Marion had urged Grey Cloud over the plain at the precise moment that the Fosters’ car had broken down. The breakdown had been a fortunate coincidence. To a certain extent it masked her intention of carrying a warning to the wanted men.
On his return to the men’s quarters Bony found Mr Roberts telling them that the police were waiting to arrest Dot and Dash, and saying suggestively that he supposed no one wanted the honour of driving any car or truck Sergeant Morris might commandeer with which to pursue them. It occurred to Bony then that this was a plan formulated between Marion and Roberts, with a secondary plan behind it to deal with the situation had it been the partners’ truck and not the Fosters’ car which had come to grief.
The resultant discussion among the men had given Bony vast amusement. One of them, who could drive, objected to flatly refusing Sergeant Morris on account of the intimidation he would receive from the police when next he visited Mount Lion. The objection applied to the other men also; but the balking of Sergeant Morris still seemed a very attractive idea, if it could be accomplished safely. To Jack Withers had come the brain-wave of a general strike, and very quickly it was agreed to strike for a bonus of five hundred pounds—an amount that certainly would not be granted, and at the same time would not be so fantastic as to allow Morris to guess that the strike was really aimed against him.
And, again, the battle of words between Jeff Stanton and Jack Withers gave much joy to the half-caste. Here was being enacted a play of mingled comedy and drama simply because he had willed it; but it was a play that when once started passed out of his control, placing him in the position of a mere spectator in the stalls. So far its results were highly gratifying. If a mystery could be invested with personality, this one had been discovered in a lethargic state that apparently became dormant. Bony’s order to arrest Dot and Dash had quickened it into a living thing, had given it a fresh lease of life that might well strip it of its enfolding draperies and obliterate it for ever.
Certainly his orders to Sergeant Morris had been followed by several surprises. Bony had counted on this when he sent his instructions to the sergeant. The greatest surprise to him was afforded by the action of Marion in warning the partners. How could it possibly concern her what happened to either or both? Less surprising was the action of Roberts in rushing to tell her of the partners’ impending arrest. Whilst the bookkeeper’s name was still down on Bony’s list of fish, it was so merely because it had not been proved not to be the sting-ray. Now it appeared that Mr Roberts was greatly concerned, and had most astutely schemed that Sergeant Morris should be cheated.
To Bony the incident of the fire was inopportune and most annoying, since it was likely to check the actions of the performers, halting the drama in the middle of the second act. It was obvious that immediately Jeff Stanton recovered from the surprise, first of the strike and secondly of the news of fire which had so abruptly terminated it, he would put into action plans laid long before to cope with the fire demon should it rear its head. It also was obvious that the strike was farcical, for no sooner had the book-keeper announced the outbreak than the strike was swept off the board in proof of the strikers’ genuine loyalty to their employer.
Lightning had fired the knee-high grass near the north-west boundary in one of the paddocks ridden by Ned Swallow, who had elected to remain at his job. From the hut where Dot and Dash had camped when they shot the kangaroos he saw a thin spiral of smoke rising skyward at a distance of several miles. He waited, watching it, to make sure it was not a chance blackfellow’s signal, and saw the spiral become a column, and the column rapidly become a whirling black mass.
Immediately he was convinced that it was a bush fire he had telephoned the fact to the homestead. He stood by the telephone until Mr Roberts had called Jeff Stanton, watching the smoke become a high menacing cloud in the northern sky through a wide space between the wall-sheets of the hut.
Whilst Stanton was hurrying to his office two men ran to the motor-shed, thence to bring out the powerful motor-cycles and charge them with petrol in view of expected orders. The remaining men hurried after the squatter and collected outside the office, ready and willing to be rushed to the fire zone to put out the conflagration before it reached uncontrollable dimensions. As for Sergeant Morris and his trooper, they were ignored for the time being, and Bony, who stood on the outskirts of the little knot of men, saw with twinkling eyes the furious anger in the sergeant’s face.
