MY ONLY MURDER

AND OTHER TALES

Ernest Favenc

1899

Contents

1. A Tale of Vanderlin Island

2. Blood for Blood

3. The Other Mrs. Brewer

4. My Only Murder

5. The Burial of Owen

6. The Red Lagoon

7. Tommy's Ghost

8. The New Super of Oakley Downs

9. An Unquiet Spirit

10. Bill Somers

11. Jerry Boake's Confession

12. What Puzzled Balladune

13. The Story of a Long Watch

14. The Ghost's Victory

15. The Sea Gave Up Its Dead

16. Mrs Stapleton No. 2

17. The Boundary Rider's Story

18. The Eight-Mile Tragedy

19. The Belle of Sagamodu

20. Not Retributive Justice

21. A Victim to Gratitude

22. A North Queensland Temperance Story

23. A Gum-tree in the Desert

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1: A Tale of Vanderlin Island

The Bulletin, 11 Aug 1894

Chapter 1: On Maparunga, the Canoe-Maker; and What he did not Know.

MAPARUNGA was noted amongst his tribe as a clever fashioner of canoes. His people were sea-coast blacks of Carpentaria, having their abode principally on the Sir Edward Pellew Group of Islands. The canoes used by this people were not the common kind of rude and hasty manufacture. They were far more cunningly contrived. Sheets of pliable bark were cut to a particular pattern so that when pieced together they fitted harmoniously into the shape of a really presentable little craft. These strips of bark had to be sewn to each other with currajong string and the seams next rudely caulked; then, when an outrigger had been fixed on, she was ready for inter-island navigation, and could stand some rough weather, too.

Now, Maparunga was a born shipwright in his humble, aboriginal way, and could manage a canoe after building it, and, moreover, could conceal it in so dexterous a manner beneath the mangroves, or up an inlet, as to look like part of its surroundings. This accomplishment was one often needed in the flight or pursuit of native warfare, when to swim across a creek swarming with sharks and alligators meant certain death. As yet the whites of this generation had not troubled the waters surrounding this lonely group. In the days probably of Maparunga’s great-grand- father a bluff-bowed ship had come there and stayed some time, the crew boating about, sounding, and using strange instruments. Finally, they had gone away with, if the natives only knew it, their island homes neatly charted and named by that captain who earned a deathless name for himself. Only the long, red island of Vanderlin retained the name given by the old Dutch sailor who saw it from a distance and called it Cape Vanderlin.

But Dutch and English had gone and their coming been forgotten in one generation, for black tradition lives but from father to son. Even the dusky Malays who once sailed their proas to the coast fishing for beche-de-mer, and who fought with the aborigines, had ceased their visits for many years, and were almost forgotten. So Maparunga, the canoe-maker, had never seen anyone but men of his own race. True, he had heard dimly of the whites from the natives of the mainland, but they came not through the broad fringe of mangrove swamps and slimy, oozy creeks; nor from the sea as Flinders had come; and Maparunga knew nothing of ships, save the light, frail vessels he built so well.

Maparunga had his camp in the inlet that bites into the middle of Centre Island. The camp was on a beach of pure, white sand laved by a sea of brilliant blue, so clear that fish and plants a fathom or so deep looked as though one could lean over the canoe side and grasp them. Behind were low, abrupt hills, rock-crowned, with jungle half-way up their sides out of which shot up here and there a tall and beautiful palm.

The sun was declining, and Maparunga’s attention was drawn to the approach of his gin laden with the afternoon’s hunting spoils. As he licked his lips in anticipation, a shrill call from the highest of the rocks behind him made him jump up and look. A blackfellow— Nimpoo, of his own tribe, and a friend of his— stood there beckoning eagerly, and Maparunga hastened through a native path in the jungle, up to the boulder-strewn summit, and joined the other. There Nimpoo grasped his shoulder and pointed northward, and away past the jutting-out reef of Craggie Island, on which the white surf never stops from breaking, they saw a strange and wonderful thing.

It was a great sea beast with white wings coming steadily on between Craggie Island and Yanderlin as though it was going to run right on to the black bank of mud and mangrove that marked the mainland.

Then Maparunga called to his wife, and she and his children and all in the camp covered up the fires with sand and ran into the jungle ; and all the blacks watched the strange beast until it came right opposite to where they were, but much closer to the red rocks of Vanderlin Island, and then, the strange thing from the wide sea where canoes cannot go far, shut up its wings and stopped, and the blacks watched it until the sun sank behind them over the top of West Island, where there is always good water and sometimes good roots to eat.

"When it is dark it will come over and eat us up," said the wife of Maparunga. "I shall stop in the scrub all night."

And the others all said the same except Nimpoo and Maparunga. They, too, watched with the others until two lights burned on the beast, and that was all they could see of it. Then Maparunga and Nimpoo got a canoe and went in the darkness to look at the beast with wings. But they did not paddle straight across, for they were cautious, as all of their race. They went across the open sea between them and  South West Island; on by the dark mangroves and black shadows where there are so many creeks, where at night the alligators splash and grunt in the mud. Still keeping their eyes on the two lights burning on the beast, Maparunga, the canoe-maker, and Nimpoo, his friend, paddled on, not frightened at the strange noises they heard to their right, for they were used to them. At last they reached the southern end of Vanderlin Island, and crept on close in shore until they were opposite the beast, then they stopped and listened, and heard men’s voices, and both guessed at once that it was a great big canoe and no beast, for, though they could not understand what was spoken, they knew they were men like themselves that they heard. Softly they paddled out, for it was a dark night, and went round and round the big canoe, and heard men talking loudly, as men talk before they fight. Then they went straight back, across the open water, and not round the long way by the mangrove shore; for they were much braver men now that they had found out what it was.

For a long half century, ever since the Endeavour had weighed her anchor, the silent group had been unvisited and unseen by Europeans. Now, a schooner had come down through the lifeless Carpenterian sea; wherein there is never a sail, and seldom a bird; and anchored under Vanderlin.

Chapter 2: What Maparunga saw on the Island of Vanderlin.

WHEN THE two natives arrived at their camps, they reassured the others, but told them to keep close, for the men might be bad men. Then, they took some food in the canoe and started back in the darkness to the island of red rocks. When they reached there, Maparunga, who was so skilful, hid the canoe so that no one could find it, and the two went high among the rocks, ate their food, and waited.

When the light came and the sun rose behind Vanderlin, they saw men on the big canoe moving about, and presently a little canoe, like their own, only bigger, fell into the water, and men— more than they knew how to count, came down the side of the big canoe into the small one. Four of them— they could count that number— sat by themselves, and four others, all alike, sat down one after the other, and, putting out long paddles, made the canoe move to the land.

Right below where the natives were hidden was a sandy beach, and to this the canoe came, turned round, and the four men who sat together got out, but the others stopped in the canoe. The four men walked off together a little way along the sand, and then they parted, and two walked away from the other two, but only for a short distance. After a very little while one man again walked away from each of the two, and left them standing turned partly away from each other. Suddenly, the two men turned their heads round, lifted one arm, and there was such lightning and thunder came out of their hands that Maparunga and Nimpoo were too frightened to look; but they both heard a shriek like a gin’s come across the sea from the big canoe.

When they looked up again one man was lying on the sand, with blood coming from him like a native who is speared, but the others all stood upright. Then two men went and looked at the one fallen down; then they came back to the man who stood quietly there, and said something to him, to which he bent his head. Next, they turned away and went back to the canoe; here one of the men who had waited put some things on the sand, and then four men came and carried the dead man away, and they all went back in the little canoe to the big one. The man who was left behind watched them go, standing quite still until the big canoe put up her white wings and moved away towards the sea where there is no one living. Then he lifted one hand, shook it, calling out aloud, and turning away put both hands before his eyes.

Maparungo and Nimpoo, watching the big canoe, saw something white fall from it into the sea. The big canoe turned round partly, a little canoe dropped into the water quickly, men jumped in, paddled off and, picking the white thing out of the sea again, took it back to the big canoe, and the big canoe went on, on, out of sight. Now, although Maparunga and Nimpoo saw this, the man did not, for when they turned to look at him again he was sitting on a rock with his head still buried in his hands.

This is the end of what Maparunga and Nimpoo saw on the Island of Vanderlin; only that the white man left behind made friends with them, and lived with their tribe for many years teaching them good things, until one day old Maparunga, the clever maker of canoes, told him of the white thing he and Nimpoo saw fall from the big canoe. Then the white man got very sad, and when they heard from other tribes that more white men were living on the mainland beyond the mangroves, he got them to take him up the salt-water river to some friendly tribes who knewjthe whites, and who took him on to his own people, for he never came back. But to the day of his death old Maparunga, the clever maker of canoes, looked out each morning to see a big canoe with wings coming from the sea where no man lives, bringing his white friend back again.

"IN A CERTAIN year, which I need not particularise, I, Lloyd Broughton, then newly-married, started on a long voyage in a schooner-rigged yacht, owned by two intimate friends of mine. On board were the two brothers Grenow, the owners of the yacht, my wife and her brother. We were out many months and visited Java, and touched at several other islands in the Coral Sea. Then, as my wife was anxious to see real savage, uncivilised country, we made south to the north coast of Australia, which we understood to be then unsettled. This led us to the scene of my crime and its expiation. If ever I loved a human being I loved my young wife. But I am, or was, of a morbidly jealous nature ; one of the wretched self-tormentors of this world who seek out doubts to construe and torture them into confirmation of their own vile and degrading suspicions. If any man who reads this does not kno w ho w jealousy destroys a man’s best impulses and changes his nature, let him humbly thank his Maker.

"Being so long on board together, this hateful thing within me led me to suspect that my wife’s affections had been transferred to the younger Grenow. Now, as I, a dying man, solemnly declare, there never was the slightest reason for such a wicked thought. And I am confident to the day of her death that my unhappy wife’s affection for me was unaltered; even after my crime of murdering the innocent man whom I wrongly suspected.

"Seeing then that no one but myself could have suspected the delusion that I at last believed to be the truth, my fatal outbreak of rage and wrath excited an almost equal storm of indignation in the other three men. We were just then sighting some part of the South Coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, a group of islands called the Sir Edward Pellew Group. I had conceived the wild idea that our purpose in visiting that lonely, unknown part was to leave me on shore— desert me, in fact, as opportunity offered. Nobody but a man goaded by jealousy, who is, after all, a madman, could have believed such a thought could be harboured in the breasts of my wife or my friends. In the end I was left— but, justly.

"My rage was so violent that they at last thought me mad, and were about to confine me, when I grew quite calm and insulted the younger Grenow so grossly and vilely that I awakened in him, his brother, and my wife’s brother, a mortal hatred equal to my own. That night we anchored close to a long, low island, with red, bare rocks on it. Our arrangements were made, and the conditions have been faithfully kept by all but me. I am murderer and perjurer— both.

"We were to proceed ashore and fight at sunrise, the conditions agreed to being that, after the duel, the survivor stayed on the island alone, bound never to return to Europe if he lived. This was what I insisted on in order that if I fell my adversary should not return in the yacht with my wife.

"We landed, and I shot Grenow through the heart at the first fire. I wonder his brother did not shoot me, but the conditions were honourably observed on their side, and I was left alive on the uninhabited island of Vanderlin.

"No sooner was the deed done and I alone, than the devil that had tempted me deserted me. At once remorse opened my eyes to the hideous crime of which I had been guilty. I had aspersed the fame of the woman I loved best on earth, murdered my friend, reduced myself to the condition of a worse than outcast Cain.

"From the depths of my anguish I was roused by the timid approach of two natives; they were friendly, and for years I lived with their tribe expiating my offence in the miserably degraded life of a savage.

"I taught then what I could, toying to do something in return for my wasted life; but O, the hideous agony of those years of lonely remorse ! One day old Maparunga, one of my rescuers, told me that he saw a white object drop from the side of the yacht and it was immediately rescued by a boat. At once the conviction flashed across me— a conviction I now know to be true— that my poor wife, hearing of my fate, had sprung overboard to try to swim to join me.

"From that moment I could rest no more; I must go back, in spite of my vow, make full confession of the injustice of my accusations, and die. I was no longer fit to live, even amongst savages.

"Hearing that white men were settling on the mainland I persuaded the blacks to take me to another friendly tribe, and so finally joined my countrymen. In time I worked to the more settled parts and earned enough to pay my passage to London. Here I found some friends who remembered me, and from them I learned that I was too late; my wife died of grief before the yacht reached home. I was doomed not even to make such wretched expiation as I tried to, I contrived to let the elder Grenow know of my return, and he at once demanded the fulfilment of the conditions— namely, that if the survivor broke his oath and returned he should either give himself up a self-confessed murderer, or kill himself. Since then he has sent me word to keep my wretched life, but this I do not want. I am writing this to send him as a proof of the wicked injustice of my charge against his brother."

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2: Blood For Blood

The Bulletin, 17 Dec 1892

SILENCE everywhere, the spell of heat on everything. Kites, which had been soaring on strong pinions away back in the dry country, swooping down on the grasshoppers, have had to come in to this lonely waterhole tired out and worried; and now sit dozing on the branches of the motionless coolibah. One who had left it too long has had only sufficient strength to reach the water and flounder in, and stands with bedraggled feathers moping at the edge of the muddy pool. There is no animal nor human life to be seen— just a round clay hole, a few withered polygonum bushes, and some gnarled and warped coolibah trees. Around lies a bare plain with a bewildering heat-mist hovering over it.

The slow, hot hours creep on. The sodden kite standing near the water suddenly topples over and falls dead; at times one of the others flops heavily down from its perch, takes a few sips and flies back again. These are the only sounds, the only living movements that break the stagnant monotony.

There is neither track of man nor beast to be seen, but for all that what was once a man is lying there beneath one of the shadeless trees. It has been lying there for over six months, so there is nothing very repulsive about the poor corpse but its shrivelled likeness to humanity. When it staggered in there alive the hole was dry, and it sank down and died. Since then a quick and angry thunderstorm has passed and partly filled the hole, too late. But no prowling dog has found the body, not even the venturesome crow has been to inspect it; the desert has protected it from white tooth and black beak, and it lies there dry and withered, but the form of a man— and a white man, still.

This is the story of that unburied, unwept, untended corpse. It is a story of thirst, of treachery, of revenge.

YEARS AGO, when stations were valuable and all things pastoral looked bright ahead, three men pushed out beyond the bounds of settlement in search of new country. Two of them were fast friends, although there was a considerable difference in their ages. The third was simply on the footing of ordinary friendship and of about the same age as the elder of the other two. The party was completed by a black boy.

Far beyond the lonely water-hole where the weary kites sit watching the silent dead, they came on to good country— fair, rolling downs and deep permanent holes. At one of these they fixed a camp and inspected the country on all sides with a view of dividing the runs fairly. One day the younger of the two friends and the third man went out together. They took a long excursion northward and finding no water, made, the next day, for a small hole they had passed on their way out. Fatal mistake— the hole was dry, with the body of a misled dingo rotting at the bottom, and with thirsty, tired horses, and nearly empty bags, they were now fifty miles from their camp, the nearest water.

They turned out for a short spell and lay down to catch a few moments of slumber. The young man slept soundly, dreaming of long, cool swims in a river; of watching it sparkling and leaping amongst the rocks; then he awoke suddenly to find himself companionless in the desert. He raised himself on his elbow and looked around. The clear starlight showed him nothing; he was actually alone; his mate and all the horses were gone. He went to where they had hung the water-bags on a tree. They were gone, too. He comprehended it all. His treacherous friend had taken the two freshest horses and the remnant of the water, and started for the camp, trusting that one would get there where two could not. The other two horses had probably followed of their own accord, to die in their tracks.

He had no hope that his companion meant to come back with succour. A man who could do such a deed would never suffer his victim to bear witness against him. He had the choice of two deaths— a lingering one where he was, or a quicker one in a desperate attempt to gain the camp. He chose the latter. He had no expectation that his own old friend would come to his relief, for he guessed he would be deceived by some specious lie.

When the end came, as it soon did, and he fell for the last time, he prayed with his dying breath that the man who had wrought his death might die as he did.

LATE that night the survivor, with one remaining horse, reached the camp, and told the anxious occupant how his friend had died of thirst; how he had helped him on to the last, and only left his body when aid was useless and his own life in jeopardy.

"I must start at daylight and bring his body in if possible," was the answer at last. Then one lay down to sleep the sleep of exhaustion, the other to watch and mourn.

Over-tired men seldom sleep soundly. Some rambling words from the haunted sleeper roused the watcher’s attention. He listened, as the dreamer restlessly babbled out his secret. He understood it all, and for an instant his hand was on his revolver; but no. He would have proof, then—

Next morning, with the black boy, he was on his way before the stars were paling. Proof was easily forthcoming by the tracks. The body of his young friend lay by itself on the plain; no horse-tracks led to it, none from it. He had died by himself, and the story of staying with him to the last was false. What use in following the trail back further? He returned to the camp with vengeance in his heart.

It was easily done. The other suspected nothing. One morning the two rode out together for a last look to the southward before returning. Twenty miles from the camp they stopped at a scanty belt of timber; beyond was nothing but a boundless plain.

"Get up one of the trees," said the avenger, "you may be able to see a little better from that elevation."

The other dismounted and complied. He stood on the highest limb, no great height, and looked all around; nothing visible but the blue mirage. He looked below. His companion was a hundred yards, or more, away leading his horse. He stopped for an instant and turned in his saddle, and the words smote on the listener’s ear hotter than the blazing sun-beams:

"As you served that poor murdered boy, so I serve you. If by any miracle you survive and I hear of you again amongst men I will take your life wherever I find you."

Then he turned and rode away, deaf to calls and entreaties.

Stumbling over the plain, now cursing in impotent rage, now begging and praying for mercy, the guilty man followed the silent figure leading the horse. Followed it until his sweat-blinded eyes could see no longer, and the poor, abandoned wretch felt the lonely horror of the desert encircle him, for he knew he should never see the face of his fellow man again.

He reached the camp during the night. It was deserted. The threat was carried out to the letter. Aye, more, for a ghost sat there by the dead embers, that he only could see, but it drove him forth into the night, and with desperate, hopeless purpose he made for the haunts of men. Who knows what he suffered before his dying footsteps led him to the dry hole, and he crawled under the nearest shade to pant his life out?

NEXT morning the recruited birds take wing for the drought-smitten plains once more, leaving the body of their comrade to keep company with that of the murderer.

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3: The Other Mrs Brewer

Bulletin, 14 Dec 1895

BREWER convulsed society, such as it was, on the Upper Bass River, by bringing a young and pretty wife with him when he returned to the station after a prolonged visit to Melbourne. It was not thought fair that he should thus take everyone unprepared, for society on the Bass was, in those days, exclusively male and in a very primitive state. However, his neighbours accepted the situation with the best possible grace, and blue-eyed Mrs. Brewer, plunging into bush-life with all the ardour of a young bride, was generally voted a jolly little woman.

Unfortunately, she was young and comparatively innocent of the ways of the wicked world, and there was no discreet matron to “let her down easily.” Which brought trouble on Brewer, although it was mainly his own fault for holding himself up to his admiring wife as a man superior to the common failings of humanity.

It was one of those beautifully clear mornings which usually follow a heavy thunderstorm. Brewer, now two months married, was in a most contented frame of mind. The thunderstorm had come just when needed, and had fallen so exactly where it would do most good that Brewer, as he stood in the verandah and watched the black-boy bring up the paddock horses, felt that Providence must have had an especial eye for his interests.

Little Mrs. Brewer was in the kitchen preparing breakfast, and, as her husband turned to enter the living-room, he was astonished to see her hasten into the house with a very perturbed countenance and rush into her bedroom. Brewer followed, full of anxiety. Mrs. Brewer had thrown herself face-downwards on the bed and was sobbing as though her heart was broken.

Deeply distressed and alarmed, Brewer flew to her side, and, while attempting to raise her, begged earnestly to know the cause of her trouble. It was only after half-an-hour’s petting, when the big, convulsive sobs had grown somewhat less, that she consented to turn her wet face round and gasp out:

"There s a wo-wo-man in the kit-kitchen who says she’s Mrs. Brew- Brew- Brewer!”

"What! cried Brewer, "what can you mean? What is she like?”

“Oh! do-do-don’t ask me. She’s a b-br-brunette, and I heard you say once you li-li-liked dark women. O! I want to die!"— and with a fresh burst of weeping she again cast herself down

Brewer was aghast. However, plainly the only thing to do was to go and investigate, so he hurried to the kitchen. A comely, buxom black gin, attired in the usual costume of a short skirt, was squatting by the fire. She looked over her shoulder and grinned pleasantly at Brewer

“Hang you, Betty!” he cried, “what for you come here? Mine bin tell it blackfellow no more walk about alonga station.”

“Yowi,” she returned, “me want baccy, me want see-em white Mary.”

“I’ll baccy you,” screamed Brewer, talking nonsense in his wrath. “Clear out to camp! you bin saucy fellow alonga Missy Brewer!”

The gin arose, sulkily. “Bal mine bin saucy fellow; only yabba name belonging me. Missy Brur alsame sit down alonga white Mary.”

“The devil you did!” said Brewer, and, snatching a stockwhip from a nail on the slabs, he threatened his visitor, who retired slowly and scornfully. Then Brewer went back to his weeping wife.

“Why, Rosie, you silly little woman! it’s only one of the blacks from the camp. When they first came in, years ago, we nicknamed them all, and it was some stupid joke of one of the fellows to call this woman ‘Mrs. Brewer.’ Why, there’s Mr. Gladstone, and Sam Griffith, and Lady Loftus, and all names like that amongst them; and very proud of them they are. ”

By this time Brewer had got her on to his knee, but she still persistently hung her head over his shoulder and moaned: “Send me home to mother, Harry. I am sure I shall— booh— die soon.”

Gradually the storm was spent, like the thunder-storm of the night before, and, at last, she consented to wash her face and come to breakfast.

But although a newly-married man like Brewer flattered himself that it was all over, anyone more experienced in the ways of women would have seen at a glance that Mrs. Brewer accepted her husband’s lame explanation with much salt, and intended pursuing private investigations on her own account.

After breakfast Brewer went out on the run, and his wife, having finished her domestic duties, started out with Buck, the blackboy, who was to conduct her to the blacks’ camp a couple of miles away. Poor little Mrs. Brewer, brought up in a country part of Victoria, had never seen any but the "civilised” blacks of that province. Brewer had banished all the aborigines from about the station.

They came upon the camp suddenly and unexpectedly, and there she saw, for the first time, the noble savage on his native heath, One horrified glance was enough— to Buck’s astonishment she turned her horse’s head and fled back to the homestead. Before reaching the slip-rails she recovered herself and allowed Buck to catch her, as she had a few questions to ask. First, what was the name of the gin who had come up to the kitchen in the morning?

“Betty.”

Secondly, were any of the blacks called “Mr. Gladstone,” or “Sam Griffith”? Buck shook his head hopelessly— he had never heard of such names.

Mrs. Brewer bit her lip and rode straight home.

Brewer returned lifting a song— for was not “confidence” once more restored?

Mrs. Brewer met him in her new character of iceberg. He interviewed Buck and found out about the visit to the camp; having given poor Buck a sound hiding to relieve his feelings, he went in and lectured Mrs. Brewer on the impropriety of her conduct until she burst into tears and locked herself in her bedroom. Brewer felt better after that; he had asserted himself.

He passed a miserable evening. Mrs. Brewer refused either to see or to speak to him, although he yelled through the keyhole that he was going down to the men’s hut to play euchre all night, which was the direst threat he could think of. He did not go there, however— he just got some rum out of the store and went to sleep in a verandah until he awoke with the sun in the morning, covered with mosquito-bites, but radiant with an idea, a perfect inspiration. After a swim down in the river he returned in the sunniest of tempers. Mrs. Brewer came to breakfast without an appetite, and with a martyr’s face.

