by Steele Rudd
Casey took up his hat and went outside, and didn’t say “Good-day” or “Thanks” or anything. He didn’t go away, either. He looked about the yard. A panel in the fence was broken. It had been broken for five years. Casey seemed to know it. He started mending that panel. He was mending it all the evening.
Mother called to Joe to bring in some wood. Casey left the fence, hurried to the wood-heap, carried in an armful, and asked Mother if she wanted more. Then he returned to the fence.
“J-oe,” Mother screeched a little later, “look at those cows tryin’ to eat the corn.”
Casey left the fence again and drove the cows away, and mended the wire on his way back.
At sundown Casey was cutting more wood, and when we were at supper he brought it in and put some on the fire, and went out again slowly.
Mother and Sal talked about him.
“Better give him his supper,” Sal said, and Mother sent Joe to invite him in. He didn't come in at once. Casey wasn’t a forward man. He stayed to throw some pumpkin to the pigs.
Casey slept in the barn that night. He slept in it the next night, too. He didn’t believe in shifting from place to place, so he stayed with us altogether. He took a lively interest in the selection. The house, he said, was in the wrong place, and he showed Mother where it ought to have been built. He suggested shifting it, and setting a hedge and ornamental trees in front and fruit trees at the back, and making a nice place of it. Little things like that pleased Mother. “Anyway,” she would sometimes say to Sal, “he’s a useful old man, and knows how to look after things about the place.” Casey did. Whenever any watermelons were ripe, he looked after them and hid the skins in the ground. And if a goanna or a crow came and frightened a hen from her nest Casey always got the egg, and when he had gobbled it up he would chase that crow or goanna for its life and shout lustily.
Every day saw Casey more at home at our place. He was a very kind man, and most obliging. If a traveller called for a drink of water, Casey would give him a cup of milk and ask him to wait and have dinner. If Maloney, or old Anderson, or anybody, wished to borrow a horse, or a dray, or anything about the place, Casey would let them have it with pleasure, and tell them not to be in a hurry about returning it.
Joe got on well with Casey. Casey’s views on hard work were the same as Joe’s. Hard work, Joe thought, wasn’t necessary on a selection.
Casey knew a thing or two—so he said. One fine morning, when all the sky was blue and the butcher-birds whistling strong, Dwyer’s cows smashed down a lot of the fence and dragged it into the corn. Casey, assisted by Joe, put them all in the yard, and hammered them with sticks. Dwyer came along.
“Those cattle belong to me,” he said angrily.
“They belongs t’ me,” Casey answered, “until you pay damages.” Then he put his back to the slip-rails and looked up aggressively into Dwyer’s face. Dwyer was a giant beside Casey. Dwyer didn’t say anything—he wasn’t a man of words—but started throwing the rails down to let the cows out. Casey flew at him. Dwyer quietly shoved him away with his long, brown arm. Casey came again and fastened on to Dwyer. Joe mounted the stockyard. Dwyer seized Casey with both hands; then there was a struggle—on Casey’s part. Dwyer lifted him up and carried him away and set him down on his hack, then hastened to the rails. But before he could throw them down Casey was upon him again. Casey never knew when he was beaten. Dwyer was getting annoyed. He took Casey by the back of the neck and squeezed him. Casey humped his shoulders and gasped. Dwyer stared about. A plough-rein hung on the yard. Dwyer reached for it. Casey yelled “Murder!” Dwyer fastened one end of the rope round Casey’s body—under the arms—and stared about again. And again “Murder!” from Casey. Joe jumped off the yard to get further away. A tree, with a high horizontal limb, stood near. Dad once used it as a butcher’s gallows. Dwyer gathered the loose rein into a coil and heaved it over the limb, and hauled Casey up. Then he tied the end of the rope to the yard and drove out the cows.
“When y’ want ’im down,” Dwyer said to Joe as he walked away, “cut the rope.”
Casey groaned, and one of his boots dropped off. Then he began to spin round—to wind up and unwind and wind up again. Joe came near and eyed the twirling form with joy.
Mother and Sal arrived, breathless and excited. They screeched at Joe.