Presently Stanton emerged from the office, calm, cool, and resolute, a born leader, far-sighted, radiating confidence. Standing on the veranda, thereby seeing over the heads of the men, he said in his gruff, barking voice:
“The lightning has started a fire at the back of Black Horse Paddock. As you know, all that country is ripe for a fire. It’ll take a lot of putting out, and I’m glad to see that you are justifying my faith in you, and that your damned strike was a sort of Christmas joke. Every day that we are engaged in putting out this fire your wages will be the usual pound a day.
“Most of the sheep in Black Horse Paddock are now coming in to water, and Ned Swallow will hold ’em near the tank. Jim and you, Tom, go out on the bikes and give Ned a hand. There are several spare hacks out there. Roll your swags and leave ’em here before you go. Ron, fill up with petrol and take three cases of extra petrol on the Chev. All you men roll your swags and leave ’em here. All of you will go with Ron. Ed, see to the Reo—take plenty of spare petrol. Jack and Bony will give you a hand to put aboard one of those four-hundred-gallon tanks. That done, pull up here and pick up the swags and the tucker Mr Roberts will set out. Get busy!”
Men rushed to their quarters, and, hastily rolling their blankets, raced with them back to the office veranda. First one and then the other motor-cycle engine roared and sputtered. The cloud-hidden sun was just setting when the first red-painted machine skidded off in a cloud of dust, followed in three minutes by the other—machines ridden by expert but fearless, dare-devil riders. The policemen, ignored and wrathfully helpless, saw the first of the trucks, loaded with men, move off into the dust raised by the second motor-cycle, and with perplexed annoyance Morris saw Bony helping to lift a huge square iron water-tank on the powerful Reo truck, as though he were just an excited, loyal station-hand, and not a detective-inspector of the Queensland Police.
The situation was one wholly governed by time. Every second added bulk and strength to the devouring fire-devil. Every second added to the danger menacing the flocks of sheep imprisoned by the far-flung wire fences.
“Sorry, Morris, but we can do nothing to help you now,” Stanton said gruffly. “The fool strike snookered you, or you would have been away in the car before we received news of the fire. Now we need every machine that will go.”
“It seems a mess-up from the start, Jeff. First your daughter warns Dot and Dash after being told it was Dot and Dash we were after. Then the men pretend to go on strike, for it certainly looks like a put-up stunt. Things will have to be sorted out later. I’m going back to Mount Lion to dispatch telegrams and to get a car of some sort. Rowland will ride after their truck, for it is quite on the cards that they will abandon it. They will know full well that they’ll be safer on foot. You might lend old Moongalliti a horse so that he can go with him.”
Jeff nodded. “The groom is out after the horses right now. He’ll fix Moongalliti. I am sending half a dozen nigs out to the danger zone on horseback at once.”
Half a minute later a mob of some thirty saddle-horses was brought to the yards by the groom, quite invisible on his stock horse in the dust they raised. The policemen were walking to the yards for their horses, and, passing Bony, were halted by him, since just then there was no one to see them.
“Great doings!” he said, with flashing blue eyes.
“Too right! But we’ll get ’em in the end. I’m——”
Sergeant Morris stopped speaking. An expression of dawning surprise spread over his brick-red face. Then: “By the way—you told me y
ou could drive a car, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I think I remember having done so. Why?”
“Then why in thunder didn’t you offer to drive when none of the men would do so?” demanded Morris.
Bony laughed softly.
“Because it is not so very important that Dot and Dash should be arrested to-day, or even to-morrow.”
“But you ordered their arrest!” gasped the astonished policeman.
“I know I did, Morris. But, after all, their arrest was not so important as what would happen when it was known they were to be arrested, or were arrested. However, it will be as well to gather them in. Charge them with murder, although I am almost sure neither committed the murder. This mystery is going well. The murderer of Marks has but to make one slip.”
“You are a most unorthodox detective.”
“Everyone says that,” Bony murmured. “I am, however, the greatest detective in Australia.”
