Selected Stories By Henry Lawson Part 19

"-There never was a fortune made that wasn't made by chancing it."

He nudged Smith to come to the point. Presently Smith asked, sulkily: "Well, what was he saying?"

"I thought I told you! He says he's behind the scenes in this gold boom, and, if he had a hundred pounds ready cash to-morrow, he'd make three of it before Sat.u.r.day. He said he could put one-fifty to one-fifty."

"And isn't he worth three hundred?"

"Didn't I tell you," demanded Steelman, with an impatient ring, and speaking rapidly, "that he lost his mail in the wreck of the Tasman? You know she went down the day before yesterday, and the divers haven't got at the mails yet."

"Yes...But why doesn't he wire to Sydney for some stuff?"

"I'm--! Well, I suppose I'll have to have patience with a born natural. Look here, Smith, the fact of the matter is that he's a sort of black-sheep-sent out on the remittance system, if the truth is known, and with letters of introduction to some big-bugs out here-that explains how he gets to know these wire-pullers behind the boom. His people have probably got the quarterly allowance business fixed hard and tight with a bank or a lawyer in Sydney; and there'll have to be enquiries about the lost 'draft' (as he calls a cheque) and a letter or maybe a cable home to England; and it might take weeks."

"Yes," said, Smith, hesitatingly. "That all sounds right enough. But"-with an inspiration-"why don't he go to one of these big-bug boomsters he knows-that he got letters of introduction to-and get him to fix him up?"

"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Steelman, hopelessly. "Listen to him! Can't you see that they're the last men he wants to let into his game? Why, he wants to use them! They're the mugs as far as he is concerned!"

"Oh-I see!" said Smith, after hesitating, and rather slowly-as if he hadn't quite finished seeing, yet.

Steelman glanced furtively at the fern-screen, and nudged Smith again.

"He said if he had three hundred, he'd double it by Sat.u.r.day?"

"That's what he said," replied Steeelman, seeming by his tone to be losing interest in the conversation.

"And...well, if he had a hundred he could double that, I suppose."

"Yes. What are you driving at now?"

"If he had twenty-"

"Oh, G.o.d! I'm sick of you, Smith. What the--!"

"Hold on. Let me finish. I was only going to say that I'm willing to put up a fiver, and you put up another fiver, and if he doubles that for us then we can talk about standing in with him with a hundred-provided he can show his hundred."

After some snarling Steelman said: "Well, I'll try him! Now are you satisfied?...

"He's moved off now," he added in a whisper; "but stay here and talk a bit longer."

Pa.s.sing through the hall they saw Gentleman Sharper standing carelessly by the door of the private bar. He jerked his head in the direction of drinks. Steelman accepted the invitation-Smith pa.s.sed on. Steelman took the opportunity to whisper to the sharper: "I've been talking that over with my mate, and--"

"Come for a stroll," suggested the professional.

"I don't mind," said Steelman.

"Have a cigar?" and they pa.s.sed out.

When they returned Steelman went straight to the room he occupied with Smith.

"How much stuff have we got, Smith?"

"Nine pounds seventeen and threepence."

Steelman gave an exclamation of disapproval with that state of financial affairs. He thought a second. "I know the barman here, and I think he knows me. I'll chew his lug for a bob or maybe a quid."

Twenty minutes later he went to Gentleman Sharper's room with ten pounds-in very dirty Bank of New Zealand notes-such as those with which bush contractors pay their men.

Two mornings later the sharper suggested a stroll. Steelman went with him, with a face carefully made up to hear the worst.

After walking a hundred yards in a silence which might have been ominous-and was certainly pregnant-the sharper said: "Well...I tried the water."

"Yes!" said Steelman in a nervous tone. "And how did you find it?"

"Just as warm as I thought. Warm for a big splash."

"How? Did you lose the ten quid?"

"Lose it! What did you take me for? I put ten to your ten as I told you I would. I landed 50--"

"Fifty pounds for twenty?"

"That's the tune of it and not much of a tune, either. My G.o.d! If I'd only had that thousand of mine by me, or even half of it, I'd have made a pile!"

"Fifty pounds for twenty!" cried Steelman excitedly. "Why, that's grand! And to think we chaps have been grafting like n.i.g.g.e.rs all our lives! By G.o.d, we'll stand in with you for all we've got!"

"There's my hand on it," as they reached the hotel.

"If you come to my room I'll give you the 25 now, if you like."