"I have been thinking,” said Brewer, “that until we can get a married couple up, one of the black gins would be very handy to help you in the kitchen. The one who was up yesterday morning has been in the kitchen at Tomkins’ place.”

The guileless woman walked right into the trap, but she threw her little stone first.

“The one who was christened Mrs. Brewer as a joke?”

“Yes. Betty, her name is. She might be very useful to you.”

Rosie, with suppressed excitement, signified her assent to the arrangement, and next day Betty was installed as kitchen-maid.

Betty was a talkative gin with a great gift of blacks patter, and, flattered by the preference shown her, she rattled on with scores of anecdotes about all the whites in the district which, fortunately Mrs. Brewer did not half understand. Artfully, as she thought, she questioned Betty about herself. Had she a piccaninny? O yes Betty had a budgeree boy. Would she bring it up for Mrs Brewer to see? Betty brought the budgeree boy up that afternoon, and, with a jealous scrutiny, Mrs. Brower eagerly inspected.

He was two years old, and the blackest, ugliest young combo ever seen. The most suspicious individual could not have traced any white blood in him.

“And who’s your husband, Betty?” inquired the now-smiling Mrs. Brewer.

Betty stared without answering.

"Piccaninny, father?” explanatorily continued the repentant Rosie, pointing to the child, which had, of course, been borrowed from the camp for the occasion.

“Mine bin lose-em,” muttered Betty, who had not forgotten her lesson. “That one Sam! Sam Grissif! Yowi, Sam Grissif.”

BREWER and his wife have lived happily ever since. And Brewer always asserts that the foundation of domestic felicity is to have no secrets from your wife.

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4: My Only Murder

The Bulletin 16 Dec 1893

IT WAS SIMPLY a choice between killing a man, and outraging all the finer sensibilities of my nature. Had I not done the deed I should have had to appear in another man's eyes as a coldblooded, selfish ingrate. I swear to you that it was to spare the feelings of both of us that I took upon myself the terrible responsibility of slaying a fellow-creature.

Do I regret the deed? Not at all.

Twelve years ago, I was just coming to the end of my term of partnership in a North Queensland station, and well pleased I was to get out of it, for pastoral property was falling rapidly. My two partners were not so happy over the matter. The rate at which they were buying me out had, under our agreement, been fixed some time previously, and as prices had since steadily fallen, they had to pay me more than the market value. But, then, had stations gone up, as was anticipated by them when the rate was agreed upon, I should have been forced to accept less than the market value, so it was just the fortune of war.

I had to be up on the station by a fixed date, the wet season had arrived, and there was not a day to spare. If I did not attend on the date specified for delivery, it might form a pretext for the other side to repudiate their bad bargain. The rain came down steadily, and I knew that my work was cut out to reach the place in time. Once across the Banderoar river, I was safe, but when I arrived on the bank it was a swim, and fast rising. There was too much at stake to hesitate; crocodiles or not, I must cross. My horse could swim well, I knew, and so could I. It was growing late, so, without more ado, I undressed, strapped my clothes on the saddle, unbuckled the reins, crossed the stirrup-leathers in front, and started.

As soon as old Hielandman (my horse) was out of his depth and swimming straight, I slipped off and swam alongside him. We were nearly two-thirds of the way across when suddenly Hielandman struck against a submerged snag. The shock and the strong current made me foul him, and ere I could get clear he had clipped me on the head with his fore-foot. I don't remember much about what happened immediately afterwards, only it seemed mighty hard to drown just as I was about to retire with a small competency and get married. Then I felt cold, and oh! so sick, and, after an interval, I found myself ashore with a great singing in my ears and a taste in my mouth as though I had swallowed all the flood-water in North Queensland.

I had been pulled out by one of a party of men camped on the bank I was making for. He had bravely jumped in without waiting to undress, and after being nearly drowned himself, had dragged me ashore. He was standing by the fire wringing out his wet clothes, and, with the glow of new-born life within me, I thought he was the most glorious fellow I had ever seen.

'By Jove, old man!' he said to me cheerily, 'if I had waited to take my trousers off you would have been feeding the crocodiles now.'

I did not doubt it, and I told him how deeply grateful I felt, and how I could never thank him sufficiently. To die just then would have been especially bitter, and I said so.

Hielandman had got free of the snag and swum to land safely. Beyond the lump on my head there was no damage done. My new friends were a party of drovers returning from delivering a mob of cattle. I camped with them that night, and next morning, with a light heart, departed for my destination. Needless to say, I had assured Jenkins, my rescuer, of my undying gratitude, and told him that whenever he desired it, my home should be his home, and my purse his purse. He took it all very nicely, told me that he was sure I would have done the same for him, that he wanted nothing; but to oblige me, if ever he did become 'stone broke' he would remember my kind offer.

TWELVE YEARS elapsed. The money I had received for my share of I he station had, by judicious investment, turned into a nice little fortune. I was married to a wife exactly suited to me, we had three healthy children, and lived in good style in one of the prettiest suburbs of Sydney. I had often told my wife of the gallant way in which Jenkins, whom I had never since seen, plunged into the flooded river and rescued me, and she as often said that it would crown the happiness of her life to see him and thank him with her own lips.

One day I was accosted in George street by a bearded and sunburnt bushman dressed in unmistakeable slop clothes, who seized me by the hand and ejaculated, 'But for being told, I should never have known you. You look a different sort of fellow to what you did when I pulled you out of the Banderoar. By love, old man, had I waited to take off my trousers you'd have been a gone coon!' It was Jenkins, my preserver.

I was delighted to see him and insisted on his coming out to stay with me. He agreed willingly, and I was at last able to present to my wife the saviour of her husband. That she was disappointed, I could see; but, being a good little woman, she did not let the guest observe it. Truth to tell, I somehow shared her sentiments. I had, perhaps, rather over done my description, and had made my wife expect to see something akin to one of Ouida's heroes. Jenkins certainly did show to better advantage at his own camp fire than in town in his newly-creased reach-me-downs, but we forgave all that, and made him royally welcome. At dinner he was rather awkward, and insisted on telling my wife the story of my rescue twice over, always emphasising the fact that, had he stopped to doff his trousers, I should have been drowned.

From that date there commenced an ordeal which I would not willingly— nay, one which I could not— again endure. When Jenkins gained a little confidence he became argumentative and dictatorial. I am a sociable man, and my house was a favourite with my friends, but Jenkins sat upon them all. He asserted his opinions loudly and emphatically, and when unacquainted with the place or topic under discussion, always had some friend of the past to quote who knew all about it. He held views on the labour troubles which were rank heresy to my circle of pastoral friends, but never did he hesitate to loudly assert them. And yet he was a good fellow, evidently looking upon me as a sort of a creation of his own.

'Ah!' he would say, as we stood regarding my pretty house, the sunny, flowering garden, and the children playing on the lawn, 'we should never have seen this if you had gone to the bottom of the Banderoar. If I had stopped to take off' -

I felt this, too, and wrung his hand in response. Perhaps that very evening we had a small dinner-party, and when I saw a demure smile steal over everybody's face, I knew that in the coming silence I should hear Jenkins describing what would have happened had he 'stopped to pull'— Then, I could have slain him. We had not a lady friend to whom he had not confided, in a loud voice, that singular instance of his presence of mind in refraining from undressing. Those male friends whom Jenkins had not insulted, I had quarrelled with on account of their frivolity in always asking me if 'Jenkins had taken his trousers off yet?'

But the worst of it was that the dear fellow really believed that he was affording me the most exquisite happiness in entertaining him. He was convinced that for twelve years I had been pining to pay off my debt, and that now I was enraptured. He was my shadow and reverenced everything belonging to me. How could I break this charm by declaring that I was tired of him? It would have been worse than heartless.

At last my patient wife began to grow short-tempered and restless. She told me plainly once that Jenkins had not pulled her out of the Banderoar, and that she did not see why she should put up with him any longer. I tried to point out that as she and I were one it really amounted to the same thing, but she replied that it certainly did not. We were not married when it happened, and if I had been drowned she would have married somebody else— perhaps someone not oppressed by having barnacled to him a devoted rescuer who was eternally advertising that he had not taken off his trousers.

I felt that a climax neared— and that something must be done to prevent the breaking up of my once happy home. At times I meditated investing a portion of my capital in a small selection somewhere and getting Jenkins to go and look after it for me, but he expressed himself as being contented where he was, and so greatly averse to returning to the bush, that I abandoned the ideas. Now, too, he began to indulge in sheepish flirtations with the maids, and my wife sternly requested me to 'speak to your friend.' I attempted to do so, but when I saw his mild, affectionate eyes gazing at me and knew that he was thinking of the time when he struggled beneath the muddy flood waters without taking off his trousers, I broke down. I could not wound his gentle heart.

It came to me suddenly— the inspiration, the solution of the difficulty. Jenkins must die!

Once resolved, I acted. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help it, any more than Deeming could help killing his wives, or Mr Neill Cream could help poisoning all those poor girls in London. Jenkins was a friendless bushman; I was a man with responsibilities and a family. Their happiness stood first, and it was kinder to Jenkins to kill him at once than to undeceive him.

I shall not enter into details as to the carrying out of my design. Enough to say that it was perfectly successful. I have no intention of teaching the art of murder made easy. Jenkins died peacefully and painlessly. The doctor said that his constitution had been undermined by exposure and hardship. When he was confined to his bed my wife forgave him everything, and nursed him with unremitting care. I have even seen tears in the poor little woman's eyes as she murmured that she was afraid we should lose him. Other people came to see him, and he passed away happy in the firm belief that he left behind him a large circle of sorrowing friends.

I buried him in my own ground in Waverley cemetery, and erected a neat stone with a suitable inscription, stating that he had risked his life in preserving me from death.

All my old friends are back again. Everybody has told me what a manly fellow I was, and how they admired my social pluck in not looking coldly upon an old benefactor who did not happen to be quite up to the Government House standard of dress and manners. My conscience is easy.

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5: The Burial of Owen

Bulletin, 15 Dec 1894

OWEN MACALISTER and his wife were a worthy pioneer couple who had risen to the comfortable position they occupied by dint of hard work and self-denial. The old man was tall, gaunt, and as hard as nails. He had toiled until he had raised a team of bullocks, he had worked till he had two.He had gone on working, until now he had flocks and herds and a large bank-balance.

His wife had, of course, degenerated into the usual dried-up mummy of the bush, with washed-out eyes and no interest outside the daily routine of house-labour. The couple had retained the somewhat primitive habits of their early days, but they had bestowed a most liberal education on their two surviving children— a boy and a girl— the boy much the elder. But when these two grew up, naturally with comparatively refined ideas, they still could not effect much alteration in the domestic habits of the station. Old Owen was as stubborn as a working bullock; and Mrs. Macalister would have died before she allowed that anything more could be desired than the rough comfort of the place.

Naturally both the young people chafed at this, especially when contrasting it with the habits of neighbors, not nearly so well off, who were now their equals and companions. Both, however, had sense enough to submit to the inevitable, and, being of sterling metal, stood by their parents loyally and made the best of it. Young Owen artfully got his father to supply him with funds and stock to take up country in Northern Queensland, and shortly afterwards pretty Jennie's bright eyes captured the heart of my particular friend, Fred Grashaw. So both of them had a future to look forward to, and managed to put up with the present.

Poor Owen, the younger! I went North about the same time as he did, and we became neighbors there as we had been formerly in the old district. Gulf-fever carried him off in less than two years, and when I went South I packed up his few personal effects and took them down with me.

Of course the news of his death was some months old when I arrived, and though I keenly felt the gloominess of the occasion I did not anticipate any scene when I took the things over. Crashaw went with me.

Now, amongst poor Owen's traps was a plan of his new run which he had himself constructed. He was no great draughtsman, and had drawn it on a large scale, especially, I think, to impress and please the old man. The mounted paper it was on measured something like 4 x 4 in feet. So it was a goodly roll.

While the old mother whimpered silently over her dead son's clothes, and big tears formed in and fell from pretty Jennie's eyes, Crashaw, meanwhile, whispering words of comfort, old Owen, with his lips firmly set, sat at the table pondering over the map.

"You have been on the country yourself, Mr. Craven ?" he asked.

"Certainly'many times. We were neighbors."

And it would have made a fine cattle-station had my boy lived ? "

"One of the best pieces of country about there."

The Old man was silent, and I felt for him. I could see he was thinking of the now impossible future when he should some day go up there to visit his only son on his own place. It was a cruel stroke of Fate.

"I am glad to have seen that much, at any rate," he murmured. "Come!" he continued getting up, "I am going to bury our Owen." He rolled the map up carefully and left the room.

Nobody understood him. Mrs. Macalister, mother-like, still cried over her lost boy's clothes, and the lovers were occupied with each other. I followed the old man out. For a while I could not find him then I saw him digging under a tree.

I approached. He had made a shallow grave, in which to put the roll of paper, and was about to bury it solemnly

"Are they coming?" he asked. I mumbled something, and turned towards the house, but the old man detained me. "No, no!" he said; "we will wait. " He handed me a prayer-book, open at the burial-service, and reverently placed the map of the run in the grave. "My eyes are not good," he explained.

What could I do ? It would have been useless to expostulate, and useless to refuse. I had to read the burial-service, as I had once done formerly over the body of young Owen himself, and, at the thought of that, I lifted my hat and read it again reverently. The old man covered in the grave, as, in one sense, it truly was, and we proceeded back to the house.

He took his seat at the table, and smote it a mighty blow with his still hard and sinewy fist, a blow which made us all start.

"I forgive you, mother," he said, "but—" (and he looked at Jennie and Crawshaw) "why did you not come and attend our Owen's burial?"

The two looked at each other and at Macalister.

"Awe," he continued, "his burial, I say, for have I not just now buried his hopes, and mine?"

His voice broke, and, for the moment, I thought that the temporary aberration of intellect which possessed him would pass, but his nature was too stubborn.

"Jennie," he went on, "Owen is dead. I command you to leave that man— that man who would not do him honor at the last; and you, Mr. Crashaw, leave my house !"

Jennie's eyes flashed defiance, and Crashaw, making a step forward, commenced:—"Mr. Macalister, how was I to know that—"

But the old man would not let him speak.

"Leave my house," he repeated.

"Father," said Jennie, " what can you mean?"

Neither Fred nor myself could possibly know what you intended."

"I said it plainly enough," the old father repeated. "Mr. Craven !" he went on; "you stood by my boy's grave, you stood with me just now when we buried his hopes, and mine. You are a true man. Will you have my Jennie?"

Up to this, the scene had been intensely painful. The bitter disappointment to the old man's strong, self-contained nature, caused by the loss of his last son and all that was bound up in him, was most moving; but now! Jennie and I had always been good friends, but as for being man and wife— we were as far asunder as the poles.

Jennie gave a terrified start, and Crashaw glowered.

"Macalister!" I said, "I would have been most proud, but, unfortunately, I am about to be married to a young lady in, in— North Queensland."

Heaven forgive me for such a lie, but it was the only thing I could think of.

The old man rose. "Mr. Crashaw, this is the third time I have requested you to leave my house. "

Jennie and I both added a look of entreaty, and he left.  I spoke to the old woman, who had been dazed by her husband's conduct, and with a nod of encouragement to Jennie, shook the old man's hand and joined my friend outside.

"And all this trouble comes of you bringing down that infernal sheet of paper," he remarked spitefully, as we rode home.

And all this trouble comes of you insisting on riding over with me in order to catch a glimpse of Jennie," I retorted. We rode on in silence.

"And what's to come of it?" he asked at last.

To this I could not reply. When it was evident that the old man's life had come to sudden block, who was to tell how he would surmlouint the obstacle? A life such as his, a masterful life, could not be baulked without someone suffering!

We parted, of course, on the best of terms; but still— Crashaw could not help his temper. Next morning I thought I would ride over and see how things were progressing, as my friend was debarred from doing so. Turning the last bend about half a mile from the place, I met a man coming so fast that he nearly ran into me.

"Mr Craven, I was coming for you," he said as he pulled up.

I guessed as much and pushed on. Jennie met me outside the door.

"Don't, don't, promise anything," she sobbed.

Macalister lay on his deathbed: of that one glance assured me. His big heart was broken.

"Mr. Craven," he said, as I sat on the chair and took his hand. "As a true man, promise me this." His voice broke, and I stooped lower.

"Wife!" he suddenly called, and thrust out his shrunken hand, she was there, and, at the call Jennie came in and I put her in my place. It was right he should die with those he had toiled for beside him.

I heard him say "Jennie;" then, "Owen!" with such a tone of love in the last name; and one of the grandest old men I ever knew had gone for another incarnation.

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6: The Red Lagoon

The Bulletin, 23 April, 1892

'WHERE are you going to camp to-night?' asked Mac., the bullocky, as I stopped to have a yarn for a few minutes, on my road down from the tableland.

'I was going to push on to the Red Lagoon; there's good feed there, I hear.'

'Hanged if I'd camp there by myself for any money.'

'Why? Are the blacks bad?'

'No fear, it's the safest place in the North. No nigger will come within ten miles of it.'

'What's up then; devil-devil?'

'So they say, perhaps you'll see if you camp there tonight. I had a mate nearly frightened into the horrors there once. It took nearly a case of whisky to get him straight again. Well, I must be moving. So long!'

Mac. straightened his bullocks up, and I resumed my journey.

It was sundown when I got to the Red Lagoon— so called from a small reddish weed that covered its surface. There was beautiful feed there, and I felt that all the spooks in the world should not prevent me turning out for the night and giving my horses a good show. It was dark before I finished tea, for the twilights are short in tropical Queensland; I had made up a comfortable bed of grass and having fixed up everything snug, lay down for a good smoke. It was a moonless night, and quite calm. Only for the clink of the hobble chains, the tinkle of the bell, and an occasional snort from my horses, there was not a sound to be heard. One has to camp out alone night after night in the bush to thoroughly appreciate the companionship of a horse. As it grew a little chilly I poked up the fire, made myself comfortable under the blankets, and went off into the sleep of the just.

I must have dreamt that I was fighting alligators at the mouth of the Albert River, and that a fearful splashing was going on; at least, that was the impression under which I drowsily came to my senses.

The splashing still continued, however, and came from the lagoon.

'One of the horses has got in and can't get out,' was my first thought, and I jumped up and went in the direction of the sound. All was still when I reached the bank, and by the light of the stars the surface appeared placid and unruffled. Then, for the first time, a superstitious thrill went through me, but I soon shook it off, and, after listening a little longer, I returned to my camp, renewed the fire, and went to see if my horses were all right. The tinkle of the bell in the distance guided me to them; and I found them feeding greedily and contentedly. I remained with them during the time I smoked the heel of a pipe just to get myself into a proper 'daylight' frame of mind, then went back to my blankets.

It was a little while 'ere I went off to sleep, for an owl gave me a start by suddenly commencing to bark right over my head. However, I did drop off and dreamt a very strange dream, I call it a dream, but to me it seemed real enough at the time.

I was awakened, so I thought, once more by the splashing, but this time I had somehow no inclination to inquire into the cause of it. Presently it ceased, and I heard something come stumbling towards my camp. Still I felt neither fear nor any desire to move. The object came into the circle of light and squatted by the fire.

It was an elderly white man, with a remarkably long, grey beard. He was bare-headed, and his shirt and trousers were wet through and clung to him. But that was not all. His head and beard were covered with blood, one eye had been smashed in, and spear-wounds were visible in his cheeks and neck. As to his body, one could not tell, but his shirt was blood-soaked, and the blood dripped from his wrists as he held his hands towards the fire. It was not until I had fully taken in all those details and the hideously gashed face, with its one eye, looked at me across the fire, that terror— unreasoning terror— over-mastered me. Then I felt an impulse to yell and jump up, but I was dumb and powerless. The thing arose, and glaring at me with its single eye, suddenly rang a furious peal on a horse-bell.

This broke the charm. I started up; it was broad daylight, the horses had fed back close to camp, and the one with the bell on was just giving himself a vigorous shake.

'WHAT'S the yarn about the Red Lagoon?' I asked Jack Sullivan, the super of the station, where I camped next night.

'Well,' he said, 'there is a yarn about it, and a very stupid one, too. Why do you ask, you camped there last night. See anything?'

I told him I had been awakened by some mysterious splashing in the lagoon.

'Fish. Lots of big ones there; always jump on dark nights. This is the yarn, some of it, of course, is true— it's a matter of history: You know, this country was settled early in the sixties, and afterwards abandoned; all the stations thrown up and the district deserted. This run was one of them, although the old homestead was in a different place. There was a deuce of a lot of 'dispersing,' and cattle-killing going on, and the then manager and some others caught a lot of blacks— all sorts and sexes— at the Red Lagoon, and made short work of the crowd. The blacks, of course, took to the water and were most of them shot in it. Now comes in the embroidery. The lagoon was said to have been quite clear then and has since become covered with the red weed that gives it its name. A natural process I have often witnessed where no one has been killed.

'The super, an elderly man, was afterwards killed by the blacks when camped at the same place. Some of them have since confessed that he took to the water and that they hunted him from side to side until he died. Anyhow, it's true that he was found half in the water, with his head and face frightfully battered, and spear wounds all over. From what I know of them I should say that he was knocked on the head when asleep, and that they then chopped him about and threw his body in the lagoon.'

'Do the blacks ever camp there now?'

'No. But that is not singular. They nearly always shun a place where they have murdered a white man. I know of many instances.'

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7: Tommy's Ghost

The Bulletin, 22 Feb 1890

TOMMY came back from the township full to the chin, and, in addition, brought two bottles of rum with him. He began to talk long before he got in sight of the hut, where he lived with George, another stockman, and old Ben, who cooked for them. So reprehensibly careless was he in getting off his horse when he did arrive that only for the presence of mind of old Ben the two bottles would assuredly have been smashed. Ben, however, thoughtfully saved the bottles and let Tommy fall, instead of doing as a new-chum would have done— saving Tommy and letting the bottles fall. George took the saddle off his horse, and Tommy subsided on to his bunk and went off smiling peacefully.

"Doesn't seem to have touched them," said Ben, examining the two bottles carefully, whilst George got a couple of pannikins.

"I expect he had another one with him," suggested George, after they had taken a swill at the water-bag and each had sighed deeply.

"What! and drank the whole blessed lot of it!" cried Ben, with an air of the deepest and most awful disgust.

George nodded. "Think he'd have come all the way without a nip?" he retorted, with conviction in his voice.

Ben looked more than convinced. "The mean little dog! Hang it all, we'll run his track back in the morning to make sure. Perhaps he dropped the other bottle," he added, hopefully.

George shook his head as he refilled his pannikin and passed the bottle to Ben. "Might be some left in it, perhaps," he hazarded.

Then they both sat down for a while, filled their pipes and looked with disdain on the snoring culprit.

Presently Ben got the tea ready, and after an appetiser the two sat down to their meal. In the middle of it Tommy woke up and demanded a drink, and George promptly supplied him with water. But this was not all to Tommy's taste,— rum was what he wanted.

The two looked doubtfully at each other: such a pity to waste good liquor on a man incapable of appreciating it. Then Ben rose to the occasion. He took the rum-bottle and poured a mere trifle in a pannikin, then he put in a fair allowance of cold tea from a billy that had been standing since dinner-time. Tommy drank it and was content, there was the colour and smell of rum about it, and that was enough; he subsided again.

After the decks had been cleared George and the cook sat down to a game of euchre, and were just enjoying the first nip out of the second bottle when Tommy commenced to make himself a nuisance again, and this time no amount of cold tea would satisfy him.

"Hang the little beggar!" said George at last, after putting him back in his bunk fur the third time; "I'll tie him down."

"That's it," said Ben, "then we can have our game in peace. "

George got the greenhide leg-rope and between them they took two good turns right round Tommy, bunk and all, pinioning his arms to his side. Having made all fast with two half-hitches they returned to their unfinished game, leaving Tommy to howl and swear horribly, of which permission he took the fullest advantage.