Chapter Thirty-six
Father Ryan Acts
FATHER RYAN had eaten his dinner at the policeman’s table as usual, and was seated at his desk gazing over it and beyond the open window towards the hotel with meditative eyes. The sun was on the verge of setting, and but two sounds drifted in upon him from the silenced world—the voices of several children at play in the street, and the occasional reiterated phrase, “How dry we are!” screamed by the cockatoo in his cage on the store veranda.
But of these sounds Father Ryan was unconscious. He was thinking of the only guest staying at the hotel, and wondering what on earth kept her in Mount Lion. He was a little afraid of Mrs Thomas, but felt no dislike for her. She shocked him, certainly. Her outspokenness had at times really pained him. On the other hand, save for her indulgence in liquor, her behaviour was above reproach. Had Mrs Thomas been a man, her drinking would have aroused no comment, though her generosity in “shouting” would have done. Her ability to consume liquor was a never-failing marvel to Mr Bumpus, who was even more afraid of her than was Father Ryan. In fact, she was the topic of conversation among the whole population of Mount Lion. She was at once the giver and the withholder; she gave her money in “shouts”, and she withheld at all times any information about herself.
Father Ryan, however, knew a little more about her than did the other inhabitants of the bush town. To him had Mrs Thomas come asking questions, many questions, questions that sought to find out if within recent time anyone had risen to affluence even for a short period. In his capacity as a Roman Catholic priest she had confided that she was the sister of the missing man, Marks. That was about all she did confide. Father Ryan knew nothing about the case of the Stolen Bride, and was but told the relationship between her and Marks to secure his sympathy and aid in her search for the truth. For the official statement concerning the disappearance of Marks she did not believe, knowing that her brother was a bush-man born and bred.
The grounds of her belief in foul play had been communicated to him with a downright clarity that had brought Father Ryan to believe, with her, that Marks had not died simply from exposure. It was the apparent fact that in his district there was a man who had killed and robbed which so disturbed the little priest. He had been so sure he knew the hearts and minds of all the people who were his friends that he was like the husband who was told that his wife was unfaithful.
Into the calm water of his life, so seldom disturbed by human passion, had dropped a stone that had agitated it for some considerable time. That evening the agitation was subsiding, for Father Ryan was making himself believe that Mrs Thomas was suffering from hallucinations; and, just when he was congratulating himself on having arrived at this decision, another and heavier stone was dropped by Mrs Morris, who came bursting into his study.
“There’s been trouble out at Windee, yer reverence,” she exclaimed, dropping him an habitual curtsy. “Oh, such trouble! Morris has been out to arrest Dot and Dash, and they’ve escaped, and the place is on fire, and it’s Christmas Day to-morrow and——”
A large blue neckerchief smothered her wheezy voice whilst being used to wipe the perspiration from her broad face. Her body, almost as big in width as in length, appeared to sway on the small feet.
“One item at a time, Mrs Morris!”
The priest’s deep and musical voice seemed to reach her as a cooling wind. She felt his hand on her forearm, felt herself urged backward and into a wide-armed chair.
“Now, then. Tell me your news—slowly—and in sequence,” he said gently. “From the beginning, please.”
“Morris has just rung me up,” gasped the woman, still all of a flutter. “He and Mr Rowland left for Windee this afternoon, but he never told me what job he was on, which isn’t like him. He says they are after Dot and Dash, and when I ast him what for, he said: ‘N—i—x!’ You know what he is when he says: ‘N—i—x!’ don’t you, Father? It ain’t no use arguing. Says Dot and Dash was warned he wanted them and they escaped. Then at the same time old Jeff gets word that all the back of Windee is afire, and about thirty thousand sheep in danger of being burnt up. He’s coming home, is Morris to get Slater’s car, and chase Dot and Dash. Oh, what could they have done? That snip of a Dot! No one can help liking him. An’ poor Mr Dash! A proper gentleman in every way——”
Father Ryan let her run on. No longer was he following her. His mind was flashing back and forth between Dot and Dash and Mrs Thomas. Mrs Morris continued to drone on, but upon the tablets of the priest’s mind had at last become written in letters of flame: “Dot and Dash? Dot or Dash?”
