“the proper quarry of mankind is man.”
i
t is about eight o’clock p.m., at borbong head-station, which lies at some fifty miles’ distance from murdaro, and the evening meal being over, half-a-dozen men are settling down to enjoy an after-dinner smoke in that sanctum of government house, the boss’s “den.”
most of the bronzed, manly figures before us are dressed in white linen and one wears the long top-boots and spurs of a sub-lieutenant in the n.m. constabulary. three of the other men are passing travellers, and although quite unknown to the hospitable manager of the run, till a couple of hours since, are made none the less welcome on that account, after the laudably generous custom that obtains on the better class “up-country” stations.
one of these strangers is the new manager of hanga run, who is on his way northwards to take charge of his new scene of labours, and the other327 two are mining speculators up from brisbane to look at a new find of silver in the neighbourhood.
“now, gentlemen, make yourselves at home,” observes mr. browne, in the loud, resonant voice of one who is accustomed to give outdoor commands. “here are some cigars that ain’t bad. you’ll have to excuse me for a bit, but i’ll be back by the time you’ve filled your glasses. i just want to see about the horses for to-morrow.” mr. browne retires, being followed from the door by a battalion of enormous cats, who, with tails erect, stalk noiselessly after their master, whose sole hobby is breeding animals and training them to perform all kinds of unfeline feats.
the manager’s guests proceed to make themselves comfortable upon various seats about the rather roughly furnished room, and an observant eye might have noticed that the older frequenters of the house studiously avoid the neighbourhood of a certain chintz-covered sofa standing near the door, which is known to them as the favourite roosting-place of their host’s strange pets.
the room in which the smokers are assembled has no ceiling, and the rafters of the thatched roof can dimly be descried in the gloom overhead. upon the log walls, which are scantily covered with a mutilated covering of scrim, a few coloured almanacs and pictures from the illustrated papers have been pasted. a dusty, little-used bookcase and a well-supplied gun-rack—fit emblems of the unequal amount of influence exerted by peace and war in the locality—occupy two opposite corners of the room by the door, which, hanging upon green-hide hinges, has evidently at some time or other formed parts of various packing328 cases. this is the “den,” otherwise the sitting-room and office, of mr. browne,—where that splendid specimen of humanity writes his diaries, does his obtuse calculations as handicapper for the neighbouring jockey club, and pays his hands,—and the absence of a ceiling is not without certain advantages, as may be perceived after a number of guests have been loading the air for the best part of a warm summer night with fragrant clouds of incense in honour of the genius of bachelordom.
“wonderful lot of cats about the place!” exclaims one of the mining speculators, moving suddenly off the aforementioned chintz-covered sofa, and proceeding to stamp and shake himself as if he had come in contact with a lively ant-hill. “i’ve always admired henry the third of france because he hated cats.”
the other men smile knowingly at each other, as if they had expected him to vacate his seat before long, and one explains, “that’s the cats’ seat; there ar’n’t any over here.”
“talking of cats,” observes the station storekeeper, who, being the distant relative of an irish baronet, is considered a person of some importance in the district, “it wouldn’t be a bad ideah, bai joave, to twain some of bwowne’s cweatures for the hill-country, where the dawgs cawn’t work properly. how did you manage to get along yesterday, mr. morth?” the last sentence is addressed to the young sub-inspector.
“oh, not so badly,” replies the police officer, as he knocks his cigar end off upon the leg of his rather rickety chair. mr. morth is a youngish man, slim and active as a greyhound, who glories in his work from a sportsman’s point of view. “oh, we didn’t 329 do so badly. we got another lot besides the party your boys put us on to. but that broken country at the back of the black rock is the very devil. fifteen miles, sir, we had to track the beggars after we left our horses, and then they’d have got away if there hadn’t been old people with them.”
“you lost a boy, didn’t you?”
“yes, worse luck. poor old jet lost the number of his mess. we got the beggars against a cliff, and when they found they were in a trap they rushed at the boys. i never saw a nigger harder to kill than the rascal that knocked jet on the head. i put six bullets into the beggar before i dropped him.”
