THE MILPO MYSTERY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 40

THE MILPO MYSTERY.

[By John Arthur Barry.]

Where the sheep went to was a mystery —a mystery that presently bade fair to lose the manager his billet. Milpo, with 40,000 sheep, a good season, small paddocks, secure fences, and no T.S.Rs., was ‘sheep short ’ every muster. It was terrible! and the manager bullied the overseer, and the overseer bullied the boundary-riders ; and the boundary-rider 3, after the manner of their kind, departed and chose shady trees, and turned their horses loose, and lay down and smoked, and cursed manager, overseer, sheep, and station until the waning sun proclaimed that it was ‘ a fair thing/ And, indeed, it was rather exasperating all round. When you count, say, a couple of thousand sheep into a well-grassed little paddock that you know there isn’t a slack wire in, nor a selector, nor a dingo, nor, in fact, anything whatever ‘ obnoxious,’ and in another fortnight you muster and can only make 1900 out of them, you’re apt to think there’s a screw loose somewhere. And when you go back and ride backways and longways and crossways over every blade and tussock, and look into all the hollow trees and behind every dead log, and still never find that lost 100 any more, you are apt, like Armstrong—the manager of Milpo—to say naughty w’ords and feel that you must either go for somebody or die. And when the thing keeps on happening, as it did in this case, at irregular intervals, it will be apt to make you —like Armstrong—cranky, suspicious and abrupt even with the wife of your bosom. And Armstrong, in his best moments, was very far from a saint.

At last a crisis came. With his own hands the manager had picked out for market a lot of a thousand as prime wethers as ever cropped saltbush on the Speemah—average, 801b —had notified his company, and told his agents to order trucks. Jones, the overseer, was to start them into the railway station the next day. Meanwhile, the sheep were put into a nice little paddock on the Speemah Creek, bordering the old diggings. In the morning they’d shrunk by fifty. Armstrong was past swearing—there is such a stage, and a dangerous one—but he walked round the fence fourteen times. It was hard, gravelly country, bad to track in ; and when at last he gave it up he was as wise as when he began his tour. Then he came back home and sacked Jones and the boundary riders and the cook and the horse boy; went into the office and fell foul of the bookkeeper ; kicked the Chinese gardener severely, and made Mrs Armstrong cry. Feeling better, he sent for tho police. He had no faith in them. Still, it was evidently time to do something. But your average policeman is never very much good at sheep work. Cattle and horses suit him better ; and then, to be of any use, he must have been reared amongst them before he joined. The pair that came to assist Armstrong turned out to be themselves English black sheep of recent importation, and thus possessed nothing in common with the lost merinos.

After taking a constitutional about the paddocks in the morning they would return and drink whisky and read all the books they could find; whilst * Bony,’ the black tracker, making’ himself at home in the kitchen, remarked sapiently— ‘ Mine tiuk it junbuk clean gone. Never see that pfeller no more.’ Meanwhile, Fook Sing, the gardener, tenderly rubbed the bottom of his spine and thought with regret of those brave old days when he was a pirate in Amoy and had cut throats, some of them white like the “ masta’s,” yonder, whose boots were so heavy in the toe. Then, with a grin of exultation mingling in his wrath, he went and talked to a countryman who was signalling him over the garden fence. Presently the new overseer arrived. He was an energetic customer, who, swearing that the Milpo mystery shouldn’t remain one much longer, nosed round for a while, and then put his finger on the sore spot, and wondered it had never occurred to anybody before. For his part, he rer.llv didn’t see what could be expected with a lot of beastly Chinkies within a mile of the place. And, rousing out the police, he made for the old workings on the Speemah, where about twenty of Fook Sing’s compatriots fossicked for a living.

But the seekers found neither track nor trace of a- sheep amongst the miserable dens of the heathen. And the latter seemed quite pleased to see them, and explained with dignity that they didn’t hanker much after mutton ; and that when

they felt like meat they bought beef from f lie local butchers, a statement duly confirmed by those worthies on application. Mr Morris, as will be seen, like the children in their play, was ‘ warm/ certainly ; but his luck was not quite good enough. Besides, Armstrong had been over the same ground before with precisely the same results.

When the Chinese had first taken up their quarters they came to Armstrong to buy their meat. But he had refused, and told them politely that he didn’t fatten stock for blank blanky Chows to put in their blanky yellow bellies; also, that he wasn’t tlie man to encourage leprosy and idolatry, and lots of worse things ending in y. The inscrutable ones received his compliments blandly, thanked him, and smilingly withdrew. Shortly afterwards, look Sing appeared on the scene, and offered to garden, and pump, and chop wood, and butcher, and milk, and look after the poultry, and-fly around generally for a sum per week that made Armstrong jump at him and get him to sign there and then for twelve months. And Fook turned out -well and did all he contracted foi, and more ; also bearing meekly with much abuse and sundry kickings, by which means Armstrong justified himself for his inconsistency.

Tho police presently loft; and Morris

mustered and counted, and remustered and recounted, and at the end of the quarter was triumphant, with no losses that could not be traced. And ono day in the township he explained to people how all the trouble had arisen. It was the counting. That fellow Jones certainly couldn’t count. Nor, in fact, was the boss himself much better. Flash counting never was any good. Why didn’t they count like he did—in twos. All of which being duly repeated to Armstrong, the new overseer found his billet becoming hot.