“Undo th’ r-r-rope,” Joe said, “an’ he ’ll come w-w-wop.”
Sal ran away and procured a sheet, and Mother and she held it under Casey, and told Joe to unfasten the rope and lower him as steadily as he could. Joe unfastened the rope, but somehow it pinched his fingers and he let go, and Casey fell through the sheet. For three weeks Casey was an invalid at our place. He would have been invalided there for the rest of his days only Dad came home and induced him to leave. Casey didn’t want to go; but Dad had a persuasive way with him that generally proved effectual.
Singularly enough, Dad complained that kangaroos were getting scarce where he was camped; while our paddocks were full of them. Joe started a mob nearly every day, as he walked round overseeing things; and he pondered. Suddenly he had an original inspiration—originality was Joe’s strong point. He turned the barn into a workshop, and buried himself there for two days. For two whole days he was never “at home,” except when he stepped out to throw the hammer at the dog for yelping for a drink. The greedy brute! it wasn’t a week since he’d had a billyful—Joe told him. On the morning of the third day the barndoor swung open, and forth came a kangaroo, with the sharpened carving-knife in its paws. It hopped across the yard and sat up; bold and erect, near the dog-kennel. Bluey nearly broke his neck trying to get at it. The kangaroo said: “Lay down, you useless hound!” and started across the cultivation, heading for the grass-paddock in long, erratic jumps. Half-way across the cultivation it spotted a mob of other kangaroos, and took a firmer grip of the carver.
Bluey howled and plunged until Mother came out to see what was the matter. She was in time to see a solitary kangaroo hop in a drunken manner towards the fence, so she let the dog go and cried, “Sool him, Bluey! Sool him!” Bluey sooled him, and Mother followed with the axe to get the scalp. As the dog came racing up, the kangaroo turned and hissed, “G’ home, y’ mongrel!” Bluey took no notice, and only when he had nailed the kangaroo dexterously by the thigh and got him down did it dawn upon the marsupial that Bluey wasn’t in the secret. Joe tore off his head-gear, called the dog affectionately by name, and yelled for help; but Bluey had not had anything substantial to eat for over a week, and he worried away vigorously.
Then the kangaroo slashed out with the carving-knife, and hacked a junk off Bluey’s nose. Bluey shook his head, relaxed his thigh-grip, and grabbed the kangaroo by the ribs. How that kangaroo did squeal! Mother arrived. She dropped the axe, threw up both hands, and shrieked. “Pull him off! he’s eating me!” gasped the kangaroo. Mother shrieked louder, and wrung her hands; but it had no effect on Bluey. He was a good dog, was Bluey!
At last, Mother got him by the tail and dragged him off, but he took a mouthful of kangaroo with him as he went. Then the kangaroo raised itself slowly on to its hands and knees.
It was very white and sick-looking, and Mother threw her arms round it and cried, “Oh, Joe! My child! my child!”
It was several days before Joe felt better. When he did, Bluey and he went down the gully together, and, after a while, Joe came back—like Butler—alone.
Chapter XVII.
Dad’s “Fortune.”
DAD used to say that Shingle Hut was the finest selection on Darling Downs; but we never could see anything fine about it—except the weather in drought time, or Dad’s old saddle mare. She was very fine. The house was built in a gully so that the bailiffs (I suppose) or the blacks—who were mostly dead—couldn’t locate it. An old wire-fence, slanting all directions, staggered past the front door. At the rear, its foot almost in the back door, sloped a barren ridge, formerly a squatter’s sheep-yard. For the rest there were sky, wallaby-scrub, gum-trees, and some
acres of cultivation. But Dad must have seen something in it, or he wouldn’t have stood feasting his eyes on the wooded waste after he had knocked off work of an evening. In all his wanderings—and Dad had been almost everywhere; swimming flooded creeks and rivers, humping his swag from one end of Australia to the other; at all games going except bank-managing and bushranging—he had seen no place timbered like Shingle Hut.
“Why,” he used to say, “it’s a fortune in itself. Hold on till the country gets populated, and firewood is scarce, there’ll be money in it then—mark my words!”
