Children of the Bush Part 8

"No, Jake," said Mitch.e.l.l, growing serious suddenly. "There are ways of doing things that another man understands."

They all thought for a while.

"Well," said Tom Hall, "supposing we do take up a collection for him, he'd be too d.a.m.ned proud to take it."

"But that's where we've got the pull on him," said Mitch.e.l.l, brightening up. "I heard Dr Morgan say that Mrs Douglas wouldn't live if she wasn't sent away to a cooler place, and Douglas knows it; and, besides, one of the little girls is sick. We've got him in a corner and he'll have to take the stuff. Besides, two years in jail takes a lot of the pride out of a man."

"Well, I'm d.a.m.ned if I'll give a sprat to help the man who tried his best to crush the Unions!" said One-eyed Bogan.

"d.a.m.ned if I will either!" said Barcoo-Rot.

"Now, look here, One-eyed Bogan," said Mitch.e.l.l, "I don't like to harp on old things, for I know they bore you, but when you returned to public life that time no one talked of kicking you out of the town. In fact, I heard that the chaps put a few pounds together to help you get away for a while till you got over your modesty."

No one spoke.

"I pa.s.sed Douglas's place on my way here from my camp to-night,"

Mitch.e.l.l went on musingly, "and I saw him walking up and down in the yard with his sick child in his arms. You remember that little girl, Bogan? I saw her run and pick up your hat and give it to you one day when you were trying to put it on with your feet. You remember, Bogan?

The shock nearly sobered you."

There was a very awkward pause. The position had become too psychological altogether and had to be ended somehow. The awkward silence had to be broken, and Bogan broke it. He turned up Bob Brothers's hat, which was lying on the table, and "chucked" in a "quid,"

qualifying the hat and the quid, and disguising his feelings with the national oath of the land.

"We've had enough of this gory, maudlin, sentimental tommy-rot,"

he said. "Here, Barcoo, stump up or I'll belt it out of your hide!

I'll--I'll take yer to pieces!"

But Douglas didn't leave the town. He sent his wife and children to Sydney until the heat wave was past, built a new room on to the cottage, and started a book and newspaper shop, and a poultry farm in the back paddock, and flourished.

They called him Mr Douglas for a while, then Douglas, then Percy Douglas, and now he is well-known as Old Daddy Douglas, and the Sydney _Worker_, _Truth_, and _Bulletin_, and other democratic rags are on sale at his shop. He is big with schemes for locking the Darling River, and he gets his drink at O'Donohoo's. He is scarcely yet regarded as a straight-out democrat. He was a gentleman once, Mitch.e.l.l said, and the old blood was not to be trusted. But, last elections, Douglas worked quietly for Unionism, and gave the leaders certain hints, and put them up to various electioneering dodges which enabled them to return, in the face of Monopoly, a Labour member who is as likely to go straight as long as any other Labour member.

THE BLINDNESS OF ONE-EYED BOGAN

They judge not and they are not judged--'tis their philosophy-- (There's something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea).

-The Ballad of the Rouseabout.

"And what became of One-eyed Bogan?" I asked Tom Hall when I met him and Jack Mitch.e.l.l down in Sydney with their shearing cheques the Christmas before last.

"You'd better ask Mitch.e.l.l, Harry," said Tom. "He can tell you about Bogan better than I can. But first, what about the drink we're going to have?"

We turned out of Pitt Street into Hunter Street, and across George Street, where a double line of fast electric tramway was running, into Margaret Street and had a drink at Pfahlert's Hotel, where a counter lunch--as good as many dinners you get for a shilling--was included with a sixpenny drink. "Get a quiet corner," said Mitch.e.l.l, "I like to bear myself cackle." So we took our beer out in the fernery and got a cool place at a little table in a quiet corner amongst the fern boxes.

"Well, One-eyed Bogan was a hard case, Mitch.e.l.l," I said. "Wasn't he?"

"Yes," said Mitch.e.l.l, putting down his "long-beer" gla.s.s, "he was."

"Rather a bad egg?"

"Yes, a regular bad egg," said Mitch.e.l.l, decidedly.

"I heard he got caught cheating at cards," I said.