Was it one of these two, or was it together that they were responsible for the disappearance of Marks? Was Mrs Thomas’s seemingly unfounded suspicion really substantial? Dash—Hugh Trench—Marion Stanton. Marion—Marion, who had waited two years! Marion, whom he had regarded with such sincere affection ever since she was little!
Mrs Morris was still voicing complaint and speculation when the fact of the fire wriggled into the ambit of his mind. The back of Windee alight—thirty thousand sheep in danger—all hands rushed to the scene—thirty thousand sheep—thirty thousand! Old Jeff gone out there too. Even Roberts would go. Marion and Mrs Poulton, likely enough, left behind. And Marion—Marion thinking of Dash, wondering, wondering, wondering! Alone and wondering. And Dash fleeing with Dot—the law on their heels. The law—and Marion!
Out of the mental welter stood the name Marion—the little girl whom he loved, and who loved and confided in him; the woman he loved, and who still confided to him all her secrets, little and big. She would be wanting him at that moment. He must go, at once.
Without speaking, he snatched up a light coat, but failed to remember choosing a hat, and left the now breathless Mrs Morris to follow him to the gate, there to stand and watch him cross the road to the hotel. She saw him make straight to the public bar door and disappear within.
Mr Bumpus’s main bar was a spacious room, which was not too large in the far-gone prosperous days, but now always seemed uncomfortably big. Within, Father Ryan found four men playing two-up—everyone knew the police were not in town—and Mrs Thomas seated on a barrel at the farther end of the bar drinking from a glass mug reputed to hold an imperial pint. Mr Bumpus was drawing drinks for the two-up players, and the entrance of the little priest made him pause in the act of pumping beer, and the gamblers freeze into statues of almost ludicrous guilt.
On the round, cherubic face of the priest was no evidence of the perturbation of his mind. Having caught the men red-handed, he seized the slight additional power the situation afforded him. Softly he said:
“Ah! Two-up! An illegal game. Played on public premises, too. Your premises, Bumpus! Very serious. Bumpus, call your wife!”
“Tell her she’s wanted by the Church,” put in Mrs Thomas.
“Wot d’you want her for?”
“Call your wife, Bumpus!”
“The Church demands your wife, Bumpus. Render unto me beer and plenty of it, and unto the Church your wife,” Mrs Thomas said very loudly,
but distinctly.
One of the gamblers, raw-boned, unshaved, one who appeared in visage and dress as if he had stepped off the deck of a pirate ship in the “Jolly Roger” days, sauntered along to the woman, whom he addressed in a slow, drawling voice and regarded with a facial expression so truly terrific that even Mrs Thomas was awed.
“Yous ain’t meanin’ no offence to Father Ryan, are yous, mum?”
Mrs Thomas, fortunately, held her peace.
“I’m kinder glad uv that,” proclaimed the man, known to every policeman in West New South Wales as “Stormbird”. The fingers of one huge sun-blackened hand fondled his throat significantly, and dimly Mrs Thomas realized that chivalrous regard for her sex was a weakness unknown to Stormbird. Before Father Ryan could intervene, Mrs Bumpus entered the bar.
“Good evening, everybody!” she exclaimed with a giggle. “Hallo, Father Ryan; good evening!”
“Good evening!” replied the little priest, smiling broadly. “I asked for you because I want you to take charge of the bar while Bumpus drives these four boys and me out to Windee in his car. See that you have enough petrol, Bumpus, before we start.”
“Wot’s the stunt, Pardray?” demanded Bumpus.
“Just a little commission for you, Bumpus. Hurry up! Now, you boys, one drink apiece before we start. There is work and plenty of it waiting us at Windee.”
“Tell us the idee, Father,” the Stormbird pleaded, obviously careful of his speech.
Father Ryan paid Mrs Bumpus and lighted a cigar of the kind which her husband always boasted was the best Havana procurable.
“I understand the back of Windee is afire. I’m after thinking every man of us will be needed. I intend going along to do what I can, and I know quite well that you all would consider yourselves insulted if I went without you when men are wanted.”
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