“niggers bad up my way?” asks the new manager of hanga station.
“that’s not in my patrol, so can’t say,” replies the sub-inspector.
“i think you will have a deuce of a lot of trouble up there,” observes the storekeeper. “your predecessah allowed the beggars to wandah all ovah the wun. spoilt them all togethah. weally one could not go neah a water-hole without seeing some of the black devils camped there. they came in from all the other stations wound.”
“oh, i’ll soon alter all that,” remarks the hanga manager with an oath.
“milby was the boy with niggers,” says a dark-eyed man at the other end of the little table, as he glances up from the american cloth cover before him, upon which he has been amusing himself by imprisoning sundry stray ants in a complicated maze, traced with the wet bottom of his tumbler. “did you ever meet him, lawrence?”
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the individual addressed, who is a cattle-drover of a superior kind, replies in a husky voice that he has not only met him, but was with him some time in the northern territory the year before.
“he was a beggar to shoot niggers,” this gentleman adds, “and no mistake. why, hang me, if he didn’t order six cases of sniders up to the station when he first took up that macarthur country.”
“what on earth did he want with that lot?” asks the new manager of hanga run.
“oh,” replies the drover, “he said the niggers’ heads up that way were so precious thick that his boys would break all their gun-stocks if he didn’t keep a good supply of ’em.”
a general laugh greets the news that the red-faced drover has just retailed concerning this latest piece of eccentricity of the famous milby.
“i was with him for two years up at hidamoor,” observes the dark-eyed man. “he hadn’t a single ‘boy’ on the run; they was all lubras (girls). he used to tog them out in trousers and shirts, and they made jolly good stockmen. does he do that still up north?”
“yes,” replies the drover, “they all do it up there. he lets his white stockmen have two gins (women) apiece. i brought a couple down with me to the springs last trip; give them to boker there.”
“milby’s a smart fellow all round,” remarks mr. browne, who has just entered, dismissing all save two of his furry following, these latter taking the seats demurely upon the chintz-covered sofa.
“yes; first time i was out with milby,” continues the manager, stooping to use the tobacco-cutter, “we 331 got nicely on to about a dozen buck niggers near wiseman’s water-hole—you know it, lawrence? well, i saw milby taking a long feather out of his pocket when we’d grassed all the black devils, and wondered what he was going to do with it. hanged if he didn’t send a ‘boy’ round to each of the beggars we’d knocked over to tickle their noses.
“‘what’s that for?’ i asked. ‘oh, you’ll see,’ said he. and sure enough presently the ‘boy’ with the feather ranged up alongside a nigger who’d been shamming. i’d tried the beggar before with a match, in the ordinary way, and he hadn’t shown a sign. i thought i’d have died o’ laughing,” the manager continues, after moistening his inner man, “when i saw the beggar twitching his nose as the feather tickled it; he couldn’t for the life of him keep it still. that was a very good ‘dart’ of milby’s; we’d have missed that buck without the feather dodge.”
“oh, that’s an old trick,” remarks the new manager of epsom; “they always used it about kimberley when i was through there with horses before the rush.”
“ain’t you station folk a bit rough on the niggers about here?” inquires one of the two burly individuals that we have already introduced to our readers as mining speculators. “i’ve had a good all-round experience with ’em, as you may guess, when i tell you i’m the original prospector of the mount walker. now i’ve had to shoot one nigger in my time, but only one; and i was living amongst them, you might say, for about twenty years, till i made my rise at the mount.”
“oh, ah!” drawls the storekeeper, bestowing an insolently pitying smile upon the simple-minded individual who thus dares to find fault with one of the pet332 institutions of the “squattah” nobles of the country. “but you must remember there’s a deuced lot of difference between wunning a wun and wunning a mine, mr. walker.” this remark smells so strongly of a sneer that the black cornish eyes flash angrily across the table, till, observing that the storekeeper is a foe that is hardly worthy of his steel, mr. walker calms down again.