"Oh, that's all right," exclaimed Steelman impulsively; "you mustn't think I don't--"

"That's all right. Don't you say any more about it. You'd best have the stuff to-night to show your mate."

"Perhaps so; he's a suspicious fool, but I made a bargain with him about our last cheque. He can hang on to the stuff, and I can't. If I'd been on my own I'd have blued it a week ago. Tell you what I'll do-we'll call our share (Smith's and mine) twenty quid. You take the odd fiver for your trouble."

"That looks fair enough. We'll call it twenty guineas to you and your mate. We'll want him, you know."

In his own and Smith's room Steelman thoughtfully counted twenty-one sovereigns on the toilet-table cover, and left them there in a pile.

He stretched himself, scratched behind his ear, and blinked at the money abstractedly. Then he asked, as if the thought just occurred to him: "By the way, Smith, do you see those yellow boys?"

Smith saw. He had been sitting on the bed with a studiously vacant expression. It was Smith's policy not to seem, except by request, to take any interest in, or, in fact, to be aware of anything unusual that Steelman might be doing-from patching his pants to reading poetry.

"There's twenty-one sovereigns there!" remarked Steelman casually.

"Yes?"

"Ten of 'em's yours."

"Thank yer, Steely."

"And," added Steelman, solemnly and grimly, "if you get taken down for 'em, or lose 'em out of the top-hole in your pocket, or spend so much as a shilling in riotous living, I'll stoush you, Smith."

Smith didn't seem interested. They sat on the beds opposite each other for two or three minutes, in something of the atmosphere that pervades things when conversation has petered out and the dinner-bell is expected to ring. Smith screwed his face and squeezed a pimple on his throat; Steelman absently counted the flies on the wall. Presently Steelman, with a yawning sigh, lay back on the pillow with his hands clasped under his head.

"Better take a few quid, Smith, and get that suit you were looking at the other day. Get a couple of shirts and collars, and some socks; better get a hat while you're at it-yours is a disgrace to your benefactor. And, I say, go to a chemist and get some cough stuff for that churchyarder of yours-we've got no use for it just now, and it makes me sentimental. I'll give you a cough when you want one. Bring me a siphon of soda, some fruit, and a tract."

"Awhat?"

"Atract. Go on. Start your boots."

While Smith was gone, Steelman paced the room with a strange, worried, haunted expression. He divided the gold that was left-(Smith had taken four pounds)-and put ten sovereigns in a pile on the extreme corner of the table. Then he walked up and down, up and down the room, arms tightly folded, and forehead knitted painfully, pausing abruptly now and then by the table to stare at the gold, until he heard Smith's step. Then his face cleared; he sat down and counted flies.

Smith was undoing and inspecting the parcels, having placed the siphon and fruit on the table. Behind his back Steelman hurriedly opened a leather pocket-book and glanced at the portrait of a woman and child and at the date of a post-office order receipt.

"Smith," said Steelman, "we're two honest, ignorant, green coves; hard-working chaps from the bush."

"Yes."

"It doesn't matter whether we are or not-we are as far as the world is concerned. Now we've grafted like bullocks, in heat and wet, for six months, and made a hundred and fifty, and come down to have a bit of a holiday before going back to bullock for another six months or a year. Isn't that so, Smith?"

"Yes."

"You could take your oath on it?"

"Yes."

"Well, it doesn't matter if it is so or not-it is so, so far as the world is concerned. Now we've paid our way straight. We've always been pretty straight anyway, even if we are a pair of vagabonds, and I don't half like this new business; but it had to be done. If I hadn't taken down that sharper you'd have lost confidence in me and wouldn't have been able to mask your feelings, and I'd have had to stoush you. We're two hard-working, innocent bushies, down for an innocent spree, and we run against a cold-blooded professional sharper, a paltry sneak and a coward, who's got neither the brains nor the pluck to work in the station of life he togs himself for. He tries to do us out of our hard-earned little hundred and fifty-no matter whether we had it or not-and I'm obliged to take him down. Serve him right for a crawler. You haven't the least idea what I'm driving at, Smith, and that's the best of it. I've driven a nail of my life home, and no pincers ever made will get it out."

"Why, Steely, what's the matter with you?"

Steelman rose, took up the pile of ten sovereigns, and placed it neatly on top of the rest.

"Put the stuff away, Smith."

