Whipping his horse to a gallop, he retraced his tracks for a quarter of a mile, to where the red sand-hills along the east side of the river were a mile and a half distant. Here he reined his mount to the right and dashed out on therubbly, sticking mullock intersected by a mad mosaic pattern of cracks yards deep.
Having been bred on Barrakee, where no such country existed, Tiger was at once at a great disadvantage. The irregularly spaced islands of firm rubble hindered his swinging stride so much that he was forced to proceed in a series of hops and jumps. More than once a hind-hoof slithered into a crack, and only by a miracle did he keep his feet.
His attention divided between the treacherous ground and the coming water, Dugdale helped his horse as much as possible with rein and knees. So imminent was the danger around and below him that he then did not notice the sun shining through the first rift in the clouds, forgot entirely Knowles’ probable pursuit, even his own mission.
The recent rain had made the rubble-in size varying from marbles to small oranges-pudgy outside but still as hard as flint inside. This rubble clogged the horse’s hoofs, forming great balls beneath each which eventually flew off, whereupon the clogging process was repeated. Tiger broke out into a white lather of sweat; his breathing rasped through scarlet nostrils and grinning teeth. The first half of the crossing was far worse than a ten-mile gallop.
And it was about halfway that the animal misjudged a short leap and dropped both hind feet into a crack. Prepared though he was, Dugdale was sent hurtling over the gelding’s withers and landed with stunning force. In his turn he felt in a lesser degree the sensations of Sergeant Knowles when hit by Sinclair’s waddy and later tricked by Dugdale in the hut.
Dazed, semi-conscious, the young man lurched to his feet, the reins fortunately still in his grip. The horse scrambled forward and out of the crack, mercifully uninjured, but the rider swayed on his feet with giddiness. For an entire minute the earth spun round and over and under with the sky, and only his iron will prevented him from lying down until the effect of the fall had passed.
Knowledge, however, of the creeping waters kept him up, whilst clinging to a stirrup-leather for support.
“Gad, Tiger, that was a buster, to be sure!” he gasped at last, and then when his vision cleared he added: “You’re in a nice state, old boy, but we’re not across yet.”
Once more in the saddle he urged Tiger, trembling and afraid, again into the leaps and hops, so unnatural to an animal of Tiger’s youth and freedom of action.
Three minutes later, when yet more than a quarter of a mile from high ground, he heard the sinister rush of water down in the cracks, water that “clucked” and “guggled” and “swished”, water that was rising slowly to the surface.
The rubbish-littered lip of the main flood was less than a quarter of a mile from him. He could see the sinuous movement, the rise and fall of dead limbs and branches rolling over and over. And at less, much less than that short distance, he saw the silver glint of the water lower down moving upward to meet the main flow.
At that instant Dugdale knew that he had about one chance in a hundred of ever gaining firm ground. The beckoning sand-hills looked so close that it seemed possible to lean forward and touch them.
Now the upper surface of the ground was beginning to sink. He could discern the sheen of water less than a foot down in the cracks, water of a million eyes winking up at him malevolently. Tiger floundered worse and worse every second. Pools were forming between the two waters, ahead, behind, and on each side-pools that assumed sinister personalities. Dugdale felt as perhaps the escaped convict feels with a circle of armed warders creeping upon him.
Fifty, forty, thirty yards off now was the barrage of rubbish, with its six-yard vanguard of frothy water. Three hundred yards now separated horse and rider from the shelving red sand. Tiger’s speed, in spite of prodigious efforts, had dropped to the pace of a walking man.
The next hundred yards took an eternity of terrific effort. A million times worse was the second hundred yards, and before ten of the remaining hundred were covered Tiger suddenly sank.
The mud and water reached Dugdale’s knees. The horse screamed once, just before the whirling, floating, reptile-covered barrage rolled upon horse and man.
