In the Roaring Fifties Part 9

'Same reason, Mike; but I'm getting over it. I'm getting over a good many things rather too suddenly. I'm sort of mentally breathless. A year ago I'd have sworn that friends.h.i.+p and good-fellows.h.i.+p were impossible to me.'

'Go on!'

'And just now I'm feeling things too keenly to talk much about them.'

''Nough said, Jimmy; I ain't complaining.' Mike knocked the ashes from his pipe on his boot. 'I s'pose I'd best get somethin' for breakfast,' he said, rising and stretching himself.

'What, here?' Jim looked about him into the darkness.

'Here or hereabouts. Keep an eye on the swags. I won't be gone more'n an hour at the outside.'

Micah Burton went off into the dense Bush, that to Jim looked grimly unpromising, and the latter lay back upon the gra.s.s again, with quite a luxurious sensation. The hard day's walking made this rest peculiarly agreeable: he had eaten well, his mind was at peace--he no longer concerned himself with psychological theories--he was content to live and feel.

Sharply out of the silence came a ringing report. Jim was jerked to a sitting posture, listening with all his ears. The report was repeated several times, a fusillade of shots, followed by faint echoes of a voice raised in anger. There was an interval of quiet, and when the sound broke in again Done sighed contentedly, and relapsed into his former position.

He recognised the crack of a cattle-whip. In a minute or two he heard the voice of the bullocky admonis.h.i.+ng Bally and Spot with a burst of alliterative invective, and presently the leaders came labouring out of the darkness, the great red bullocks, with bowed heads, moving slowly and with that suggestion of impa.s.sive invincibility that goes always with a big team of good working bullocks in action.

'h.e.l.lo, mate!' cried someone beyond in the shadows.

'h.e.l.lo, there!'

'Plenty o' water 'bout?'

'A creek down to the left.'

'Right-o! We'll camp here, Stony. Woa, Strawberry! Woa, there, Spot!

Bally! Blackboy!'

The cattle came to a standstill, and while the others busied themselves unyoking the team, one man went off through the trees, and presently returned, carrying a billy he had just filled. He kicked the fire together, threw on a few pieces of wood, and began to prepare a meal, paying no attention to Jim, who lay watching him. It was not customary to say 'By your leave!' in little matters of this kind. On the track every man's company was supposed to be welcome. Following a habit of observation, Jim examined the man without curiosity. He was thin, sandy-haired, and wiry, about forty-five, with restless hands, and a cowed, half-sullen expression--a drinker of strong drinks of the kind manufactured at the shanties, corrosive liquids that ate the souls out of men in quick order.

Having disposed of the bullocks, the tinkling of whose bells was a foreign note in the night, two others came to the fire, carrying the tucker-box. They were brothers, long, bearded, brown-faced Australians of the runs, going up to the rush with stores for Coolan and Smith, or Aberdeen, the universal providers of the Roaring Fifties.

'Hurry up that blasted quart-pot, Stony!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the elder of the two. 'I feel as if I'd done a three days' perish-me!'

The men ate hungrily, sitting about in the light of the fire, drinking the hot tea from pannikins and from the billy lid, and as they ate they talked. Done was beginning to find himself at home in the society of men.

The humanities were finding place in his soul. Everything about these people interested him--their work, their pleasures, their ideas. They were so closely in touch with vital things, so tolerant. They cherished no political, social, and religious convictions to the exclusion of their fellow-men.

Burton returned, swinging four featherless birds. The invasion of their camp did not surprise him. He greeted the strangers cheerfully, and held the birds up for Jim's inspection.

'Our breakfast,' he said. 'Fat 'n young.'

'Where did they come from?'

'A lagoon half a mile up the creek. Four shots, four duck.' He touched his revolver.

'But Nature doesn't provide plucked birds for our benefit.'

'Skinned an' cleaned 'em at the water.'