"What do you say?" said Ben when they were about to turn in, and he meditatively regarded the last half of the second bottle which they had agreed to keep until the morning; "shall we give him one and then untie him?" Tommy had been quiet for some time and George looked at him critically.

"He might be foxing, you know, and get up when we were asleep and' polish all this off, no matter where we plant it."

"And if he didn't find it he might get the horrors and knock one of us on the head when we were asleep," said Ben.

"Just so. I'll stop awake and untie him in about an hour's time," suggested George.

This they both agreed was the very best plan, but, unfortunately, the rum was potent, and, although George meant to stop awake to watch Ben in order to see he didn't tap the morning's supply, and Ben meant to do the same with Bob, they had no sooner laid down than both were fast asleep at once and the sun up an hour before they awoke.

"Tommy's very quiet," said Ben, "look how he's twisted his head over the bunk ?"

George went over to him, lifted his head back, and untied the leg-rope ; then, his eyes having got some of the sleep out of them, lie looked a little closer

"Yow!" he yelled, "He's dead!"

"Be hanged!" roared George, rushing over. There was no doubt about it, and the unfortunate little fellow must have died of apoplexy.

One looked piteously at the other, and then, with shaking hands, they sought out the half bottle, and after a couple of stiff drinks felt a little more courage. The next question was, what was to be done?

Go into the head station and report, and say nothing about the rope business. Agreed nem. con.

George went down the paddock for a couple of horses, and Ben carefully waited outside the hut until he returned. Then they saddled up and started to ride in the ten miles leaving poor Tommy dead on the bunk.

Naturally there was consternation at the head station, and the super, who was a J.P., started back with the two survivors, accompanied by a jackeroo who owned a prayer-book, to inspect and inter poor Tommy. Still greater was the consternation when they arrived at the out-station for there was no Tommy to inter. The corpse had disappeared. In vain Ben and George pointed to the bunk as if that was sufficient proof of Tommy's decease. The super was not to be convinced; the whole thing was a drunken spree, and in high wrath he gave the culprits a week to clear out or find Tommy, and departed home.

Ben and George sat and looked at each other, and the situation was beyond them; they smoked sullenly till darkness came before they thought of turning to get some tea. Then Ben went to work to light a fire and George picked up the bucket and went down to the creek for water.

Ben was busy fanning the smoky embers with his hat, when he heard a yell of terror that nearly took the roof off the hut, then came the sounds of flying feet towards the place. Ben's heart stood still, but his presence of mind did not desert him. With great pluck and promptitude he slammed the door in the face of George and his pursuer, and left them to fight it out outside.

In vain George beat frantically at the slabs and appealed for help. Ben was adamant. "If the devil takes it out of George he'll let me off," he thought. But despair made George desperate, and he burst the door in at length and appeared with his face full of terror and his hands full of splinters.

"Tommy's ghost!" was all he could exclaim, "tackled me at the creek and beat me up here with a leg-rope."

Ben trembled with horror, and they both looked helplessly at each other. "Listen," whispered George, "he's coming!"

Steps were certainly approaching, and, trembling with fright, the two crouched under the furthest bunk, which certainly was not the one where Tommy died. The fire had now burnt up bright and clear and, to their horror, the hidden pair saw the corpse of poor Tommy walk into the hut. The apparition stalked over to the fire and, to their added horror, they noticed that it carried a bottle of rum under its arm. The ghost looked sternly round, and the guilty ones wondered that it did not hear the drops of sweat pattering off their foreheads to the ground. At last it seemed to find what it wanted— a pannikin— but a further search revealed no water, and, with a sigh of heartfelt relief, they watched it depart towards the creek. They stole out, moist with fear and spoke in whispers.

"Shall we hook it before it comes back?"

"It might catch us in the dark—"

"Ooh! here it is again," and there in the doorway stood the ghost, sternly contemplating them. It raised the pannikin to its lips, drained it, and then, shaking the rum-bottle at the trembling couple, said, tauntingly, in sepulchral tones: "Not one blooming drop shall you coves have, if you've got your tongues out a yard for it." Then Ben rose to the occasion. He always did. He smelt the rum, and he knew a ghost ought to smell of brimstone.

"It's Tommy alive, after all!" he cried.

And so it appeared. He had come to himself after they left, and, inspired and upheld by a diabolical thirst of forty alligator power, he had followed his tracks back and found the lost bottle full. Returning to the hut and finding no water in it he had gone to the creek, and, after a good swig, had fallen asleep again until aroused by George coming down with the bucket.

They squared it with the super, somehow, but they never trust Tommy in the township alone now.

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8: The New Super of Oakley Downs

The Bulletin, 29 March 1890

OAKLEY DOWNS, as it was called by courtesy, was noted throughout the district as a station warranted to ruin the proprietor quicker than any other two in the neighbourhood. The number of times it had changed hands was not on record, but the many men who had lost small piles on it were to be found all over the colonies. Why in bitter irony it was called Downs nobody could understand, as from start to finish it was nothing but one mass of brigalow and gidya scrub. As for the cattle— well, the constant change of ownership and resulting neglect had rendered them notorious as the wildest scrubbers in Australia.

But in Sydney or Melbourne Oakley Downs was quite a different place. There, in the hands of the plausible stock and station agent, it became a gem of the first water. "Scrub, sir, of course there are small belts of scrub on it, and they form one of the most attractive features. All the best kinds of saltbush grow in the scrubs, and on Oakley Downs want of feed is never felt; fat cattle when you couldn't get a beast elsewhere, and, as for water, why, on some of the holes you could float the Orlando. Certainly there was plenty of water. The Bignargo river ran through the centre, a river of billabongs, wherein were long, serpentine holes of milky, clayey water, bordered on either side by the grey monotony of the brigalow. A more depressing, melancholy spot never existed than Oakley Downs.

It was with a feeling of commiseration, then, that the news was heard in the district that one more unfortunate had invested in the ill-starred place. Various rumours were afloat concerning the new proprietor. Some said he was an innocent new-chum, who had been shamefully taken in. Others would have it that it was a confident old hand, who had vowed to make the place pay when everybody else had failed, and altogether speculation was rife to an alarming extent. The old hutkeeper only grinned to himself. He was a fixture on the place and was passed on from one to another as the successive owners retired stone broke; as a rule, he gave each man eighteen months to get sick of his bargain, and then he calculated on six months of inglorious ease.

This misanthropic guardian sat outside the hut smoking his evening pipe and wondering when the new owner would make his appearance, when his eye was caught by a thin trail of dust rising over the scrub giving notice of the approach of a traveller. It was a feature of Oakley Downs that it was either bog up to the girths or dust. Presently the rider came in sight leading a pack-horse, and the nearer he came the more old Bill the hutkeeper stared. Such a peculiar figure had never been seen on Oakley Downs before. A sallow youth of about two-and-twenty, riding all over his moke as though he had never had much practice in horsemanship, and painfully pulling along a reluctant packhorse. He was dressed in black clothes, wore low shoes, had on a white shirt-collar, &c., and, to complete the "flabbergastion" of old Bill, a tall silk hat!

Bill was bereft of all powers of speech, hut managed to come forward and take the packhorse, while the newcomer awkwardly and stiffly dismounted.

"This is Oakley Downs station?" he asked.

Bill intimated that it was.

"I've come up to take charge of it for my uncle," was the astounding answer. Bill could only gasp in silence. Oakley Downs, that had scared the best scrub-riders of the continent, in charge of this strange object!

"Are you a stockman?" was the next query. Bill replied that he was everything just then, and, overcome with pity, he led the two horses up to the verandah of the house, followed by the new Super., who walked very uncomfortably.

Bill unpacked and unsaddled the horses, and then told his new boss that he would bring him in some tea directly. The stranger thanked him effusively.

"You know," he said, "I get so confused with all those straps and things on the saddle; I had such a job to get that tail strap on this morning."

"That what?" asked Bill. The Super indicated the article which Bill recognised as the crupper, yet he said nothing, he was too far gone for surprise; but straightway went on to the kitchen and lay down on his bunk to enjoy the situation for five minutes.

When Bill took the tea in he found Mr, Melrose, for that, he informed Bill, was his name, seated reading a book. He had brushed his clothes and hair, and, as Bill said, "reminded him of church more than ever."

"I will get you to come over and talk to me a little after tea," he said to his astounded assistant, "I want to learn something about the run, and I suppose you know all about it."

In obedience to this summons Bill proceeded to the house and found Mr. Melrose with a number of books on the table, evidently produced from his voluminous pack-bags.

"I hear the oxen are considered very intractable," he said, after Bill had sat down.

Bill pondered a minute. "Do you mean, he said, "that the cattle are as wild as hell?"

The young man flushed painfully. "Do not use such strong expressions," he remarked. "Now I have been thinking over several devices whereby we might manage to bring them to subordination, and I should like your opinion of them. Here is an account of a man meeting a lion unexpectedly, and how, retaining his presence of mind, he stared fixedly at the animal, when the king of beasts slunk back into the jungle. How do you think that would work ?"

"Is that a true bill, mister?" said Bill.

"Certainly; it's in a book published by the Religious Tract Society."

"Well," returned the puzzled cook, "if you regoing to walk through these blooming scrubs until you meet a bullock, and then stare at him till he gets into the yard, you'll be a thundering old man before you get the first one in."

"Here is another plan which with the aid of some of our black brethren may be effectual. You see this engraving— it is in a book of African travel. The natives dig a great pit and put sharp stakes in it. Then they form a half-circle and drive all the game to this point and the game fall into the pit. Do you think we could do this with the cattle?"

"And how do you get 'em out of the pit?" asked Bill.

"They would have to be left there, I suppose," replied the young man, "I only thought of this as a last resource. Then there are pitfalls we might dig in the forest; traps we might set so that the ox would be caught by the leg when his bellowing would attract attention."

Bill began to feel uncomfortable. What did all this point to ? Was he alone on the station with a howling lunatic?

"And now, before we separate for the night, I will read prayers, and then we will supplicate that the hearts of these savage beasts may be tamed and rendered gentle as they will be during the millennium."

Bill said afterwards he was afraid to cross him, so he sat out meekly half-an-hour of reading and praying and then departed.

About twelve o'clock, when all was silent, the noise of a horse leaving the station might have been heard. It was Bill, making tracks to the next station as hard as he could to report the arrival of a hopeless monomaniac. Cameron Vale, the next station, was only eight miles away, and when the owner, who was a good-natured fellow, heard Bill's strange story, he determined to ride over and investigate matters the first thing the next morning. Bill accompanied him, and the two of them arrived about seven o clock. Bill went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, and Dermott (the owner of Cameron Vale) introduced himself to Melrose as his neighbour. Melrose, in spite of his strange attire, was evidently a gentleman and as they sat at breakfast he returned to the subject of the cattle.

"I think," he said, in his feebly solemn voice, "that you trust too much to skill in horsemanship to gather the herds in. I was thinking of stretching fencing-wire from tree to tree throughout the forest at about two feet from the ground. It would thus form a perfect maze in which the animals would be compietely bewildered, and over which they would constantly stumble. Do you not think they would speedily become frightened and tame?"

Dermott thought not, and, without betraying surprise, turned the conversation into the subject of the purchase of the station. Melrose informed him that the purchaser was his uncle, Dean Melrose, of Culquone, and that the place was bought cheaply for himself and his brother.

"Do you expect your brother up?" asked Dermott.

"I hope not," was the reply; he will interfere a good deal with my plans. You see he has been used to station-life and got all the old-fashioned notions."

"Have you ever been on a station before?" asked Dermott.

"No," replied the other, with the first symptoms of irritability he had shown. "I have had a great disappointment. I was dedicated to quite a different work, but it matters not— I have my talent. I understand there is a large supply of water," here he continued after a pause.

"Yes, you've plenty of water," said Dermott

"So I understood; now I think that we could utilise it this way. Pump it into reservoirs high up in the trees in different places, then, by means of hose, use it to drive the cattle to where you wanted them to go. They would not face a strong stream of water. Do you understand?"

"Well, not quite," returned his companion.

"Ah! perhaps so, I know I am a good deal ahead of the time."

Dermott soon after took his leave, reassuring old Bill that there was no harm in the supposed lunatic, and he would probably have easy times of it. He himself determined to wire down to the agents and find out the truth of the matter, but in this design he was frustrated. Just as he was preparing to leave a horseman came riding rapidly up to the station. Whenever Melrose caught sight of him he uttered an exclamation of disgust.

"Now, here's Ned come to upset everything!"

The newcomer dismounted and saluted his brother laughingly. "You stole a march on me, old man, but I've managed to come up to tune after all." Melrose turned into the house with a dejected air, and Dermott introduced himself to the stranger, who was evidently the brother.

"Has Jim been saying anything funny?" asked the new-comer. "Fancy his riding up to the station in such a rig! I expected to pick up his pieces on the road."

Dermott said that some of his remarks showed a decidedly strong imagination.

"Ah, yes," said the younger man, "he was going to be a clergyman, but he overdid it. Broke down and had brain-fever from overwork. Since then he's got an idea that he can invent anything. He was coming up here with me, as we thought the change would do him good, but at Port Royal he gave me the slip and started off by himself, to commence some of his experiments, I suppose."

Oakley Downs was quite true to its name. Eighteen months quite satisfied the younger Melrose; but the next occupant found all manner of strange fixtures about the place, which Bill told him were due to the misdirected genius of the would-be cattle-tamer.

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9: An Unquiet Spirit

The Bulletin, 3 Nov 1894

I HOLD my father's memory in the greatest respect. I have every reason for doing so.

Although his motives of life and mine were diametrically opposed, this was never made a bone of contention between us. I fell into step and marched dutifully with his views until his death, at a ripe age, left me free to live in a manner more congenial to my disposition.

My father was a squatter— a fine healthy fellow of the old school, that is to say, a man who believed in the work of his own hands, and was never happy when away from the station. He was devoted to cattle and horse-breeding, and, although the chances had many times been presented to him of leasing a huge area, and stocking it with sheep by the aid of a friendly bank, he had always steadily refused. Thanks to this, he died fairly well off.

Many years before his death, I am happy to think, he had succeeded to the height of his ambition. His compact, if small, run was as skillfully divided that it could almost work itself. His cattle were bred to that pitch of perfection that the DAV brand was known throughout Australia. His horses were sought for eagerly as hacks or stock horses. To keep everything up to this standard became the old man's one idea. Method and order were his fetish, and when he died he left me instructions to bury him in his working clothes beside the stockyard. The familiar sound of the trampling hoofs would, he thought, soothe him in the long, last slumber. I am afraid this idea was not a pronounced success.

I was twenty-five when my father died. He had been a widower for twenty years, and soon after I laid him in the grave, in strict accordance with his wishes, I commenced to look out for a manager for Braganall Station. Although I had successfully concealed it during my father's lifetime, I hated bush life as much as he loved it. He died, happy in the thought that his son would be a worthy successor in the management of the station he had created, little dreaming that that son yearned to become a barrister.

I soon found a competent manager named Dodson, took up my abode in Sydney, and began reading for the Bar. I had many advantages; an independent income, a good education, and a first-rate physical training. I worked hard for nearly a year, then, feeling the need of a little relaxation, I ran up to Braganall to spend a few weeks. Everything seemed to be in good working order, although I could not help noticing a falling off in little things from the severe discipline of my father's time, but then I knew he had been a martinet, and laid small stress upon this.

One evening, as the dusk was closing in, Dodson and I sat smoking on the verandah in that meditative silence bushmen enjoy so much. Two of the men, returning to their quarters, passed within earshot.

"Bill," I heard one of them say in the calm stillness of the hour, "did yer put them slip-rails on one side?"

"No, I forgot," replied the other.

"Better go back and do it, or Old Danvers will be around after you!"

Without a word the man turned and went back, and the other walked on.

What on earth did it mean?

"Old Danvers" was my father.

Dodson must have heard the remark as well. The men, evidently, had not noticed us, as we were well within the shadow of the verandah; therefore they had not lowered their voices.

"What does that mean about 'Old Danvers'?" I said.

"I am sure I don't know," replied Dodson.

This I felt was an untruth. "Mr Dodson," I remarked in a severe tone; "I am sure you do know, therefore I expect a plain answer to my question. What did that man mean by saying that my father would be around after him?"

Dodson hesitated, then he blurted out: "The men have some foolish yarn that Mr Danvers, your father, walks."

"Walks!" I repeated. "His ghost appears?"

"Something of the sort. If anything is left neglected the man who did it can't rest— he dreams of your father until he has to get up and go and do what he left undone, even if it's in the middle of the night."

I could not help laughing. "The ghost must be a good overseer," I said; "I suppose your men are always leaving, with this notion going about?"

"Not at all. They are not a bit afraid—they say he always speaks quite kindly to them."

"More in sorrow than in anger," I quoted.

"Precisely so. I saw him once myself. He looked in at my bedroom window; stared at me until I had to get up. Then I found that I had left the garden gate open, and one of the milkers had got in."

I scarcely knew what to think of this communication. Bushmen, as a rule, are not in the least superstitious— they have too much night-work to fancy that the dark hours have uncanny denizens peculiar to themselves. Although I practiced cross-examination on Dodson I could get no more out of him, and, of course, it was useless asking the men. I remained on the station for another fortnight, but heard nothing more about the shade of my departed parent.

TWO MONTHS after my visit to Braganall, I was sitting in my chambers in Sydney, intent on my work, when, happening to raise my eyes, I saw my father in the room. He was dressed just as he was buried; he advanced to the table, and, without speaking, commenced to put the things on it straight. This was an old habit of his, as I at once recognised. Anything on the table not in its exact place always annoyed him. When everything was neat and square he sank into a chair and smiled kindly at me. Now I felt not the least surprise, strange to say. It seemed the most natural thing in the world for my father to pay me a visit, although I was fully aware that he was buried near the stockyard on Braganall.

"Jimmy," he said, "I don't think you have acted quite fair to me."

"What's the matter, governor?" I asked.

"Why did you not let me know you preferred this sort of thing?" and he indicated the papers on the table. "I thought you meant to look after the place yourself."

"Honestly, I should have told you," I replied, "but I thought you would be more contented if you did not know."

My father shook his head. "I have nothing to say against Dodson," he went on; "he is a very well-meaning young man, but he is going to make a great mistake, and I want you to write and stop him."

I nodded, but kept silence.

My father then went into a detail of station-management with which I need not trouble the reader. I could see (for was I not my father's pupil?) that it was just the kind of mistake that a young and enthusiastic manager like Dodson would fall into. I at once wrote the letter, and enclosed it in an envelope, my father watched complacently. When I had finished he said:

"I don't want to annoy you, Jim, but you see it's this way. I'm in Kama at present."

"Kama?"

"Yes, Kama Loka. I am on my way to Devachan, but these little worries rather delay me, for you see Kama is only an astral counterpart of our physical existence, and until I am quite satisfied that I need not bother any more about Braganall my entity will not be properly established in Devachan."

"I understand," I said, but, of course, I didn't.

My father beamed on me with his old kindly look, and left.

He came to see me on little matters, once or twice after that. Several people came in and saw him there, but they only took him for a queer sort of client. Medicine and the law are privileged that way.

Once, however, he put me out a little, and forced me into the meanest action of my life. It was at a garden party, and a swell affair at that, when I suddenly became aware that all eyes were turned my way, and that my father, in his bush dress, was standing by me.

"Jim," he said in an undertone, "I can't help it, I've had no rest for a fortnight. There's the gate-post of the drafting yard been pushed out of place, the gate doesn't hang plumb, and Dodson doesn't get it straightened up."

"I'll send him a telegram about it at once," I answered, hastily.

"You will?" queried the old man. "You know I'll never get to Devachan at this rate."

"I will," I affirmed, and then, for everyone was looking at us, I put my hand in my pocket, then into his hand, as though I was giving alms to a persistent begger, and he went away satisfied.

Now, to pass off the shade of one's father as an intrusive loafer who had to be got rid of at any price, is, I think, the greatest piece of moral cowardice a man can be guilty of. I have never fully recovered my self-respect since.

These constant visits, however, made trouble upon the station. Dodson felt aggrieved that I should be always writing or wiring up about petty little things that might well be left to him, and, moreover, concluded that I must have a spy on the place who supplied me with the information. This led to his resignation, and put me in such a fix that, in desperation, I decided to sell the station.

Our neighbour on Braganall was an old friend of my father's, and a man after his own heart. His two sons, unlike me, were squatters to the backbone; so I wrote to him and put the place under offer. Somewhat to my relief, my father or his astral counterpart, did not object to this. He seemed to think that, failing me, the sons of his old friend would do justice to Braganall. Negotiations were, therefore, soon concluded, and Manxton became the owner of the well-known DAV herd.

I had now some peace from the constant visitations of my father, and about that time I fell deeply in love. Contrary to proverbial wisdom, the course of our true love ran smoothly throughout, and our wedding day was approaching when I received a letter from young Manxton which somewhat unsettled me. We were old friends from boyhood's time, therefore he addressed me without any ceremony. "Look here, old fellow," his letter ran, "when the old man bought this place I don't think he took delivery of any ghosts; at least, they were not mentioned in the agreement. I wish you could induce your ancestral spook to let me manage the station my own way." Young Manxton had a blunt way of putting it, but under the circumstances, I felt I could pardon him.

I saw fresh trouble ahead, but could do nothing but write back and treat his letter as a joke.

IT WANTED but a week to our wedding day, and Laura and I were deep in confidential conversation one evening when the astral figure of my father appeared. Laura gave a big jump and a little shriek at his sudden appearance, then sat quiet, whilst my father said:

"Jim, you must do something for me. I know you can't properly interfere, but young Manxton is going to sell Silverside and go in for breeding trotters."

At this moment Laura sprang up with a loud cry. "Jim! Jim!" she half shrieked, "it's your father, I know him from the likeness you showed me. Oh! oh! it's his ghost!"— and she went off into a faint, and I caught her and put her on the sofa. I looked reproachfully at the old man and he went out without opening the door, which was contrary to his usual habit. Then Laura's mother came in and wanted to know what the matter was and who the stranger was she met in the hall. I said weakly I did not know, but would go after him if she would look after Laura, for I was anxious to get away before she came to.

I passed a restless night, and the next morning the post brought me a letter of farewell from my sweetheart. She pointed out clearly that there were but two conclusions to arrive at. Either my father was not dead and had committed some criminal action which necessitated his disappearance, or it was his ghost. Now, in either case our marriage was an impossibility— she could not marry a man whose father had served a term in gaol; nor could she become the wife of one who had a ghostly progenitor popping up at convenient and inconvenient times. To this there was no answer, at least I had none to offer; and it was not until I had worried my brains for hours that I saw a ray of hope ahead.

I wrote to Laura and her mother saying that I would offer them a satisfactory and ample explanation. Then I wrote to Manxton and asked him to delay the sale of Silverside (one of the sires of the Braganall stud) until he heard further from me. Then I sat and waited.

I was not disappointed; my father, looking very penitent, made his appearance. "I'm awfully sorry, Jim, but I was so upset when I found out that Manxton was going to sell Silverside that I came in without thinking."

"It's been my own fault as well," I returned, for I could not bear to see the old chap so miserable. "However, I think I have found out a way to put things straight again. In the first place, I am going to buy Braganall back."

My father shook his head; his business shrewdness was evidently a portion of the astral counterpart of his physical existence. "He'll make you pay through the nose when he finds you want it. I know Manxton."

"But I think you can assist me to get it back at my own figure," I returned, and showed him young Manxton's letter.

"Now, can't you make things so ghostly uncomfortable up there that he'll be glad to almost give me the place back?"

My father became perfectly luminous with delight. "Bless you, boy!" he said, and was about to vanish, when I recalled him.

"There's more to be done yet. I have to make it right with Laura. I am going to manage Braganall myself, now that I am about to be married, but, for all that, some little slips may occur which might worry you and delay you on your passage to— where is it?"

"Devachan," said my father.

"Devachan, yes. Do you think you could materialise a letter when you have anything to say? I shall probably keep a room somewhere in Sydney where you could write."

