered: “Does it matter?”
“Not much, probably. It matters more that apparently you conveyed a warning to Dot and Dash. Why did you do that?”
“Really, I hardly know,” Marion told him easily, but with an expression much like that on her father’s face in his grimmer moments. “I rode over to find out what was wrong with the car, and mentioned conversationally that you and Mr Rowland were here. I trust they have done nothing serious.”
“This is beside the point, Miss Stanton,” Morris objected stiffly. “Doubtless you mentioned the fact without thought that by so doing you were interfering with the course of my duty. Excuseme, I must speak with your father.”
The two men walked to the office. Little Mrs Foster, slipping an arm through one of Marion’s, told her softly:
“I am afraid, dear, that I have put my foot in it this time. It was I who told the sergeant you told Dot and Dash about him waiting for them. I am so sorry, but I am so eaten up with curiosity to know what they have done. It was so silly.”
“Never mind. Sergeant Morris will forgive me some day, I know.”
They walked over to the main door of the house. Outside the office Sergeant Morris was saying to Jeff Stanton:
“Your daughter inadvertently warned Dot and Dash that they were wanted, and they have cleared off back. I want to use your telephone to warn all homesteads and neighbouring townships not to supply them with petrol. Have you any idea how much they would have with them?”
“No idea whatever,” was the gruff answer. “However, not more than a case of eight gallons and what was in their tank. Perhaps Foster could give you a closer estimate.”
“We must ask him. Whilst I am telephoning, will you loan us a truck and three or four cases of petrol? A driver, too, as neither Rowland nor I can drive, as you know.”
“You can take my car if you like,” agreed Stanton, unable to offer less.
“Good. It is far faster than Dash’s truck. The chase will last until their petrol gives out, when probably they will abandon their truck and go on foot. As it is likely that we shall want a tracker, go along, Rowland, and get old Moongalliti.”
Jeff Stanton and the trooper moved away together when Sergeant Morris entered the office, a general prepared evidently to check every move of the enemy. There was no doubt in his mind that Stanton’s outside estimate of the partners’ petrol supply was fairly accurate. In such case, at the farthest, they would have to replenish within the distance of two hundred miles. His duty was to warn the towns of Wilcannia, Tibooburra, Milparinka, and eight station homesteads that lay within the radius of two hundred miles.
Eventually Dot and Dash would be forced to abandon their truck, take to horses if they could procure them, to foot if not. He recognized the importance of overtaking them before they left the truck, or as quickly afterwards as possible. Should the thundery conditions culminate in rain, their tracks might well be washed out, and, being experiencedbushmen, their complete getaway probably would follow. The telephone engaged him for half an hour and when he had shut off all probable petrol supplies he left the office without a word to Mr Roberts.
It wanted about an hour to sunset. A mass of blue-black cloud emitted lightning and thunder far to the north, whilst another threatening mass was coming up from the western horizon. Anxiously scanning the sky, Sergeant Morris walked rapidly to the men’s quarters, where he saw Jeff Stanton talking angrily with his men, or rather with Jack Withers, who stood a little in front of them. Stanton’s eyes, when he turned them on Morris, were ablaze.
“A strike! By Moses, they’ve gone on strike!” he roared, adding, as though it were impossible to believe:“My men have gone on strike, my men, mark you!”
“What are they striking for?” Morris demanded, not yet realizing how this strike would affect them.
Stanton threw up his arms in a gesture of helplessness. He was a man incapable of appreciating the causes in face of the devastating effect. He knew full well that incompetent parsimonious Australian employers were always dealing with strikes, but always had he regarded those employers with supreme contempt. He thoroughly believed that strikes were most easily avoidable by treating employees in a fair, straightforward manner, and by paying good wages to good men. Yet here were his men striking when always he had treated them straightforwardly and generously. How his rivals who had hated his methods would have the laugh of him now! The fact of the strike wiped from his mind the reason for Sergeant Morris’s visit.
“I told my men they could come in for Christmas,” he roared. “Most of ’emare here. I’m providing ’ema flash dinner to-morrow; and now I come along and ask five of ’emin turn to drive my car for you. Ask ’em-ask ’emyourself why they won’t.”
Jack Withers lounged before the sergeant and the squatter. His poor eyes were almost at right angles, but his mouth revealed theiron will that the eyes tried to conceal.
“We reckon,” he drawled, “that, seeing as ’owto-morrow is Christmas Day, the bossoughter recognize that we poor slaves ’as ’elpedto make ’is millions, and that extra to the Christmas dinner ’e should make us a momentary [monetary] present, or bonus. We ’avedecided not to do no more work till ’e does.”
“What utter rot!” Morris barked. “In any case, Jeff is loaning me his car, andI am asking for a driver. I’ll pay the union rates of pay, whatever it is, for overtime and double time. Now, Ron, get out the car, quick.”
The Englishman shuffled on his feet. “Nothing doing!” he stated emphatically. “I’m no blackleg.”
“Well, I want one of you to drive,” the now exasperated policeman snorted. “I’m not concerned with your strike against Jeff Stanton. Any one of you who drives me can’t scab on his mates. Come now!”
“Thereain’tnothing doing,” Withers rejoined slowly. “Weain’tgonna do no more work till we gits that bonus.”
“Well, damme, what are you aiming I should give you?” roared the old man, thinking far more of the way the affair would smirch his reputation than of obliging Sergeant Morris.
“Oh!” Withers indolently exclaimed. “Now we’re talking, Jeff. What do you say to five hundred pounds per man?”
“What!”
Jeff Stanton’s mouth opened and shut several times. With stunned blankness he looked around him, sub-consciously noting Bony standing apart and looking highly amused, seeing Roberts walking from the office towards them, and the gathering black clouds low in the western sky. Five hundred pounds per man bonus! It was ridiculous. They must all have gone mad, or perhaps it was he who had suddenly lost his wits.
Then Roberts was close to him saying something about fire and telephones. What was it? Lightning had caused fire in one of the north-west paddocks. Ned Swallow had reported it. Six thousand sheep prisoners in the paddocks. Just telephoned. And then Ron and Evans started racing towards the motor-shed. Two men were running towards the store with Roberts. And Jack Withers was thumping him on the back and yelling:
“Thestrike’s off, Jeff. Wegotta smother thatyer fire in quick order, or we’ll miss our Christmas dinner. And we shan’t be able to spare anyone to drive the sergeantorl over the scenery neither.”
Then Jeff Stanton came to life.