The MAN from the GULF

Evening Star, Issue 22881, 12 February 1938, Page 27

The MAN from the GULF

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN. “ THE POOL OF THE STABS.” Nobody on Red Ridges except Patterson, Summers, and Midnight knew the real mission of the man from the Gulf. Barney had refused to agree even to letting Airs Patterson into the secret. ” The best of scouts talk in their sleep, sometimes, Ross,” he said. AVclsby was to be given all the rope he wanted and watched. He used a Jot of it to see Molly. O’Toole, at the weekends, to the worry of Patterson. The games on the court grew shorter, and the talks on the old log seat on the river bank longer. Welsby christened the great pool below them “ The Pool of the Stars,” and the title was apt, for the smooth surface of the waters reflected the myriad lights of the night skies with a magic loveliness. He grew merrier and bolder as he saw his influence gaining a hold ‘on the romantic mind of the girl. He bantered her, in a stage Irishman’s accent, about the dangers of married life to a man with a strong-minded wife; joked about reasons why a man should dodge matrimony until he was good for nothing else; teased her about her being in danger of becoming an old maid. And all the time she read in his eves that he loved her, but was too much of «i man to ask her to marry him, for some reason which she tried to devise in the stillness of the night when she was tucked into her little white bed at to homestead.

Molly what her intentions were with the jackaroo. “ Faith, ye do be stringin’ him on, like a fish on a line, the poor feller. He’s crazy about ye, Molly, and a line figure av a man, wid heart and muscle an’ brains. ’Tis a splendid husband he would make for myself av 1 was 15 years younger. And ’twould take very little, as ’tis, to make me go in for to cut ye out, so it would.” “ Do” you really like him so much?” Molly’ blushed. “ They say he drinks and gambles. He curses dreadfully. He spends a lot of his spare time at the shanty—down at Robbie’s joint.”Mrs O’Toole sniffed loudly in contempt. “ Faith, a man that don’t drink and don’t bet and don’t swear a little to let off steam is only half a man! Molly, dear, never marry a man that can’t take a drop av tHe crature and is afraid to ease his mind in a few healthy curses. It used to do me heart a world av good to hear your father roarin’ out like a bull, for then I knew he would be safe for another few months, havin’ got rid av all the dirt in him through his mouth. There are worse things in a man than his tongue, Molly, dear.” The girl looked her mother in the eyes soberly, and asked: “ Do you want nie to marry Clarence?” The old lady’s eyes twinkled. She caressed her daughter’s head and patted her hand affectionately’: “ Faith, nothing would pllease me better in the wide, wide world, acushla, av .ye were in love wid him; not otherwise.” “ But why, mother?” “ Why? Faith, Clarence Welsby is a man after your father’s heart. lie’s a feller that would fight for his own till there was not a drop of blood left in his veins or a breath av air •in his lungs. Did ye not see what he did to the fellers that wer teasin’ him out at the Lake Yards, for no other reason than that ye were lookin’ .on? A man who would do that for wan look at ye would kill a regiment av it was try in’ to work ye an injury'. ’Tis a sign av true love, an’ a man’s heart, when you see them things,' Mavourneen.” “ But, mother, they say Clarence was ” She could not bring herself to speak of the rumour of dishonour that kept the jahkaroo under a cloud. “ Yes. They do, too. They do say he robbed a bank. Prom what I have seen av banks and bank managers, ’tis more likely the bank robbed him. A bank manager, in my experience, is another kind av a highwayman. I have had knowledge av them at first hand. ’Twas the banks that robbed your father of his savin’s an’ sent us wanderin' on the seas to foreign lands. Does Clarence look like a thief to ye?”

Why was he holding himself back with a strong grip from proposing? She knew he had halted on the brink of it several times, when—she flushed with shame as she confessed it in the darkness—she had skilfully led him np to it. When he was away at. the mustering camp she sat on their old black log, beneath the jacaranda tree, and watched their Pool of Stars; and asked herself why he had not yet done that which she knew he was burning to do—declare his passion and ask her to marry him. Had he gambled away all of his money? Was he afraid of wrecking their lives with liquor? Her Irish mother paused, one day, with a broom in her hand and a duster over her shoulder, and bluntly asked

“He certainly does not.” Molly was emphatic. The old lady smiled sweetly; “Be sure, if they had so much as a sixteenth av an inch of proof they would have, sent him to gaol, and no more about it. A bank would drag the weepin’ father from the arms av his dying wife and starving childer to send him to gaol, av he had mislaid a penny wid a hole in it of theirs, and they could prove it to the satisfaction av the court. Do ye think Mr Patterson would let Clarence audit your books av he thought he was a thief? Would he have him about the cattle, wid them night riders stealin’ attd shootin’ old men, av he thought Clarence was a rogue? Never a wan, Molly. John Patterson is a man, and he knows a man when he sees wan. Av ye can fall in love wid Clarence Welsby, an’ he asks ye, jump at him. ’Twill be the best day’s work ye ever did for yourself and for your mother. I feel it in my bones that he is the feller for ye, and I want to see ye married to a real man before my time comes to join your father.” Molly’s eyes were moist. She kisfeed the old lady, impulsively. “You matchmaking old busybody! Has he asked your permission to marrv me?”