"Did you?" said Mitch.e.l.l. "Well, I believe he did. Ah, well," he added reflectively, after another long pull, "One-eyed Bogan won't cheat at cards any more."

"Why?" I said. "Is he dead then?"

"No," said Mitch.e.l.l, "he's blind."

"Good G.o.d!" I said, "how did that happen?"

"He lost the other eye," said Mitch.e.l.l, and he took another drink. "Ah, well, he won't cheat at cards any more--unless there's cards invented for the blind."

"How did it happen?" I asked.

"Well," said Mitch.e.l.l, "you see, Harry, it was this way. Bogan went pretty free in Bourke after the shearing before last, and in the end he got mixed up in a very ugly-looking business: he was accused of doing two new-chum jackaroos out of their stuff by some sort of confidence trick."

"Confidence trick," I said. "I'd never have thought that One-eyed Bogan had the brains to go in for that sort of thing."

"Well, it seems he had, or else he used somebody else's brains; there's plenty of broken-down English gentlemen sharpers knocking about out back, you know, and Bogan might have been taking lessons from one.

I don't know the rights of the case, it was hushed up, as you'll see presently; but, anyway, the jackaroos swore that Bogan had done 'em out of ten quid. They were both c.o.c.kneys and I suppose they reckoned themselves smart, but bushmen have more time to think. Besides, Bogan's one eye was in his favour. You see he always kept his one eye fixed strictly on whatever business he had in hand; if he'd had another eye to rove round and distract his attention and look at things on the outside, the chances are he would never have got into trouble."

"Never mind that, Jack," said Tom Hall. "Harry wants to hear the yarn."

"Well, to make it short, one of the jackaroos went to the police and Bogan cleared out. His character was pretty bad just then, so there was a piece of blue paper out for him. Bogan didn't seem to think the thing was so serious as it was, for he only went a few miles down the river and camped with his horses on a sort of island inside an anabranch, till the thing should blow over or the new chums leave Bourke.

"Bogan's old enemy, Constable Campbell, got wind of Bogan's camp, and started out after him. He rode round the outside track and came in on to the river just below where the anabranch joins it, at the lower end of the island and right opposite Bogan's camp. You know what those billabongs are: dry gullies till the river rises from the Queensland rains and backs them up till the water runs round into the river again and makes anabranches of 'em--places that you thought were hollows you'll find above water, and you can row over places you thought were hills. There's no water so treacherous and deceitful as you'll find in some of those billabongs. A man starts to ride across a place where he thinks the water is just over the gra.s.s, and blunders into a deep channel--that wasn't there before--with a steady undercurrent with the whole weight of the Darling River funnelled into it; and if he can't swim and his horse isn't used to it--or sometimes if he can swim--it's a case with him, and the Darling River cod hold an inquest on him, if they have time, before he's buried deep in Darling River mud for ever. And somebody advertises in the missing column for Jack Somebody who was last heard of in Australia."

"Never mind that, Mitch.e.l.l, go on," I said.

"Well, Campbell knew the river and saw that there was a stiff current there, so he hailed Bogan.

"'Good day, Campbell,' shouted Bogan.

"`I want you, Bogan,' said Campbell. `Come across and bring your horses.'

"`I'm d.a.m.ned if I will,' says Bogan. `I'm not going to catch me death o'

cold to save your skin. If you want me you'll have to b.l.o.o.d.y well come and git me.' Bogan was a good strong swimmer, and he had good horses, but he didn't try to get away--I suppose he reckoned he'd have to face the music one time or another--and one time is as good as another out back.

"Campbell was no swimmer; he had no temptation to risk his life--you see it wasn't as in war with a lot of comrades watching ready to advertise a man as a coward for staying alive--so he argued with Bogan and tried to get him to listen to reason, and swore at him. `I'll make it d.a.m.ned hot for you, Bogan,' he said, `if I have to come over for you.'

"`Two can play at that game,' says Bogan.

"`Look here, Bogan," said Campbell, `I'll tell you what I'll do. If you give me your word that you'll come up to the police station to-morrow I'll go back and say nothing about it. You can say you didn't know a warrant was out after you. It will be all the better for you in the end.

Better give me your word, man.'

"Perhaps Campbell knew Bogan better than any of us.