The MAN from the GULF

Evening Star, Issue 22890, 23 February 1938, Page 3

The MAN from the GULF

by A.E.YARRA

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. A BtIXLSEYE FOR CUPID. It was not in tb© nature of the scrub riders to stage a spectacular return for their own glorification, otherwise the ©vent might have been made the sensation of the year, when Flying Cloud and her half-sisters, broken in by experts, .spick and span in their newly-groomed coaie, and mounted by superb riders, arrived in a cavalva.de at the homestead, hailed by the massed stockmen. Instead, the conquerors drifted in by one and two, mostly at sunset, and quietly became absorbed in the general scheme of things again. Ned arrived at the woolshed cottage, after tea, riding Flying Oloud, when the widow was alone. She walked, down to the 'flat, when she saw that the mare would not approach the cottage without trouble. When her skirts fluttered in the breeze, Ned stroked and talked, the mare out of her fright. The widow Ryan, after ten minutes, was able to kiss the velvet nose of Flying Cloud, like a sentimentaj schoolgirl. In half an hour she had the queen of the brumbies following her about, asking for more sugar. “ "Well, old gal?” said Ned, and there was a new note in his voice. “ How about it?”

honeymoon on the coast and a blowout for the horsemen at the wedding. The mare won in a walk, but Ned kept quiet about what she really could do. lie and the widow had schemes for one of the biggest racing coups ever pulled off with a dark, horse. They planned to assault the coastal bookmakers in a manner that would make racing history. But this was to be next year, when the ex-brumby was fitter to run in seasoned company. Marion and Molly took charge of the wedding arrangements at the woolshed cottage. The furniture was removed and flie floors, even of the verandahs, were greased for dancing, by scraping candles over them with a jack knife. The walls were smothered in bush blossoms and wild flowers and white rosettes and ribbons; and a great white wedding bell was Hung in the centre of the kitchen, the largest room in the house. White horseshoes were everywhere, and each man wore a peat white wild daisy in his button-

A thousand square miles of country were combed for. dancing partners, for there were only four white women on Red Ridges. By bringing half a dozen young ladies not yet turned 14 from Borderville the miracle of a partner for every man was achieved. Long Jack brought the piano from the homestead, on the top of his wagon. Three accordion experts, a flautist, a banjo player, and a dozen mouth ormmists were rounded up by Clarence Welsby. By the irony of fate, it fell to the duty of Luke, the pessimist, to drive the buckboard to Borderville and bring out the minister. Gilligan swore he watched Luke go behind the woodheap and weep for shame when he heard the news. And as though somebody were rubbing it in, Luke bad to drive the happy pair to the coach change to meet Cobb and Co., when they started on the honeymoon. “Poor Luke!” said Molly. “It is poetic justice.” She. tied a big white how to Luke’s long buggy, whip and ordered him sternly not to remove it. Marion pinned a whit© rosette in his coat, and Gilligan . held the horses while Greenhide put one each on their winkers. Lube submitted: be could do no less, but his eye on the doomed pair 'was mournful. and he shook his head and sighed. Half a hundred strong throats cheered lustily as the buckboard started.

“ She’s a daisy, Ned. I’m proud of 'the bdth" of you. You done a good job, an’ I reckon we’ll skin them bookmakers after all. An’ them hogs in Number Four will crawl into their holes after this, an’ pull the ends in after them. Ain’t that so?”

“ How about it, old gal?” _ Ned repeated the question. The widow glanced at him swiftly and a faint blush stole over her still rounded cheek. She held out her hand slowly, palm upwards, thumb extended, like a man. “ Put it there, Ned, if it weighs a ton,” she said. / Ned took her hand in hij brown, gnarled, and speckled paw, and held it, while he grasped the reins of Flying Cloud in tie other.

“How about it, Mary?” Ned repeated the question doggedly. He Wanted an answer, not a blush. “ How about what?”

“ Everything. Halves in everything, you said. Horse, money, and all. When do we get married?” The widow had won, after a battle that would have done credit to Napoleon. It was the first word of marriage Ned had spoken to her, but it was like himself, straight and to the point. He made no protestations or promises. Take it or leave_ it: and there would be no second asking. There are men who boast that they know horses and women. Widow Ryan knew horses and men, cattlemen at “ I’m on, Ned,” /she said. “ Turn that beauty loose in the horse paddock and we’ll go up to the cottage and talk it oyer while you eat supper. I’ve been hoping you’d ask me.”

