“The PlaceFer Us”
NED SWALLOW’S surprise was complete when out of the darkness two figures emerged, one of which hailed cheerfully:
“How are you enjoyingyer holiday, Ned?”
“Nicely, thank you,” Swallow replied with studied politeness.“Was thinking of you drinking pints in Mount Lion. What about running your truck out hereabouts and throwing your lights on this ruddy mob? Afraid they’ll break in the darkness. Anyways, what blows you out here?”
“Explain, Dot, while I go for the truck,” requested Dash.
Whereupon the little American told Swallow that the police wanted them, but what the hell for they weren’t wise, and didn’t much care. They planned to get away up into the Northern Territory, if only for the sake of annoying Sergeant Morris. It might be he wanted them because they had failed to return Income Tax statements. As though he, of all men, would pay money to the Government so that politicians could go a-gallivantin’ around the world.
“Hear, hear!” Ned agreed heartily. “What kin I do?”
“You can lend usa ’orseeach, Ned.”
“You can takeyer pick.”
“We knew that, which was why we headed this way,” Dot said emphatically. “We can’t go on for ever on the truck, ’coswe can’t make gas outer mulga scrub. And ole Jeff, ’e’llget our returns for the last load of kangaroo skins, which’ll pay ’imfor the ’orses.”
At a strategic point Dash stopped the truck. The whole flock was clearly outlined in the beam of the lamps. It revealed the rising dust created by the hoofs of the flock guarded by the dog beyond the fence. It cowed, too, the more restless sheep, quietened the vast mass, and turned all heads in its direction. Even the bleating subsided a little, and they were permitted to hear the roaring exhausts of the motor-cycles when they reached the hut. Passing it, the riders came out and straddled their machines close to the three men. Cheerful greetings were exchanged, and Dot and Dash informed of the strike and its results.
Dot chuckled. One lamp’s rays fell on him, and they could see how his button of a nose wrinkled when his face widened in a gurgling laugh. Dash did not even smile. He was thinking and trying to guess exactly how much Marion Stanton knew.
“What’s your next move?” inquired one of the cyclists.
“We-Youhad better not know, pardner. The less you know thebetter for your health,” the little man said, still chuckling.
“An’ the better foryour ’ealth the sooner you clear out,” was Swallow’s advice. “Run in them ’orses, Jim.” Then, to Dot and Dash: “Give us a hand to get these woollies into the ’orse-paddock, an’ I’ll fix you up with saddles. I’ll have to loan you my own, so take care of it.”
The motor-cyclists skidded away to the horse-paddock gate, which they closed behind them. Those with the sheep heard them yell with youthful excitement whilst they tore away through the paddock, in and out of low scrub, curving round scattered boulders, their headlights sweeping in wide arcs, their exhausts roaring. It was the modern way of mustering horses, and far more sporting than doing the job with a hack.
With yells and honking claxons they discovered the four horses at the farther side, and because these animals had become used to being driven into the horse-yards in a corner nearest the hut, they raced for those yards with the yelling fiends behind them.
By that time the partners and Swallow had got the latter’s flock past the windmill and dam, and jammed against the horse-paddock fence. In spite of the darkness and the dust, there was no confusion, each man knowing precisely what to do and where to be in position to edge forward the rapidly milling mob. Thirty minutes after the arrival of Dot and Dash the two flocks were safely within the small horse-paddock, there so easily to be brought out again on the plain if the fire threatened. Six thousand out of thirty thousand sheep were safe.
“Ain’tnothinkwe kin do till old Jeff gets out here,” Swallow announced whilst the five men drank scalding hot tea outside the ramshackle hut.
“Anyways, whatever we do won’t suit, and, as I heard Bony say the other day, ‘When in doubt do nothing’,” Jim said slowly, a young man hardly twenty.“Clever bloke, Bony! Cleverest half-nig I everknoo.”
“M’yes,” Swallow agreed. There ensued a silence lasting a full minute, during which all faces were kept eastward, and all eyes were centred on that spot in the hills where first would become visible the lights of the trucks and the car. Swallow spoke again deliberately. “I wasforgettin ’ Bony,” he said. “Yes, I wasforgettin ’ Bony.” Turning to Dash, he added: “Some’owsI don’t like your chances ofgettin ’ clear.”
“Why?” Dash asked imperturbably.