“maybe, maybe,” he goes on, “but i’m a practical man, and i look at everything in a practical way. i don’t blame you gentlemen for potting a nigger for cattle spearing. i’d as lief shoot a man as a dog black or white, if he tried robbing me too often. you mustn’t think, gentlemen,” mr. walker goes on, as he observes that he has decidedly not got “the house with him,” “you mustn’t think i’m presuming to teach you anything about how you ought to manage your own affairs. but it’s always been a good stout argument of mine that it’s waste of good bone and muscle, as the country can’t well spare, all this shooting business.”
“what would you do with the cussed vermin? can you tell me that, eh?” asks the epsom manager, winking at mr. browne with the intention of attracting his attention to the observations he is about to make. “you’d go in for making miners of them, would you? it strikes me somehow that you miners ain’t very fond of coloured men knocking round the diggings. look here, mr. walker, the miners played it pretty low down on both the niggers and the chinkies at the palmer rush, for one place, and you know as well as i do that it was near as a toucher that the johns (chinamen) didn’t get kicked off croydon last year.333 look at the kimberley rush, too; the niggers ain’t learnt to fall in love with what they’ve had from the diggers there.”
mr. walker knows that these accusations are correct, but is not going to be led into an argument as to whether miners or cattle-men are the “roughest” on the native population, so he answers the last speaker as follows,—“i’m not arguing whether it’s right to shoot the blacks or not, but whether, looking at the thing fair and square, in a practical, common-sense, business way, it’s a sensible thing to do.”
“yes, that’s the talk,” remarks his mate of chintz sofa notoriety, who has hitherto refrained from argument.
“but,” continues mr. walker, “as this gentleman here has got hold of the chinese question, i’ll tell him that, talking as a miner, i think you’ll find most of us think this way.” the speaker whilst arguing takes a pencil from his pocket, and from the force of old associations makes as if to draw the plan of an imaginary mine upon the table-cover. “we’d let the aboriginals mine if they like to; it’s their country after all, and they’ve a right to do that, at any rate. in fact, lots of them have done mining; the first big nugget got in queensland was found by a nigger at the calyope. but foreign coloured men is different altogether.”
“ah, but these niggers are a useless lot of devils, and they won’t work unless you make ’em,” observes the drover.
“well, mate,” walker says, laughing, “they suffer from the same complaint as many whites do if they won’t work unless they’re driven to it; that’s all i can say about that. but as to their being no use, i don’t know how you’d be able to get on without the 334 ‘boys’ to muster, track, and drove. and i’ve seen blacks near adelaide who’ve become farmers, and they’re just as good as lots of the europeans farming near them. and on the russell diggings we couldn’t have kept going if we hadn’t trained our ‘boys’ to bring us tucker from the township. i’ve got a couple of ‘boys’ with me now as can carry a two-hundred of flour for a mile without resting. now there ain’t a man in this room could do the same. i’m open to bet on it.” mr. walker, like most modern hercules, is much given to judging of a man’s value by the amount of physical power he has at his command; and this rule of the one time miner is not a bad one to go by, for as a general thing the most practically useful members of society are those strongest in wind and limb. mens sana in corpore sano.
just as mr. walker closes his remarks a knock comes at the door, and the manager’s favourite house-gin pops her red-turbaned head into the room.
“what do you want now, oola?” mr. browne sharply inquires of his grinning handmaid.
the dark-skinned girl glides forward, keeping her long-fringed eyelids turned bashfully towards the earthen floor, as the men stare admiringly at her buxom figure, and then, lifting her beautiful soft eyes to her owner’s face for a brief instant, remarks that “charlie bin come up,” and hands to the manager a piece of paper.
“oh, a note from my brother jim!” exclaims manager browne, looking meaningly at morth.
“ah, anything fresh?” asks the gentleman addressed, his eyes brightening. during the late controversy he has maintained a most masterly neutrality.