"Certainly I could. Why did I not think of it before?"

"Now, will you be here to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and, before Laura and her mother, give me your word that you will in future confine yourself to letter-writing when anything goes wrong. You see it's this way, Dad. I enjoy seeing you immensely, but the women, you know, are prejudiced."

"I quite understand it," replied the shade, and departed.

I called on Mrs Lyntott, Laura's mother, who is a remarkably strong-minded woman, and laid the whole case before her. She reconciled me to Laura, and they agreed to meet my father at my rooms in the morning.

The inconsistency of womankind! Before that meeting concluded they had taken such a liking to that astral being that they both regretted deeply the compact that had been entered into. "I should have been very glad to see you occasionally, Mr Danvers," said my prospective mother-in-law, and Laura uttered a like wish. However, the thing was done. A ghost must keep its word, once passed; and we parted with mutual feelings of regret.

Before leaving, my father whispered to me: "I gave young Manxton such a night of it last night I expect you'll hear from him to-day."

It is now many years since this happened, and as I have never received a materialised letter, I presume that earthly matters have ceased to trouble the good old gentleman, and my management of Braganall has been satisfactory. His conscious unit has, I hope, passed from Kama Loka to the higher spiritual plane of Devachan.

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10: Bill Somers

The Bulletin, 16 Feb 1895

BILL SOMERS cheated me out of a nice little fortune of some fifty or sixty thousand pounds. Now, I never saw Bill Somers in my life; and he never saw or heard of me, and did not gain a single cent by the transaction. Nevertheless, Bill Somers is the man I have to thank for the present unsatisfactory condition of my finances.

I was managing my uncle's station— it ought to be mine, now. He lived in Sydney, paying only an annual visit to the place. He was a bachelor, and as he was a crusty and most argumentative old dog, I used to think it was just as well we only met occasionally.

Now, I myself am not argumentative except when people don't agree with me; still, one cannot live with a Sir Oracle for long without feeling obliged to differ from him occasionally. Naturally, my uncle supposed himself an authority on nearly every question under the un, and I have no doubt he persuaded himself that he had really gone through the many experiences he used to relate. He was never at a loss for information to bolster his inventions; for he could always quote a man he used to know who knew all about it. That's how I came to hear about Bill Somers.

I was in Sydney for a few days on station business, and was dining with my uncle. Charming cottage and grounds (ought also to be mine).

Having finished all the "shop" we had to talk about, the old gentleman was holding forth on some sharp practices lately brought to light amongst the provision-shipping merchants.

"Why," he said, "in my time we would as soon—" There he hesitated, and I chipped in, jocularly, as I filled my glass: "Come, governor! you know you were never in the provision-shipping line."

My uncle was speechless for some time, whether from rage or because he was making something up I don't know; the latter, I suspect.

"No, sir," he said slowly at last; "I was never in the provision line, as you justly remark. But, was not my friend, Bill Somers, one of the leading provision-merchants in Sydney, and—" here he almost shouted—"don't I know all the ins and outs of the business from him?"

My uncle glowered at me for the rest of the meal, and I was glad to get back to town.

I was engaged at that time to one of the nicest girls in Sydney (who also ought to be mine). She was a great favorite of my uncle's; and as I was then fully justified in considering myself his heir, I had not much thought for the future. I told Kate all about my taking a rise out of the old man, and, to my surprise, she told me that I was very foolish. What was the good of contradicting my uncle about such a trivial thing? This annoyed me; and although, as I said before, I am not at all of an argumentative disposition, still I feel it my duty to assert myself and not allow statements to pass unchallenged when I know them untrue. I told Kate something like this; but she did not agree with me, and we parted rather coldly.

I went out to lunch at Nardoo Cottage next day; but, as ill-luck would have it, we had not got half-way through the meal when my uncle a subject on which I hold strong views— strong, simply because they are right. I like meat well-done, and contend that is the proper and healthy way to cook it. My uncle likes meat underdone— raw, I call it; and most absurdly insists that it is more nutritious when taken so. Over this apparently insignificant subject we fell out ; and, my uncle being somewhat bitter and personal in his remarks, I retorted rather smartly (I can be very sarcastic when it pleases me):

"I suppose Bill Somers liked his meat raw?"

I thought he was going to throw something at me.

"Bill Somers was not a jackanapes like you, so he liked his food properly cooked," he growled.

"Let me see," I returned, reflectively, as I opened a bottle of sodawater. "You say he traded down to the Cannibal Islands. I suppose that is where he acquired the taste."

"Leave my house!" shouted my uncle at the top of his voice. I laughed, and remarked that I would look rather queer appearing in the street bareheaded, with a glass in one hand and a bottle of soda in the other. This maddened him still more, but I did not let it disturb me, for we had rows like this whenever we met. Really, I must admit that the old fellow had been very kind to me.

When I met Kate that evening she said, "How can you be so silly as to keep irritating your uncle? He called here this afternoon, and I could see that you have offended him very deeply. You will go too far some day."

This annoyed me very much. Kate evidently meant that my conduct might make a difference in my prospects; and this, I consider, hardly showed a proper appreciation of me. I knew that my uncle had in reality far too much admiration for my talents and ability to quarrel seriously. In fact, I was quite sure that he respected me all the more for my sturdy independence. Kate did not agree with me, and made a most uncalled-for remark to the effect that my conceit would be the ruin of me. We parted still more coldly than before, but I felt that Kate needed a lesson as well as my uncle.

I had to return to the station in a day or two, but was invited to dinner at Nardoo Cottage, to meet a few friends of my uncle. He was a forgiving old boy, I must say.

"Now, Harry," said Kate, "do not go out of your way to contradict your uncle this evening. Remember the difference in your ages and positions, and what you owe him."

I gave Kate a bit of my mind in return, and reduced her to tears before I left.

There were a bank-manager and two squatters at dinner that evening, and the talk was mostly "shop." I rather flatter myself on having stated my opinions upon stock-breeding and station-management confidently and in a way that left an impression. We were smoking with our wine, and the subject of cigars came up. Now, l am as good a judge of a cigar as any man, so, when my uncle praised those we were smoking, I lost my patience, for they were really nothing to brag about.

"They aren't bad," I commenced, "but—"

Here the old gentleman snapped in: "Confound your impudence! Not bad, indeed! You conceited young blockhead! do you know the difference between a cigar and a cabbage?"

All the other old fogies chuckled; and, very naturally, I felt nettled. However, I knew how to rub it in, so I exhaled a long puff of smoke and drawled out: "I presume Bill Somers selected them."

My uncle went purple. If apoplexy had only carried him off just then, I should have been right. He gasped, and then restraining his passion by a great effort, said quite quietly, " I have a word to say to you later on."

I was very facetious the rest of the evening. Emboldened by the way I had put the old man down, I had two or three more sly little hits about Bill Somers, until I felt that I must not wear the joke threadbare. That's the best of my wit— l always know when to stop ; I don't run a thing to death like most men. At a sign from my uncle, I stayed behind when the others left.

"Henry Jamison," he said, "you appear to have deliberately gone out of your way to insult me every time you have accepted my hospitality. To-morrow you will return to Grimgums (the station), and remain there until you hear from me. Good night."

He certainly had the last word, and as I strolled townward I felt very wroth at the mean and unjust accusation he had brought against me. Just because he was too dense to understand my perhaps rather subtle humor and certainly harmless chaff, he said that I "insulted" him. I returned to Grimgums feeling very sure that my uncle would be extremely sorry for his conduct.

Scarcely had I been a week on the station when I received the following astounding epistle:

Dear Mr. Jamison.

If you look back, as I have done, you will, I am sure, agree with me that our tempers are not sufficiently sympathetic to hold out any prospect of happiness in the future. I have no wish to enter into details, as I know a little reflection will convince you that I am acting for the best. Your uncle, who was always in favor of our engagement, reluctantly admits that lam right. We will, therefore, consider the engagement at an end, but I shall always remain your sincere friend,

Kate Denby.

Was there ever such a shameful thing? Just because a girl cannot have everything her own way, she deliberately throws a man over. This letter was enough to give me food for thought, but I was fairly puzzled by one I received from my uncle a few days later. In it there was the following passage:

So through your infernal conceit and foolish want of tact you have lost one of the best girls in the world; but there is one thing I can tell you: you will be the only loser in the matter— she certainly shall not.

Fancy! I, conceited! A more modest man does not live. I may have sufficient self-respect to estimate myself at my right value, but that is all.

Explanation of my uncle's remark came to me in the form of a newspaper with a marked paragraph some six weeks later. My uncle and Kate Denby were married!!!

I was so justly incensed that I resigned my billet at once.

This happened three years ago, and the other day my uncle died— leaving a widow and a son and heir.

I suppose the brat's godfather was Bill Somers.

____________________

11:  Jerry Boake's Confession

The Bulletin, 8 March 1890

PERHAPS one of the most popular fellows on the then newly-opened H—— Goldfield, in Far North Queensland, was Jack Walters. Everybody knew him, and everybody liked him, and there was great chaff and much popping of corks 'ere he started down to C—— with the avowed intention of getting married. Walters had shares in one or two good mines, and had a tidy sum of money with him when he left the field amidst the congratulations of 'the boys' on his approaching nuptials. Jack was a friend of mine; when he was temporarily crippled by a blasting accident I used to write his love-letters for him.

Three days after he left, Inspector Frost and his black troopers, who all knew Walters, rode into the township. Naturally, the first question asked was, had they met Jack, and how far he'd got on the road?

"Never saw or heard of him," was the unexpected reply, "perhaps he was off the road."

"No, he said he was going down easy and expected to meet you."

"Hum!" said the inspector, "I'm going back to-morrow, and I'll keep a sharp look-out for him."

Fifty miles from H—— was a creek with permanent water and a good feed, a favourite camping-place. Frost, who had told the troopers to watch for signs of Jack, had almost forgotten the matter, to which, after all, he did not attach much importance, when a shrill whistle from one of his boys a short distance off the road to the right attracted his attention. The boy had dismounted, and was standing gazing at something on the ground. Frost rode up, and had almost anticipated what it was before he reached the spot. Screened by a few bushes from any chance traveller lay the body of a dead man— Jack Walters. His head was pillowed on his riding-saddle, his blanket was thrown over the lower part of his body, and his pack-saddle and bags were close by, where they had evidently been put overnight. He had been shot through the temple, and in his hand he still held a revolver. To all appearances it was one of those motiveless cases of suicide that now and again puzzle everybody.

A careful examination was made, but nothing seemed to have been disturbed; no money save some loose silver was found. Frost collected all the camp paraphernalia, took careful notes of the position of the body and all the surroundings; then, leaving one trooper to guard the remains, despatched a boy back to H—— with the news, and instruction to the police there to come out and take the body— he himself had to proceed on his journey. Casting one more glance around, he noticed a newspaper lying some distance away. Such things were commonly found on old camping grounds, but he walked over and picked it up. It was the H—— Express, the journal of the mining township he had left. He looked at it idly for some time, thinking more of the sight he had just witnessed than of the paper in his hand, when he instinctively noticed the date, which suggested a train of thought. Walters had left the field three days before Frost's arrival there. The Inspector remembered that fact well, because there had been some debate as to the spot where they should have passed each other. Three days would make it Monday, and this paper was issued on Tuesday. How had it come into the dead man's camp?

Frost went back and looked at the corpse before the troopers had covered it up with boughs. The revolver taken from the stiffened fingers, he remembered, was but loosely held— it was not in the iron grasp of a dead man's hand, clutched hard at the moment of death. No doubt remained that the case was not one of suicide, but cowardly, cold-blooded murder. Somebody had left the diggings the next morning, had ridden hard and overtaken Walters at the creek, had shared the hospitality of his camp, and had shot him for the sake of the money he had with him. Where was the murderer now?

Frost, who had gold to take down to the port, did not tarry long between the scene of the murder and C——. The second day saw him closeted with the police magistrate, who had just received a telegram from H——, informing him of the arrival of the native police with the news of Frost's discovery. Hardly had Frost told his tale before another telegram arrived—"Jerry Boake left here after Walters. See if he is in C——."

Jerry was a pretty notorious character, and, strange to say, Walters was one of the few men who had befriended him when everybody else had thrown him over.

A very short inquiry elicited the fact that Jerry was in town; also that Jerry was in funds, and had given the barmaid at the 'Rise and Shine' a gold watch and chain. Interviewed, the barmaid produced the gold watch and chain, which were at once recognised as the property of Walters, who had bought them as a present for his fiancée. Jerry was straight-way arrested; and, absurd as the statement may seem, was actually wearing a ring well-known to belong to Walters. He denied his guilt stoutly, stated that Walters had given him the ring and the watch and chain to bring down, and that when he was drunk he gave it to the barmaid. Jerry was remanded to H——, and Frost himself started up in charge of him.

The dusk was setting in when they reached the bank of the creek where the dead body had been found. The party from H—— had been there and removed it. Frost pulled up, and looked round. The prisoner, manacled to a trooper, was close to him.

"You're not going to camp here, are you?" stammered Jerry Boake, with pallid lips.

"Why not?" said Frost, sternly, "you know nothing about this place, do you?" And without another word he rode straight to the scene of the murder, and got off his horse.

"Turn out," he said briefly.

The troopers dismounted, and began unpacking and unsaddling. Frost undid the handcuff from the trooper's wrist, and refastened it on the prisoner's.

There is only one way in the bush of securing a criminal charged with such a crime as Jerry's, and who would stick at nothing to escape. A light trace-chain is used, and the prisoner tethered securely to a tree. Without a word, Frost, chain in hand, walked to the tree beneath which the body had been found, and beckoned to the troopers to bring the prisoner. Jerry approached; he had summoned up all his hardihood, and called up a look of defiance on his face, but he couldn't control the trembling of his now pallid lips. Frost secured him, and the black trooper brought him his blankets, and sat down a short distance off to watch him.

Darkness closed in, the camp fires blazed up, food and tea were given to the prisoner, and with an air of bravado he pretended to eat; but though the food passed his lips not a bite could he swallow. The tea he drank greedily, and asked for more. The day's journey had been a long one, and the tired men soon dropped off to sleep one after another— but for one man there was no sleep that night. For all that the camp was so quiet, he had an idea that he was being watched, and it gave him a miserable kind of moral support to think that there was someone else awake as well as himself. It would be an awful thing to be the only waking man in that camp.

He had got to the full length of the trace-chain, and must have lost consciousness for a few moments, for, while his heart beat until it nearly choked him, he saw a black shadow under the tree— a dark shadow that was not there before. With an effort he stilled his trembling nerves, and forced himself to gaze at the object. Pah! The moon had risen higher and changed the position of the shadows, that was all. But supposing a man with a bloody smear on his forehead and half-closed dull eyes were really to come and lie down on that spot, while he himself was chained there not able to get away, what an awful thing it would be!

Would morning never come? He thought. Why must he think, think, think, and all about the one thing; his own incredible folly? A few pounds in gold, a few days of drunken 'shouting,' and now— it must be a nightmare, surely— he could not have been led away to do such a madly insane deed. He disliked the man mostly because he owed him many kindnesses, but that was not why he killed him for. No, it was for the few miserable pounds he was carrying.

That horrible black shadow seemed to stop there, although the moon's position had changed. Why did it stop there? Perhaps there was a stain of blood on the ground; he would force himself to go over and see. No, he couldn't do that, he would stop where he was and try to think of other things; but he couldn't. Always the same thought, the same hideous picture— a man asleep with his head on a saddle, and another standing over him with a levelled pistol. And then— well, then, a sight that would never leave him; the moon was young and sickly then, but its light was strong enough to show the dead body of the murdered man, with the bloody smear on his face. Would morning never come? Presently the moon would set, and then the darkness would be horrible. Who knows what hideous thing might not creep on him unawares. The air seemed thick with an awful corpse-like smell; had they buried the body there, where it was found? But this thought was too maddening— he would go frantic if he entertained it. Why did not the bleak shadow shift; the moon was getting low now?

JUST BEFORE daylight Frost was awakened by one of the boys at the door of his tent. "Marmee, that fellow Jerry sing out along of you!" Frost got up and went over to the place. The moon had set, and the night was dark; he told the boys to make the fire.

"My God! Mr Frost," said a piteous voice, "take me away from here, and I'll tell you everything." Frost undid the chain, and led him to the fire. He afterwards said that the look on the wretch's face haunted him for months. Jerry Boake made a full confession— and was hanged a few weeks afterwards.

_________________

12: What Puzzled Balladune

The Bulletin, 12 May 1894

STRANGERS were uncommon in Balladune, a small township in Western Queensland, though once upon a time the residents had indulged in hopeful visions of a railway, and locomotives dragging thither long trains of carriages full of opulent passengers with much money to spend. Of course this prospective railway was not to go past Balladune, which was to remain for ever the terminus, and wax fat in consequence. But these fond hopes were born but to die young. Trade, somehow, drifted further away, and the coming railway never came. Those who had speculatively invested in town lots were unable to realise, and Balladune settled down, discontentedly enough, to stagnation and a weekly coach.

Balladune, therefore, presented no attractions for strangers to visit it. Attempts had indeed been made, on more than one occasion, to institute half-yearly races and a pastoral show, but they came to nothing. The coach-fares, even kept away any poor players who might otherwise have sought to rake in a scanty hay-crop in the back-blocks, and the arrival of the said coach was the one local distraction.

It was therefore with mingled surprise and admiration that the inhabitants, who systematically turned out in force on these occasions, saw a stout, pleasant-faced, well-dressed gentleman alight from the box-seat.

The coachman, upon being at once interviewed, stated that he believed the passenger had come up by train to Mount Bastion, the hated rival town which had cut them out with the railway; and that, so far as he was concerned, he found him a thundering good sort, and he wished he always had one of the same brand on the box with him. Of the stranger's business— he knew absolutely nothing.

It was generally felt that the coachman had failed disgracefully in his duty, but as he was too important a personage to offend, nobody told him to. It was also considered that the senior constable, who had charge of the peace of the township, should keep a strict eye upon the stranger, as in these days of levanting financial, there was no knowing where one might turn up.

When, however, the pound-keeper suggested that in that case a man of noticeable presence would seek a crowded place where he would not be an object of popular interest, public opinion veered somewhat, and it was agreed that (a general election being then pending) the stranger was going to run for a seat.

Meanwhile the gentleman under discussion, who gave the hotel-keeper the somewhat well-known name of John Smith, did nothing to indicate a desire to represent the district or otherwise throw light upon the burning question of the day. What had brought him to Balladune? He chatted affably on the weather, the diet and the fall in silver, but not one word escaped by which he could be "placed." In appearance he was equally non-committal. He could have been anybody, from a retired publican to an ex-Governor.

Mr. Smith made but little use of the telegraph during his stay. Possibly he laboured under the absurd, though common delusion that telegrams in a small township soon become public property; anyhow, he did not utilise the wire, but on the return mail after his arrival despatched a bulky, sealed epistle, duly registered, which, on being eagerly scrutinised by the postmistress, was found to bear the simply maddening address, "John Smith, Esq., Box 009, G.P.O., Sydney."

"I could have smacked his face," said the disappointed lady to an equally curious and disappointed friend who agreed that "it was a shame and should not be allowed; for her part she did not believe that there were two John Smiths in Australia.

Meantime, as Mr. Smith paid his bill and simply smoked, read and chatted about the season in a most exemplary manner, the landlord of the Royal Hotel resented any impertinent prying, fearing it might annoy his guest and lose him that rare bird of passage, a profitable customer. Mr. Smith, therefore, was, or pretended to be, in ignorance of the burning curiosity he had aroused in the minds of the Balladune gossips.

ii

FIFTEEN miles from Balladune was one of the  few stations which assisted to prevent the utter abandonment of that struggling township. It was not a large and flourishing station with artesian water, shearing-machines, a big overdraft, and all the proper equipments of high-class grazing. The owner had worked hard on it himself ever since the district was first settled. He had experienced bad and good times, had suffered from drought and flood, had hung on through all with the grim pertinacity of his nature, and now, in spite of the fallen value of stock and stations, was still clear of debt.

He was a gaunt and grizzled man, by name Hemmings. A man who neither spared himself nor his men. The wandering swagman met with but a snarling reception, and his dole of begrudged rations was thrown to him with contempt. As Hemmings' neighbours were treated with little more hospitality, the owner of Red Dyke was by no means popular.

Still, in a certain way, he was much respected. He dealt for his stores locally, and spent what little he did spend in the district. He was scrupulously honest, and, above all, his word, for good or evil, was inviolable. So far as was known, he had neither friends nor relations. Imagine, then, the surprise of the inhabitants of Balladune when he drove into the township, pulled up at the Royal, and demanded to see the mysterious Mr. Smith.

When the two met it was noticed that, although Mr. Smith was beamingly genial in his greeting, Hemmings did not reciprocate. But this was according to his well-known disposition.

"We cannot say all we have to say here, without having some long-eared gaby on his knees at the keyhole; you had better come out to my place and stop the night," said the visitor.

Mr. Smith nodded a cheery assent, then slowly drew his finger and thumb round his throat, and, with a waggish smile, remarked, "It is safe, I presume?"

The other scowled silently and strode out to his buggy. Smith went up to his room and in less than a minute descended, joined him, and they drove off.

Everyone who had the price of a drink on him went into the bar to discuss the event, still mere strange than even the coming of Mr. Smith himself.

"Mark my words," said the pound keeper, who professed to have made a study of human nature, "there's no love lost on the side of that Hemmings, and it licks me what a simple, affable chap like Smith can have to do with him."

"I've got it," said the storekeeper, smiting the counter. "That's a deep cove, that Smith, for all he's a good-natured one. He's a detective, that s what he is, and he's just gone out to Red Dyke to take Hemmings quietly without any scandal. When he went upstairs," he added, in impressive tones, "it was to slip the handcuffs in his pocket."

Everyone finished his drink in solemn silence, the idea was so novel and entrancing,

"Wonder what he's done?" said one open-mouthed lounger at last.

"You may be bound," went on the storekeeper, encouraged by his success, "that it was done years and years ago, most likely in some other country."

This was delightful. Why, it might be another Deeming tracked down.

"He sent a note out to Red Dyke yesterday, said the landlord.

"And you never told us!" cried a reproachful chorus.

"Come," said the pound keeper, who had been silenced for a while. "If he is a detective which I don't say he ain't, would he have sent out a note to tell Hemmings he was here?"

This was beyond the reasoning powers of the conclave, and even the storekeeper left the question unanswered,

iii

THE TWO MEN in the buggy were silent for some time. After leaving the township the road passed for some miles through a dark and barren scrub,

Smith uttered the first remark:

"I was unexpected, I presume?"

"I have never left off expecting you."

"I suppose if a body were deposited a mile or two back in this scrub—"

"Before it was found it would be unrecognisable, and put down to some foot-traveller who had lost himself and died of thirst."

"Ah! So much better than burying."

"Quite true," replied the other, who seemed to force himself by strong effort to answer coolly the gibing remarks of his companion,

"Burying is clumsy, but you have not come here to discuss such questions?"

"I have not. I have come to claim the fulfilment of your word."

"After twenty years?" asked Hemmings, in a firm tone.

"After twenty years, repeated Smith, in a tone as firm.

There was silence once more, and, in a short while, the buggy emerged on a track of open country, grateful to the eye after the close scrub,

"Supposing we defer further conversation until we reach home— at least, what I now call home? I will fulfil my word."

The other nodded, and not a word more was uttered until the station was reached.

There was little to recommend the place to any one with an eye to comfort or beauty, for the buildings were rude, and Hemmings, in his love of loneliness, had built his own house at some distance from the others ; but an expert would at once have recognised the value of the grazing country. Hemmings drove up to an outhouse and they dismounted and walked up. When they stood on the verandah, Smith, all whose geniality had departed, turned and looked round.

"You have been alone here for—?"

"I have been here fifteen years. Alone—for thirteen."

"Mrs.— ah— Hemmings then?"

