Joe Wilson and His Mates

by Henry Lawson

  The Loaded Dog.

  Dave Regan, Jim Bently, and Andy Page were sinking a shaft at StonyCreek in search of a rich gold quartz reef which was supposed to existin the vicinity. There is always a rich reef supposed to exist in thevicinity; the only questions are whether it is ten feet or hundredsbeneath the surface, and in which direction. They had struck somepretty solid rock, also water which kept them baling. They used theold-fashioned blasting-powder and time-fuse. They'd make a sausage orcartridge of blasting-powder in a skin of strong calico or canvas, themouth sewn and bound round the end of the fuse; they'd dip the cartridgein melted tallow to make it water-tight, get the drill-hole as dry aspossible, drop in the cartridge with some dry dust, and wad and ram withstiff clay and broken brick. Then they'd light the fuse and get out ofthe hole and wait. The result was usually an ugly pot-hole in the bottomof the shaft and half a barrow-load of broken rock.

  There was plenty of fish in the creek, fresh-water bream, cod, cat-fish,and tailers. The party were fond of fish, and Andy and Dave of fishing.Andy would fish for three hours at a stretch if encouraged by a 'nibble'or a 'bite' now and then--say once in twenty minutes. The butcher wasalways willing to give meat in exchange for fish when they caught morethan they could eat; but now it was winter, and these fish wouldn'tbite. However, the creek was low, just a chain of muddy water-holes,from the hole with a few bucketfuls in it to the sizable pool with anaverage depth of six or seven feet, and they could get fish by balingout the smaller holes or muddying up the water in the larger onestill the fish rose to the surface. There was the cat-fish, with spikesgrowing out of the sides of its head, and if you got pricked you'd knowit, as Dave said. Andy took off his boots, tucked up his trousers, andwent into a hole one day to stir up the mud with his feet, and he knewit. Dave scooped one out with his hand and got pricked, and he knew ittoo; his arm swelled, and the pain throbbed up into his shoulder, anddown into his stomach too, he said, like a toothache he had once, andkept him awake for two nights--only the toothache pain had a 'burrededge', Dave said.

  Dave got an idea.

  'Why not blow the fish up in the big water-hole with a cartridge?' hesaid. 'I'll try it.'

  He thought the thing out and Andy Page worked it out. Andy usually putDave's theories into practice if they were practicable, or bore theblame for the failure and the chaffing of his mates if they weren't.

  He made a cartridge about three times the size of those they used in therock. Jim Bently said it was big enough to blow the bottom out of theriver. The inner skin was of stout calico; Andy stuck the end of asix-foot piece of fuse well down in the powder and bound the mouth ofthe bag firmly to it with whipcord. The idea was to sink the cartridgein the water with the open end of the fuse attached to a float onthe surface, ready for lighting. Andy dipped the cartridge in meltedbees'-wax to make it water-tight. 'We'll have to leave it some timebefore we light it,' said Dave, 'to give the fish time to get over theirscare when we put it in, and come nosing round again; so we'll want itwell water-tight.'

  Round the cartridge Andy, at Dave's suggestion, bound a strip of sailcanvas--that they used for making water-bags--to increase the force ofthe explosion, and round that he pasted layers of stiff brown paper--onthe plan of the sort of fireworks we called 'gun-crackers'. He let thepaper dry in the sun, then he sewed a covering of two thicknessesof canvas over it, and bound the thing from end to end with stoutfishing-line. Dave's schemes were elaborate, and he often worked hisinventions out to nothing. The cartridge was rigid and solid enoughnow--a formidable bomb; but Andy and Dave wanted to be sure. Andy sewedon another layer of canvas, dipped the cartridge in melted tallow,twisted a length of fencing-wire round it as an afterthought, dipped itin tallow again, and stood it carefully against a tent-peg, where he'dknow where to find it, and wound the fuse loosely round it. Then hewent to the camp-fire to try some potatoes which were boiling in theirjackets in a billy, and to see about frying some chops for dinner. Daveand Jim were at work in the claim that morning.

  They had a big black young retriever dog--or rather an overgrown pup, abig, foolish, four-footed mate, who was always slobbering round themand lashing their legs with his heavy tail that swung round like astock-whip. Most of his head was usually a red, idiotic, slobbering grinof appreciation of his own silliness. He seemed to take life, the world,his two-legged mates, and his own instinct as a huge joke. He'd retrieveanything: he carted back most of the camp rubbish that Andy threwaway. They had a cat that died in hot weather, and Andy threw it a gooddistance away in the scrub; and early one morning the dog found the cat,after it had been dead a week or so, and carried it back to camp,and laid it just inside the tent-flaps, where it could best makeits presence known when the mates should rise and begin to sniffsuspiciously in the sickly smothering atmosphere of the summer sunrise.He used to retrieve them when they went in swimming; he'd jump in afterthem, and take their hands in his mouth, and try to swim out with them,and scratch their naked bodies with his paws. They loved him for hisgood-heartedness and his foolishness, but when they wished to enjoy aswim they had to tie him up in camp.

