Such Is Life (41 page)

“Well,” replied Bob pointedly, as he unfolded his long angles to
a perpendicular right line—“I got good hopes o' goin' to a place where there's no admittance for swearers. Ain't ashamed to say I repented eight or ten months ago. Guarantee you fellers ain't heard no language out o' my mouth since I set down here. Nor 'on't—never again. Well, take care o' yourselves, chaps.” And, without further farewell, Bob removed his lonely individuality from our convention.

“Anointed (adj.) savage,” remarked Donovan, as the subject of his comment receded into the hazy half-light of the plain, where his horse was feeding.

“Uncivilised (person),” added Baxter.

“Well—yes,” conceded Thompson. “Same time, he's got the profit of his unprofitableness, so to speak. Hard to beat him in the back country. You'd have to be more uncivilised than he is. And I saw that very thing happen to him, four or five weeks ago, out on Goolumbulla.” Thompson paused experimentally, then continued, “Yes, I saw him put-through, till he must have felt a lot too tall in proportion to his cleverness.” Another tentative pause. “But it took the very pick of uncivilisation to do it.” A prolonged pause, while Thompson languidly filled and lit his pipe. Still the dignified indifference of the camp remained unruffled. Thompson might tell his yarn, or keep it to himself. Once already during the evening his tongue had run too freely. “What I'm thinking about,” he continued, in a tone of audible musing, “is that I forgot to tell Bob, when he was here, that I had a long pitch with Dan O'Connell, three or four nights ago.”

“Boundary man on Goolumbulla,” I suggested apathetically. “Got acquainted with Bob years ago, when he was making himself useful on Moogoojinna, and Bob was making himself obnoxious on Wo-Winya, or Boolka.”

“No; they never met till four or five weeks ago,” replied Thompson, with inimitable indifference, though now licensed to proceed without damage to his own dignity. “Dan's an old acquaintance of yours—isn't he? I heard your name mentioned over the finding of a dead man—George something—had been fencing on Mooltunya—George Murdoch. Yes.”

Thompson told a story well. I verily believe he used to practise the accomplishment mentally, as he sauntered along beside his team. He knew his own superiority here; his acquaintances knew it too, and they also knew that he knew it. Hence they were reluctant to minister occasion to his egotism.

“Speaking of Bob,” he continued listlessly; “I met him in the
hut, at Kulkaroo, on the evening I got there with the load. He was on his way down from that new place of M'Gregor's, where he's been; and he had come round by Kulkaroo to see one of the very few friends he has in the world; but he lost his labour, for this cove had left the station more than a year before.

“However, we had been yarning for hours, and the station chaps were about turning-in, when we heard someone coming in a hurry. No less than Webster himself—first time he had been in the hut since it was built, the chaps told me afterward. He had a leaf of a memorandum-book in his hand; and says he:

“‘Child lost in the scrub on Goolumbulla. Dan O'Connell's little girl—five or six years old. Anybody know where there's any blackfellows?'

“Nobody knew.

“‘Well, raise horses wherever you can, and clear at once,' says he. ‘One man, for the next couple of days, will be worth a regiment very shortly. As for you, Thompson,' says he; ‘you're your own master.'

“Of course, I was only too glad of any chance to help in such a case, so I went for my horse at once. Bob had duffed his two horses into the ration paddock, on his way to the hut, and had put them along with my mare, so that he could find them at daylight by the sound of her bell. This started me and him together. He lent his second horse to one of the station chaps; and the three of us got to Goolumbulla just after sunrise—first of the crowd. Twenty-five mile. There was tucker on the table, and chaff for our horses; and, during the twenty minutes or so that we stayed, they gave us the outline of the mishap.

“Seems that, for some reason or other—valuation for mortgage, I'm thinking—the classer had come round a few days before; and Spanker had called in every man on the station, to muster the ewes. You know how thick the scrub is on Goolumbulla? Dan came in along with the rest, leaving his own place before daylight on the first morning. They swept the paddock the first day for about three parts of the ewes; the second day they got most of what was left; but Spanker wanted every hoof, if possible, and he kept all hands on for the third day.

