The Ranger in the Hills: A Heartwarming Australian Outback Romance

by Lucy Walker

  The next day Katie returned to Malin’s Outpost.

  She had said good-bye to the hundreds of birds, the singsong of whirring wings, tiny tweeps and the flashing green, blue, and gold of the parrots.

  She had loved the diggings and all the beauty in the bush around them. It had been a kind of heaven ‒ if only she had spent more time enjoying herself instead of worrying.

  She wouldn’t say good-bye to the men.

  ‘It’s such a little distance from the homestead. I’ll come again ‒ some day. That is, if you’ll have me?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Fred grinning.

  ‘By crikey, you bet,’ added Jack Bean.

  ‘Guess we’ll have to wait and see,’ was all Sam vouchsafed. But Katie knew he wasn’t angry with her any more. She could tell by the look in his eye when he lifted his hand in farewell when he set her on the track homewards.

  She would not hear of his coming with her.

  ‘If I could find my way out in the dark I can find my way home in the light,’ she said.

  ‘I guess Secretary will come out half-way to meet you. Maybe have the young feller with him ‒’

  ‘Secretary? How could he know when I’m due home?’

  ‘Ask Jack Bean,’ Sam said with a grin. ‘He’s the one that sent word back. He always does. Not likely to miss out this time.’

  Katie did not ask the aborigine. By this time she was exasperated by his comings and goings ‒ that is except when he flashed that wide shining smile at her.

  Katie’s return home was something like a progress for not only did Secretary, Andrew and the kelpie dogs come out several miles along the track to meet her, but they had Tom Ryde with them.

  ‘Tom!’ Katie cried with joy. ‘How did you get here, and why? Did you know I’d gone hunting too? Were you worried?’

  For once she had forgotten to greet Andrew first.

  ‘Oh, Andrew,’ she hurried on, remorsefully. ‘Did you mind my going away? It was for such a short while. Did you read my note?’

  They were all talking at once, except Secretary who was looking over Brownie. After all the horse was valuable. Clearly it came first in Secretary’s scale of important things at the moment.

  ‘Hallo, Katie!’ Tom said with a grin.

  ‘Brownie’s all right, Secretary ‒’

  ‘I read your note, Katie, and I told Mrs. Potts to let you go off if you wanted.’ Andrew sounded as if nothing of moment had happened at all.

  Katie was a little taken aback. Then half sadly, half gladly, she realised it was all for the best if Andrew could get along without her happily. She almost felt an apron string loosening.

  ‘I have some paints,’ Andrew continued, putting first things first. ‘It’s a very big box with a lot of colours. Some oils too. There’s a pile of cartridge paper, and charcoals and a board ‒’

  Katie’s head was in a whirl. She was trying to smile at Tom to show him how welcome he was, placate Secretary about Brownie and understand exactly what it was Andrew was telling her.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you all ‒’

  ‘Nothing, Katie,’ Tom said cheerfully. ‘Come on, turn horses all and we’ll get back in time for late lunch. We’ll canter some of the stretches. The paints came out from Pandanning in the delivery truck. Seems Bern managed to get some message through to put them in our stores. That’s why I came over. To bring them. There’s about four books on the mechanics of art too. You know anything about it, Katie? It was Secretary who said they were for the young-un here ‒’

  ‘Secretary,’ said Katie wearily, ‘knows everything. If he said they were for Andrew, then I suppose he’s right. But why paints? I thought Bern intended Andrew to go to boarding school: or learn motor mechanics: not play ‒’

  ‘Young feller is to work plenty with paints,’ Secretary said moving his own horse forward, intending to ride on ahead with Andrew.

  ‘Tom ‒ I don’t think I’ll ever understand Bern.’

  ‘I don’t think you ever will, either. No one does ‒ very much. He’s his own master. Why try?’

  ‘Yes, why try!’

  ‘Did you find what you went to look for, Katie?’

  ‘How did you know I went to look for anything, Tom? How do you know I didn’t just run away?’

  ‘Because you would never have left young Andrew behind.’

  ‘Do I seem as possessive as all that? Doesn’t anyone understand I had to bring him up? I was responsible for him?’