Poor Dad! I wonder how long he expected to live?
At the back of Shingle Hut was a tract of Government land—mostly mountains—marked on the map as the Great Dividing Range. Splendid country, Dad considered it—beautiful country—and part of a grand scheme he had in his head. I defy you to find a man more full of schemes than Dad was.
The day had been hot. Inside, the mosquitoes were bad; and, after supper, Dad and Dave were outside, lying on some bags. They had been grubbing that day, and were tired. The night was nearly dark. Dad lay upon his back, watching the stars; Dave upon his stomach, his head resting on his arms. Both silent. One of the draught-horses cropped the couch-grass round about them. Now and again a flying- fox circled noiselessly overhead, and “Mopoke!—Mopoke!” came dismally from the ridge and from out the lonely-looking gully. A star fell, lighting up a portion of the sky, but Dad did not remark it. In a while he said:
“How old are you, Dave?” Dave made a mental calculation before answering.
“S'pose I must be eighteen now ... Why?”
A silence.
“I’ve been thinking of that land at the back—if we had that I believe we could make money.”
“Yairs—if we had.”
Another silence.
“Well, I mean to have it, and that before very long.”
Dave raised his head, and looked towards Dad.
“There’s four of you old enough now to take up land, and where could you get better country than that out there for cattle? Why” (turning on his side and facing Dave) “with a thousand acres of that stocked with cattle and this kept under cultivation we’d make money—we’d be rich in a very few years.”
Dave raised himself on his elbow.
“Yairs—with cattle,” he said.
“Just so” (Dad sat up with enthusiasm), “but to get the land is the first thing, and that’s easy enough only” (lowering his voice) “it’ll have to be done quietly and without letting everyone ’round know we’re going in for it.” (“Oh! yairs, o’ course,” from Dave.) “Then” (and Dad lifted his voice and leaned over) “run a couple of wires round it, put every cow we’ve here on it straight away; get another one or two when the barley’s sold, and let them breed.”
“’Bout how many’d that be t’ start ’n?”
“Well, eight good cows at the least—plenty, too. It’s simply wonderful how cattle breed if they’re let alone. Look at Murphy, for instance. Started on that place with two young heifers—those two old red cows that you see knocking about now. They’re the mothers of all his cattle. Anderson just the same. ... Why, God bless my soul! we would have a better start than any one of them ever had—by a long way.” Dave sat up. He began to share Dad’s enthusiasm.
“Once get it stocked, and all that is to be done then is simply to look after the fence, ride about among the cattle every day, see they’re right, brand the calves, and every year muster the mob, draft out the fat bullocks, whip them into town, and get our seven and eight pounds a head for them.”
“That’d suit me down to the ground, ridin’ about after cattle,” Dave said.
“Yes, get our seven and eight pounds, maybe nine or ten pounds a-piece. And could ever we do that pottering about on this place?” Dad leaned over further and pressed Dave’s knee with his hand.
“Mind you!” (in a very confidential tone) “I’m not at all satisfied the way we’re dragging along here. It’s utter nonsense, and, to speak the truth” (lowering his voice again) “I’ve been sick of the whole damn thing long ago.”
A minute or two passed.
“It wouldn’t matter,” Dad continued, “if there was no way of doing better; but there is. The thing only requires to be done, and why not do it?” He paused for an answer.
“Well,” Dave said, “let us commence it straight off—t’morror. It’s the life that’d suit me.”
“Of course it would ... and there’s money in it ... no mistake about it!”
A few minutes passed. Then they went inside, and Dad took Mother into his confidence, and they sat up half the night discussing the scheme.
Twelve months later. The storekeeper was at the house wanting to see Dad. Dad wasn’t at home. He never was when the storekeeper came; he generally contrived to be away, up the paddock somewhere or amongst the corn—if any was growing. The storekeeper waited an hour or so, but Dad didn’t turn up. When he was gone, though, Dad walked in and asked Mother what he had said. Mother was seated on the sofa, troubled-looking.
“He must be paid by next week,” she said, bursting into tears, “or the place’ll be sold over our heads.”