Chapter Thirty-Five
A Nice Day
THERE WAS in all that long, many-curved line of sticks and branches not a log of sufficient buoyancy to support a man of Dugdale’s weight. When the horse sank to its shoulders, its rider threw himself sideways out of the saddle, whereupon heslushed cheek-down into a two-foot ridge of froth covering a further foot of water. Bunching his knees, he raised himself sufficiently to see a rotten fence-post within reach.
A red-hot iron was thrust through his right hand when a bulldog-ant bit; a cold contracting thing wrapped itself about his other wrist, but pain and sensation were hardly felt in that supreme moment wherein the earth vanished beneath the mass of cracking, lurching, upthrusting snags and branches. And then, as suddenly as it had come, so the barrage passed horse and man, leaving them in comparatively clear water.
Again Tiger screamed, this time with pain, not fright. Dugdale guessed that some venomous insect had taken refuge on his sweat-and mud-covered body and then proceeded to assert its irritability. The pain of the bite or sting proved to be the horse’ssalvation, proved to be just the necessary stimulus applied at the right moment; for Dugdale saw his animal make one tremendous effort to reach the high ground. He could never decide whether it was chance or equine sagacity; but Tiger lurched a little sideways, almost gained his feet, slithered forward two or three yards, sank deep with only his head out of the shallow water, paused for one more tremendous effort, moved forward again-and, amazingly, found his feet, and stood still.
The sluggishly moving water did not rise to Tiger’s fore-knees. He trembled violently, and finally looked back with wide eyes at his rider. Mud and water dropped from him. He had become a brown horse. Dugdale saw that Tiger by miraculous chance stood on firm ground, and that if he could join him he might find a way, a causeway, from the island of firm ground to the shore of the river.
He was still clutching the rotten fence-post, and when he removed his left hand a small brown snake reared its graceful head and hissed. Had the snake been less frightened it would have struck, and without thought Dugdale flung up his arm sharply, whereupon the reptile was sent far into the water. Beneath him the ground felt slushy and glutinous, and only by lying full-length, allowing the water partially to support him, was he able to pull himself forward towards his horse. And then he found that Tiger stood on hard red sand.
For a full minute he patted and coaxed and generally worked to reduce Tiger’s almost humanly hysterical fright. The slowly-moving water was imperceptibly rising and bore on its dark-brown surface countless half-drowned insects. Dugdale, without conscious thought, removed a dozen harmless ants and one of the ferocious bulldog-ants from the fidgeting Tiger, as well as several that clung to himself; and then, sliding one foot forward at a time, gingerly prospected for a firm crossing to dry land eighty or ninety yards distant.
In such manner did he fortunately find a way, his animal reluctant to leave the safe spot he had found, yet obviously frightened by the conditions surrounding them; and when at last they did clear the Parooriver, the bed behind them was no longer dry.
Dugdale first of all removed his coat. Then off came Tiger’s saddle. The saddle-cloth he used to wash the animaldown, and when again clean and saddled Tiger appeared little the worse for the crossing. The next matter of importance was the condition of Sinclair’s letter. It was soppy from immersion, and the bearer of it was obliged to lay it against a sand-ripple facing the sun to dry. Sinclair’s wallet was less affected, a cursory examination showing that the water had not penetrated to the folding pockets. After that there was nothing to do but wait till the letter dried.
The adventure of the crossing had in a way calmed Dugdale’s mind sufficiently to allow of consecutive
thought on what had occurred and what the future might hold in store. While riding towards Thurlow Lake at a quiet amble, knowing that he was safe from personal pursuit by Sergeant Knowles, Dugdale made up his mind to experience a trying time at least from the further activities of the police sergeant.
From his official standpoint Knowles had been right in his demand for the handing over of Sinclair’s property, because the wallet had been Sinclair’s property and now was the temporary property of the State. That Dugdale refused to divulge the name of the person to whom he was to take the wallet made it quite evident to the policeman that the act was perpetrated to benefit Dugdale or one of Dugdale’s friends in an unlawful way, because, Sinclair being dead, there remained no one to prove Dugdale’s words.