Long ago the manager had fallen out with the local butchers and refused to let them have any stock. Locusts, leeches, microbes, sweaters and Jews were amongst his pet names for them. On their side they retorted that he was too mean to let people live, and set about a story of a traveller who, not having the shilling to pay for his horse’s grass, was forced by Armstrong to open his swag, from which the manager took a bar of soap in default of current coin. This was untrue. But the thing stuck; even got into the local papers, and annoyed Armstrong exceedingly. Once he had procured searchwarrants, but never a skin or a hide had been found in their possession bearing the Milpo brand. Some of the dressed carcases in one shop seemed to bear a strangely familiar look to Armstrong’s eyes. But then one cannot identify mutton, and the butchers bought largely from other than Speemah stations, also from many drovers. So the manager had to confess himself at fault—a matter that lay cold on his strong stomach. After a. short interval history at Milpo began to repeat itself with its usual aggravating’ preciseness; and Morris the energetic, count he never so often and so truly, was at last fain to admit that the sheep were going. Presently he went too, and as ho took his cheque ‘ the boss ’ made unkind remarks as to his counting abilities. But the mystery was no nearer being solved, and, finally, quite sick of the whole thing, and realising that he v'as rapidly qualifying for a lunatic asylum, Armstrong wrote his resignation and rode ove," to the township to post it.

It was winter time, and darkness overtook him whilst passing the old diggings. Buried in thought, he let his horse get oil' the track, and presently the animal, putting his loot in a hole, stumbled and threw him. Unhurt, he arose and made after the horse, whose retreating n-'ps he could hear on the hard day. But h ■ not gone a dozen yards before the earth seemed to give way beneath his feet and ho fell headlong down, landing with a shock that knocked the senses out of him. When ho came to himself he found that he was lying on a pile of some soft objects, very familiar to both touch and smell—• sheepskins in fact.

He imagined he must have been dreaming. But, no, skins were there and mostly ‘ green ’ at that. He was sore, but no bones were broken. Looking up, he saw by the shine of the stars through the hole ho had made that his fall had besn deep ; and but for the skins would probably have killed him. As he sat up and gazed around in the darkness he suddenly heard voices, and presently caught sight of a light some distance away. Very cautiously he crawled on hands and knees, an ever-increasing smell of sheep in his nose, until, coming to a low ridge of reck, he peered over and saw something that made him grow hot and cold by turns with the fever of discovery, and the lightning growth of a certainty that the mystery of Milpo was near being solved. In a sort of cave, evidently formed by the cutting away of a spot where four largo drives met, and from one of which he had just emerged,

sat a dozen Chinese around a fire, smoking and watching a huge frying-pan. Lamps hung to the timbered walls and props, and gave light enough to cast all their squab yellow faces and gleaming eyes into strong relief, and more especially those of the heathen who, shredding vegetables into the hissing pan, stirred all around now' and again with a big broad-bladed knife. With a gasp, Armstrong recognised Fook Sing, and the manager’s toes itched as he stared in wonderment at the scene. Suddenly a bleat from further back in the cave made him start, and, straining his eyes, he saw shadowy forms of sheep moving to-and-fro behind a rude fence. His sheep ! His mutton in the pan ! His cook frying it ! And, without waiting to think, he scrambled over the ridge of rock and was in their midst. With a wellaimed kick he sent the pan flying, and then commenced to furiously pommel Fook Siag, whilst the others looked on in stupid dismay. But this was too good to last, and very quickly the gang were on to him and had him down and bound tight, hand and foot, amidst a very babel of discordant cacklings. Then Fook Sing, came up, his face all bloody, handling the big knife as if he meant business and liked it. But a screeching Chow rushed between him and his intended victim, and after a wild argument pro and con, Fook reluctantly dropped the weapon and turned away. All at once, as if struck by a sudden memory, he came back, and, rolling the helpless body over, administered a hearty kicking, whilst the manager fumed and raged impotently, until Fook Sing gagged him with a lump of sheepskin and finished his contract in peace. Then Armstrong heard sounds as of sheep being slaughtered close to him. Someone extinguished the lamps, and ho was left to reflect upon what a fool he had made of himself by giving way to his temper. Of the eventual result he had little fear. On his horse’s arrival at home a thorough search of the old diggings would bo the first thought. And there

was the fresh hole to show where he had fallen thiough. But he was very sere, for Book Sing had put his whole soul into his heavy Bluchers. What would he not do to the villain when he caught him ! But alas! it was twenty-four hours before the station people managed to drop across him, half dead from the combined effects of rage, thirst and suffocation. And by that time there was no sign of a Chinaman wit kin many miles of the Spepmah. \VJ:• ■i : in.) cave, or rather caves —for there \-.;m quite a series of them, m a Mition to yards neatly built of stones and saplings to hold the stolen sheep —came to be examined, there were found, besides twenty fresh-killed sheep, as many more carcases neatly dressed as if ready for market. One cave was used as a slaughteryard, another as a meat-house, yet another "for pressing skins upon which the brand had been neatly faked and allowed to tone down before being sent to the receivers, whoever they might have bpen. Altogether it was a very complete establishment indeed. People wondered a good deal how the thieves disposed of their spoil; and when, presently, the butchers raised the price of mutton, all sorts of nasty rumours got about. The affair is pietty well forgotten now. Armstrong is still f of Milpo ’; the station losses of stock are normal once more; but it is even yet as much as any Celestial's life is worth to be seen about the Speemah Creek where it forms the Milpo boundary. —Australasian l J astoralists' llcview.