“ ’Coswot Irecolleck of Bony makes the betting heavily in his favour. When I was in Queensland he was just King Tracker.”
“If he’s put on our trail we’ll give him a good draw,” promised Dot cheerfully.
“Orlright,” Swallow said resignedly. Then, with surging hope in his voice: “I’ll lay you even money he gits you.”
“Right! How much?”
“Ten quid”-eagerly.
“Make ’ertwenty-five. A level hundred dollars.”
“You’re on. She stands at twenty-five quid.”
“Look! You’ll win if he’s on the first truck. Here it comes,” the second rider announced.
“It may be the car,” Swallow lit his cigarette with care. Then, jumping to his feet: “I’ll take two to one against old Jeff’s car.”
“A quid!” jumped Jim, grinning.
“An’ he’ll have the bulls with him for shore,” Dot said decidedly.
“Course! You blokes git! Come on, give us a hand to saddle the ’orses. Get ’emaway quick, or I’ll have it again meconschuss when I take Dot’s cash.”
And ten minutes later, when the lights of three motors were leaving the foothills of the range:
“Well, so long, Dash! So long, Dot! Keepagoin ’ and keep straight for Darwin,” Swallow advised hurriedly.
“So long, everyone!”Dot drawled.
“We’ll tell ’emyou headed due west. Youain’tgoin ’ west, are you?”
“We are!” Dash confided. “Yes, we are going west. Tell them, if youcan tell a lie, that we have gone south.”
“You run a danger of the fire pinching you,” the second and more silent cyclist told them.
“We’ll chance that. Well, good-bye, fellows! Thanks forvour help.”
“That’sorl right, Dash. Hooroo!”
“Hooroo!”
To the little knot of men standing outside the hut the partners immediately vanished in the darkness. As Dash said they would, they rode due west with the fire now so near that they could see its flickering tongues a bare two miles away on their right flank. To both men came the same thought. If they could clear the path of the fire without turning south to escape it, it would sweep down from the north and for a little while balk pursuit. The fire also would obliterate their horses’ tracks to a very great extent.
“You are now the commander of this party, Dot,” remarked Dash, after they had ridden for half an hour in silence. “What are we going to do?”
“Go back, face the bulls, and tell ’emto be damned,” was Dot’s instant reply.
“Do not let us become wearied by fruitless argument, my dear man. Let it be final that there is to be no going back.”
“Well, there is no reason why you can’t go back.”
“Please, Dot, no further discussion on that topic. We go together. Where do we go?”
“You’re the most obstinate cuss wot ever drank beer. Howsomever, west o’ here is Freeman’sRun. Windee’s west boundary is marked by the border fence. There or in South Australia we’ll strike the track from Freeman’s homestead to Nullawil. It’s a hundred to one ole man Freeman ’as bin told of the fire and will be sendingorl ’is ’ands to join up with the Windee push to smother it. We’ll ride that track till we hear ’emacomin’. We’ll then leave it and head north-west. They will ride over our tracks so that even Bony won’tfoller ’em, champeen tracker an’orl.
“On the north-west boundary of Freeman’s Run there’sa ole friend of mine cooking for two boundary-riders. ’E won’t go to no fire, ’cos’e’snigh seventy years of age and rheumaticky. From ’ere to ’imis about forty-seven miles. We’ll ’it ’imto-morrow at noon. We’ll rest up till nightfall, and then head into the Never-Never. Understan ’, when we leave my pal we git off the station country on to the open country, and when once there we got to chance the water-’oles.”
“Do you mean that we shall have passed beyond the edge of the settled, fenced country?” asked Dash.
‘Jest so. Up away beyond the stations is that scattered thatit’s possibleter get to Darwin withoutpassin ’ through a gate or climb a fence.”
“But surely we have not to make for Darwin?”
“No. We’ll hole up on the shores of Lake Eyre.”
“What sort of a place is that?”
“Hain’tyou never ’eardabout the shores of Lake Eyre?”
“No.”
“Well, jest you imagine what thisyer world will be like millions o’ years ahead, when the earth ’askinda run down and thereain’t no sea-tides and no people, nonothink but insects and sand and mud and withered things wot look like trees; a place where the souls oforl the bad blokes andblokesses hover about awaiting ’ell-and then you’ll git Lake Eyre. It’s a place wot must make even Satan feel the draught up and down ’is back. Just the sort of placefer us, olepard!”