  ‘I think you have a wise head on your shoulders and you’ve figured it out he has to be on his own now and again. So you went for a walkabout in the bush to try him out. Nearly everyone round here goes walkabout now and again, Katie. There’s so few of us ‒ all paddocked together with not a town in hundreds of miles and only the prospectors, who are no company for anyone but themselves; and the men up at the diggings.’

  ‘Yes’ said Katie slowly. ‘I went walkabout. I suppose that was really it. I had an awful urge ‒’

  ‘That’s it all right,’ Tom said sagely. ‘Everybody has it sooner or later. When Jill and Stella begin to get that way the parents send ’em up to Pandanning for a spell. One at a time, generally, because there’s chores to be done around the homestead. Sometimes the two go off together.’

  ‘You don’t think it was odd that I went bush-ways?’ Katie asked wonderingly.

  ‘Well, you’re bush-bred, aren’t you? That is, if anyone could call the sand-plain out by the Dust Bowl, bush. You’ve lived outback so you know what you’re doing. Anyhow Secretary would have had a beam on you. Don’t you worry about that. Secretary has a beam on every living thing that comes and goes this side of the Simpson Desert.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Katie said soberly. She was surprised that Tom took her walkabout so philosophically.

  He was grinning at her, guessing her thoughts.

  ‘You’ve got spirit, Katie. I’m not surprised one bit at anything you do.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Tom. I think that sounds like a compliment.’

  ‘Maybe it is. Maybe I wanted to ask you something ‒’

  They were jogging along side by side, Tom looking straight ahead as if unwilling to look at Katie.

  ‘I know we’ve only known one another a short while, but I certainly felt good after that day we had the picnic. If I could be a sort of special friend ‒ that is, if you could look on me that way, then later when you know me better, and if ‒’

  His face was serious. His stubborn profile worried Katie because now his friendly grin was gone.

  ‘I’d like to be a special friend, Tom,’ she said quickly. ‘Of everybody. It would be dreadful to live here at Malin’s Outpost for long and not be special friends, wouldn’t it? I mean ‒’

  ‘What you mean is ‒ you just want to be friendly with the Rydes. Not me specially ‒’

  ‘Oh, no, Tom! Everyone ‒ specially ‒’ she broke off.

  Tom was looking at her sideways; the grin had come back.

  ‘I guess I mentioned that too soon,’ he said. ‘Stella thought I ought to do it. The sooner the better, she said.’

  Katie was suddenly angry.

  Blow Stella! I wish she’d keep her ideas to herself. Katie nearly told Tom that it was Jill and Stella putting ideas in her head that had made her go that walkabout in search of Gideon. She was glad they had done it now that she had met him; and he had put his arms round her, and held her. But she couldn’t tell Tom about it.

  ‘Look ‒’ she said peering up the track ‒ anything to change the subject. ‘Secretary and Andrew are out of sight. Let’s catch them up.’

  She dug her heel in Brownie’s flank and a moment later they were galloping homewards.

  Mrs. Potts took the same philosophic view of Katie’s absence as had Tom, except she kept her special remarks for her husband’s ears only.

  ‘I hope she wasn’t off up to the diggings after the wrong man,’ she said, putting Mr. Potts’s lunch in front of him at the kitchen table. The horse
party had not yet come in, though dust far up the track told her it wasn’t far off. ‘If so she’s likely to be disappointed. If we could work it so she could stick to Tom Ryde instead, she’d save herself, and others, a packet of trouble. Maybe we ought to help work it that way. What do you think? Tom didn’t come over here ‒ all fifteen miles of it ‒ to bring young Andrew a box of paints and a few books. No Ryde ever gave up a day’s work unless he had something mighty on his mind.’

  ‘The whole pack of Rydes came over for the picnic,’ Mr. Potts said pointedly.