"Lies buried there. The rough life and climate killed her."

"The property is unencumbered, I understand?"

"The property, such as it is, is unencumbered. Listen! I have gone through such hardships on this place, have fought against famine and the elements so fiercely, knowing all the while that at any time the summons from you might come; that I tell you I love it, by the very memory of my sufferings." His voice, which had not faltered when he spoke of the death of the woman who should have been, but was not, his wife, trembled at the remembrance of his years of toil.

"I give you your choice. You demand the fulfilment of my vow. I will mortgage this place to the hilt, and work it free once more with this" —and he held forth his brown and sinewy hand — "or take a change of clothes and a blanket and leave you here, to wander forth in the world. I ask you but one favour, Farrars, give me your answer quickly."

The other kept silence for a few moments; then, as if to change the subject, said:

"My name is Smith, just now, as yours is now Hemmings. I will give you my answer early to-morrow morning. Meanwhile— not that I mistrust you, in spite of all— l may mention that yesterday I posted to a safe hand a notification of my presence here, and my motive in coming. It will be read if a fortnight elapses without hearing from me, so that, even if you deposit my body in that convenient scrub, I shall soon be missed."

The other waved his hand as though the idea was too contemptuous for serious discussion; then he motioned his unwelcome guest inside and showed him to a rudely-furnished bedroom. "My accommodation is but limited," he remarked, "but as you come of your own accord you must be content with it."

"I shall be satisfied, "returned Smith. "I have fared worse since the smash."

"You are then ruined?"

"Or I should not be here."

"I had thought better of you. If your coming had been only inspired by the desire for just vengeance I could have understood it; as it is I must despise the feeling to which you confess."

"I intend to combine business and— pleasure," was the calm reply.

It was midnight before Smith, who had retired early, fell into a troubled sleep on his hard bed almost immediately to awake again. Someone moving in the house had aroused him. In spite of his protestations of confidence his hand stole under his pillow. He listened, and the sound he heard made him arise noiselessly and steal on to the verandah.

In the brilliant moonlight stood Hemmings gazing out on the familiar scene, the rugged outlines of which not even the silver rays could soften or beautify. But it was his. He had come there when the land was a wilderness, had seen the country alter and become fruitful under his care. He had defied sickness, the brazen sky and the devastating storm to dispossess him. It had been to him a refuge from the past and his fellow men. Smith watched the tall, lean figure shaken with emotion, then he spoke sternly:

"Walters— for I will call you by your own name— l came here only on an errand of vengeance, to turn you forth naked. I am not a ruined man. Let me speak," for the other would have interrupted. "Nearly 20 years ago you stole my wife from me. You made a fatal mistake. You allowed her, or she did it without your knowledge to take both money and jewels in her flight. I could have cast you into prison branded as a thief. But you know, and I admit, that in the encounter between us you spared my life. Then you swore that at any future time when I demanded it you would strip yourself of all your possessions and give them up to me in tenfold payment of that of which I had been robbed. I knew your character knew you would keep the vow, although a poor man when you made it, and I thought that it would be sweet vengeance to come unexpectedly upon you and demand fulfilment. I have come and what have I found? One sleeps beneath that mound under a name she has no right to— dead, I doubt not, of the remorse which would be stimulated by your solitary life in this waste. You, the other one, a younger man than I, look ten years older. You have not a friend in the world; here you will live and die without a companion but those whose services you hire. I am amply revenged. Keep your lonely acres out here. I give you back your promise."

He paused. The dark figure against the moonlit sky said nothing, but put its hands up to it's face.

"To-morrow morning," went on the other quietly relapsing into his natural tone, "send a man to drive me into the township, for you and I must never look on each other again." He turned and re-entered his room.

The Balladune people have never yet accounted for the visit of Mr. Smith.

__________________

13: The story of a Long Watch

Bulletin, 14 Dec 1895

It was a matter of much wonder why Mrs. Prendergast should have settled down to live in so sleepy a little township as Nanarjin. True, it was a seaport, visited once a week by a coastal steamer, and once a month by an ocean-liner, but for all that there was no life in the place. Trade passed on to other centres, and the small population simply vegetated. Nevertheless, social jealousy and feminine curiosity were as rife in Nanarjin as in London or Paris,

Why had Mrs. Prendergast come to Nanarjin? Mrs. Prendergast was a widow, young and good-looking. It need hardly be said that, with regard to the male sex, a young and interesting widow can give any single girl 50 points out of a hundred and a bad beating; hence the girls’ objection to her unexplained presence in their midst. So far as it went, however, Mrs. Prendergast’s explanation was simple enough. The climate of Nanarjin agreed with her; she was anxious to live quietly, and, as her income was not large, the place suited her. She had an old retainer with her, half-servant, half companion; not a breath of scandal could be raised against her; but, for all that, the universal opinion amongst Nanarjin femininity was, that Mrs. Prendergast was too good-looking, too well-dressed, and “too nice altogether, my dear,” to have come to live in such an out-of-the-way region without a reason.

Masculine Nanarjin did not share this opinion, and was quite willing to unquestioningly accept the widow.

In truth, there was no doubt about it. Those who had friends in the metropolis had at once written for information, and the answers were perfectly definite. Prendergast, of the firm of Prendergast and Silcott, stock and station agents, had departed this life in an absolutely conventional and proper manner. He was twenty years older than his wife, arid had not left her as well off as had been expected. That was all. Still, “why had she come here?” That there must be “something behind” remained the unanimous opinion of the women.

But months passed, and still their curiosity was unappeased. Beyond doffing her mourning at the conventional time, the widow did nothing worthy of comment or notice.

Nearly two hundred miles from Nanarjin, on a patch of good country, surrounded by unavailable land, was Binjoomba, a small cattle-station. It was far off the main road, seldom visited by anyone who had not business there, and the owner led the life of a recluse, save for a periodical spree in Nanarjin every 12 months. Why he selected Nanarjin for his annual outburst it would be hard to say, seeing that there was a far larger and livelier town within the same distance. But it had become a matter of habit with him to paint Nanarjin red once a year, so he continued to do so, and, as he paid ready-money for everything, nobody ever objected.

His name was Yates, and, for 11 months in the year, he was a rather reticent, somewhat abrupt- mannered gentleman, given to much reading. For one month, he was the exact opposite, and he was the exact opposite when he first caught sight of Mrs. Prendergast from the verandah of the Royal Hotel, where he was entertaining some of his numerous friends with the then popular drink of dark brandy. Yates seemed suddenly struck dumb until the widow had passed, then he arose, unceremoniously left his friends, went up to his bedroom and gave instructions that the doctor was to be sent for. The doctor came, and after a long Interview with his patient, in his turn gave orders that Mr. Yates was not to be disturbed for 24 hours.

There was much pei-plexity and also disappointment amongst a certain section at the cutting short of what promised to be a cheap and glorious spree; but to repine was useless. Yates kept his room for three days, and when he descended he was the sober and proper Yates.

The afternoon of that day found him knocking at the door of the cottage where lived Mrs. Prendergast. He was shown into the modest sitting-room, and presently the widow appeared. There was not a word of greeting interchanged between them, and, after a short silence, Yates made the abrupt remark: “So you married old Prendergast.”

“Yes,” she repeated, “I married old Prendergast.”

“Is he up here?”

“No.”

“In Sydney?”

“Yes.” There was the suspicion of a smile on the woman’s face as she replied, but Yates was looking down and did not see it.

“Is it impertinent of me to ask why you are residing up here?”

“The climate suits me.”

Yates arose and prepared to take his leave almost as unceremoniously as he had parted from his boon companions. There was a quick look of anxiety on Mrs. Prendergast’s face as if she would detain him, but it passed, and they parted formally and coolly. Yates returned to the hotel, ordered his horses, and packed his valise. Mrs. Prendergast shed a few tears and then sat down and wrote a letter which seemed difficult to compose. Finishing it at last, she sent it by her old Servant to the Royal ; but when the woman reached there, Yates was five miles on his road, so it came back unanswered.

By that time, however, every local woman with a tongue had related to any other woman who would listen, the astounding story of how that dreadful man Yates, of Binjoomba, who avowedly hated the sight of a petticoat, had called on Mrs. Prendergast and immediately afterwards left the township.

A SMALL goldfield had broken out within easy distance of Binjoomba; a speculative butcher had invested in all the fat cattle Yates could muster, and he was then on his way to deliver them. It was the second night out ; the cattle were tired and wore camped on a soft, comfortable sand-ridge. Yates, who felt disinclined for sleep, was keeping watch.

The night was moonless but clear, warm but not sultry— the sort of night when sleeping in the open air is a luxury. Yates lit his pipe and thought of his lost sweetheart. With his customary reticence, he had not interchanged half-a-dozen words with anybody in Nanarjin while he was sober, and when he was drunk all he usually said was: “What will you have to drink?” He was, therefore, quite unaware that Mrs. Prendergast was a widow, for she had relinquished her weeds some time before he saw her.

The hours of darkness wore on. One after another the bright constellations so familiar to bushmen passed overhead and sloped westward, but Yates still kept a tireless watch and reasoned out a scheme born in a brain moody with a long-time solitary life. This was nothing less than killing a dead man. He had made up his mind to put Prendergast out of the way. The idea had grown upon him irresistibly— fascinated him. He thought of the silly quarrel which parted him from his love in the long ago; of the wasted years spent by one in self-exile, by the other in a joyless wedlock. Now they had met once more, and the one obstacle was Prendergast. When the cold grey light of dawn piled the stars lying low on the horizon, and Yates called the men who had, much to their own satisfaction, been snugly coiled in their blankets all night, he had fully convinced himself that the removal of Prendergast was simply a matter of distasteful but stern necessity.

He had not reasoned out any details; he had simply determined to go to Sydney and then hit on some plan to carry out his fell purpose.

Yates was a man of action when once aroused. The cattle delivered, he returned to Binjoomba, and soon afterwards left for Sydney, via the sea-port lying north of Nanarjin.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Prendergast remained in a state of perplexity. The abrupt departure of her old flame had aroused her pride and prevented her from forwarding her letter after him to the station. She began to get tired of Nanarjin and the petty interests of the place, and decided to leave it— for a time, at any rate.

Arrived in Sydney, Yates, as soon as possible, went round to the office of Prendergast and Silcott. The old name of the firm had been retained, after a not uncommon custom, so that he still remained in his error. For three days he resolutely kept watch, but no sign of the man he wanted was visible ; then he entered the office and asked for his intended victim. In due course a young fellow of some three or four-and-twenty came to see him. Yates had to explain that it was an elder Mr. Prendergast he was anxious to interview.

“ lam afraid you will be disappointed,” commenced the young man. “ Mr. Prendergast is—”

“Out of town ?” interrupted Yates, in his usual abrupt fashion.

“Well, yes,” the other was commencing.

Yates waited to hear no more, but, with a gruff “Good morning,” departed.

He had suddenly come to the conclusion that he had made a mistake: it must be this young Prendergast, some relation of the old man, to whom she was married. If so, in all probability he would not gain much by putting him out of the way. To rid a woman of an old husband was one thing, but to part her from a young one, of whom she was probably fond, was quite another pair of sleeves. He reluctantly relinquished the murder notion, but, having still a lurking doubt as to whether it might not be the old man after all to whom she was wed, he determined to make the acquaintance of yonng Prendergast and find out all about it. This was not hard to manage simply as a matter of business, and Yates made himself so agreeable that they soon became familiar enough for him to mention the fact that he had lately had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Prendergast up North.

Now, the young fellow was married, and his wife had been on a visit to the North, so matters at once grew still more complicated; and when Yates, in as indifferent a tone as he could command, stated that he and Mrs. Prendergast were very old friends indeed, his new acquaintance naturally asked him out to dinner.

When Prendergast, junior, went home, he jokingly told his wife that he had met an old sweetheart of hers, who was coming out to dinner the next day. It so happened that when Mrs. Prendergast, junior, was away on her visit she had met an old sweetheart of hers, but of this she had naturally said nothing to her husband. Therefore, she first grew very red, then very angry, and made some derogatory remarks about men in general which her husband appropriated to himself, and a small tiff ensued.

YATES went out to dinner full of a lofty spirit of magnanimity. He would see her once more, make sure that she was happy, and then bury himself again for good in the solitude of Binjoomba. He stood in the drawing-room of his host, gazing sulkily out of the window, nerving himself for the coming ordeal, when there was a light tread behind him and a woman’s voice said in petulant accents: “What did you mean by telling Dick that you were an old sweetheart of mine, you goose? ”

Yates turned in amazement, and the lady, a perfect stranger to him, started back with a little cry of surprise. Before either had regained countenance, young Prendergast came in. Noting his wife’s red cheeks and Yates’ confused manner, the demon of jealousy at once entered his heart; but, like the villain of the drama, be dissembled.

“No need to introduce you two,” he said, with mock cheerfulness, and then, as there was no time for explanations, Yates took his hostess in to dinner, and they sat down, all feeling mighty uncomfortable.

Mrs. Prendergast could not explain that Yates was not the man she expected, without relating the fact of that other meeting concerning which she had been silent; Yates was utterly confused and afraid of putting his foot in it whatever he said; and young Prendergast was considering the safest method of killing his guest without being found out.

The dinner dragged wearily. It was summer time, and the twilight still lingered. Mrs. Prendergast, from where she sat, could see through the open French window.

“Here is somebody coming in a cab, with luggage,” she remarked. “Why, Dick, it is— yes! it’s the dowager, your mother!”

Young Prendergast arose and looked out of the window. “It is the mater,” he said, and left the room to meet the visitor.

Yates, too, looked out of the window. He saw his old sweetheart coming up the garden. He saw young Prendergast meet and greet her affectionately, and then he rose up with a hollow groan that made his hostess exclaim, “Good gracious! Whatever is the matter!”

“Let me go,” he said, wildly, “these complications are too much for me. How can he be her son? Tell me before I lose my wits?”

“Of course Dick is only her stepson,” she replied, in a somewhat scared voice, for she thought he was a lunatic; “but we are all so fond of her that, as a sort of joke, we call her ‘mother’ and ‘the dowager.’ ”

“Then she married..." he demanded, breathlessly.

“Dick’s father.”

“And where is he?”

“Dead and buried these two years.”

“O, bless you!” he cried, to her intense dismay, seizing her hand and kissing it rapturously.

“Here! I say!” cried the indignant voice of her husband, who had just entered ; but Yates paid no attention to him, for there stood his old love, and he rushed up to her and commenced a wild explanation, which, however, seemed satisfactory enough to the listener; although the bewildered Mrs. Prendergast, junior, kept entreating her husband to send for the police and have the madman removed. In due time explanations ensued, although the elder Mrs. Prendergast strenuously denied that she went up to Nanarjin in order to accidentally meet Yates once more.

“Do you know, old fellow,” said Prendergast, pushing the whisky over to his new friend as they smoked a parting cigar, “that I was seriously thinking of poisoning your grog to-night ?”

“And,” returned Yates, as he helped himself, “I came to Sydney with the firm resolve to put an end to Mrs. Prendergast’s husband.”

_______________

14: The Ghost's Victory

The Bulletin, 19 Dec 1891

"THIS IS a tough contract," murmured the ghost, as it gazed out of the window of the haunted chamber and looked up and down the almost deserted street. Needless to say it was Christmas Eve, and the clocks had just struck twelve.

It was not at all an awe-inspiring ghost. If one had not known for certain that it was a spectre it might have been taken for a shabby old debt-collector or a hanged bailiff; but it was a genuine goblin, and anybody infringing the trade-mark will be prosecuted.

The house it haunted was an old stone affair, situated on a good-sized allotment in one of the principal streets of Sydney. Most people have passed the place and wondered why it was so dull and murky and desolate, and why a tattered bill always announced that the upper part was "to let." It was owned by an absentee landlord, and there was a law-suit on it, and three mortgages. Around it was a solemn, melancholy waste, tenanted by old jam-tins and goats. The ground-floor was supposed to be occupied as offices, whilst the upper portion was left to solitude— and the ghost.

This was the spectre's grievance. Thirty years before it had cut its throat there, and since entering into the land of spirits it had not had a single opportunity of frightening anybody and achieving a reputation. It had made just one public appearance, and then it fell flat. It was an orthodox apparition, and as such, was strictly obliged to appear only between mid-night and cockcrow; but nobody lived in the house, nobody knew it was haunted, nobody cared whether it was haunted or not. So there it had remained, a poor, forlorn, neglected ghost, living alone in the dark and damp, all forgotten.

"Christmas again," it muttered in spectral grammar, "and I am still unknown. O! if I were only one of those modern young ghosts who go round visiting friends and relations and scaring the wits out of them; but, no! I am old-fashioned and must abide by the rules of the game. Why, I might have heaps of hidden money here to show people for aught the public know." Then it fell to musing over the one chance that had fallen its way.

It had been gazing sadly out of the window as usual at about one o'clock in the morning, when there came the sound of unsteady steps down the street. Presently, a stout old gentleman in evening dress, with his hat on one side and an overcoat on his arm, stopped suddenly in front of the gate and gazed curiously at the building. Would he come in? The ghost's heart beat fast with anxiety.

"Astonishing!" said the old gentleman. "How on earth did I get home so quick? Don't remember the tram— don't remember the train. My house, though, right enough." He opened the crazy gate and lurched in.

"At last, at last!" cried the apparition, restraining itself by a might effort from appearing on the verandah and prematurely flushing its game.

The old gentleman tried to put a latch-key in the door, but as there was no keyhole he failed. Then he kicked, and knocked, and swore. Finally he coiled himself up on the verandah, and after a grunt or two went fast asleep.

Then the exultant spectre passed through the crack underneath the door, and stood contemplating its unconscious victim. But all the old gentleman did was to turn over and say pettishly, as he dragged his coat over his shoulders, "Don't Maria!"

This put the ghost on its mettle. It laid an ice-cold hand on the sleeper, and, in a thrilling whisper, said, "Awake!"

The old gentleman sat up and blinked at the vision of the dead, and the vision regarded the old gentleman.

"Right, old boy!" said the latter. "I'll wake up in time, never fear. Bring me a stiff brandy-and-soda at it. Good night. Gobless you!" and he laid down again and snored.

This was maddening. A ghost to be mistaken for a waiter and told to bring a brandy-and-soda in the morning! It fled through the top window to the haunted chamber and sat down on the bloodstain and cried.

Time passed, but no other mortal visited the haunted house between midnight and daylight. Other ghosts came. Ghosts who were allowed out at nights; and they used to tell the old deceased inhabitant what joyous times they had; but that only made things worse. Sometimes it thought that a burglar might break in during the small hours and give it a chance; but, then, the occupants of the two alleged offices hadn't enough between them to allure any respectable burglar; and the burglars knew it.

Sorrowfully the poor old apparition mused, and if it could only have repeated the operation of cutting its throat, it would have done so out of sheer desperation and ennui.

At that moment the sound of approaching footsteps broke the stillness.

Two men, in earnest conversation, halted opposite the gate, and, by the light of the street lamp, the ghost saw that one of them was the occupant of the offices. He was some sort of agent— general commission— and, as the ghost knew, his principal occupation was hiding behind some old tanks in the back yard when his creditors called, which they did constantly. The old ghost, in its invisible state, used to do a good deal of wandering about in the day-time.

After a few minutes more talk the two men came in, and the agent proceeded to unlock the door.

The ghost nearly shrieked with joy. How should it make the most startling appearance? It decided to await them in the passage and shake its gaunt arms in the shadows.

The agent struck a match, opened the door of his office, and and was about entering, followed by his companion, when by the expiring light of the match, the latter caught a glimpse of the apparition standing at the end of the passage.

"Hallo! Somebody living here?" he said.

"No," said the agent, who had lit another match, and was searching for a candle.

"Thought I saw something at the end of the passage."

"Pooh! Cats, I suppose. This is a regular meeting place of theirs;" and the agent picked up an empty stone ink-bottle and, going to the door, hurled it down the passage, crying, "Shoo! get out!" Then he shut the office-door.

The ink-bottle went clean through the ghost, but the insult hurt it worse. First, to be taken for a waiter, then to be "shoo'ed" at for a cat. It approached the office vowing vengeance, and tramping frantically with the spectres of its old shadow feet on the floor. It was about to pass through the door, and, with a blood-curdling shriek appear before them with its gashed and bleeding throat, but a few words it heard arrested it. The ghost stopped and listened.

"Come, Tom, hurry up and get me those papers I left with you; I must go on board, we start at five sharp," said the younger man to the agent.

Tom sat on the edge of the ricketty deal table, swinging one leg moodily to and fro, but made no attempt to move.

"You know how frightfully hard up we've been?" he said at last.

"Of course I do; has not my sister told me all about it to-day, and, as you know, I gave her all the money I could to keep you going for a bit. I can do no more. Give me the papers."

"Well, then," said the agent, getting up, desperately and defiantly, "I haven't got them."

"Not got them!" repeated the other. "God Almighty, man! what do you mean?"

"Mean what I say."

"What have you done with them?" cried the younger, fiercely.

"The bank has them as security."

The agent's brother-in-law gazed at him in silence. "Do you know," he said at last, quite quickly, "that you have ruined me?"

"I can redeem them and send them to you overland," muttered the other, with white lips.

"Bah! you redeem them; how?" and he glanced round the poverty-stricken room. "Even if you had the money, or could get it, how could you redeem them before Monday? This is Friday, and before you could forward them we should have left Brisbane. You've ruined yourself, and now you've ruined me."

The agent said nothing, and his companion walked impatiently up and down the room.

"How much did you get advanced on them?"

"Five hundred pounds."

"And what became of it?"

"Speculated with it. That was the temptation. I knew of such a safe thing."

"Such a safe thing!" said the other, mockingly.

There was silence for a time. The younger man continued his wild-beast walk, and the agent leant against the table with folded arms and eyes cast down.

Half an hour passed, but the ghost was not impatient; after thirty years of loneliness, this little tragedy was interesting. Besides, it had cut its throat for doing almost the same thing the agent had done. Would the agent cut his throat? In that case he would also become a ghost.

"I dare not go back without those deeds," said the young man at last. "How do you propose to get them back?"

"I think I can borrow the money."

"If that is all I have to rely on, why, they are gone. Well, if it comes to the worst, I must go to the bank and demand their restitution as stolen property. I don't know how the law stands, but I believe they will give them up and—"

"Prosecute me," said the agent.

"I suppose so. I will do my duty, even though it puts you in gaol."

"You will put me in gaol, will you?" snarled the agent, walking up to his companion with an ugly look on his face.

The ghost executed a double shuffle in his joy, and pressed about in the passage. There was going to be a murder, and he would have another ghost to bear him company.

The young man confronted his brother-in-law, and said quietly, "If every other means fails, I must inform the bank, and after that I cannot interfere."

Tom fell back, and said, after a pause, "You had better leave me. I must try and think of some way out of this."

The other seemed in no hurry to stay, and walked to the door merely remarking, "I will see you this afternoon." Then the front door slammed behind him, and the house was left to the agent and the ghost.

Was the agent going to cut his throat? The ghost looked anxiously in; such an opportunity was worth waiting thirty years for.

Was he going to cut his throat? Nothing of the sort. The agent looked quite relieved, as though an unpleasant task had at last been got over. He lit another candle and turned towards the old-fashioned fireplace on one side of the room. The ghost watched him curiously. It was a hearth for burning wood; and the agent prised up one of the side stones, and from a whole underneath took out a large cash-box; put it on the table, and opened it. The spirit rushed through the wall unseen, and looked over his shoulder. The box was full of sovereigns. The agent counted them over with a sigh of relief, replaced the box in its hiding place, and made ready to go.

The apparition had passed through the wall again into the dark passage. It would never do to scare the agent now; he was coming back for that box, and then— the ghost hugged itself in anticipation. The agent closed and locked his door; slammed the front door after him and departed. The ghost stopped behind and chuckled. It was all plain as the proverbial pikestaff, and to be summed up in one word, "bolt." The five hundred pounds had not gone in speculation; they were in the cash-box, besides other little pickings. The spectre reckoned it all up on its shadowy fingers; holiday time, crowds travelling about, best chance in the world to get away; he's off, with whatever he can lay his hands on, leaves his wife and children to do the best they can, robs his brother-in-law, and ruins the people who own those deeds; now, how can I circumvent him?