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“tell you directly; if i can make out his pencil scrawl.”
after sundry screwings of the managerial eyebrows, and bendings of the managerial back to the lamp upon the table, mr. browne ceases snorting smothered anathemas at his relation’s bad handwriting, and looking up motions with his finger the sub-inspector, whereupon both men leave the room together.
“thought it safer to speak to you out here, morth,” observes the manager, as soon as they are beyond earshot of the station-house. the police officer replies by nodding his head, but remembering immediately afterwards that it is too dark for mr. browne to see this signal of acquiescence, he proceeds to convey his meaning by observing, “just as well.”
“i told you about the weaner,” goes on mr. browne, “that jim found speared last week up agate creek, didn’t i?”
“you did. has jim picked up any tracks yet?”
“yes. it’s like this: i sent jim out with a couple of ‘boys’ to see if any of our beasts had gone over the murdaro boundary. well, he writes to me he’s come across the tracks of a party of horsemen going north. thinks it is that explorer fellow who was stopping with giles.”
“by jingo! they’ll have a dry trip of it,” observes morth, who has just crossed a corner of the northern desert on his way to borbong.
“yes, but he’s picked up a myall black,—to show him the water-holes, i suppose. jim noticed the beggar’s tracks besides the horse’s hoof-marks, and guessed that it was a warragal, because if it had been a station black he’d have ridden one of the spare horses.”
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“that was smart of jim,” remarks the police officer.
“oh, the young ’un has got his head screwed on level. but to continue: jim ran the tracks back, and then sent for bogie—the best tracker we have—to have a look at them. bogie spotted where three niggers had come out of the scrub.”
“ah!” interrupts morth, with a laugh, “i’m glad i waited.”
“bogie,” continues mr. browne, “knows every black’s track around, and he swears that one of those which jim found is that of a nigger who cleared out from murdaro lately; what was his name now? never mind that, however.”
“oh, you mean that boy of dyesart’s,” observes the sub-inspector.
“no, i don’t mean billy—that was the name of dyesart’s boy.” the manager suddenly stops speaking, and smacks the palms of his hands together,—an impromptu manifestation of delight, for a new idea strikes him that satisfactorily clears up a mystery contained in his brother’s note. “why, that explains it!”
“explains what?”
“why, don’t you see, what puzzled me was how this explorer got hold of a myall. they are pretty shy of whites. but i guess this billy, that you’ve just reminded me of, has been camped with some lot of blacks about here, and has joined this party. won’t giles and puttis be mad; they’ve been raising hades to get him. and he’s been camped close by all the while! ha!” mr. browne laughs out loud, and then informs his friend how he has long suspected that 337 there must be a camp of runaway niggers in the direction where jim has found the tracks.
“you’d like me to take the ‘boys’ up there then, i suppose, before i go on,” observes the police officer. “the clouds on the hills this evening looked like rain. nothing like a wet night for stalking a camp, so many noises going on in the scrub.”
“no, old man, my idea’s this,” rejoins the manager, taking morth’s arm, and walking him back towards the house. “i’ll put jim up to letting bogie and another good tracker we’ve got watch for these blacks coming back into cover,—that they won’t go far with the exploring expedition i’m pretty certain. i’ll arrange, in the meantime, for the bulla bulla and murdaro people to be ready to join us, and we’ll clear all this end range; i’ve often intended to do it.”
“will giles turn out, d’you think?”
“turn out?” exclaims mr. browne; “he’s the most energetic old cock i ever came across where a nigger’s concerned. besides, one of these is a runaway of his. oh, he’ll come fast enough!”
it is finally arranged for a select party of sportsmen to join morth and his troop upon the return of the three natives to the scrub,—who, as our readers have no doubt already guessed, are billy and his village friends,—and thus, whilst combining the business of exterminating sundry nests of human vermin with the exciting pastime of a big game shooting party, at the same time assist to carry out that line of native policy that obtains to-day under the régime of three out of five of the australian governments of her most gracious majesty the queen.