  ‘Mrs. Ryde’s orders and Stella Ryde’s wilfulness! That’s something mighty, I can tell you. Tom always was one for suiting his mother and his sisters. He’d make a good husband. Obliging.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, woman. Can’t you get the idea of matching-up people off your mind. One and all will get married soon enough. They always do in the bush. One week’s acquaintance is enough, if they’ve a mind. Look at Doherty out grazing sheep next to the desert. Reckoned he’d had enough of batching, built himself a homestead in place of the shack and rode into Wiluna to get himself a wife. Inside a week he’d found one, and taken her home‒’

  Mrs. Potts could see she would get no co-operation from her husband. She would have to do something about it herself. Katie married to Tom Ryde and living happily ever after would suit everybody. The poor girl would have a home and between them all they’d do something about bringing up that whipper-snapper boy properly. As it was, for three days he’d done nothing but go tracking with Secretary. Mrs. Potts didn’t believe in idle boys. She didn’t believe in trouble round or near the diggings either. There was too much at stake. Let one fall out with another, then someone might go to town and blow the gaff about what could be found round that old Gideon Dent stamping ground. Look what happened to Malley in the old days because there was trouble and he talked too much. He lost out.

  It was best the Rydes were kept peaceable and Miss Katie out of Miss Stella’s hair.

  Tom Ryde was the answer to that little problem. Mrs. Potts could see that, a long paddock away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When Katie and Tom presently came in, laughing and chatting together, Mrs. Potts was convinced she was right in her judgment. They were meant for one another.

  ‘Well, you’re a fine one,’ she said to Katie. ‘Running out on us like that. Not that I blame you. Everyone wants to see what the workable diggings are really like. Glamour, gold and pyrites, they think. All the time it’s just a camp with plenty of mullock heaps to break up the landscape. Did you see the birds? Regular chorus, aren’t they?’

  Her words were blunt but her smile was warm.

  ‘Did you find what you went after? That’s the main thing,’ she went on, not waiting for Katie to answer. ‘Did you bring back any gold? That’s what most people are after when they fossick round the old dumps. There’s many has found a bit, too. Up Kalgoorlie way they say it’s the richest mile in the world. All gold; and shining at that ‒ every yard of it.’

  ‘I found gold all right,’ Katie said laughing. ‘But not the kind you think. I made some new friends. The rest of it’s all pyrites.’

  ‘Good for you. When diggers are friends they’re worth their weight in nuggets any day. But, do them wrong ‒ well ‒’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t,’ Katie said hastily. ‘They were wonderful to me. I had kangaroo meat which I cooked myself. They made damper and I made dumplings. It was all very co-operative.’

  Nothing more was said of her escapade then. She might have done no more than go for an hour’s walk.

  Mrs. Potts set lunch for them on the small lean-to veranda; and sent some down to the stables for Andrew and Secretary.

  ‘Time Mr. Bern came back and set that boy to work,’ she said half jokingly as she put a fresh salad on the table. Lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber had come over as a present from the Rydes’ vegetable garden. ‘Some of these things would grow easy out by the soak. Maybe it would be better still if he went to that school in Pandanning, or up in Perth. What do you think, Mr. Tom? How about you taking him and Miss Katie back with you to Ryde’s Place and your father take Andrew in hand and teach him how to grow vegetables? Nothing to it except hard work. That didn’t hurt anybody. Over there Miss Katie’ud have company.’

  ‘But I’ve only just come back,’ Katie protested. ‘Do you want me to go away again so soon? Am I so much trouble?’

  Mrs. Potts set the backs of her hands on her hips and looked down at the young girl.

  ‘It would be a good thing, for your own sake,’ she said. ‘You’d get some fun over there. Out here at the Outpost there’s only me and Mr. Potts. Secretary told me the Rydes are off to Pandanning in a week or two. Both Miss Jill and Miss Stella together this time. You going, Mr. Tom?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it, but you’re putting ideas in my head.’ Tom wrinkled his brows as he cogitated the pros and cons of the suggestion.

  ‘What about it, Katie? I guess Taciturn would give my mother a hand in the house if both girls are going. He’s done it before.’

  ‘Oh, Tom, I can’t,’ Katie pleaded. ‘I’ve only just come back from running away. Bern would think I was unhappy here. It would seem such an ungrateful thing to do.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mrs. Potts who never believed in pressing anybody ‒ only in giving them ideas and then carefully tending and cultivating the ideas. ‘All we have to do is tell Secretary we’re thinking about it. He won’t budge one yard the other side of the out-paddock boundary but Bern Malin will know all about it in a day or two. You watch and see.’