The ghost fell into a brown study. "If I could only materialise myself like some of those new fangled spirits say they can, I might collar that money and tell the young fellow all about it, but I can't. If I appear before him I shall scare him, and then— he might not come back here. I'll best that fellow though if I.…"— die for it, the ghost was about to say, but as he had done that already he changed the expression. Just then the daylight lightened the eastern sky, and it vanished, but its face wore a look of satisfaction that was not on it before; evidently the apparition had an idea.

Christmas day passed in the usual manner, so far as the ghost was concerned; that is to say, nobody came near the place, and it either sat on the blood-spot or looked out of the window. Midnight struck, and the ghost was happy. It had six hours of visibility before it, and in a shadowy sort of way it cleared the desk for action.

At half-past twelve the agent made his appearance carrying a small portmanteau.

He struck a match before closing the front door, and dropped it immediately with a yell. Somebody was leaning against the door of his room, a strange, mouldy-looking little man who smelt exactly like a damp umbrella. Resisting the impulse to turn and fly, he waited and listened. There was no sound but the violent thumping of his own heart. He looked round into the street behind him to reassure himself, mustered up his nerve, and struck another match. This time the passage was empty. He wiped the beads of perspiration from his forehead, and laughed with considerable difficulty. Then he unlocked his own door, but he left the front door open. Nobody in his room so far as he could see with a match, so he lit the candle and— it was no fancy. An old man with a ghastly white face and a horrible blood-stain on his white beard and shirt front was sitting loose in the air about three feet above the floor. He might have stood his ground even then, but the thing started to walk through the air towards him, and, smitten with unreasoning panic, he turned and ran through the open door, and the triumphant ghost heard his flying footsteps die away in the distance.

"Now for the other man," muttered the ghost.

One o'clock struck, and in a few minutes the ghost heard someone entering the house. Both doors were still open and the candle still burning, so the newcomer walked straight in. He stopped short inside the room. Seated at the table where he expected to find his relative was a seedy old gentleman who, in spite of the heat, had his coat buttoned right to the neck and his collar turned up. The visitor was silent with astonishment, but the spectre grinned at him in an amiable manner and he faltered at last:

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"So glad you spoke," said the apparition, blandly. "You see I'm a ghost, and, of course, I can't speak first. Not allowed by the regulations. Now, don't be frightened and run away, because I want to do you a good turn. How do you feel? Quite well?"

"You're a ghost? But I don't believe in them. It's a joke."

"Don't be sceptical, young man. Shall I walk through the table or do any little absurdity of that sort? But, no! you've more sense than that. Listen: Your brother-in-law is a thief, you know, but he is worse than you think. He did not lose the money the bank advanced him. He has it all in a cash box under that stone. Lift it up and see. He was going to bolt. There is his portmanteau."

As in a dream, the live man advanced and did as the dead man directed him. Sure enough he lifted out a weighty cash-box.

"If I were you," said the ghost, "I would go straight to his house with that, and make him open it in front of your sister. His wife, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"Poor woman! Well, good morning, my boy. Wish you luck."

The young man halted at the door. "Is there any little thing I can do, sir, to show my gratitude?"

"There is. Now and again, say at intervals of a few months, persuade someone to come here between midnight and daylight. A sceptic, if possible. I won't give them much of a fright."

"Rely on me. I have half-a-dozen in my mind's eye already;" and he backed rather rapidly out into the street.

"A nice young man," said the ghost. "Now, I wonder if that other fellow is coming back. If he wants to clear out before daylight he'll face anything to get that money."

Sure enough, in about an hour's time, the agent came back. He had been somewhere in quest of Dutch courage, and was pot-valiant. The candle had gone out, but he lit another, and glared about the room.

"Now, where are you?" he cried. "Come out and frighten me again if you can. I've got something here for you." Looking through the wall the ghost saw he was flourishing a revolver.

Cursing himself for a fool for running away before, he put the weapon down and went to the hearth. The cry he gave when he discovered his loss was tremendous. He sprang to his feet, and there, glaring at him across the table, was the old man with the gashed throat. Then three shots were fired in quick succession. Two of them went through the spectre. The third went through the agent.

There are two ghosts in that old house now. One occupies the upper, the one the lower portion— but they are not on speaking terms.

________________

15: The Sea Gave Up its Dead

Bulletin 17 Dec 1892

THE TROOPERS were walking slowly and carefully, one after the other. In fact, there was no other mode of progression possible, for we were following an ill-marked native path through a mangrove swamp. The four "boys" had nothing on but their blue twill shirts and a belt of cartridges. In spite of their bare feet and the pointedly-aggressive shoots of the mangroves that studded the path, they got on quicker than I did with boots on.

The steam from the flats and the closeness of the atmosphere— for not a breath of air was stirring— were causing all of us to perspire profusely. The black legs of the boys glistened with moisture, and my shirt was saturated. In the salt pools, as we tramped through, foul bubbles would arise and burst, and from the slime on either side sharp cracks and reports would be heard. Sometimes an army of blue crabs would sidle away in haste, suddenly to disappear as if the black earth had swallowed them up; or spiney-backed lizards coursed swiftly over the mud and ran up the leaning trunk of a mangrove, to gaze at us from a safe position.

I felt relieved when we reached higher ground and emerged on a little marine plain on the bank of a salt-water creek, down which the tide was running rapidly. On the opposite side was a sandbank and a corresponding small plain ; on the sandbank an alligator was basking. A little to our left was a clump of bushy mangroves wherein a swarm of flying foxes were making their mid-day camp— some sleeping, some head-downwards, others flapping about, chattering and whistling: the vampires of the legends.

We halted on the bank of the creek. The alligator opposite slid lazily into the water, so slowly and surely that he disappeared without leaving a ripple on the moving surface. He need not have troubled himself— we were after blacks and had no intention of announcing our presence by a rifle-shot.

What the blacks had done to bring prospective punishment on themselves need not be told, it has nothing to do with the present story. Suffice it to say that the day before, F——,  the officer in charge of the party, had staked his foot badly while trying to walk barefooted in the mangroves, so that he had to stay in camp with the horses, much against his will, and I accompanied the boys alone. It was not the orthodox thing to do, as, according to the regulations, no outsiders were supposed to be with a "dispersing" party; but in those days, and that part of Far Northern Queensland, regulations were winked at, and the sub-inspector, or lieutenant as he was then called, was only too glad to have somebody from the station with him for company's sake.

This digression explains why I, an unofficial personage, was standing on the bank of a salt-water creek, in company with Corporal Fred, a Dawson boy, and three other black troopers who hailed from Wide Bay, with the avowed intention of overtaking and dispersing certain aborigines who had offended against the Queen's peace. The blacks had split up, and the boys had lost the tracks— I could see that at once when we pulled up. I was resting under the shade while the boys scattered about and sought to find out which way the main body had gone; a low whistle attracted my attention. Fred was standing on the bank gazing earnestly at some object in the water. I got up and joined him.

Following the direction of his pointing finger, I saw something approaching, borne down by the receding tide, that made me start.

"What name, Fred?" I said.

"White fellow— dead fellow!"

The object came closer; Fred gave a whistle of surprise.

"White woman, by gum," he said.

There was no doubt about it; in fact, I ought to have guessed it before, for the corpse of a woman always floats face-uppermost, whilst a man's floats faee-downwards.

This white face of a woman, with long hair half shrouding it, was now nearly abreast of us. The other boys had come up and were silently watching.

"We must get it out," I said to Fred, dancing down stream. I saw that the creek took a sharp bend, the projecting point being on the opposite side; probably the set of the current would send the body within reach of our bank.

The black boy noted my glance and ran down to the bend, where he stationed himself with a long stick. It would, of course, have been easy enough to swim in for it, but as, in addition to numberless alligators, there were probably plenty of sharks, nobody felt inclined for the experiment.

Fred was successful in his ghastly fishing, and the poor body was drawn ashore. It was that of a dark-haired woman, fully dressed, and had been in the water some days. Round one of the swollen fingers was the glint of a wedding-ring half-buried in the flesh.

"Missie White," said one of the boys, as we gazed at the corpse.

I looked at Fred; he nodded.

White and his wife kept an accommodation-house and sly-grog shanty at the crossing of a river, some short distance to the westward. How did the body come to be in this blind creek? Had she got lost and wandered on to it and fallen in?

All at once the solution flashed upon me. The White's shanty was at the head of salt water on the "X" river ;in all probability this saltwater creek either ran into the river near its mouth, or into the sea close by. The corpse had come down the river, and a returning tide had brought it back up the creek. It was on its way seaward again when we arrested the journey.

I scribbled a note on a leaf of my pocket-book, and sent one of the boys back with it to F——, telling him he would have to come on it he had to crawl on all-fours. It was not far to the camp in a straight line, but it would have been hard work to carry the body there through the mangrove scrub. Fred had a tomahawk in his belt, so the boys set to work digging a grave in the sandy plain with pointed sticks.

It was late in the afternoon before F—— limped on to the scene. He recognised the woman at once— I had never seen her alive myself. We then had the repulsive task of seeing if there were any wounds to account for her death, but apparently she had been drowned. The shallow grave was ready, and we buried her with such "maimed rites" as we could remember. After filling in the grave, we put some logs over it to mark the place, and left the ill-omened spot to the flying foxes and the mosquitoes, which commenced to swarm down in armies. F—— agreed with me as to the way the corpse came to be in the creek, for the creek was but an estuary, and the head of it was in trackless mangrove swamps. The blacks we were in pursuit of had a respite.

F—— asked me to go with him round to the shanty, and the evening of the day after we had buried the woman we arrived there. The cook and knockabout man was chopping wood outside the rude shelter that served as a kitchen.

"White inside?" said F—— curtly as we dismounted.

"I expect so," returned the man sullenly; "he's pretty bad with the horrors— been drinking too much of his own grog."

"Where's Mrs. White?" said F .

"She's in there," he replied, indicating the house ; "she's been sick in bed the last few days."

"Haven't you seen her?"

"No, but I hear him talking to her."

"Did you hear her answering him ?"

The man stared. "What's up?" he said.

"Oh, nothing," returned F——, "only I want to see Mrs. White."

"Well, she's there right enough. I've heerd her moving about when he's bin out of the room."

F—— glanced curiously at me and we walked over to the rough slab house. As we entered the door White came out of an inner room. He was evidently pretty bad, but when he recognised F—— and saw through the doorway the troopers standing outside with the horses, he seemed to get somewhat sober.

He bade us good day and apologised for the disorder of the place, which certainly looked as though several free fights had gone on in it, by stating that his wife was sick and it occupied most of his time attending to her.

"Sorry to hear Mrs. White is bad," said F——; "what is it— fever?"

White nodded, and we both certainly heard, across the low partition, a movement and a whisper. This was strange.

"Can you get us something to eat. We shall camp here to-night ? "

"I am afraid not," said White reluctantly, "everything is so upset, you see."

"Well, never mind," returned F——, "luckily we have some tucker with us. I'll tell the boys to turn out."

We left the place, and, after a few words with Fred. F—— showed the boys where to camp, and they commenced to unsaddle. White had followed us out and now stood talking to the cook.

In the midst of the work we were suddenly startled by a loud yell and a volley of curses, and the next instant Fred appeared in full flight round the corner of the house, followed by White raving at him and brandishing the axe the cook had been chopping wood with,

"You sneaking nigger!" he shouted. " I'll knock your brains out! "

F—— and I stepped between with our revolvers as Fred rushed up.

"Baal Missie White there, Marmie," he said as he passed, " black gin sit down along a bedroom!"

Fred, acting under instructions, had been taking a peep through a chink in the slabs when White discovered him.

The man halted, under cover of the two revolvers, but it was only for a moment. Fred's words told him that his secret was discovered. He was rushing at F—— who was just firing when one of the troopers picked up a waddy, let fly with good aim and knocked him down. F——'s bullet went over his head, and ere he could get up, half stunned as he was, we had the handcuffs on him.

Leaving White in charge of two of the boys, we went to the house, and F going in to the bedroom returned with a trembling black gin in custody, who had been playing the part of sick Mrs. White since her disappearance. The cook had been calmly smoking his pipe and looking on at the disturbance, and as the gin was too frightened to speak, we interrogated him; but, of course, he knew nothing. Whilst in the middle of the examination a shout from the boys attracted our attention. White had given them the slip, and was running swiftly for the river, the troopers in pursuit. Strung up to desperation the madman reached the bank first, and without a pause jumped into the dark hole beneath. We halted on the bank. He came to the surface once and gave a choking cry, and then sank for good.

"Sheol!" cried the cook, "he owed me six weeks' wages."

"It's just as well," said F—— to me, after trouncing the two boys for their carelessness; "it has saved me a lot of trouble."

Neither from the gin nor the cook could we obtain any information. Probably, in a drunken fit, he had thrown his wife into the river; and but for our stumbling across the body his little stratagem would have succeeded until he had a plausible excuse to account for her disappearance. The sea never gave his body back, and after the shanty was deserted it was soon burnt down.

_____________

16: Mrs. Stapleton No. 2

The Bulletin, 20 April 1893

THE DECEASED Mrs. Stapleton had been always noted as slightly the better horse of the team, and I am afraid matters were not improved by some of Stapleton's wild and unthinking friends, who, because he became pot-valiant in his cups, would seduce him into that condition and then send him home to defy the late Mrs. Stapleton.

Unfortunately, these outbreaks of bravado always resulted in Stapleton's protracted seclusion from the public gaze. Cuts and bruises don't easily heal on the man who "nips."

To everyone's astonishment, however, Stapleton took the loss greatly to heart. He shunned company, went about in deep mourning, and vowed that his heart was buried in his wife's grave.

It was at this period that he met that interesting little widow, Mrs. Beausant, who had buried her husband and her heart just about the time when Mrs. Stapleton died. There was a good deal of sympathy between them, and they entertained one another with long eulogiums on the respective dears-departed. They even went in company to the respective cemeteries, and each complimented the other on the taste displayed in the matter of tombstones. Death is a weird thing. Love is weirder still.

"Had my darling but survived me," said Stapleton, "this is exactly the stone I should have dreamt of her selecting"— indicating the ponderous block of marble which held down the remains of the defunct Beausant.

"And," said the little widow, as they gazed at the tomb of the gone-before Mrs. Stapleton, "if my angel had lived to bury me, this is just the tribute he would have paid to his."

Such a mingling of tears could lead but to one result. They agreed to comfort each other, and proceeded to do so.

The marriage promised to turn out happily, and Stapleton soon resumed his former habits and became a jolly dog once more. One midnight he reached home in a state of obfuscation; so confused was he that next morning he remembered nothing about his arrival. However, there he was in his own bed "with a head on him."

He crept out, went over to the glass, and examined his face. Not a mark on it! Mrs. Stapleton, No. 2, had not served him as had been the wont of Mrs. Stapleton, No. 1. He slipped into bed again, just as his wife appeared.

"Well, ducky," she said. "How's its little head this morning?"

"Good gracious!" thought Stapleton, "What a lucky dog l am! I must take advantage of this. No weakness, now," he groaned, dismally.

"Could you get me some brandy and soda, cold, old girl? Selina (No. 1) always had some ready for me."

Now, the fact was, that Selina used not only to give him no cold soda and brandy— but she used to bang him soundly and take away his clothes, so that he could not go out to get any.

"Yes, lovey," said the model No. 2; "he shall have it iced," and she left the room.

Stapleton almost capered about in anticipation of the glorious times he would have with such an obedient spouse.

Little No. 2 came back with some brandy and iced soda; then she brought him in an appetising breakfast of devilled kidney, hot toast and strong tea, and after he had consumed it and taken a tub, he felt a new man. How much better this was than being locked up with yesterday's paper and a black-eye!

"No weakness," he murmured to himself. "I must keep this up;" and I regret to say that he did. Instead of showing his gratitude for such a jewel of a wife by trying to reform, he seemed to consider that he had taken out a license for bad behaviour.

Mrs. Stapleton No. 2 was a plump, pleasing little woman of about six-or-seven and twenty, who never showed that she possessed any temper at all, despite the airs Stapleton now began to assume— for there is no worse tyrant than your emancipated slave. One evening he got home early, and, on entering the drawing-room, found his wife just bidding farewell to a good-looking middle-aged man, who, without taking the slightest notice of him, put his arm round Mrs. Stapleton's waist and gave her several hearty kisses, to which she made no objection. The utter coolness of the proceeding so paralysed the husband that he did not find voice for anything but a half-choked yell of rage ere the stranger had left the house. Then his wife turned to him and smilingly remarked; "What a nice man Captain Johnson is, I do love him so!"

The yell now broke forth in dead earnest.

"You wretched woman!" he shouted, dancing about the room, "How dare you! Leave my house!"

"Why, Charley, what's the matter?" she cried, in mock surprise.

"What's the matter? A man kisses her before my face and she asks me what's the matter?"

"Why, Charley, surely you don't mind that.

Beausant didn't mind it."

"Beausant didn't mind men kissing you before his face!"

"No, not if they liked it," she returned, blushing coyly.

"Not if they liked it! " he sneered. "And I suppose they often liked it?"

"Yes, I am afraid they did."

"And how often has Captain Johnson been to see you, madam?"

"Oh! only sometimes when you've left me alone."

"And" (sarcastically) "anybody else?"

"Just a few nice fellows."

Stapleton shook his fist wildly and plunged for his hat.

"Charley," she cried "what is the matter? Poor Beausant never found fault with me. Oh you are cruel!" and she shed a few bitter tears.

"Madam, I am going to consult my lawyer."

"But, Charley dear, dinner will be ready directly, and— he's left his office by this time."

The door banged behind Stapleton, and the next moment he was nerving himself for the ordeal by draining a bumper of Dutch courage. It did him good, and he tried another. Then a friend came in and they took a drink together; other potations followed, and Stapleton began to bemoan his fate and vow he would never go home again. But he did; he got home somehow and awoke with at least three heads on him. Nobody came near him now; there was no brandy and cold soda. He called the servant and asked after his wife. She had gone out. Where? To the races. This was a staggerer. It was nearly 11 o'clock; he would get up and see about it. He dressed and descended. The girl brought him some breakfast— cold mutton and weak tea ! Ugh! he put on his hat and went out. This time he did go to the lawyer's— but the lawyer, he found, had likewise gone to the races.

Stapleton passed a sad day, and when Mrs. S. came home at nearly seven o'clock, radiant and smiling, he was fairly boiling with wrath.

"Well, Charley." she said. "I had a splendid day. I hope Mary looked after you properly!"

"Mary did not look after me properly. I have had a most miserable headache all day. Your heartless conduct—"

"Not at all, Charley— yesterday's whisky, and no little wifey to doctor him up as Selina used to do."

"Selina, madam, knew how to behave herself. She did not allow men to kiss her."

The trouble was that no man would have cared to kiss Selina.

Mrs. Stapleton laughed. "Charley, a fair thing is a fair thing. I've tried to act up to the memory of the departed Selina. Why can't you imitate the lamented Beausant?"

"Because! because! Because I won't— there!"

"Then I won't nurse you up any more when you take too much overnight."

The worm had turned.

"You'd better make a bargain, and if you promise to be a good boy in future, I won't let any fresh men kiss me," she continued.

"I'll take care of that, madam, or at least my lawyer will."

Mrs. Stapleton laughed gaily. "Now, Charlie, behave yourself for the future, and I'll do the same. Not that I've done anything very dreadful yet, for Captain Johnson— as I called him— is my brother Dick from up-country, who's been here to meet you several times, but you were always out with your friends, getting— well, drunk. He was in the house once when you came home, but you had taken too much whisky to see him."

Stapleton is now as reformed a character as Tommy Walker.

________________

17: The Boundary Rider's Story

The Bulletin, 14 Dec 1895

THE storm that had been brewing all the afternoon, gathered, towards nightfall, in great black clouds, cleft every now and then by jagged streaks of vivid lightning. Just after dark it burst in a fierce rush of rain and boom and rage of thunder. Blinding as the lightning was, it as only by its assistance that a belated traveller could keep his horse on the bridle-track he was following; for when darkness fell between the flashes, it seemed as though a black pall had been dropped over everything.

With heads bent down, the sodden man and horse plodded on until the rider found himself on a main road into which the track debouched.

"Another mile;" he muttered to himself; "and I'll come to old Mac's." He touched his horse slightly with the spur and glanced nervously round. The travelling now improved, and ere long a dim light proclaimed his approach to some kind of habitation; soon afterwards he pulled up at the verandah of a small bush inn.

"Are you in Mac?" he roared with a voice that outdid the thunder, as he splashed down from his horse into a pool of water, and hastily proceeded to ungirth.

"Who's there?" returned a voice, and the owner of it came out and peered into the darkness.

"Smithson! Lend us a pair of hobbles."

"Jupiter! what are you doing out here such a night as this?" asked Mac as he handed him the hobbles.

"'Cos I'm a fool, that's why," said Smithson as he stooped down and buckled the straps. "Can't go wrong for feed, I suppose?"

"Right up to the back door. Come in and get a change."

Hanging his saddle and bridle on a peg riven into the slab, the late traveller followed his host into the bar. Mac put his head out of the back door and roared to somebody to bring in some tea; then reached down a bottle and placed it, with a glass, before his visitor. Smithson filled out a stiff drink, tossed it off neat, and gave a sigh of satisfaction. Having got a dry shirt and trousers, the traveller proceeded to simultaneously enjoy a good meal and his host's curiosity.

"It's that cursed Chinaman hunted me. The one who cut his throat."

"Did you see him?" asked Mac in an awed voice.

"I did, indeed, with the bandages round his neck just as they found him. I meant to go in to the station and tell the boss he must send out somebody else. When I remembered that you were nearer and came over for a bit of company. Now, don't laugh at a fellow— just you go and stop in my hut for a night or two."

"No fear," returned Mac emphatically.

"Well I thought I didn't care for anything," said the boundary-rider, "but this caps all. You should see— cripes! what's that!" For a long, lugubrious howl sounded outside, followed by the rattling of a chain. Both men forced a very artificial laugh.

"It's Boxer," said Smithson, Suddenly illumined. "I left him tied up, but he's got his chain loose and followed me."

A very wet and woe-begone dog came in at his call. Smithson detached the chain from his collar and they sat down again.

"Boxer didn't fancy being left alone," remarked Mac.

"Seems not. It gave me quite a turn when he howled like that. What do you say?" Taking the hint, Mac arose and the two went into the bar.

"All alone to-night?" asked Smithson.

"Yes, the missus is in town; there's only deaf Ben in the kitchen."

"Well, I hope that d—d Chinaman won't follow the dog."

"Don't get talking like that. How did he come to cut his throat? It was before my time."

"The fellow who had the contract for the paddock-fence lived in the hut with two men, and the Chinaman was cooking for them; he was there for over six months. Chris, the contractor, he paid off the other men; and he and the Chinaman stopped for a week longer to finish up some odd jobs. One morning Chris came in to the station as hard as he could split— the Chow had cut his throat the night before. Chris said he wasn't quite dead, and that he had tied up the wound as well as he could. The super and another man went back with him, but when they arrived the Chinkie was as dead as a door-nail. Now, the strange thing was that the stuff Chris had tied round his throat was quite clean; but when they moved the body, with Chris holding the shoulders, the blood commenced to soak through, and turned them all quite faint. All Chris knew about it was that when he awoke in the morning the Chinaman was lying outside with a sheath-knife in his hand and his throat cut."

"And did you see nothing until to-night?"

"No. Just after dark I heard someone calling, and I went to the door and looked out. I can tell you I just did get a fright, for there by the lightning I saw the Chinaman standing, with bloody rags round his neck, and the knife in his hand."

