Arthur Upfield - No footprints in the bush

“Is this car only a seven horse-power machine?”

Now Flora bit her lip and sent the needle to the fiftymark on the dial. The condition of the road made such speed positively dangerous.

“Ah, that’s better,” Bony cried. “The air at this speed is pleasantly cool. It is going to be a nasty day tomorrow, I fear. Dust and heat and sticky flies.”

The sun had set. The shadows were barely distinguishable. The glory of the sky coloured the world, painting the leaves of the bushes with purple and the trunks of the trees with indigo blue, filling the dells between the ridges of wind-driven sand with quicksilver. The scrub passed by and they emerged into that strange country of sand pillars crowned with living grass. The telephone poles came from the east to cross this country in company with the road.

The men saw the sagging wire between two poles standing at either side of the track. At the lowest part it was a bare two feet above ground, but as the road passed near the right of the two poles the wire was not a danger. Flora stopped the machine.

“Please, all ofyou, stay here,” commanded Bony.

He got out, flashed a meaning glance at Burning Water. Flora turned in her seat to watch him. Burning Water appeared restless. Itcheroo seemed intensely interested. They saw Bony walking to the lowest extremity of the sagging wire. They saw him examine the knot joining the evident break. They watched him trotting over the uneven ground, his head thrust forward. He stopped once to pick up something and examine his find before thrusting it into a pocket. Presently he returned to the car, and Flora searched his face for news. All he said was:

“Kindly drive fast to Watson’s Bore.”

“On the Evidence”

THE headlights illuminated the winding, uneven track, pencilling sharply the twin depressions made by car and truck wheels and along which Flora McPherson drove the single-seater. The lights merged into a searchlight sweeping from side to side. Grey, formless things became stark tree trunks: formless mounds became carved white sentinels, the old-man saltbush; declivities in the road became chasms waiting to engulf the car until at the last moment when their promise of destruction was changed into gentle invitation to follow the road.

Flora had been driving for twenty minutes in a silence and now she asked, imploringly:

“Well, what did you see? What did you find?”

“I read only the first chapters of a first-class story,” he told her. “Believe me, I have no wish to appear to be mysterious, but I would like to read further, another instalment, before telling you the story up to a point which could be said to conclude Book One. How many books there are going to be written before the story ends I am unable to state, even toguess. ”

“I am very curious-and anxious,” Flora said.

“Of course! I can understand that,” he said, quickly. “I will tell you one thing now, and you must be satisfied with it. Your uncle drove from Watson’s bore to where we stopped the car just now. He was there some time, probably mending the wire break, and then he turned his car and drove like we are now doing towards Watson’s Bore. It is not unlikely that he will be there when we arrive.”

They talked of other matters, disjointedly and spaced by periods of silence, for something like an hour when Flora said she thought they were approaching the hut at Watson’s Bore. Then they appeared to be crossing a vast desert, and a moment later the beam of the headlamps angled downward to reveal a belt of scrub waiting to accept the car.

The bush rushed to meet them, and passed on either side like white water passing a ship. It vanished, and again it seemed that they were crossing a stony desert which actually was plain country studded with annual saltbush. The air was cool but not cold. The stars were unwinking and yet sleepy. Quite abruptly before them was the ghostly hut silhouetted against black velvet.

No light gleamed through the single window. No spiralling smoke rose from the round iron chimney. No dogs barked a welcome. No one came from the doorway to shout a cheery “good night” when the girl braked the car to a gentle stop.

Bony called:

“Hullo, there! Any one at home?”

His reward was the friendly mewing of a cat, and the cat stalked with erect tail into the lamps’ pathway.

“They’ve all gone away,” said Flora.

“Every one is out, evidently,” agreed Bony. “They haven’t long been gone, however, for the cat is neither hungry nor thirsty and looks well fed and contented. Burning Water! Go into the hut, please, and light the slush-lamps. Itcheroo-stay where you are.”

They saw Burning Water’s tall body outlined in the door frame when he struck a match before entering. They saw him pass inside, and then interior light was born and grew to become strong as he applied fire to the fat-lamps.

“Itcheroo! Go now into the hut,” ordered Bony.

“You sounded severe when you spoke to Itcheroo,” Flora commented.

“Possibly. My impression of Itcheroo is not good. Ah! is that not the front of a car peeping from round the corner of the hut?”

“I don’t know. It may be. Your eyes are sharp, Bony. Let’s see.”

He was round to her side of the single-seater before she could open the door, and although self-dependent and liking independence, his gallantry pleased her. Together they walked to the hut corner.

“It’s uncle’s car all right.”

Bony halted to look swiftly over its outlines and its position.

“Deliberately parked here without doubt,” he said. “I’ll examine it more closely later. Let us go inside.”

They found Burning Water standing with his back to the large open fireplace. Itcheroo was sitting on an up-ended petrol case. The place shouted a hasty departure, for on the table were ration bags and tinned jam, packets of matches and even plugs of tobacco. Sugar was spilled and mixed with spilled tea. There was a wash basin containing traces of a dark green paste. Strips of unbleached calico lay on the floor, here and there on floor, table and forms were lengths of white thread some still passed through the eyes of needles.

“Sit down, please, for a moment, Miss McPherson,” requested Bony.

She and the two aborigines watched him as though he were a conjurer about to exhibit a trick. With a boot toe he kicked at the blankets left in a mound on the floor. He picked up a card-board carton and saw that it had contained one hundred soft-nosed, steel-jacketed bullets used in high-powered rifles. From the edges of the mound of still hot ashes in the fireplace he found pieces of three similar cartons and charred portions of the black oiled paper used in the interior wrapping. Lastly he picked up the basin containing the residue the dark-green paste which he touched and sniffed.

“I will not keep you long,” he said, and passed outside where he remained for nearly ten minutes. On returning he sat down beside the girl and began rolling a cigarette.

“I hardly like to offer you one of my own made cigarettes, Miss McPherson,” he said, calmly, giving no indication of what he had found or seen or done outside. “Would you like to try to make one for yourself?”

“No thanks. I don’t want to smoke now. What have you-”

She felt his boot toe press gently on her foot and stopped what she was going to say. Just beyond the far side of the table sat Itcheroo, his eyes black discs encircled with white. Burning Water was about to speak when Bony cut in.

“You were camped here when the two stockmen were killed and the cattle stolen, eh Itcheroo?”

“No fear, boss,” asserted Itcheroo, vigorously. “That time I camped back at station feller homestead.”