Dad stood with his back to the fire-place, his hands locked behind him, watching the flies swarming on the table.
Dave came in. He understood the situation at a glance. The scene was not new to him. He sat down, leant forward, picked a straw off the floor and twisted it round and round his finger, reflecting.
Little Bill put his head on Mother’s lap, and asked for a piece of bread ... He asked a second time.
“There is no bread, child,” she said.
“But me wants some, mumma.”
Dad went outside, and Dave followed. They sat on their heels, their backs to the barn, thoughtfully studying the earth.
“It’s the same thing”—Dad said, reproachfully—“from one year’s end to the other ... alwuz a bill!”
“Thought last year we’d be over all this by now!” from Dave.
“So we could ... can now. ... It only wants that land to be taken up; and, as I’ve said often and often, these cows taken—”
Dad caught sight of the storekeeper coming back, and ran into the barn.
Six months later. Dinner about ready. “Take up a thousand acres,” Dad was saying; “take it up—”
He was interrupted by a visitor.
“Are you Mister Rudd?” Dad said he was.
“Well, er—I’ve a fi. fa. against y’.”
Dad didn’t understand.
The Sheriff's officer drew a document from his inside breast-pocket and proceeded to read:
“To Mister James Williams, my bailiff. Greeting-: By virtue of Her Majesty’s writ of fieri facias, to me directed, I command you that of the goods and chattels, money, banknote or notes or other property of Murtagh Joseph Rudd, of Shingle Hut, in my bailiwick, you cause to be made the sum of £40 10s., with interest thereon,” &c.
Dad understood.
Then the bailiff’s man rounded up the cows and the horses, and Dad and the lot of us leant against the fence and in sadness watched Polly and old Poley and the rest for the last time pass out the slip-rails.
“That puts an end to the land business!” Dave said gloomily.
But Dad never spoke.
Chapter XVIII.
We Embark in the Bear Industry.
WHEN the bailiff came and took away the cows and horses, and completely knocked the bottom out of Dad’s land scheme, Dad didn’t sit in the ashes and sulk. He wasn’t that kind of person. He did at times say he was tired of it all, and often he wished it far enough, too! But, then, that was all mere talk on Dad’s part. He loved the selection. To every inch—every stick of it—he was devoted. ’T was his creed. He felt certain there was money in it—that out of it would come his independence. Therefore, he didn’t roll up and, with Mother by the hand and little Bill on his back, stalk into town to hang round and abuse the Bush. He walked up and down the yard thinking an
d thinking. Dad was a man with a head.
He consulted Mother and Dave, and together they thought more.
“The thing is,” Dad said, “to get another horse to finish the bit of ploughing. We’ve got one; Anderson will lend the grey mare, I know.”
He walked round the room a few times.
“When that’s done, I think I see my way clear; but that’s the trouble.”
He looked at Dave. Dave seemed as though he had a solution. But Joe spoke.
“Kuk-kuk-couldn’t y’ b-reak in some kang’roos, Dad? There’s pul-lenty in th’ pup-paddick.”
“Couldn’t you shut up and hold your tongue and clear out of this, you brat ?” Dad roared. And Joe hung his head and shut up.
“Well, y’ know”—Dave drawled—“there’s that colt wot Maloney offered us before to quieten. Could get ’im. ’E’s a big lump of a ’orse if y’ could do anythin’ with ’im. They gave ’im best themselves.”
Dad’s eyes shone.
“That’s th’ horse,” he cried. “Get him! To-morrow first thing go for him! I'll make something of him!”
“Don’t know”—Dave chuckled—“he’s a—”
“Tut, tut; you fetch him.”
“Oh, I’ll fetch, ’im.” And Dave, on the strength of having made a valuable suggestion, dragged Joe off the sofa and stretched himself upon it.
Dad went on thinking awhile. “How much,” he at last asked, “did Johnson get for those skins?”
“Which?” Dave answered. “Bears or kangaroos?”
“Bears.”
“Five bob, wasn’t it? Six for some.”
“What, a-piece?”
“Yairs.”