Mac shuddered and passed the bottle.

"Now," said Smithson, "comes the strange part of it. That shout, or coo-ee, I heard, came from some way off, and that there ghost I saw was not looking at me, but listening for that shout, and smiling like a man who was expecting a friend coming."

"What did you do?"

"I slammed the door to, picked up my saddle and bridle and got out of the back window. I knew my old moke was not far off, but I was that scared I left his hobbles where I took them off. I heard Boxer howling as I rode away."

IT WAS a beautiful morning after the storm as Smithson rode in to the head station. So bright and cheerful was it that the boundary-rider felt rather ashamed of the yarn he was going to tell and half-inclined to turn back. However, he went on and had an interview with the superintendent. Naturally, he was laughed at, and this, of course, made him stubborn.

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Morrison, the super, at last. I'll go back with you this afternoon and stop the night with you, and we'll see if we can't quiet the Chinaman."

Smithson agreed, remarking that perhaps it was only on one particular night he walked, as he had never seen him before.

Morrison turned up an old diary and glanced through it. "Oh, that's nothing," he said, pushing it away.

THE TWO MEN rode up to the lonely hut, Morrison slightly ahead. "There's something queer there," he said, pulling up. Smithson stared eagerly; while Boxer, who was with them, sat down on the road and howled dismally.

Recovering themselves, the two rode on. A man was lying in front of the door stretched out in death. Dismounting, they approached and examined him.

"No, no!" cried Smithson, "don't touch him— we mustn't till the police come."

With an impatient gesture Morrison stooped down and turned the dead face up. In the throat was a rude wound, and in the open eyes a terror more than human.

"It's Christy," said the superintendent in a quiet voice.

"The man who employed the Chinaman?" asked Smithson in an unsteady tone.

"Yes. How, in the name of God, did he come here? Tell me exactly what you saw and heard."

"I was in the doorway, as I told you," said the boundary-rider excitedly, "standing just there, and by the flash of lightning I saw the Chinaman here"— and he indicated the spot.

"He was standing like this"— and he bent forward like a man watching and listening— looking in the direction the cry came from over there."

"And you saw a knife in his hand?"

"Yes, and he was smiling as though expecting somebody he wanted to see badly."

Morrison put his hand on the other's shoulder and pointed to the knife in the hand of the corpse. "Was it that knife?"

"It looks like it," chattered Smithson.

The superintendent glanced about and shook his head. "No tracks to tell tales," he said.

"No, all the storm was on afterwards."

Morrison mused a bit. "Get a sheet of bark," he said, "or one of those sheets of iron there. We must put him inside, and then I'll give you a letter to take in to the police. You can get back with the sergeant by to-morrow morning, and we'll bury him."

"You're not going to stop here?" said Smithson.

"No," returned Morrison. "I'll get over to Mac's."

They lifted the dead man on to the sheet of iron and carried him into his old dwelling-place, Smithson evidently much averse to the job. Morrison tried to close the staring eyes before they put one of Smithson's blankets over the corpse; but the lids were rigid. "Evidently he didn't like the look of where he's gone to," he muttered. The two set out— one to the little township, the other to Mac's pub.

The night was as calm and fine as though thunder were unknown. Morrison mused deeply over the tragic occurrence, trying to recall all he knew of the past and put a common-sense construction on it, but he failed, and only made himself nervous.

"There's one very strange thing about the affair," he said to Mac, when they were discussing it that evening. "When I paid Chris for the contract— over which he lost, by the way— I gave him separate cheques to pay off his men, including one for the Chinaman of about $30. That cheque was not found, and, moreover, it has never been presented to this day."

"What sort of a fellow was Chris?"

"A good fencer, but a stupid fellow, not fit to take contracts. I often wonder if he took the cheque off the body before he came in."

"Then why didn't he present it?"

"That was his idea, no doubt, at first. But I tell you he could scarcely read or write and I suppose after he heard me tell the sergeant that I would give the bank notice and instruct them to watch for the cheque, he got frightened."

"Before that he imagined that one cheque was the same as another, and that you could not trace a particular one?"

"Yes, just about what he would think."

"Perhaps he killed the Chinaman?"

"Perhaps he did," returned Morrison, after a long and thoughtful pause.

By sunrise Morrison and Mac were at the boundary-rider's hut, and soon afterwards the sergeant and Smithson arrived. The examination did not take long, and they prepared to dig a grave.

"Better not bury him alongside the other," said the sergeant.

"No," replied Morrison. "Let's see, we buried him over against that tree; didn't we, sergeant?"

"Yes, and not very deep either. It was dry weather, the ground was hard, and we came upon a big root."

The obsequies were not prolonged. Sewn up in the blanket, the dead man was soon laid in a damp grave. While the others were filling it up, Morrison, still thinking of Mac's remark, strolled over to the spot where the Chinaman slept, not expecting to see any mark of the place left. He started and turned pale.

"Here! Quick! Come here!" he cried.

The men came hastily, the tools still in their hands. The earth over the old grave had been loosened and disturbed.

"My God! he's got up!" murmured Smithson. "I've heard they can't rest out of their own country."

"Give me a shovel," cried Morrison; and commenced to carefully scrape the earth away. The sergeant assisted him, and they soon came to the skeleton, for nearly everything but the bones was gone.

"What, do you expect to find?" asked the sergeant.

Morrison was carefully brushing the loose dirt off the thing with a bough.

"Look here!" he said.

Clasped in the fleshless hand was the missing cheque

"It wasn't buried with him, I'll swear," said the sergeant.

"And if it had been, it would have decayed long since," answered Morrison.

"He got up and took it from Chris last night. He was bound to get his cheque back," said Mac.

"Well I'm going to pack up my traps," remarked Smithson.

"I'll send down and have this hut shifted," said Morrison. "Although now he's got what he wanted, I don't suppose, he'll get up again."

"By gum, I won't trust him," said the boundary-rider.

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18: The Eight-Mile Tragedy

The Bulletin, 14 May 1892

"THE EIGHT-MILE" was one of the finest sheets of water on the run on the river for that matter, for it was one of the dry, inland rivers in Western Queensland wherein the water-holes are few and far between. It was a warm part of the world, and in summer the broad plains through which the many-channelled stream wound its way were full of gaping holes and cracks, and the hot winds came across them like blasts from a stoke-hole.

The Eight-Mile was a favourite camping-place, and, induced by this consideration, an individual proceeded to erect a rough accommodation house there. He was a pallid, unhealthy-looking man, whose pasty face contrasted strangely with the sun-blackened complexions of the station men, and he had an unhealthy-looking wife and was accompanied by an equally unhealthy-looking rouseabout, who assisted in the erection of the accommodation house

The prejudice of the district was decidedly against new-comers; as one of the men 'they looked too much like so many kopsuses,' but as they all proved quiet, kept a decent table, and were not much suspected of either sly-grog selling or horse-stealing, they rose in public estimation, and when Butler (for that was the man's name) enlarged his habitation and applied for a publican's license, it was granted without much trouble.

Naturally things altered Somewhat. Timothy J. Butler was rather more self-assertive when lording it behind the bar, and the rouseabout, promoted to be barman suddenly developed a sporting, horsey vein hitherto unsuspected. Still Timothy B. retained his credit. No outrageous cases of hocussmg or lambing-down were ever reported, and as he now kept a Chinese cook and gardener and spared no pains to provide good meals, his place was well patronised and prosperity appeared to loom ahead.

Mrs. Butler, however, was still a woman of mystery. Timothy and the promoted barman grew browner in face and more genial in their manner, but she still remained pale, silent and reserved. If addressed she answered in the fewest possible words, and took the first opportunity of leaving the room.

One afternoon there was a goodly number of people assembled at Tim's, as the place was now known. Three teams were camped at the water-hole, some of the men from the neighbouring station were down, and a traveller or two were staying there. A few of the boys were playing quoits with horse-shoes, some were pitching competition yarns, and the balance talking horse with the barman. At this juncture a stranger rode up to the place. He was a big-boned, black-bearded man with enormous feet and hands. He was riding a miserably poor, knocked-up horse which fairly staggered when his rider dismounted, with some difficulty extricating his large feet from the stirrups.

Mrs. Butler was just coming into the verandah when the new-comer alighted, but at sight of him she beat a hasty retreat.

"Good day to yez all," said the stranger in a rich brogue, as he glanced around, and then, as Butler appeared, he gave a shout, and exclaimed: "And 'tis yerself, Tim, ould man, after all, then!"

Tim, however, did not appear to reciprocate the effusive greeting of his friend, but he treated him civilly, sent the black boy to hobble the wretched horse out on the nearest bit of feed, and asked his guest in. The stranger drew one of his huge hands across his mouth and followed with alacrity. Public opinion in the verandah decided that he was an ex-policeman and a new-chum in the bush.

In the course of the afternoon Tim mentioned the stranger as his brother-in-law, John Dwyer, It was noticeable that he spoke of him as John, not the more familiar Jack, although Dwyer affectionately dubbed him Tim at every opportunity. Mrs. Butler did not appear as usual to dispense the tea from the big tin teapot at the evening meal, and the only person who seemed elated at the visit was Dwyer himself. He was in high good-humour, "shouted" for everybody who would drink with him, as though the place belonged to him ; and, after an uproarious carouse, fell asleep with his head under the table and his legs dangling over a form.

From that time forth Tim's was an altered place. Dwyer, who appeared to be in his proper element, lolled behind the bar from morning till night, and his broad fingers were continually clutching a whisky-bottle. Trade fell off, for his assertive ways disgusted everybody, high and low, master and man, and much wonder was expressed that Butler stood it.

There came an end, however, to his patience. It was soon rumoured that Butler wanted to sell out, and as the district had increased in importance during his sojourn in it, he was not long without a suitable offer. He accepted it, and it was soon known that Mr. Dwyer had departed without beat of drum. Shortly afterwards the Butlers and their faithful henchman left, and the new people entered into possession.

THREE months had elapsed since Tim's— by which name it was, and probably is still, known— had changed hands, and three or four teams had turned out at the Eight-Mile to camp. It was only about 2 o'clock, and the black boy, bucket and billy in hand, went down to the water-hole to bring up water. The men who were unyoking were suddenly startled by flying footsteps, and a scared nigger rushed into their midst with the astounding assertion that an alligator was in the water-hole.

Big Bob elevated his tall, sinewy frame, six foot four in his bare feet, and accompanied by his mates strode down the track. On the surface of the water floated a remarkable-looking object.

The men gazed in silence for some time,

"If it was possible," said Big Bob at last, "I should say those were Dwyer's feet." He flicked his bullock whip at it, but it fell short. "Lend us a lash," he said.

One of the men unbent his whip from the keeper and handed it to him. He fastened it on to his own, made a noose at the end, and with one skilful east sent it over the strange object and towed it ashore.

It was Dwyer's feet, and there was a body attached to it. A horrible body, so bloated in places, so shrunken in others, so mutilated by fish, so unlike anything human, and yet still bearing a horrid likeness of humanity about it, that some of the men retired,

With the aid of another whip, Big Bob and two or three others got the thing on to the bank. A bag full of stones had been tied to it, but the fastenings had parted and the corpse had come to the surface.

"We camped here a fortnight ago," said Big Bob, looking at the others,

"Yes," was the reply. They were on the up-trip then, now they were returning empty.

"And," said Bob, solemnly, "we made our tea and our bread of this water, and boiled our beef in it. By——, if ever I catch Butler, I'll— I'll—"

Words failed him here.

Everybody put it down to Butler, but no trace of him could be discovered. No marks of violence were found on the body; Dwyer's hands and feet had been tied together, probably when he was in a drunken stupor, and so he had been chucked into the waterhole.

"I'll never forgive him," said Big Bob.

"Why the devil didn't he bury him?"

"Too many niggers about," replied his mate. "Bound to have tracked him up out of sheer curiosity." Which was true, as a camp of blacks had established themselves near the place. There were some startling telegrams in the metropolitan papers, and a verdict of wilful murder against Timothy Butler; but that was all.

I was jackerooing on the next station, at the time, and ten years afterwards accidentally heard the "rights" of Dwyer's fate.

It came about in this way. I was in Sydney walking down George-street; at that time the totalisators were in full and open swing, and one fellow who was standing in the street taking a customer's name, was knocked down by a cab. I recognised his white face as they lifted him up; it was Butler's barman. I called at the hospital next morning and found that he had been badly injured and could not possibly live. He recognised me, and presently told me about Dwyer.

Butler and he, it seems, had been mixed up in a swindling racing transaction, which, connected as it was with the suspicious death of a man, made a great stir at the time.

Butler and the ex-barman got eight years over it. Mrs. Butler had secreted most of the money, and, by bribing Dwyer, then a warder, the two escaped. They made out back to the most uncivilised part they could find, and were doing well by honest means when Dwyer, who had lost his billet, tracked them down and established himself at free quarters. He was ruining the business and Butler, despairing of ever getting free from his incubus, got rid of him in the way mentioned. The Butlers, it seems, had since gone to America, and their accomplice died a few days after he told me the story.

________________

19: The Belle of Sagamodu

Bulletin, 4 Mar 1893

I HAD always detested Richardson, although we were ostensibly friends, but my dislike for him culminated when he cut me out with the wealthy Ms. Macpherson. Then I felt that the world was far too small for both of us. All my carefully-devised schemes of vengeance, however, recoiled upon myself. Richardson had the luck of the devil.

We were both engaged in the South Sea trade, and Richardson, alas! was also engaged to the widow. This was to be our final voyage together, for Richardson was about to "settle down".

Of course, on our last trip we must needs come to utter grief: one morning we found ourselves a couple of wretched traders on Sagamodu Island, and, worse still, in the hands of the Batta-battas, the most ferocious cannibals south of the equator. But it so happened that a bloody war between the Batta-battas and another tribe had just been concluded, and the Battas, having been victorious, had in their possession many prisoners. "Long pig," therefore, was plentiful and we were consequently respited. We would keep— and improve.

The selfish savages fed us well, and we spent an indolent time, varied by false alarms of approaching feasts. They were genial fellows in their way and never omitted enquiring after our health every morning.

One day Richardson came to me, much perturbed.

"This is too bad," he said. "You know Suchamucha, the chiefs sister? Well, she has fallen in love with me and insists upon my marrying her."

"So much the better for you," I replied; "they surely won't dine off a relation."

"There's something in that," he remarked meditatively; "but if it ever came to Mrs. Macpherson's ears !''

"Pooh, how could it?" I returned— "don't throw away such a chance. I happen to know that all the prisoners of war are finished, and our guardians have been casting greedy glances at both of us lately. Worse than all, we're getting fat!"

After hesitating a few days longer he succumbed to circumstances, and the marriage was celebrated, it being stipulated on his part that both our lives should be spared. Thus did Richardson settle down to, Suchamucha and domestic bliss!

Ere a fortnight had elapsed a vessel hove in sight and sent a boat ashore to trade. Naturally, everybody was on the alert. We were anxious to escape, while the natives were suspicious of our intentions and determined to keep us for their future gratification..

Just how the trouble commenced I don't know. I think the Batta-battas wanted to annex the boat and all its contents, so the mate opened fire.

This, of course, somewhat distracted the attention of our guards, and we made a sudden bolt, with Suchamucha shrieking at our heels. As we pelted along an idea flashed through my brain. I acted instantly upon it: dropped suddenly right in front of Richardson. Over he went headlong, and Suchamucha, who was at least as strong as any ordinary man, fell on top of and clutched him. I reached the sea amid a shower of badly-aimed missiles and was hauled into the boat half-drowned.

"How about tin other fellow?" queried the mate, who was making things lively with a Snider,

"He's all safe," I panted, "married chief's sister— pull like blazes— war-canoes coming!"

Of course, there were no war-canoes, but I throw that falsehood under the usual spare tear of the Recording Angel. The mere hint of a savage flotilla was enough, and, in a few minutes, we were safe aboard the schooner. The last I saw of the island was a dusky crowd headed by Suchamucha, carrying up the struggling, kicking form of my bated rival.

The first thing I did when I got back to Sydney was to see the widow and tell her of the fate of her affianced.Now here somepeople say I didwrong, but I acted for the best. That is,for my best.

Did I tell Mrs Mac. that only a matter of life and death had led Richardson to go through barbaric marriage rites with an amazonian creature, six feet high, with ears nearly touching her shoulders, a nose artificially flattened out, and a mouth with two rows of tiled teeth inside ?

No, I described her as a tawny maiden with fawn-like eyes and rounded limbs, her sinuous figure clothed mostly in a garland of brilliant tropical flowers (Suchamucha never wore anything to speak of). I re-christened her Sooshomaha and said that Richardson always called her "Sooshoo. " I told the widow that the marriage ceremony was performed by the local missionary— (only one missionary ever landed on Sagamodu and he gave them all indigestion)— and I wound up with a glowing picture of Richardson reposing in a shady grove with his dusky bride; she alternately singing her native love-songs and feeding him with bananas and bread-fruit. Before this time I had never known that I was a poet.

Mrs. Macpherson fainted three times during the recital, but insisted on my going through with it, even to repeating the most amorous parts of the narrative. Especially, being herself of bony and angular architecture, did she linger upon the voluptuous curves of Sooshoo's figure; and how she did grind her tooth at every fresh description of the island beauty's charms!

My way was now clear before me, and I urged my suit with pitying, yet passionate, persistence. I soon regained my lost ground, and in a month or two Mrs. Macpherson and I were engaged.

I was visiting the fair widow one afternoon. In the midst of a tender scene the door-bell rang. We heard a male voice parleying troublously with the servant; we heard male footsteps dash past her into the hall; we seemed to feel a vigorous and quick stride come right to the portal of our retreat. Then, the door avus dashed open, and in walked— Richardson! The man I thought safe for ever at Sagamodu! He had been rescued by another vessel.

As was but natural under the circumstances, Mrs. Mac. fainted away, and the detested Richardson and l wore immediately locked in deadly combat, heedless, in our rage, both of her insensible condition and her bric-a-brac.

By the time that we had lost our "first wind" and not recovered our second, the widow revived, and a lively scene commenced. First, she enquired after Mrs. Richardson, and trusted that her complexion would not suffer in the Sydney climate. Then she stated, still in a coldly sarcastic tone, that she had heard that Mrs. R. had exquisite taste in dress, and she must find out the name of her dressmaker. She was going on to ask if there were yet any little Richardsons, when hysterics overtook her, and the servants came to the rescue.

Richardson and I were forced to depart for the time, which we did with mutually defiant scowls. By what magic he regained his sway over the widow I know not, but when next I presented myself at Mrs. Macpherson's abode she was "not at home," although I distinctly saw her and Richardson sitting together at the window.

Soon afterwards, a stroke of good luck happened to me— some mining shares I held suddenly boomed in the market, and I made a very tidy sum by their sale. I did not now so much regret the loss of the widow, who, apart from her money, was an old vinegar-cruet, but I longed for revenge. When I heard of Richardson's renewed engagement I left Sydney.

The coquettish widow would, for a long while, not consent to name the day; she still professed to believe there was something in that island story, although Richardson swore it was only the base and cowardly fabrication of an enemy who had fled and left him there to be eaten. At last she was won over, and a coming fashionable marriage began to be talkep of in the society columns of the press. The day arrived, and so did I.

The church was crowded, and when the clergy-men (there were three of them) demanded whether any person knew of any just cause or impediment, &c., a tall, burly form in woman's clothes arose, and, in a harsh voice, remarked:

"Me, Missee Richersen."

The fainting and confusion amongst the women was awful when she threw back her veil and displayed the grinning cannibal countenance of a Sagamodu savage, that looked the more grotesque because of the civilised gown she wore. Most of the men thought it was a very bad joke, but when I also arose and stated that there were reasons which led me to believe that the lady who had spoken merely asserted her just rights, there was a dead silence, and all the fainting women recovered. The officiating clergyman requested our presence in the vestry.

At the risk of my life I had returned to Sagamodu and succeeded in kidnapping Suchamuchu. On the trip I had instructed her how to play her part at a given signal, and repeat the few words I had taught her by rote. I am really convinced that the poor heathen had conceived a strong and lasting affection for Richardson, although people refuse to believe it was pity that instigated me in what I did; they assert that it was a mean revenge.

BUT SEE how poor a revenge it was! The clergyman refused to proceed with the ceremony until counsel's opinion had been taken as to the possible legality of any marriage-rite performed amongst savages; and two days afterwards Richardson, unannounced, burst into my apartment, took me by the hand, and called me his friend and saviour!

"Man," said he, " I know you meant to do me an ill-turn, but you've done me a good one. Only for you I should now be tied for life to that old virago who has nothing but a life-interest in a little property left by her late husband, and is head over ears in debt. Why, as soon as the news got about that the wedding was off, there wore half-a-dozen executions issued, and she has only been staving them off by saying that she was going to marry a rich island trader. Let us have a drink."

I have left off trying to get level with Richardson.

________________

20: Not Retributive Justice

A Story of Spinifex Land.

Bulletin, 2 April 1892

"CAN'T FIND 'em, can't you?"

The speaker— a tall, middle-aged man— was leaning against the tail of a horse-dray, addressing a trembling black boy, of about 14.

" Now, just you be off again, and if you are not back with the whole lot before sunset down there," and the speaker indicated a certain point in the heavens, "I'll hide the immortal soul out of you. I heard the bells just before daylight, so they must be camped close handy."

The boy gave a longing look at the fire, for the winter mornings in North Queensland are sharp, and he had nothing on but his shirt; then, with the bridle trailing over his arm, he departed in search of the missing horses.

His master, owner, employer (call him what you will) lit his pipe and laid himself down upon his blankets for a smoke. He was a man who prided himself on having been a gentleman and owning an aristocratic name. He also boasted that he could break in a black boy properly (a small boy, of course), and had a general, all-round swagger about him that, however, could always be reduced by reference to a certain of a station he was once employed on. What time he was conspicuous by his sudden disappearance and immediate return, after the trouble was over, with the announcement that he had gone to the back-verandah of the kitchen to get his revolver. Some of the boys said they found his tracks under the water-tank.

The sun was high above the spot indicated before the boy returned, mounted, barebacked, on an old horse with a muffled bell round its neck. He dropped wearily from its back, having been belting it along with the hobbles and his bare heels, fora couple of miles or more. " 'N other fellow gone," he said regarding the "white" man timidly, "This one bell you bin hear."

Delcourt, the individual in question, got up silently and went to the tail of the dray.

"Last time I send you after horse," he muttered. "Put my saddle on," he continued, "I'll go myself."

The boy saddled the old horse obediently while Delcourt, after rummaging for some time, finally came up with a pair of very small handcuffs. The boy guessed, from experience, what was coming; but, after all, it was no great hardship to be handcuffed to the dray-wheel until Delcourt came back. He could sleep, and he was tired.

Naturally he supposed that was all that was intended— to prevent him running away. He had been served so before.

Delcourt told the boy to go under the dray and he down. He did so, and his hands were handcuffed through the spokes of the wheel, over his head, as he lay on his back. Then his "employer" fastened his shins to two spokes of the opposite wheel with a couple of saddle-straps. This the boy did not quite understand, but he was helpless, his feet sticking out from beneath the dray as far as his ankles, or a little above. "Now, my lad, I'll make you hop along quick next tune you go to look for horses for me. I'll roast your lazy toes for you. You've been sitting under a tree all the morning with the old horse's bell tied up. I'll teach you."

He dragged a burning log from the fire and put it close to the soles of the boy's feet, then he piled on a few more sticks, and, getting on the horse rode away.

For the first few minutes while the fire still smouldered the warmth was not unpleasant, and the wearied lad dozed off. He was soon awakened. he fire blazed up brightly, and agonising yells began to resound through the solitude. They brought no answer, save the caws of a frightened crow, disturbed from its meal at the deserted camp-fire.

In about four hours' time Delcourt returned with the missing horses. The fire had burned itself out, and the boy was either senseless or dead.