A southerly wind blew chillingly through the rider’s wet clothes, and he urged Tiger into an easy canter. Arrived at the boundary-fence, he lashed the top wire to the bottom wire with his waist-belt, and had no difficulty in getting the horse over, this being a method Tiger was quite used to. Pressing onward, yet without undue haste, horse and rider finally came in sight of Thurlow Lake homestead about three o’clock in the afternoon.
Half an hour later he was close enough to see the several boundary-riders standing in a group near the horse-yards, and of these he made out Fred Blair and his bullock-wagon offsider, Henry McIntosh. That these two were now occupied onhorsework was obvious to him, because it had been essential to get all the sheep east of the Washaways before the flood waters divided the run into two, and to beat the flood every available man was necessary.
What Dugdale didn’t know was that the three men talking to Blair and McIntosh had been waiting at Thurlow Lake since nine o’clock that morning for the express purpose of apprehending him, the three men in question being members of the police stationed at Thurlow Lake in the general search for Sinclair. They were not wearing uniform: each of them appearing to the observer as either a jackaroo or a well-dressed ordinary hand.
Two of them had already had the pleasure of meeting Blair in their professional capacity. Consequently Blair knew them. Knowing, too, that they would be loath to devote their time, urgently needed in the search for Sinclair, to escorting him to the jail at Wilcannia, Blair was airing his view about policemen in general and these three specimens in particular. It was as well, perhaps, that Blair did not know that the search for Sinclair was over.
Dugdale rode up to the stockyard and dismounted. Nodding to the others, he said to Blair:
“Is Mr Watts home, Fred?”
“Just come in,” Blair replied, the heat of argument still in evidence on his brick-red face and in the angle of his beard. “I think he is in the office.”
“Thanks! I want to see him.”
But as he moved towards the house the three plainclothes men edged around him. Blair saw the movement, the significance of which brought a gleam into his eyes.
“Mr Dugdale?” inquired a big, raw-boned man, evidently the senior officer.
Dugdale paused in his walk. Upon him also the significance of the three men about him was not lost. He saw now what their avocation in life was. They were too hard, too suspicious, too efficient-looking to be anything but bush-troopers. Allowing Tiger’s reins to drop to the ground, where upon the animal stood and would continue to stand forhours, he braced his shoulders and gave answer in the affirmative.
“Then I am going to arrest you for being in possession of stolen property,” the leader said grimly. “You will be charged with having removed from the clothes of William Clair, now deceased, a leather wallet and contents, and a further charge will be laid against you of having assaulted Sergeant Knowles, causing grievous bodily harm. Just to save trouble, give me the wallet.”
Dugdale stood with his hands on his hips, the ever-ready poise of the fighter. The information that Sinclair was dead shocked Blair into immobility, because less than twenty four hours previously he had seen, spoken to, and supplied the gaunt man with rations. The matter of the pocket book was a puzzle. The outstanding facts were that Clair was dead, that Dugdale had his wallet, and that Dugdale had fought the sergeant either to obtain or to retain the wallet. Natural instinct prompted Blair to side with Dugdale. Still Blair waited.
To ask why Frederick Blair so loved fighting is to ask why a dog loves to chase and kill a cat. The love of fighting may have been inherited, for Blair’s grandfather had been a notorious blackbirder, almost officially designated a pirate. The little man lived some three hundred years too late. Even in Bully Hayes’ time he would have secured worldwide fame; because, not only was he a natural fighter, but he also was a natural leader. Suddenly he seized McIntosh’s arm and drew him aside.
“When Iw’istles, ’Enery,” he said, “you bolt to the stock-yards and turn out all them ’orses. Then you come back and have Tiger waiting and ready for Mister Dugdale to git away. Savvy?”
Henry intimated with his usual grin of vacancy that he did savvy, and the grin was still a grin when Dugdale’s fist crashed into the police leader’s face and Blair whistled precisely one second before ramming his head between another policeman’s legs and heaving him over his back like a bag of potatoes.