  ‘What does he do? Use smoke signals?’ Katie asked with a laugh. She knew very well that though this was one form of the bush telegraph it was by no means the only one. Besides, Secretary was civilised.

  ‘Useless to ask him.’ Mrs. Potts picked up some used dishes. ‘But Mr. Bern will know all right, so you two had better begin making plans. You come back here for her in about a fortnight’s time, Mr. Tom. I’ll see she has her things packed. Trouble will be to get the young feller away from Secretary. One word from Mr. Bern’ll fix that, though.’

  ‘Mrs. Potts, do you and your husband want to go back to the diggings?’ Katie asked. ‘Is that what all this is about?’

  ‘That I do, and the sooner the better,’ Mrs. Potts admitted frankly. ‘Mind you, don’t you go telling Mr. Bern I said that. I wouldn’t go against him for all the gold in Kalgoorlie, and I’d just as soon he didn’t know I was plotting behind his back.’

  The last few words came through the door for she was disappearing kitchenwards. Katie and Tom looked at one another.

  ‘I suppose I deserved that,’ Katie said, her spirits suddenly lowered. ‘I ran out on them and though she is being awfully nice about it, and not even very inquiring, she is offended. I must appear terribly ungrateful.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. I know Mrs. Potts by hearsay from the diggers who occasionally come into Ryde’s Place when they’ve run out of stores. When she makes up her mind to do something she goes about it the round way.’ Tom laughed. ‘That is,’ he went on, ‘until Bern Malin catches her at it. Then she’s like a wallaby talking to a six-foot kangaroo. There’s never any question who’s the bigger.’

  Katie was puzzled.

  ‘Then what does she want, besides going back to the diggings?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Katie, but it’s a good idea. You going to Pandanning with us, I mean.’

  Katie looked into his face searchingly. A few minutes ago it hadn’t occurred to Tom Ryde that he would go to the town himself, just yet. It had been arranged for Stella and Jill to go. Already Mrs. Potts had achieved one result in her sowing of ideas. Tom was now thinking about it.

  ‘I’ll make a suggestion,’ he said. His smile was suddenly very boyish. ‘If you go up to Pandanning you’ll be able to see the school they’ve been talking about for Andrew. I guess that’s been on your mind ever since the day of the picnic. I could see Jill didn’t know you hadn’t thought of it, but
Stella might have worried you a bit about the good, and not-so-good, side of it. She wouldn’t have meant to do that. It’s just her way of teasing the boy. Mind you, there’s better schools in Perth ‒’

  ‘You’re taking the round about way too, Tom. I think you and Mrs. Potts are a pair. All the same I can see your point about the school. I would like to see it.’

  ‘Then you’ll think about it? You’ll come, if I can fix it up with the parents?’ He grinned cheerfully. ‘You can really whoop it up in Pandanning if you’ve a mind to. It’s a pretty good place.’

  ‘Please, Tom ‒ don’t go and organise your family into something because you think I would like it. I would like to go, it’s true. But I wouldn’t do that now without Bern knowing; and agreeing. I’ve already done one ungracious thing. Besides, I promised ‒’

  She broke off, suddenly on guard. She had seen Gideon Dent, or rather his dark shadow. She had touched and been touched by him. She knew she was not to tell anyone, not even good, kind, friendly Tom Ryde ‒ not Mr. and Mrs. Potts, nor even Secretary; for all that Secretary probably knew. How nearly she had come to doing that very thing which she had promised herself and Sam not to do. She had nearly told Tom Ryde she had given a promise to Gideon Dent.

  Prospectors, mining company speculators and scouts, came through Ryde’s Place on their way out to the diggings and the Never. The Rydes, for their own sake, were not to know that Gideon Dent was very near really ‒ busy pegging his father’s claims ‒ which couldn’t be so far away at all.

  Katie felt almost sick at the nearness of that slip.

  Now she really saw the danger to Gideon in her knowledge. Of course Bern Malin couldn’t tell her about him at Malley’s Find! Of course, he couldn’t trust her to go out there and meet him! People ‒ like herself ‒ accidentally let things out. They weren’t to be blamed, in a way. It slipped out ‒