Mrs O’Toole threw up her hands in simulated horror. “ God be merciful, av he ever does ’tis myself that will put the stranglehold on him while I send for the priest and tie ye together for life, before some other lucky colleen gets the chance. Do ye think Clarence Welsby would ask me av he could marry you ? ’Tis himself that would marry ye first and invite me to the weddin’ afterwards, av I know him. Don’t I see him in at the homestead every Sunday afternoon .prompt, as fast as a good horse can get him there? Isn’t himself playin’ at tennis wid ye, from daylight till dark all Sunday? Who is it _ that looks like a bull terrier watchin’ a tomcat every time any of the men on the place tries to get in a word wid ye? ’Tis the lover in him, cryin’ out to the world that he worships ye an’ cannot conceal it. Who but a man that intends to be your husband would tease ye till ye are threatenin’ to smack his face or him, and then come up smilin’ as if he liked it?”

The talk was interrupted by the arrival of Patterson and Summers, followed at a distance by Midnight, as the three men rode past the big house and dismounted in front of the store. “ Away wid ye, darlint,” said the housekeeper, taking, up her broom and duster, and pushing her daughter out of the room. “ May the divvle fly away wid .me av I see anythin’ wrong wid Clarence Welsby barrin’ the want of a good wife to keep him interested in things outside av a pub. What has he at all, anyway, to keep him from it, av ye do not give him something to do?” Patterson and his private detective entered the small office and began to fill it with cigar smoke, as soon as they were seated. ‘Barney, as usual, was belligerent. He banged the table with his great fist and demanded—

“ Why the hell are you playin’ Santa Claus to this stool pigeon, I can’t think, at all. You tel! me, now, or there’s goin’ to be trouble between you an’ me, Patterson. Your brain is goin’ soft, or mine is First thing we know, there’ll be another shootin’, an’ this jackaroo will be partly responsible.” “ What could you prove, now, if you handed h:in over? It would be your unsupported word that you heard'certain things in the hut. If they denied it, or gave a satisfactory explanation that put a different interpretation on their meaning, would a jury convict them?” “ They wouldn’t,” Barney admitted grudgingly, and his face was troubled. “ This young fellow is a good man gone wrong, through being saddled with something ho never did. I’m giving him a chance to break with the gang, with money to make a new start, when the time comes. It’s less than I owe him and Molly for my wife’s life. Bar-

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

ney, if it were not that I believe the capture of the Night Riders will unmask the murderer of my father I would tell Welsby what we know and Jet him scare them aivay. What he is doing with them now is as much my fault as his, for I am leading him on, God help me! -But I’ll hang that cowardly murderer if it costs me everything I’ve got, and takes the last year of my life.” Patterson puffed at his cigar a moment. (Barney, for a wonder, was silent. “ There’s another reason that might appeal to you. Have you ever heard Molly talk about Welsby’s mother?” He tossed over a photograph which he fished out of a wallet. Summers took it up and saw a sweetfaced lady, with silver hair. She was dressed in respectable black. There was lace at her throat and a great cameo brooch at her breast. Her eyes and lips were smiling, as though she had just heard of some splendid deed performed by her favourite son. Across the bottom of the picture was written in a bold feminine hand: “To my son, Clarence, from his proud and loving mother.”

Barney sighed and his hand trembled : “The little mother! The spittin’ image! So she’s the reason. Have you met the lady?”

Barney sighed heaviljy: “ My mother went- west in a cyclone one night up at Cairns. They found her dead in the morning, with a tree across her an’ me underneath, squawkin’ like a young native bear. She was as game as a pebble, tryin’ to get me to a big hole in the side of the hill, where I’d have been safe from the flyin’ roofs. Here’s her picture, too.” Summers handed over a wallet, not unlike Patterson’s. In it was a picture of a clear-eyed intelligent-looking young woman. She had just the face that goes with the kind of courage Summers’s mother had shown. Patterson studied it a while, and sighed. “ Is your mother livin’, Patterson? ” The other asked the question so softly , that the squatter looked at him with interest and saw that there was moisture in his usually hard eyes. “No, Barney, 1 never knew her. But, if I had a mother like that ” —he looked again at Barney’s picture—“ I’d go through hell before I’d do anything to bring sorrow on,, her head.” “ God bless all mothers, boss. We’ll see she ain’t hurt.” Summers held a great, red, knotted hand open across the table and they gripped, looking for a brief instant into each other’s eyes and reading there more, in that one swift glance, than the world had learned of these two men in a lifetime. They rose together, and when .Patterson had unlocked the door and stepped out on to the wide verandah, Molly O’Toole was crossing the lawn, with a ledger under her arm, coming towards the office.

“ There’s a picture that may interest you,” said the squatter, gently, as he took out the wallet and handed over the photograph. “ You might see that Welsby., gets it.” The girl took the photograph and studied it for a moment. Then, flushing pink, she gave Patterson a look of wonder and vanished. “Then that’s settled, (Barney?” asked the squatter, as they strolled to the yards. “ Don’t worry me none, boss,” growled the cattleman in a strange voice. “ But ain’t it a marvel what a little bit of sob stuff will do to a pair of tough old roosters like you and me? ” • (To be continued.) Next issue: ‘Swan Neck Ned Falls From Grace.’