  He watched Andy with great interest all the morning making thecartridge, and hindered him considerably, trying to help; but about noonhe went off to the claim to see how Dave and Jim were getting on, and tocome home to dinner with them. Andy saw them coming, and put a panful ofmutton-chops on the fire. Andy was cook to-day; Dave and Jim stood withtheir backs to the fire, as Bushmen do in all weathers, waiting tilldinner should be ready. The retriever went nosing round after somethinghe seemed to have missed.

  Andy's brain still worked on the cartridge; his eye was caught by theglare of an empty kerosene-tin lying in the bushes, and it struck himthat it wouldn't be a bad idea to sink the cartridge packed with clay,sand, or stones in the tin, to increase the force of the explosion. Hemay have been all out, from a scientific point of view, but the notionlooked all right to him. Jim Bently, by the way, wasn't interested intheir 'damned silliness'. Andy noticed an empty treacle-tin--thesort with the little tin neck or spout soldered on to the top for theconvenience of pouring out the treacle--and it struck him that thiswould have made the best kind of cartridge-case: he would only have hadto pour in the powder, stick the fuse in through the neck, and cork andseal it with bees'-wax. He was turning to suggest this to Dave, whenDave glanced over his shoulder to see how the chops were doing--andbolted. He explained afterwards that he thought he heard the panspluttering extra, and looked to see if the chops were burning. JimBently looked behind and bolted after Dave. Andy stood stock-still,staring after them.

  'Run, Andy! run!' they shouted back at him. 'Run!!! Look behind you, youfool!' Andy turned slowly and looked, and there, close behind him, wasthe retriever with the cartridge in his mouth--wedged into his broadestand silliest grin. And that wasn't all. The dog had come round the fireto Andy, and the loose end of the fuse had trailed and waggled over theburning sticks into the blaze; Andy had slit and nicked the firing endof the fuse well, and now it was hissing and spitting properly.

  Andy's legs started with a jolt; his legs started before his brain did,and he made after Dave and Jim. And the dog followed Andy.

  Dave and Jim were good runners--Jim the best--for a short distance; Andywas slow and heavy, but he had the strength and the wind and could last.The dog leapt and capered round him, delighted as a dog could be to findhis mates, as he thought, on for a frolic. Dave and Jim kept shoutingback, 'Don't foller us! don't foller us, you coloured fool!' but Andykept on, no matter how they dodged. They could never explain, anymore than the dog, why they followed each other, but so they ran, Davekeeping in Jim's track in all its turnings, Andy after Dave, and thedog circling round Andy--the live fuse swishing in all directions andhissing and spluttering and stinking. Jim yelling to Dave not to followhim, Dave shouting to Andy to go in another direction--to 'spread out',and Andy roaring at the dog to go home. Then Andy's brain began to work,stimulated by the crisis: he tried to get a running kick at the dog, butthe dog dodged; he snatched up st
icks and stones and threw them at thedog and ran on again. The retriever saw that he'd made a mistake aboutAndy, and left him and bounded after Dave. Dave, who had the presence ofmind to think that the fuse's time wasn't up yet, made a dive and a grabfor the dog, caught him by the tail, and as he swung round snatchedthe cartridge out of his mouth and flung it as far as he could: the dogimmediately bounded after it and retrieved it. Dave roared and cursed atthe dog, who seeing that Dave was offended, left him and went after Jim,who was well ahead. Jim swung to a sapling and went up it like a nativebear; it was a young sapling, and Jim couldn't safely get more than tenor twelve feet from the ground. The dog laid the cartridge, as carefullyas if it was a kitten, at the foot of the sapling, and capered andleaped and whooped joyously round under Jim. The big pup reckoned thatthis was part of the lark--he was all right now--it was Jim who was outfor a spree. The fuse sounded as if it were going a mile a minute. Jimtried to climb higher and the sapling bent and cracked. Jim fell on hisfeet and ran. The dog swooped on the cartridge and followed. It all tookbut a very few moments. Jim ran to a digger's hole, about ten feet deep,and dropped down into it--landing on soft mud--and was safe. The doggrinned sardonically down on him, over the edge, for a moment, as if hethought it would be a good lark to drop the cartridge down on Jim.

  'Go away, Tommy,' said Jim feebly, 'go away.'

  The dog bounded off after Dave, who was the only one in sight now; Andyhad dropped behind a log, where he lay flat on his face, having suddenlyremembered a picture of the Russo-Turkish war with a circle ofTurks lying flat on their faces (as if they were ashamed) round anewly-arrived shell.