The teamsters were not averse to boiled duck and broth for breakfast, and the two billies were soon steaming on the camp-fire, while the company yarned and smoked. It was nearly ten o'clock, and all hands were thinking of taking to their blankets for the night, when a sixth man came quietly through the trees, un.o.bserved until his greeting disturbed them. Done had to turn on his side to look at the newcomer, a handsome, beardless man in the garb of a digger, but much more scrupulous in the matter of cleanliness and fit than the majority.

'I did not like the society at the Rest,' he said, 'and walked on, looking for quieter company.'

'Make yourself at home,' answered Mike. 'There's tea in the pannikin, an'

there's grub in the dilly-bag. You're not carryin' traps.'

'No. Sent everything ahead but this 'possum rug. Thanks for--'

He ceased speaking. His face had been composed, almost colourless; into it there sprang an expression of amazement, which deepened into an animal ferocity shocking to see. The mouth twitched spasmodically, the eyes caught the glare of the flame, and glowed with a catlike l.u.s.tre.

Surprised, Done turned in the direction of his glance, and discovered the man Stony crouching on the other side of the fire, his weak, tremulous hands stretched out before him, his face gray as ashes and convulsed with horror. Glaring at the stranger, he lifted his hands, thrusting the vision from him, and a cry of terror burst in his throat, as the man sprang at him, bearing him to the ground as a tiger might have done, groping fiercely at his throat with iron fingers. Stony lay on his back; his enemy, kneeling on his body, choking him, bent his face down, and cried fiercely:

'It is you, then? I am not mistaken! You know me, you dog, and you know that I mean to tear the heart out of you!'

Releasing his grip on the flesh, he wrenched at Stony's s.h.i.+rt, ripping it at the neck.

'Help!' gasped the prostrate wretch. 'For the love of G.o.d, help!'

'There's your brand--your brand, Peter!' He thrust his face into Stony's again, and all the hate that a face can carry and that a voice can convey was betrayed in his expression and his words. 'Do you know what I have endured, Peter? Do you know what I have suffered?'

Clutching at Stony's throat again, he bored his knee into the body under him, his arms became rigid with the power of his grip, and Stony lay choking, clawing feebly at the other's sleeves, his face distorted into a hideous caricature.

The other men stood about, watching, the Australians reluctant to interfere in a quarrel they did not understand. It was Done who seized the stranger, tearing him off his victim, and then Mike and a teamster laid hands upon him, while Stony was writhing and panting on the ground.

The digger offered no resistance; he seemed unconscious of everything but his hatred and his vengeance, and his eyes never moved from Stony.

'We draw the line at cold-blooded murder, mate!' said Mike, but the other gave no answer.

Stony had picked himself up, and, casting one horrified look at his enemy, turned away, and plunged into the blackness of the Bush, running like a frightened animal.

'What's he been up to, anyhow?' asked one of the teamsters, as they released the stranger. The latter did not reply, but instantly darted after the runaway. The four men listened to the retreating footsteps, and presently the Bush echoed two pistol shots fired in rapid succession. The birds murmured and moved in the trees, a monkey-bear grunted disgustedly, and then all was still again.

VIII

FOR some little time the four men stood with their faces turned in the direction Stony and his pursuer had taken, listening breathlessly, and then they went to their blankets again. Done was greatly disturbed; the others took it more as a matter of course.

'You won't follow them?' said Jim.

'Well,' one of the brothers replied, 'I ain't particularly busy just now, but my hands are too full for that kind of foolishness.'

'He meant murder!'

'Somethin' too like it to please old Stony.'

'What do you think it was all about?'

'Can't say. Long grudge, evidently.'

'The clean-shaven man was a lag,' said Mike. 'Convict,' he added, seeing a question in Jim's eye. 'Maybe your friend lagged him.'

'Don't know him from a crow,' replied the teamster addressed. 'We're taking some traps and ware up to the Creek for him on our load, and he travelled along.'