He released him, dragged him from under the dray, and threw a blanket over him, for at that moment he heard voices and the tread of horses coming from another direction.

He was busy hobbling the horses when the new-comers arrived on the scene. Two men with a couple of packhorses.

"Why, Delcourt," said the first one to dismount, a slight, dark, wiry little man with a crippled hand, "you've not got far; we did not expect to overtake you for another thirty miles."

"I've been after my horses all day, " returned Delcourt, rising from his task, "and my boy is sick too."

"What's the matter with him?" said the other, a man with white beard and hair.

"Fever, I suppose, you know how blacks cave in." One of the men stopped over the boy and turned the blanket back. "He looks d—d queer," he said; "give me some water." The other handed him a quart-pot full, and he bathed the boy's face and breast, until he revived somewhat, and drank greedily of the remainder.

"You fellows going to turn out here?" said Delcourt coolly at this juncture. Neither answered. The boy, in his clutch at the quart-pot, threw aside the blanket, and the keen eyes of the shorter man were attracted by the appearance of the boy's feet.

''What's the meaning of this, Delcourt?" he said sharply.

"O," returned the other carelessly, " we came over some fresh burnt country yesterday, and the young beggar had been hammering his horse so I made him walk."

"You liar!" returned the other fiercely.

"We've seen your tracks for nearly sixty miles, and there is not an acre of burnt country between here and the foot of the tableland. Besides I've seen scores and hundreds of niggers hunting over reshly burnt country, but never saw one with feet like that;" and he pointed to the scorched and crippled members.

The elder man had arisen by this time, and now spoke before Delcourt could collect himself.

"This is some of your work," he said, "I have heard of it before. This time by (here he swore an oath rather too common in the spinifex country) you shall answer for it."

"The boy did it himself," said Delcourt sullenly in answer, without resenting the lammase used to him.

"That shall be seen to," said the other. " Remember both I and T— here are magistrates, and if this boy is not brought into —— I'll have a warrant out against you for murder."

THE BOY never came in. Delcourt said that he ran away! Nobody could do anything. Nobody could prove he didn't run away, although every- body believed it to be a lie. Delcourt got a worse name than before, that was all, and he didn't mind that.

RETRIBUTIVE justice overtook him many years in another land, where the natives slew him. But although in a certain sense it was retributive it was not poetical justice; for a British man-o'-war came along and shot the natives for wiping him out.

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21: A Victim to Gratitude

Bulletin, 27 May 1893

I WAS nearly being married against my will!  Don’t be frightened— l am not going to inflict on you the old story of a scheming mother and daughter and a compromising situation. Nothing of the sort. My would-be wife simply worships me still, and I am quite sure was actuated by motives of the purest affection. At the present moment, living as I am, a self-constituted exile on a station in Central Australia, I am confident that if I but hinted that her demise would be a convenience she would, although a really religious woman, consider it her duty to at once perform “the happy dispatch.”

I was in business in Sydney— that is to say, two of us ran a stock-and-station agency. We both had money, and embarked in the venture more for occupation than for any other reason, and also because it would bring us into contact with a congenial class of men. As we were not keen after profit, we did very well, whereas if we had been struggling to live we could not have made office-expenses.

My partner was married, and I was engaged. His wife was a charming little woman, and my fiancee was a fast friend of hers, so that everything ahead looked smooth sailing. Of course, I was not fool enough to imagine that any man can get through life without a certain amount of trouble, but I certainly did not anticipate the series of extraordinary complications which would eventually banish me to this lonely land of salt-bush and mulga.

I lived in a quiet boarding-house, not one of the veneered kind where you are expected to lunch off two sardines because there are flowers on the table, but one presided over by a sensible woman, who both “knew her position” and also what housekeeping meant. I was respected as a steady, regular-paying boarder, and made thoroughly comfortable in consequence.

Mrs. Thomas, my landlady, was a very kind-hearted woman, and often, when not able to do by herself the good she wished to do, had appealed to me for assistance— seldom in vain.

I was not, therefore, surprised when one morning she beckoned me into her little sitting-room, and after some preliminary skirmishing asked me if I had noticed a tall young lady at the table during the last few meals. I replied that I had, but had not paid much attention to her.

“Ah! poor girl,” said Mrs. Thomas, “I do wish, Mr. Petrie, you could help her. She is so anxious to get something to do.”

Naturally I remarked that finding employment for occoupationless young ladies scarcely came within the scope of a stock-and-station agency business.

“Some elderly clergyman,” I hinted.

“O yes,” said Mrs. Thomas, indignantly, “I know all about them. Get her a situation as lady-help at 5 shillings a week. No, Mr. Petrie, she is a clever girl and ought to be worth a fair salary. Now, lady clerks are quite the rage— cannot you assist her in that way?”

Here let me remark parenthetically that 75 per cent, of women are as loyal as possible to each other; the other 25 per cent, consists of the shoddy aristocrats and the fussy philanthropists. Good, womanly women stick to one another. Mrs. Thomas, for instance, spoke of this young lady as “a girl” when she was anything but a girl, and vouched for her being “clever” when she was almost stupid. She did not speak condescendingly of her as a C.M.G.’s wife would have done, or a committee-woman of some society for the proper snubbing of all poor women. But to return.

I said that, of course, I would do my beat, and jokingly intimated that lady-clerks had not yet invaded the stock-and-station business. Mrs. Thomas insisted on my being introduced to the damsel. The latter was one of those aggravating women who might be anything. It would have been flattery to call her good looking, it would have been untrue to call her plain. She was lady-like in manner, shy, and evidently without a spark of the devil in her. She was simply neat and neutral.

Now, I like a spark of the devil, as most men do, so long as it is only a spark and not a blaze, and as I descended the steps I mentally compared her with the saucy, dashing girl who was soon to be my wife. Meanwhile, Sirs, Thomas—good, but wildly mistaken woman— was sounding my praises in the willing ears of M:ss Aldine, for such was her prim and proper name.

I did my best, and succeeded within a month. I found Miss Aid ine a situation at a, fair salary in the office of an elderly gentleman who compiled Australian church statistics for the English religious papers. The work was not severe nor mentally trying, and I told Mrs. Thomas about it that evening with some satisfaction. I went out to dinner and stayed at a friend’s that night, so I escaped Miss Aldine and her gratitude. For I felt she was one of that sort. Gratitude is a hideous thing.

My partner, Johnson, and I were in the office alone next day shortly after noon, when Mrs. Johnson and Miss Sergison (my fiancee) swooped down upon us to carry us off to lunch. Of course, there was much chatter, for Mrs. Johnson was a bit of a whirlwind, and I did not at first notice that the wretched office-boy had, immediately afterwards, ushered in another lady— Miss Aldine— who had come to thank me for procuring her the billet. I guessed, as I said before, she was one of the grateful sort, but I never expected her to make such a fuss about a trifle. The worst of it was that as soon as her presence became known all the talk and laughter ceased and silence reigned. This confounded the poor woman, and she coloured up and stammered through her little set speech, until I felt inclined to tell her to shut up. However, I mastered the inclination and escorted her out of the office.

I expected, of course, that Lucy would have asked me all about it, and praised me for my good nature, but she did nothing of the sort. In fact, she maintained a stiff silence on the subject, and somehow our little luncheon-party was not so merry as usual. I was rather annoyed, too, for I thought that both Mrs. Johnson and Lucy had stared rather hard at Miss Aldine and disconcerted her. Of course, the best of women have these little ways.

Things smoothed themselves, as they generally will in time. Miss Aldine plodded on in her situation, and my wedding-day drew nigh. One morning Mrs. Thomas again beckoned me to a conference, and, being in a mighty good humour, I went, prepared for a call on my purse.

“That poor girl is in great trouble,” she said.

“What girl? Which girl?” I said, purposely misunderstanding her.

“Miss Aldine. Her little brother, ten years old, has nowhere to stay for his holidays. They are orphans, you know, and his schooling in Melbourne is being paid for by some distant relations, who, however, don’t want to be bothered with the boy. Now, I could manage to put him up here and welcome, but there’s his passage-money?” and she looked very hard at me.

“O, well!” I answered, “I suppose I must manage that— find out how much it will be?”

Then, feeling slightly sarcastic, I enquired, “Now we are on the subject, Mrs. Thomas, let’s finish it. Isn’t there a clean, but widowed mother, or a paralysed, but virtuous father knocking around?”

“I am surprised at you, Mr. Petrie,” returned Mrs. Thomas, reproachfully. “This is not at all like you. Did I not tell you they were orphans?”

I was snubbed, of course, and departed at once, feeling I was a brute.

That afternoon I returned early and was preparing to go out when my partner and his wife drove up. Mrs. Johnson had some message from Miss Sergison, and after ten minutes’ chat they departed, I accompanying them to the door. I was about closing it after them, when the sitting-room door opened and Miss Aldine, who had been lying in ambush to thank me, came out suddenly and seized my hand in both hers. I was so startled that I forgot to close the front-door, and Mrs. Johnson came tripping back to tell me something she had forgotten. She gave one glance at the tableau, murmured something about her parasol and left quickly, but in the look she gave me I saw that I had lost a friend. I felt there was but one escape for me, and after a troubled walk I went back, gave Mrs. Thomas notice that I was going to stay with some friends until my marriage, strapped my portmanteaux, and silently stole away.

A week passed. I was not so comfortable in my new quarters, but I was safe. One morning, Johnson and I were chatting and smoking when who should be ushered into the office but Miss Aldine and a small, weedy-looking lad. Evidently the youngster had been taught his lesson, for he solemnly advanced, caught my hand and reverently kissed it, mumbling something which might have been, “Thank you, my benefactor” (which it was meant to be), or, “How are you, dear papa?” or anything else. I steadied my voice sufficiently to congratulate Miss Aldine on having her brother (I emphasised that) with her again, and under plea of business got rid of them.

Johnson was shaking with laughter, and guessed at once the interpretation his somewhat loose-principled nature would put on the scene, so was not surprised when he began vulgarly, for he could be vulgar at times, “Nice boy, awfully like you.”

Perhaps if it had not been that the boy in question was such a snivel-nosed little rat, I might not have lost my temper; as it was I did. Johnson and I parted coolly, and I knew what he would tell his wife.

Still Lucy was true to me; despite adverse influence I feared no coldness from her, but Johnson and I agreed to separate and were winding up the business. One morning he came in and putting down a letter and a small packet said, with an air of ill-concealed triumph, “For you, I think.”

I opened the letter with a cold chill at my heart. It was my dismissal. I opened the packet No! I could not blame Lucy.

It had originally been addressed to Miss Sergison, and contained a small handkerchief with a huge S embroidered in one corner. A note was enclosed —“From Rachel Aldine. One who envies you your coming happiness with the best of men. Having experienced his goodness.”

I tried hard to explain, but the case was obviously hopeless. Johnson and his wife were too much for me; and Lucy sternly refused an interview. I spent a miserable month and then, thinking I might as well be comfortable at any rate, I took my old rooms with Mrs. Thomas. I had been there about a week when I heard that Miss Sergison was engaged to a man I detested. This “camped” me. I am a sober man, but that evening I was not sober on returning to my lodgings. I believe that I was very abusive. I called Mrs. Thomas “an old cat,” and spoke my mind generally. Later in the evening Mrs. Thomas intercepted me on my way out :

“I forgive you for what you called me, Mr. Petrie, but O! that poor girl!"

“Hang the poor girl!” I said, “she’s been the ruin of me.”

“Hush!” she replied, “ would you believe it? I looked in her room just now and there she was kneeling at her bedside, with her little brother, praying. Praying for you, Mr. Petrie.”

I laughed the mocking laugh of a fiend.

“Thanks to both of you— l am past praying for,” and I went off to the club, ordered a bedroom, and finished the night there.

I returned to my lodgings about noon, meaning to take a long holiday somewhere. I jocosely asked Mrs. Thomas if Miss Aldine had been praying for me all night, and she replied that she believed she had.

“And,” she concluded, “after what you said last night there is really only one reparation you can offer the poor girl.”

In an instant all the valour of last night’s carouse died out of me. Flight! For the second and last time I shook from my feet the dust of that accursed house. In a few days I had concluded the purchase of a half-share in the station whereon I am now residing.

Although I read all the papers I have not yet seen a notice of Miss Sergison’s marriage ; but I have heard that Johnson has been hard hit, speculating, and is likely to become bankrupt. If I could only hear that the grateful Miss Aldine had been run over by a tram, or drowned at a Sunday-school picnic, I might venture back and then—

________________

22: A North Queensland Temperance Story

The Bulletin, 21 Jan1893

ANYONE who knows the Goram River, North Queensland, is aware that it simply swarms with alligators. That is to say, it used to swarm with alligators until Dick Transom began his anti-alligator crusade. Which crusade had its origin in the fact that they had eaten his mother-in-law.

At the crossing of the Goram there is a stone causeway. On the up-stream side the water is shallow; on the down-side there is a bottomless hole which formerly was fairly alive with saurians. Old Rumblepeg, who kept the shanty on the west bank, was partly responsible for this. Men who had sampled his notable  * * * were constantly walking over the edge of the causeway, and so the alligators were as fat, lively and tame as young kittens.

"They were all fly-blown, poor chaps!" Rumblepeg would cheerfully remark of the victims to misplaced confidence. It was a cheap, safe and thoroughly reliable graveyard; cremation was "a fool to it."

It was, unfortunately, on this side that Transom's mother-in-law fell out of the buggy as he was driving her up to the station on a visit to her daughter. Ill-natured people remarked that the accident happened immediately after she had announced her intention of residing permanently with them. Anyhow, she was in the back seat of the vehicle, engaged in giving her son-in-law valuable advice, when the near hind wheel went over an extra-big boulder in the causeway, and as at the same moment the off-one plumped into a hollow— the poor old lady, with but a small piece of her mind delivered, took a sudden header into the fathomless pool from which, needless to remark, she never emerged.

The worst of it was that as she took the fatal plunge she instinctively clutched at whatever was nearest, which happened to be a leather hand-bag; and, of course, the hand-bag went with her.

Transom might have spared the one, but he had forty horse-power reasons for not losing the other. It contained a cash-box holding many articles of value. In the box was his mother-in-law's will. She was a lady of temper, who quarrelled with her eight children in rotation and duly appointed the reigning favourite of the hour as sole legatee. Now, as just then Transom's wife held that enviable position, it was imperatively necessary to recover the will. Again, the ancient dame, who was old-fashioned in her habits, had some valuable jewellery which she always insisted upon carrying about with her, and there were papers of Transom's own in the box, without which he might one day find himself in Queer-street.

It will thus be seen that although Transom, in a vainglorious way, made out that he was avenging the death of his mother-in-law, in reality he was searching for the lost handbag in the interior of an alligator.

He went about his task systematically. At the lower end of the hole there was a rocky bar of some breadth, and here he stationed men to watch day and night, keeping fires burning during the dark hours. By this means he anticipated confining the guilty "crocks." to the hole until he was prepared to deal with them. A messenger was despatched to town for dynamite cartridges, and, meanwhile, Transom and one or two other good shots sat on the bank and stalked alligators. It was extremely tantalising. The very first 'gator shot contained a bunch of keys, which Transom at once recognised. Then, although they got many strange relics, nothing more appertaining to the deceased lady came to light.

At length the messenger returned, and the bombardment commenced in downright earnest. The sport was splendid, and as the news of what was going on had brought all the inhabitants, black and white, to the spot, there was an animated scene on the banks of the usually lonely Goram.

Alligator after alligator turned up its toes, or floated, stunned, to the surface, to be dragged ashore and slaughtered ; but although enough dismembered fragments of the late lamented were found to furnish forth a respectable corpse, neither handbag nor cashbox was forthcoming.

The inference then was, that the bag was reposing quietly at the bottom of the hole, and as no more alligators appeared, dead or alive, Transom tried to get the blacks to dive for it, but of this they fought shy. It was just possible that one or two reptiles had escaped, and, if so, how about the diver? Meanwhile, the festering carcases exhaled a pestiferous odour, and old Rumblepeg was coining money. The collected remains of Transom's mother-in-law were decently buried and things were at a standstill.

It was rumoured amongst those gathered about the crossing that there was an alligator of enormous size still dormant in the hole. He was a well-known character, and all were certain that he was not included amongst the slain. One hot evening Transom was up at the shanty moodily thinking about abandoning the search when, whether instigated by the stale fumes of the bar or not, an idea entered his head, which he at once proceeded to put into execution.

A bullock had been killed that night, and he procured a good sized leg of beef.

"I am going to fish for that old alligator," he explained, " and I want to give this joint a good penetrating smell." So he got some of Rumblepeg's rum and soaked the beef therein. Next day he stood it in the sun, and by night you could have smelt it across Torres Straits against a nor'-west monsoon. Half hopefully he took it down and plunged it into the deep pool. "It is my last card," he thought.

The stars were paling when Transom awoke with his usual "head" on him. However, he arose and proceeded to the river to see the result of his ground-bait. By the time he reached the pool it was broad daylight, but nothing was. visible either on the surface or on the banks.

Disconsolately he was about turning away when there was a movement in the water, and he slunk down and watched. A low sand-spit was in front of his post of observation, and on this the largest alligator he had ever seen slowly and unsteadily dragged itself. Waddling across the wet sand it laid its head on a stranded log and groaned with such fervency that Transom had to groan in sympathy. Then it banged its head against the log in a dismal, reproachful sort of way, as much as to say, "No, I'll never, never touch it again; nothing shall ever tempt me." Presently, with much more moaning, it laid its head on the log in such obvious agony that the sympathetic Transom hadn't the heart to shoot.

After about five minutes spent in repentance and good resolutions, the alligator seemed to be taken worse ; it got up, swayed about on its short legs, gave a mighty heave, and there on the sand lay the long-sought hand-bag.

Rumblepeg's rum had beaten the dynamite.

The sick alligator crawled feebly to the water's edge and slowly disappeared. Transom hastened to secure his property, and returned to his camp, but ever since that eventful morning he has been a cast-iron teetotaller.

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23: A Gum-tree in the Desert

Bulletin, 16 Dec 1893

A CREEK, that is to say, a depression in the ground which began nowhere and, after a brief course, ran out into nothing. Its one distinctive feature amid the surrounding monotony, a low, ancient, stumpy, scarred and twisted gum-ree, of scantiest foliage, rusty and forlorn appearance, A tree, large in girth but without heart, the mere mockery of a shell.

Around, a dull level of country, neither plain nor forest. Small belts of mulga, then clumps of stunted shrubs, growing on arid soil sparsely covered with spinifex and the withered stalks of other bushes.

But beyond the proud distinction of a gum-tree, or "yalloo," as the aboriginal inhabitants of that region would call it, the creek boasted of a more important claim to consideration. At the foot of the little bank, beneath the gum-tree, grew a few dark- green reeds, wiry and short. They grew beside a small and shallow pool of clear water, so small that one would think a single day of the desert sun would suck it dry. But the old gum-tree knew better and had grown-up beside the only weak, struggling, little surface spring there was in all that thirsty land. The water was slightly brackish and nauseous to the taste, but for many miles east, west, north and south it was the sole store Nature had provided in all that desolate region.

The wretched little spring and the old, coreless tree had not many visitors. At times, some of the gaunt, meagre, ape-like denizens of the great Western interior would camp there for a night, halting on their journey across some wide, dry stretch, but there was no game to tempt them to linger. At other times parrots, pigeons, or a tired and worn-out kite came in and drank and rested in the branches of the old yalloo, then hastened on to a more promising land ; but, as a rule, the old tree and little spring were lonely, silent and unvisited.

It was the time of day when the old gum-tree cast no shadow, when the wrathful sun looked straight down on the scorched earth, and the earth lay pulseless and faint, that a dark object came limping painfully through the cruel spinifex towards the lone spring. It was a miserable old black gin helping her thin, decrepit legs along with a yam stick not much thinner than they. A poor creature, abjectly bent and worn, with scaly skin, blear eyes and the ribs of a skeleton. How she had missed her fellows and turned off to this soak-hole, led by some old instinct, it would be hard to say ; perhaps a bad cut in one of her feet would account for it, but she came hobbling on, until she reached the place and sank down beside the water.

Even then she did not act as a white would have done, and plunge her face into the mawkish, tepid stuff; but scraped a hole alongside for the water to drain into through the sand ; then she drank some sparingly, and lay there a while with the sun beating on her poor old limbs and body. Revived a little, she arose, went to an old camping-place, and rubbed some ashes into the sore on her foot; then, from her miserable dilly-bag, took out some roots and a few fresh-water mussels. This was her meal, which she vainly tried to supplement by searching in the damp mud at the foot of the bank for more mussels. At the foot of the old tree was an aperture in the shell about the size of the entrance to a dog-kennel or the man- hole of a tank. Into this the old gin crept, apparently knowing the place, and coiled herself up to rest and sleep.

Two hours of drowsy heat, of sultry calm, of unbroken stillness; then, through the haze that rises with the coming of the afternoon, loomed other figures— men and horses. Two white men, with a couple of pack-horses, wild-eyed, with tucked-up flanks, rode towards the old tree.

Some distance away they pulled-up and one went ahead alone. When he saw the water he waved his hat and the other followed; then they hastily unpacked and unsaddled, and the thirsty horses ran down to the water. There was not much more than room for them all to drink at once.

"That was a stroke of luck," said one of the men. as they stood looking at the horses, "catching sight of the old tree. You can generally bet on a little water of some sort where a yalloo of this kind grows."

"Think there will be enough for them?"

"Yes, this must be a bit of a spring, for there's been no rain since the country was made, I think," and he looked significantly at the parched surroundings.

"We had better camp here, I suppose?"

"By Jove, yes, and spell to morrow, too, after such a tying-up as the mokes have had."

"Not much feed."

"They'll pick-up something amongst the mulga over there."

By this time the horses had finished, and the little hole was drained dry for the first time. "It will fill again, slowly of course, but there's plenty of soakage still in this bank," said one.

They hobbled the horses, made a fire, and camped by the old tree, which now cast a long shadow.

Inside the trunk the quaking gin had been awakened by their coming— had, even with her rheumy eyes, recognised through a crack the dreaded strangers once or twice seen before at a distance.

Night had set-in, the tired men slept, but the wretched creature could not escape even had she had courage, for the pack-bags and saddles were heaped against the hole by which she had entered. Slowly the moon rose and lit-up the scene, and from amongst the long shadows it cast crept forth other darker shadows, and stole towards the camp.

Blacks, even the most abject, do not desert their sick, old, or crippled, and some had come back to look for the crippled gin. But the white men were sleeping at the tree, and although, at last, emboldened by necessity, they crept in to drink at the water, the wretched prisoner could not let them know of her presence, even had she been aware of theirs. The men slumbered unscathed, the blacks departed ; and morning broke, dewless and oppressive.

"Phew!" said one of the two men, "Look at the niggers' tracks on top of our horse-tracks. Wonder they didn't knock us on the head last night."

"Some gins, I suppose, sneaking in for water," returned his companion. "They travel at night very often in this dry country."

All that day the men lourtged about, and the inside of the old tree was like an oven, and the frightened creature nearly shrieked when one with a tomahawk commenced chopping his initials on the outside.

Night once more, and when the moon was high one of the men started and roused his companion.

"What the deuce did you groan like that for?"

"Did I groan? Must have been dreaming."

"Don't dream like that again. I never heard such a groan— you ought to sell it."

Next morning they saddled- up and left, and the tree and the trampled spring were solitary once more.

IT WAS many years after settlement of the neighboring "available" country that the old yalloo succumbed to a high wind preceding a thunder-storm, and toppled over. And again, some time after that, a man from one of the stations, visiting the spring, looked into the hollow trunk of the fallen tree and found an old mummy huddled-up, nose and knees together.

The remains were sent away as a great curiosity, and an authority on ethnology wrote a very clever paper proving that this method of "tree-burial" was analogous to that practised in many other parts of the world a few thousand years ago, and it exactly fixed the era of development arrived at by these Australian aborigines.

End