Now, when a ten stone man hits a twelve stone man a glancing blow on the lower jaw, it seldom occurs that the bigger man goes to sleep. The leader of the police party was but slightly jarred. Like Blair, he, too, loved a fight, and with a broad grin of joy stepped in with amazing swiftness to return the punch. But somehow his fist shot skyward. A volcano opened the earth beneath him and sent him up in a parabolic curve which ended when he returned to earth on his head.
A lesser man’s neck might well have been broken. In any case, the twist it received whilst his body was still in the air was infinitely worse than Dugdale’s smash to the jaw. When finally his body did come to rest with a dull thump, it was to feel the not inconsiderable weight of Blair, who jumping high, landed with both feet on the small of his back.
The third policeman had got a ju-jitsu hold on Dugdale and the second was gathering himself to fling his weight into the melee. Blair saw Dugdale’s helplessness, saw his captor’s broad back, saw the third member of the enemy forces charging upon him, heard the leader coughing up sand and gasping for wind.
The little man gave vent to a roaring laugh of ineffable happiness. Thetip of his beard was level with his eyes, blazing and alight with glory. Ignoring the charging policeman, he estimated the distance between the back of Dugdale’s captor andhimself to a bare inch, took a short run, launched himself in the air with terrific velocity, and crashed the ju-jitsu expert’s legs from under him. Never losing an instant, he was on his feet before Dugdale and his captor found the ground. Laughing again, he ran to meet the second policeman who was closing in upon him, ran forward as though eagerly welcoming a long lost brother, and smote that man between the eyes so mightily that he dropped as though dead.
Knocked down and winded though he was, the ju-jitsu expert merely exchanged one paralysing grip for another. He was master of the art, yet was unfortunate in having devoted his art to the subjugation of Dugdale and not of Fred Blair. Whilst Dugdale was astraightout boxer who could be overcome by the other two policemen, Blair was a rough-and-tumble, eat-’em-alive-oh! whirlwind fighter, bringing to his aid extraordinary nimbleness of feet, terrific punching ability, strong teeth, and dexterously used boots.
Having put one man to sleep and observing that the leader would require just two more seconds to get the “crick” out of his neck, Blair proceeded to finish the liberation of Dugdale already begun.
The expert had his victim down under him. He was on his knees holding Dugdale’s arms in a bone breaking grip. Blair mounted the broad back like a little child riding on its father’s back at home. But there Blair’s childlikeness ended. He slid one hand over the crown of the expert’s head and, twining his fingers in the hair above the man’s forehead, began to pull backward. The pull being anything but slow or gentle, it was a wonder Blair did not pull either the policeman�
�s head or his scalp off. As it was, the expert became the victim and bellowed.
Just then, however, Blair was picked up like a noxious insect by the big leader and hugged in a breathless grip. He saw that Dugdale managed to worm his way out from beneath the expert’s body just before that performer recovered from his surprise; and then, finding that his head was lower than the big man’s face, so that he could not knock it out of shape with the back of his head, Blair devoted a few seconds to tattooing tender shins with the heels of his boots.
That eased the situation but did not relieve him of restraint. Hearing the smack of fist against flesh somewhere outside his line of vision, Blair laughed again, and, seizing the opportunity, dug one iron hard elbow with devastating force into his opponent’s stomach.
Even when turning his head to obtain a better position for the second attack he saw that the man he had knocked unconscious was very ill with a kind ofmal demer, and that Dugdale and his partner were giving an exhibition of the fistic art before the interested Watts family and two station hands. What he failed to see was that, no longer able to resist the temptation, Henry McIntosh, reared in the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the wharves, handed Tiger into the care of one of the hands and proceeded to take his part in the war. The time arrived when the leader, holding Blair in his powerful arms, suddenly saw a maze of shooting stars, followed by a great light which preceded a greater darkness. The contact of abootheel -removed from the foot for the purpose-with a man’s unprotected head is liable to cause such effects.
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