“ Mind you don’t buy another racehorse!” yelled Greenhide, laughing to Ned, who shouted back, with a smile like a sunrise. “Don’t you let none of them mug horsemen ruin that racehorse me an* the missus have got in the home paddock, or I’ll flatten you, when we get hack. She’s a-goin’ to bring the Cup back here, next year.” . . The widow of yesterday was crying with happiness. She raised her streaming eyes and kissed her hand convulsively to the smiling group at the_ back of the cottage, and then the tall timber hid the buckboard and the crowd went in to the dancing and feasting, the singing and joking and story telling. The squatter and his wife essayed to lead a cotillion, but the fact that the ballroom was divided into five small sections by .the partitions of the rooms handicapped them, and robbed the affair of a lot of dignity.

The_ biggest chivoo in the history of thy river was the wedding of Mary Ryan and Ned Smith, “ two of the best cattlemen south of the Straits of lorres,” as Gilligan said. _ To Ned’s old friend, the boundary rider, Luke, it was a cataclysm. He vent to the wedding, but his manner vaa that of a chief mourner at a Funeral. As his Sunday suit was of Funeral black and he also wore a slack necktie with it, the effect was heightened. Luke sat on the.rail of the woolshed paddock gate and unburdened himself :o the men who chaiaked him about ceing unable to save Ned from matrimony'after all: “ I jawed with him for a couple of hours, but there was no holdin’ him. Don’t you do it, I says. You’ll he workin’ for two_ bosses instead of one, in’ you oan’-t ride in for your cheque m’ make tracks for further out when rou don’t like it, I says, d’ye see. She lone me a good turn, he says, an’, what’s more, he says, the blamed ijjit, le says, she plays a dam good hand it cnbh, an’ she can build a dinner >n Sunday. Have it your own way, I says, an’ we left it at that. There was mo wheelin’ him. He was gone bush. [ done my best.’’ It was the longest speech they had ever heard Luke make. Ned had entered Flying Cloud igainst the advice of the knowing ones in Number Four, for the principal race in the Borderville meeting, backed her with a substantial cheque at a good price, and reaped enough to pay for a

And then they settled down to make the welkin ring with the lancers, quadrilles, polkas, German schottiohe, valse Vienna, barn dance, and the Scottish reel.

Accordions, mouth organs, banjo, piano, and flute hardly ceased through the evening, working in relays. The dancers statnped with their feet, keeping time and adding to the effect of hilarity. They shouted choruses as they danced. Most of the women were in spotless muslin; the men in moleskinsor saddle twist, with elastic sided riding hoots or bluchers, and coloured handkerchiefs round their necks.

Greenhide Harry, the M. 0., had acquired the only new suit in the district,! from Arim /Khan, the Indian hawker, and it was two sizes too small for him. Nevertheless it was the most impressive costume in the room, and Harry knew it. He took his duties with utter seriousness, and ordered Stiff-fingered Jimmy out of the room because a whirling couple had tripped over his long spurs. Greenhide’s big voice boomed orders from the centre of the kitchen so that they would he heard in the other rooms, on the verandahs, and out on the grass, where the overflow stepped it as merrily as any of them. “ Collar yore muttons for the Caledonians,” “ Promenade,” “ Swing corners,” “ Partners.” “ First lady and second gent,” “ Advance and retire,” “ Ladies to the centre.”- “ Ladies to the left.”

The accordions led the merry whirl with ‘ I’ll Be Your Sweetheart If You Will Be Mine,’ -Two Little Girls in Blue,’ * Paddy M'Carthy’s Mare,’ ‘ Peek-ar-hoo, I See You, Hiding Behind the Chair,’ * Just Down the Lane, Over the Stile,’ and a score of. other old favourites that had dancing in them, Molly played ‘ Blue Danube ’ for a waltz, on the piano, hut the stockmen clamoured for the accordions, and ‘ After the Ball is Over,’ ‘ My Polly,’ and others with more gallop in them. Molly, of course, was the bell of the ball, clamoured for by young bloods and old hands, but she confided to Marion that Clarence was the best dancer of them all, and the handsomest. Ballads and poems of the bush were reeled off by camp fire entertainers and then, amidst applause, Greenhide announced that Clarence would sing. In a good baritone, with Mrs Patterson at the piano, the jackaroo sang of a girl with Irish blue eyes and black hair, whose name was Molly, looking over the top of the piano at the lady who answered to that name on Red Ridges. In music and in rhyme he told her that she was the only girl he adored, that he could never love anybody else, though there might have ■been one or two in the past. He vowed he never would leave her or deceive her; that he would be a born fool not to keep her warm and cosy in his heart for ever more.