After breakfast next morning, Gentleman Sharper hung round a bit, and then suggested a stroll. But Steelman thought the weather looked too bad, so they went on the balcony for a smoke. They talked of the weather, wrecks, and things, Steelman leaning with his elbows on the balcony rail, and Sharper sociably and confidently in the same position close beside him. But the professional was evidently growing uneasy in his mind; his side of the conversation grew awkward and disjointed, and he made the blunder of drifting into an embarra.s.sing silence before coming to the point. He took one elbow from the rail, and said, with a bungling attempt at carelessness which was made more transparent by the awkward pause before it: "Ah, well, I must see to my correspondence. By the way, when could you make it convenient to let me have that hundred? The shares are starting up the last rise now, and we've got no time to lose if we want to double it."

Steelman turned his face to him and winked once-a very hard, tight, cold wink-a wink in which there was no humour; such a wink as Steelman had once winked at a half-drunken bully who was going to have a lark with Smith.

The sharper was one or those men who pull themselves together in a bad cause, as they stagger from the blow. But he wanted to think this time.

Later on he approached Steelman quietly and proposed partnership. But Steelman gave him to understand (as between themselves) that he wasn't taking on any pupils just then.

An Incident at Stiffner's.

THEY called him "Stiffner" because he used, long before, to get a living by poisoning wild dogs near the Queensland border. The name stuck to him closer than misfortune did, for when he rose to the proud and independent position of landlord and sole proprietor of an out-back pub he was Stiffner still, and his place was "Stiffner's"-widely known.

They do say that the name ceased not to be applicable-that it fitted even better than in the old dingo days, but well, they do say so. All we can say is that when a shearer arrived with a cheque, and had a drink or two, he was almost invariably seized with a desire to camp on the premises for good, spend his cheque in the shortest possible time, and forcibly shout for everything within hail-including the Chinaman cook and Stiffner's disreputable old ram.

The shanty was of the usual kind, and the scenery is as easily disposed of. There was a great grey plain stretching away from the door in front, and a mulga scrub from the rear; and in that scrub, not fifty yards from the kitchen door, were half a dozen nameless graves.

Stiffner was always drunk, and Stiffner's wife-a hard-featured Amazon-was boss. The children were brought up in a detached cottage, under the care of a "governess".

Stiffner had a barmaid as bait for chequemen. She came from Sydney, they said, and her name was Alice. She was tall, boyishly handsome, and characterless; her figure might be described as "fine" or "strapping", but her face was very cold-nearly colourless. She was one of those selfishly sensual women-thin lips, and hard, almost vacant grey eyes; no thought of anything but her own pleasures, none for the man's. Some shearers would roughly call her "a squatter's girl". But she "drew"; she was handsome where women are scarce-very handsome, thought a tall, melancholy-looking jackeroo, whose evil spirit had drawn him to Stiffner's and the last shilling out of his pocket.

Over the great grey plain, about a fortnight before, had come "Old Danny", a station hand, for his semi-annual spree, and one "Yankee Jack" and his mate, shearers with horses, travelling for gra.s.s; and, about a week later, the Sydney jackeroo. There was also a sprinkling of a.s.sorted swagmen, who came in through the scrub and went out across the plain, or came in over the plain and went away through the scrub, according to which way their noses led them for the time being.

There was also, for one day, a tall, freckled native (son of a neighbouring "c.o.c.ky"), without a thought beyond the narrow horizon within which he lived. He had a very big opinion of himself in a very small mind. He swaggered into the break-fastroom and round the table to his place with an expression of ignorant contempt on his phiz, his snub nose in the air and his under lip out. But during the meal he condescended to ask the landlord if he'd noticed that there horse that chap was ridin' yesterday; and Stiffner having intimated that he had, the native entertained the company with his opinion of that horse, and of a certain "youngster" he was breaking in at home, and divers other horses, mostly his or his father's, and of a certain cattle s.l.u.t, etc...He spoke at the landlord, but to the company, most of the time. After breakfast he swaggered round some more, but condescended to "shove" his hand into his trousers, "pull" out a "bob" and "chuck" it into the (blanky) hat for a pool. Those words express the thing better than any others we can think of. Finally, he said he must be off; and, there being no opposition to his departure, he chucked his saddle on to his horse, chucked himself into the saddle, said "s'long", and slithered off. And no one missed him.

