The MAN from the GULF

Evening Star, Issue 22878, 9 February 1938, Page 3

The MAN from the GULF

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN. A JOKE ON THE HOHSEMEN. Outside the store at Red Ridges the men employed about the homestead and those who had ridden in for supplies or instructions from the mustering and fencing camps and the boundary riders’ huts were seated on the ground or on their spurred heels, playing “ coon can ” and discussing the new jackaroo, Clarence Welsby. The sun was setting behind the scrub fringe. From the shelter of the verandah of the Rig House dose by, Mr Patterson, concealed by a creeper, watched and listened. He was interested, as the self-appointed friend of the jackaroo, to hear what the new chum’s associates thought of him. “All he wants is an eyeglass an’ a stiff collar an’ he could go on the stage,” said Black, the storekeeper, dealing a card. “I Xet it costs him all his cheque to buy them English ridin’ pants and polished leggings and spurs. ’ “ I see him ironin’ his silk shirts with a bottle filled with hot water,” grinned the rouseabout. “ He wraps the shirt round it and then rolls it in a newspaper. Then he lays it on the floor and stands on it, holdin’ on to the table. He rolls it back and forward with his feet an’ treats his collars the same. Pity he don’t know as much about cattle as ho does about his frocks. He’d be foreman in a month.” “ I wonder what he did with the cash he shook from the bank? ” mused Luke, the dark-skinned, bearded boundary rider. “ Do you reckon he got much? ” ~ The cook of Number Three gave his opinion; “ Judgin’ by the stack of bottles he has at the hack of his room it’s a million to one that he knocked it down on booze.” And then Mr Patterson stepped into view as they all stopped playing and lohked up. “ I am sorry to have been eavesdropping, men,” he said quietly. I apologise for it. But I can’t have you spying things like that about a friend of mine. You • are entitled to jour opinion, of course, hut 1 am satisfied that Welsby is no thief, and that’s the’ opinion of any man who wants to stay on Red Ridges.” There was a murmur of approval, punctuated by a remark or two from the sceptical to' the effect ,ihat there was nothin’ to stop a fellow thmkm what he liked' in this democratic country, even if the boss said he couldn’t. The card game was re-

sumed .presently and Patterson turned to walk into his office. As he stepped through the doorway he was swiftly hugged by Molly O’Toole. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks glowing. “ You old darling,” she trilled, her voice vibrating with hajjpiness and gratitude. “ I’ll love you tor that" till 1 Patterson was smilingly chiding the girl, as an indulgent father would, when there came a jingle of spurs on the verandah and Barney Summers, a fierce look in his eye, his long moustache fairly twitching with anger, stalked to the door of the office and stood there, waiting until the girl had gone. Patterson saw trouble written large in the cattleman’s manner. He sent Molly to her mother and entered the office, seating himself and pushing a box of cigars towards his friend. Summers did not beat about the bush- He leaned forward, his brown forefinger pointing at Patterson’s chest, and exploded his bombshell: “ What do you think? That blasted pet jackaroo of yours is the best horsemaster in a couple of hundred miles of this house. He goes out at night an’ ketches a big thoroughbred that waters on the Salt Lake country at Gidyea Creek. Ho whistles an’ the horse comes to him at the gallop. Ho throws on a _ saddle an’ bridle that he keeps hid in the scrub by the three big bloodwoods, slips into the saddle like a Northern Territory nigger, an’ rides away through the bush hell-for-leather'to the shanty. An’ you can take it from me that he don’t want tyin’ on with no greenhide ropes neither, the dirty cattle-thievin’ mongrel. _ At Robbie’s joint he’s as thick as thieves with the worst-lookin’ gang of moonlighters that ever filled the beef cask with a stolen beast an’ burnt the hide, or I’m a damned fool, born an’ bred. “ Take that in, you woodenhead. Boozin’ with the men who killed your father, an’ gamblin’ with the gang that is robbin’ you of your cattle. An’ you payin’ One-Horse Gilligan a fiver extra to teach him to sit on a horse without givin’ it a sore back, or bangin’ on to the mane so he won’t fall off if it pig-roots!” Patterson gaped, in silence. He was dumfounded at the cattleman’s news. Any other man he would have doubted, but he knew Barney Summers’s methods too well. “You tracked him?” < ‘ Every night, after the others had turned in. I soon tumbled to that circus trick, failin’ off his horse, an’

[Author of * The Vanishing Horsemen,’ ‘ The Valley of Lagoons,’ etc. All rights reserved.]

landin’ with his hands under him, an’ his face always clear of the ground. I used _to do that myself, in a buckjumpin’ show, when I was a youngster. A mug that got his pants dusted as frequent as Clarence would have some marks on him to show for it, hut Clarence never got so' much as a scratch. Three times I watched him do it, an’ then I was certain.

“ So I sat up with the ’possums, an’ watched. About midnight he comes sneakin’ out of his tent, like a blackfeller trackin’ some other feller’s gin, sneaks through the scrub, as dark as the inside of a horse, to the' <3 i dye a flat, on the bore drain, straight os the oldest hand on the run. There he whistles up the finest black horse I ever seen look through a bridle, puttin’ his fingers in his mouth an’ whistlin’ low, in case there was strangers about, d’ y’ see. He pulls the ridin’ gear out of a plant in the scrub, an’ he does not need to look at ho map to find that, take it from me. Then he chucks on the gear in a jiffy, while the horse muzzles him like a foal his mother has found again, slips into the saddle as slick as a nigger boundary rider, an’ away he goes, hell for leather, across the Gidyea flats, timber an’ all, headin’ towards Robbie’s joint. He’s there now, I betcher. The damned young traitor, I’d like to blow his brains out. Won’t One Horse Gilligan be pleased that his ridin’ pupil is cornin’ on at such a rate?”

“ You say he is at the shanty now?” " I betcher.” ,

“Doing what?” “ In the back parlour, dickerin’ with the Night Riders, I wouldn’t be surprised, for a better price per each for every head of cleanskins they duff off of your place, when he has given them the inside tip that it is safe for them to take a moonlight ride. That’s a smack in the eye for you, Patterson. There’s a poke on the horsemen of Red Ridges, that lias been teachin’ him how to ride a quiet horse, and how to tell the difference between a weaner an’ a bullock.”

Summers laughed with coarse sarcasm :

“ I hurried home to tell you the good news. What say we get one of your buggies an’ take a squint at the prodigal sou, eatin’ with the pigs, an’ pawnin’ the fatted calf. It ought to be interestin’.”

In 10 minutes they were driving in a buckboard, behind two fast hacks, along the river road towards the shanty.

(To be continued.) Next Issue: ‘At the Shanty.’