Few of the audience were aware that he was singing at Molly O’Toole, not more than half a dozen of their intimate friends, who had shown a warm personal interest in the quarrels and reconciliations which these two made serve the purpose of a courtship; but Mollv certainly was one of them. She left the room when he had sung his encore number, and there was that in her glance as she caught his eye which told him she had something to communicate in private.

He found her leaning over the rails on the sheep yards near the woolshed under a big silver moon that might have been hung in the sky as part of the wedding decorations. She sat on a stack of wool bales, under the pepperinas, when she saw him approaching, and turned her back. “Hullo, Molly,” he said, with affected surprise. “ What are ” She cut him short. “How dare you!” She was furious with anger. “ Poor old Ned,” said he, softly. “ Another good man gone west. I’m sorry it had to be he.” “ You you ” Molly stuttered in her rushing anger. “You cad! You made me the laughing stock of the station, in there.” She rose and stamped her little feet and the ground gave up tiuy puffs of dust. Clarence deliberately wiped his immaculate leggings with a red 'silk handkerchief. Words failed her. She sat down. He sat beside her on the wool bales. “Molly, look at me.” There was a new note in his voice, She turned, and the moonlight showed the anger in her eyes. Suddenly his glance dost its dare-devil sparkle, and his eyes were soft and shining. He was holding her hands and singing, low and sweetly:

“ Molly, I love yon, no one’s above you In my heart, and that is true. I may have loved a girl or two before, But Molly, I’ll never love any more. I’ll not deceive you, I’ll never Heave you ’-’

“ Stop,” she cried 1 , wrested her hands free, and sprang to her feet. “What do you take me for? ”

Her eyes were blazing blue stars. “ The sweetest girl I ever knew, and the prettiest, Molly,” he said, with simple sincerity. ■ Molly was nonplussed. It was' hard to remain angry with such a man. He stepped closer to her as she rose, and slipped an arm about _ her shoulders. She stuck a safety pin in his hand, and he stifled l a curse as he released her. Then he laughed awkwardly, and sucked the wound where the spot of blood showed.

“Irish as Paddy’s pigs,” he said, and then added: “But much more beautiful.”

“ Thank' you for nothing,” she snapped, but a little smile had chased away the sparks of anger. “You were going to say something? ” “I was,”' He grinned, somewhat! crestfallen. “ But I’ve changed my mind. A man runs a risk of bleeding to death trying to make love to you.” She was silent, tapping the ground with her tiny boot. “It’s no practice for a green hand trying to kiss you, Molly.” “ Next time I’ll take a shotgun. I’ve had enough of you.” “I need my mother to protect me. The saints preserve me from a woman that sits out a dance with a safety pin concealed in her hand.”

“Had you forgotten that I_ smacked your face the last time you tried to do that? ”

“ You wouldn’t marry a jackaroo, with expectations, if he asked you, I suppose? ” “ Certainly not. At the first time of asking, anyway.” “Thank God for that. I might ask you some day, and now I know I’m safe. Do you mind telling me why? ” Molly laughed, with returning good humour. He saw that her eyes were like stars.

“ For a start,” she said, “ I only know" three jackaroos, and all have something wrong with them.” “Tell me the faults of_ jackaroos.” He sat beside her again, his head held in a listening attitude. She checked them off on her capable, ringless fingers: “The one at Mombala has one wife, and I think that’s enough for him. Galloping Bob is much too young.” She paused and looked at him. “ I’m Number Three. Go on. What’s wrong with me?”' he demanded. He saw her head droop and her shoulders shaking, and he knew she was crying. She resisted not when he swept her into his arms, but turned her face -to him so that he could_ see the big tears glistening, while he kissed her hair, softly, and stroked it with tender fingers. “ I’m the Lord’s own waster, Molly. Will you marry mo in six months’ time if I give you my solemn oath never again to take too much liquor or handle a card ? Take me on trust, sweetheart. I’m not as had as I seem, hut I’m in a fix that will take me a few weeks to get out. Then I’ll he all right.” “ Dear, poor Clarence,” she said, and, sighing, nestled closer. “ I’m so happy, I’m afraid I’ll wake up and find it is only a dream.” When they went back to the dance the dawn was breaking and the dancers were getting ready for breakfast. They had agreed to keep their sweet secret until the following month, and then announce it to tho world. She watched hW ride away into the sunrise, and then ran to Mrs Ryan’s room, hugging her breast and laughing like a child.

One Horse Gilligan, watching her face at breakfast, said, beneath his long moustaches: “ Looks as if Cupid had hit the bull’s eye at last. About time. He’s been doin’ some rotten shootin’ lately.”

Next Issue: ‘Raid on the Cattle.’ (To he continued.)