Danny had been there a fortnight, and consequently his personal appearance was not now worth describing-it was better left alone, for the honour of the bush. His hobby was that he was the "stranger's friend", as he put it. He'd welcome "the stranger" and chum with him, and shout for him to an unlimited extent, and sympathise with him, hear of jobs or a "show" for him, a.s.sure him twenty times a day that he was his friend, give him hints and advice more or less worthless, make him drunk if possible, and keep him so while the cheque lasted; in short, Danny would do almost anything for the stranger except lend him a shilling, or give him some rations to carry him on. He'd promise that many times a day, but he'd sooner spend five pounds on drink for a man than give him a farthing.

Danny's cheque was nearly gone, and it was time he was gone too; in fact, he had received, and was still receiving, various hints to that effect, some of them decidedly pointed, especially the more recent ones. But Danny was of late becoming foolishly obstinate in his sprees, and less disposed to "git" when a landlord had done with him. He saw the hints plainly enough, but had evidently made up his mind to be doggedly irresponsive. It is a mistake to think that drink always dulls a man's feelings. Some natures are all the more keenly sensitive when alcoholically poisoned.

Danny was always front man at the shanty while his cheque was fresh-at least, so he was given to understand, and so he apparently understood. He was then allowed to say and do what he liked almost, even to mauling the barmaid about. There was scarcely any limit to the free and easy manner in which you could treat her, so long as your money lasted. She wouldn't be offended; it wasn't business to be so-"didn't pay". But, as soon as your t.i.tle to the cheque could be decently shelved, you had to treat her like a lady. Danny knew this-none better; but he had been treated with too much lat.i.tude, and rushed to his destruction.

It was Sunday afternoon, but that made no difference to things at the shanty. Dinner was just over. The men were in the mean little parlour off the bar, interested in a game of cards, and Alice sat in one corner sewing. Danny was "acting the goat" round the fireplace; as ill-luck would have it, his attention was drawn to a basket of clean linen which stood on the side table, and from it, with sundry winks and grimaces, he gingerly lifted a certain garment of ladies' underwear-to put the matter decently. He held it up between his forefingers and thumbs, and cracked a rough, foolish joke-no matter what it was. The laugh didn't last long. Alice sprang to her feet, flinging her work aside, and struck a stage att.i.tude-her right arm thrown out and the forefinger pointing rigidly, and rather crookedly, towards the door.

"Leave the room!" she snapped at Danny. "Leave the room! How dare you talk like that before me-e-ee!"

Danny made a step and paused irresolutely. He was sober enough to feel the humiliation of his position, and having once been a man of spirit, and having still the remnants of manhood about him, he did feel it. He gave one pitiful, appealing look at her face, but saw no mercy there. She stamped her foot again, jabbed her forefinger at the door, and said, "Go-o-o!" in a tone that startled the majority of the company nearly as much as it did Danny. Then Yankee Jack threw down his cards, rose from the table, laid his strong, shapely right hand-not roughly-on Danny's ragged shoulder, and engineered the drunk gently through the door.

"You'd better go out for a while, Danny," he said; "there wasn't much harm in what you said, but your cheque's gone, and that makes all the difference. It's time you went back to the station. You've got to be careful what you say now."

When Jack returned to the parlour the barmaid had a smile for him; but he didn't take it. He went and stood before the fire, with his foot resting on the fender and his elbow on the mantelshelf, and looked blackly at a print against the wall before his face.

"The old beast!" said Alice, referring to Danny. "He ought to be kicked off the place!"

"He's as good as you!"

The voice was Jack's; he flung the stab over his shoulder, and with it a look that carried all the contempt he felt.

She gasped, looked blankly from face to face, and witheringly at the back of Jack's head; but that didn't change colour or curl the least trifle less closely.

"Did you hear that?" she cried, appealing to anyone. "You're a nice lot o' men, you are, to sit there and hear a woman insulted, and not one of you man enough to take her part-cowards!"

The Sydney jackeroo rose impulsively, but Jack glanced at him, and he sat down again. She covered her face with her hands and ran hysterically to her room.

That afternoon another bushman arrived with a cheque, and shouted five times running at a pound a shout, and at intervals during the rest of the day when they weren't fighting or gambling.

Alice had "got over her temper" seemingly, and was even kind to the humble and contrite Danny, who became painfully particular with his "Thanky, Alice"-and afterwards offensive with his unnecessarily frequent threats to smash the first man who insulted her.

But let us draw the curtain close before that Sunday afternoon at Stiffner's, and hold it tight. Behind it the great curse of the West is in evidence, the chief trouble of unionism-drink, in its most selfish, barren, and useless form.