“Seems, the little girl didn't trouble herself the first day, though she hadn't seen Dan in the morning; but the second day there was something peculiar about her—not fretful, but dreaming, and asking her mother strange questions. It appears that, up to this time, she had never said a word about the man that was found dead near
their place, a couple of months before. She saw that her parents didn't want to tell her anything about it, so she had never showed any curiosity; but now her mother was startled to find that she knew all the particulars.

“It appears that she was very fond of her father; and this affair of the man perishing in the scrub was working on her mind. All the second day she did nothing but watch; and during the night she got up several times to ask her mother questions that frightened the woman. The child didn't understand her father going away before she was awake, and not coming back. Still, the curious thing was that she never took her mother into her confidence, and never seemed to fret.

“Anyway, on the third morning, after breakfast, her mother went out to milk the goats, leaving her in the house. When the woman came back, she found the child gone. She looked round the place, and called, and listened, and prospected everywhere, for an hour; then she went into the house, and examined. She found that the little girl had taken about a pint of milk, in a small hilly with a lid, and half a loaf of bread. Then, putting everything together, the mother decided that she had gone into the scrub to look for her father. There was no help to be had nearer than the home-station, for the only other boundary man on that part of the run was away at the muster. So she cleared for the station—twelve mile—and got there about three in the afternoon, not able to stand. There was nobody about the station but Mrs. Spanker, and the servant-girl, and the cook, and the Chow slushy; and Mrs. Spanker was the only one that knew the track to the ewe-paddock. However, they got a horse in, and off went Mrs. Spanker to give the alarm. Fine woman. Daughter of old Walsh, storekeeper at Moogoojinna, on the Deniliquin side.

“It would be about five when Mrs. Spanker struck the ewe-paddock, and met Broome and another fellow. Then the three split out to catch whoever they could, and pass the word round. Dan got the news just before sundown. He only remarked that she might have found her own way back; then he went for home as hard as his horse could lick.

“As the fellows turned-up, one after another, Spanker sent the smartest of them—one to Kulkaroo, and one to Mulppa, and two or three others to different fencers' and tank-sinkers' camps. But the main thing was blackfellows. Did anybody know where to find a blackfellow, now that he was wanted?

“Seems, there had been about a dozen of them camped near the
tank in the cattle-paddock for a month past, but they were just gone, nobody knew where. And there had been an old lubra and a young one camped within a mile of the station, and, an old fellow and his lubra near one of the boundary men's places; but they all happened to have shifted; and no one had the slightest idea where they could be found. However, in a sense, everyone was after them.

“But, as I was telling you, we had some breakfast at the station, and then started for Dan's place. Seven of us by this time, for another of the Kulkaroo men had come up, and there were three well-sinkers in a buggy. This was on a Thursday morning; and the little girl had been out twenty-four hours.

“Well, we had gone about seven mile, with crowds of fresh horse-tracks to guide us; and we happened to be going at a fast shog, and Bob riding a couple or three yards to the right, when he suddenly wheeled his horse round, and jumped off.

“‘How far is it yet to Dan's place?' says he.

“‘Five mile,' says one of the well-sinkers. ‘We're just on the corner of his paddock. Got tracks?'

“‘Yes,' says Bob. ‘I'll run them up, while you fetch the other fellows. Somebody look after my horse.' And by the time the last word was out of his mouth, he was twenty yards away along the little track. No trouble in following it, for she was running the track of somebody that had rode out that way a few days before—thinking it was her father's horse, poor little thing!

“Apparently she had kept along the inside of Dan's fence—the way she had generally seen him going out—till she came to the corner, where there was a gate. Then she had noticed this solitary horse's track striking away from the gate, out to the left; and she had followed it However, half-a-mile brought us to a patch of hardish ground, where she had lost the horse's track; and there Bob lost hers. Presently he picked it up again; but now there was only her little boot-marks to follow.”

“A goot dog would be wort vivty men dere, I tink,” suggested Helsmok.