  There was a small hotel or shanty on the creek, on the main road, notfar from the claim. Dave was desperate, the time flew much faster inhis stimulated imagination than it did in reality, so he made for theshanty. There were several casual Bushmen on the verandah and in thebar; Dave rushed into the bar, banging the door to behind him. 'My dog!'he gasped, in reply to the astonished stare of the publican, 'the blankyretriever--he's got a live cartridge in his mouth----'

  The retriever, finding the front door shut against him, had boundedround and in by the back way, and now stood smiling in the doorwayleading from the passage, the cartridge still in his mouth and the fusespluttering. They burst out of that bar. Tommy bounded first after oneand then after another, for, being a young dog, he tried to make friendswith everybody.

  The Bushmen ran round corners, and some shut themselves in the stable.There was a new weather-board and corrugated-iron kitchen and wash-houseon piles in the back-yard, with some women washing clothes inside.Dave and the publican bundled in there and shut the door--the publicancursing Dave and calling him a crimson fool, in hurried tones, andwanting to know what the hell he came here for.

  The retriever went in under the kitchen, amongst the piles, but, luckilyfor those inside, there was a vicious yellow mongrel cattle-dog sulkingand nursing his nastiness under there--a sneaking, fighting, thievingcanine, whom neighbours had tried for years to shoot or poison. Tommysaw his danger--he'd had experience from this dog--and started out andacross the yard, still sticking to the cartridge. Half-way acrossthe yard the yellow dog caught him and nipped him. Tommy dropped thecartridge, gave one terrified yell, and took to the Bush. The yellow dogfollowed him to the fence and then ran back to see what he had dropped.

  Nearly a dozen other dogs came from round all the corners and under thebuildings--spidery, thievish, cold-blooded kangaroo-dogs, mongrel sheep-and cattle-dogs, vicious black and yellow dogs--that slip after you inthe dark, nip your heels, and vanish without explaining--and yapping,yelping small fry. They kept at a respectable distance round the nastyyellow dog, for it was dangerous to go near him when he thought he hadfound something which might be good for a dog to eat. He sniffed at thecartridge twice, and was just taking a third cautious sniff when----

  It was very good blasting powder--a new brand that Dave had recently gotup from Sydney; and the cartridge had been excellently well made. Andywas very patient and painstaking in all he did, and nearly as handy asthe average sailor with needles, twine, canvas, and rope.

  Bushmen say that that kitchen jumped off its piles and on again. Whenthe smoke and dust cleared away, the remains of the nasty yellow dogwere lying against the paling fence of the yard looking as if he hadbeen kicked into a fire by a horse and afterwards rolled in the dustunder a barrow, and finally thrown against the fence from a distance.Several saddle-horses, which had been 'hanging-up' round the verandah,were galloping wildly down the road in clouds of dust, with brokenbridle-reins flying; and from a circle round the outskirts, from everypoint of the compass in the scrub, came the yelping of dogs. Two of themwent home, to the place where they were born, thirty miles away, andreached it the same night and stayed there; it was not till towardsevening that the rest came back cautiously to make inquiries. One wastrying to walk on two legs, and most of 'em looked more or less singed;and a little, singed, stumpy-tailed dog, who had been in the habit ofhopping the back half of him along on one leg, had reason to be gladthat he'd saved up the other leg all those years, for he needed itnow. There was one old one-eyed cattle-dog round that shanty for yearsafterwards, who couldn't stand the smell of a gun being cleaned. He itwas who had taken an interest, only second to that of the yellow dog, inthe cartridge. Bushmen said that it was amusing to slip up on his blindside and stick a dirty ramrod under his nose: he wouldn't wait to bringhis solitary eye to bear--he'd take to the Bush and stay out all night.

  For half an hour or so after the explosion there were several Bushmenround behind the stable who crouched, doubled up, against the wall, orrolled gently on the dust, trying to laugh without shrieking. Therewere two white women in hysterics at the house, and a half-caste rushingaimlessly round with a dipper of cold water. The publican was holdinghis wife tight and begging her between her squawks, to 'hold up for mysake, Mary, or I'll lam the life out of ye.'

  Dave decided to apologise later on, 'when things had settled a bit,' andwent back to camp. And the dog that had done it all, 'Tommy', the great,idiotic mongrel retriever, came slobbering round Dave and lashing hislegs with his tail, and trotted home after him, smiling his broadest,longest, and reddest smile of amiability, and apparently satisfied forone afternoon with the fun he'd had.

  Andy chained the dog up securely, and cooked some more chops, while Davewent to help Jim out of the hole.

  And most of this is why, for years afterwards, lanky, easy-goingBushmen, riding lazily past Dave's camp, would cry, in a lazy drawl andwith just a hint of the nasal twang--

  ''El-lo, Da-a-ve! How's the fishin' getting on, Da-a-ve?'

  Poisonous Jimmy Gets Left.