“Same thought struck several of us, but it didn't strike Bob,” replied Thompson. “Fact, the well-sinkers had brought a retriever with them in the buggy; a dog that would follow the scent of any game you could lay him on; but they couldn't get him, to take any notice of the little girl's track. Never been trained to track children—and how were they going to make him understand that a child was lost? However, while two of the well-sinkers were persevering with their retriever, the other fellow drove off like fury to fetch
Dan's sheep-dog; making sure that we would only have to follow him along the scent. In the meantime, I walked behind Bob, leading both our horses.

“Give him his due, he's a great tracker. I compare tracking to reading a letter written in a good business hand. You mustn't look at what's under your eye; you must see a lot at once, and keep a general grasp of what's on ahead, besides spotting each track you pass. Otherwise, you'll be always turning back for a fresh race at it. And you must no more confine yourself to actual tracks than you would expect to find each letter correctly formed. You must just lift the general meaning as you go. Of course, our everyday tracking is not tracking at all.

“However, Bob run this little track full walk, mile after mile, in places where I wouldn't see a mark for fifty yards at a stretch, on account of rough grass, and dead leaves, and so forth. One thing in favour of Bob was that she kept a fairly straight course, except when she was blocked by porcupine or supple-jack; then she would swerve off, and keep another middling straight line. At last Bob stopped.

“‘Here's where she slept last night,' says he; and we could trace the marks right enough. We even found some crumbs of bread on the ground, and others that the ants were carrying away. She had made twelve or fourteen mile in the day's walk.

“By this time, several chaps had come from about Dan's place; and they were still joining us in twos and threes. As fast as they came, they scattered out in front, right and left, and one cove walked a bit behind Bob, with, a frog-bell, shaking it now and then, to give the fellows their latitude. This would be about two in the afternoon, or half-past; and we pushed along the tracks she had made only a few hours before, with good hopes of overtaking her before dark. The thing that made us most uneasy was the weather. It was threatening for a thunderstorm. At this time we were in that unstocked country south-east of the station. Suddenly Bob rose up from his stoop, and looked round at me with a face on him like a ghost.

“‘God help us now, if we don't get a blackfellow quick!' says he, pointing at the ground before him. And, sure enough, there lay the child's little copper-toed boots, where she had taken them off when her feet got sore, and walked on in her socks. It was just then that a tank-sinker drove up, with Dan and his dog in the buggy.”

“Poor old Rory!” I interposed. “Much excited?”

“Well—no. But there was a look of suspense in his face that was
worse. And his dog—a dog that had run the scent of his horse for hundreds of miles, all put together—that dog would smell any plain track of the little stocking-foot, only a few hours old, and would wag his tail, and bark, to show that he knew whose track it was; and all the time showing the greatest distress to see Dan in trouble; but it was no use trying to start him on the scent. They tried three or four other dogs, with just the same success. But Bob never lost half-a-second over these attempts.
He
knew.

“Anyway, it was fearful work after that; with the thunderstorm hanging over us. Bob was continually losing the track; and us circling round and round in front, sometimes picking it up a little further ahead. But we only made another half-mile or three-quarters, at the outside—before night was on. I daresay there might be about twenty-five of us by this time, and eighteen or twenty horses, and two or three buggies and wagonettes. Some of the chaps took all the horses to a tank six or eight mile away, and some cleared-off in desperation to hunt for blackfellows, and the rest of us scattered out a mile or two ahead of the last track, to listen.

“They had been sending lots of tucker from the station; and before the morning was grey everyone had breakfast, and was out again. But, do what we would, it was slow, slow work; and Bob was the only one that could make any show at all in running the track. Friday morning, of course; and by this time the little girl had been out for forty-eight hours.

“At nine or ten in the forenoon, when Bob had made about half-a-mile, one of the Kulkaroo men came galloping through the scrub from the right, making for the sound of the bell.

“‘Here, Bob!' says he. ‘We've found the little girl's billy at the fence of Peter's paddock, where she crossed. Take this horse. About two mile—straight out there.'