Arthur Upfield - Winds of Evil

For a further half-hour he tossed the light filigree straw balls over the netted fence, so that the next of the prevailing westerly winds would roll them across the track and away to the east.

It was five o’clock when he shouldered the fork, unhooked the water-bag from the fence, and began his return to the homestead. Along the creek road, plainly to beseen, were the fresh imprints of the camels’ feet. Here and there was a solitary imprint of a boot; here and there but a portion of a boot mark. The camels following after the man, almost but not quite, had blotted out his tracks.

Eventually Bony rounded the creek-bend, the bordering track now running to the south-west to Junction Waterhole. On the left of the track grew the line of box-trees, and between their trunks the detective could see, across the flat, the timber bordering Thunder Creek drawing nearer as he proceeded. On the right of the track, two hundred yards round the bend, there grew out on the bluebush plain a thriving leopardwood-tree, in the vivid branches of which a party of crows vociferously quarrelled.

On reaching an imaginary line to be drawn from the leopardwood to the nearest creek box-tree, Bony saw that Dreyton’s camels had been halted for some time. Now there was no necessity for the fence-rider to halt at this place, for he no longer was patrolling his section. Bony’s mind at once sought for an explanation. Without the smallest difficulty he saw Dreyton’s boot-tracks walk off the track to the creek box-tree, and, on following them, he saw where they circled the trunk. He was further astonished to discover marks on the tree-trunk, clearly indicating that Dreyton had climbed it.

Why? Bushmen do not climb trees for exercise or the fun of it. Dreyton was on his way to the homestead after a tiring day, and there must, in consequence, have been something up in this tree to successfully entice him to climb it.

Bony climbed the tree, too. He climbed high to the point reached by the fence-rider.

Later, when he continued the walk to the homestead, he wondered much about Dreyton, and if his climb had had anything to do with the crows quarrelling in the leopard-wood-tree.

Dreyton Refuses Promotion

THE FIRST TO be seen of the Wirragatta homestead by anyone following the creek track from the Broken Hill road were the stockyards; and then, as he swung round a sharp bend in what had become the Wirragatta River, there came into view the trade shops, the men’s quarters, then the office-store building, and finally the large bungalow surrounded by orange-trees, which in turn were confined by a white-painted wicket fence.

To Donald Dreyton it was like coming to a palm-fringed oasis after a wearying journey over the desert. It was not quite five o’clock and work for the day had not stopped. The clanging of the blacksmith’s hammer on iron, the methodical clanking of the two windmills raising water to the tanks set on high staging, and the voices of the birds ever to be found in the vicinity of a dwelling, all combined to give him a feeling of prospective peace and content.

Some distance from the men’s quarters, which had first to be passed by anyone wishing to visit, Dreyton turned off the track to follow a pad leading down and across the dry bed of the river and skirting the top end of a beautiful lagoon beside which the homestead was built. On the river’s far side stood a small hut given entirely to the use of the two fence-riders.

The camels having been put into their especially fenced paddock, his gear carried into the hut, and he himself shaved and bathed and arrayed in white shirt and gabardine slacks with tennis shoes on his feet. Dreyton again crossed the river and sauntered to the office. The westering sun was gilding the tops of the gums and slanting between them to lay bars of gold on the surface of the waterhole about which the galahs and cockatoos created constant din. The homestead, being built on a shelf below the level of the bluebush plain, the township of Carie could not be seen. In its direction the cawing of innumerable crows indicated that the cowboy was at work killing mutton sheep.

Within the office Martin Borradale and Allen, the book-keeper, were at work before their respective tables, and at Dreyton’s entry the squatter glanced up sharply. An expression of slight worry gave quick place to a smile of welcome.

“Hullo, Donald! In again?”

“Yes, Mr. Borradale. I see that I have a day’s work along the Broken Hill road assisting that new man.”

“You need not trouble about that. He can finish it. How are things outback?”

“All right. I did another two strains of footing over the Channels. Might I suggest that when the bullock-wagon goes out again it takes a dozen rolls of netting and drops them at the Fifty-mile gate? I could get them from there to where the netting is wanted.”

“Yes, certainly,” Borradale instantly agreed. “The bullocky will be taking a load of rations outback next week.” He paused and tapped the table with a pencil end. Dreyton waited. Then: “I think I’ll send a couple of men and a horse-dray out there to do that footing. It will take you too long to complete it. Any rabbits along that section?”

“None. But I understand they are numerous less than thirty miles to the north-west.”

“That’s so. Yes, I’ll send men and a dray to do the work. Hear about Mabel Storrie?”

“Yes. Pretty filthy, isn’t it? How is she now?”

“Very bad, I hear. She was taken home this morning. Not only was she half-strangled, she was knocked about, too. Every one, of course, has the wind up.”

“Naturally. That new man-Fisher, he said his name is-seems to think that the girl regained consciousness on the road and then, dazed, walked away and tripped over a surface root at the place where she was found. Her head injuries, according to Fisher, were caused by that tree-root and not by the Strangler.”

“Is that so?” Borradale sighed, then fell to staring at the fence-rider.

“A strange fellow, Joe Fisher,” Dreyton said with conviction. “Is he a half-caste?”

“Yes. As you say, he is a remarkable fellow. He was camped at Catfish Hole the night Mabel Storrie was attacked, and he happened to be here when Lee called the next afternoon. Lee and I had him in. He argued like a lawyer and proved that he could not possibly have committed the crime.”

Dreyton smiled.

“He should have been a detective,” he said. “He’s wasting his time as a station rouseabout. Seems quite well educated. Are all half-castes like him?”

“Hardly,” dryly replied Martin. “The fellow evidently has had a good schooling. What aboutyour coming back into the office?”

The fence-rider’s eyelids drooped before he glanced at the book-keeper. Martin went on:

“Allen wants to leave as soon as possible, because his mother is ill in Adelaide. I thought of you at once. You must be getting sick of the fence by now.”

“That I am not, Mr. Borradale,” Dreyton admitted smilingly. “Still, if Mr. Allen wishes to leave immediately, I will take over.”

“You will? Good man!”

Again the fence-rider flashed his quiet smile.

“On one condition,” he stipulated.

“And that is?”

“That you really will try to get another book-keeper without delay. Honestly, I am far happier on the fence than I was when anchored to this office.”

The quick gratification in Martin’s face subsided.

“Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll do my best. You’re a strange fellow yourself to prefer that hard life on the fence.”

“It is not so hard. You try it.”

“Not I.” Martin swung round to face the book-keeper. “When do you want to go, Allen? By tomorrow’s coach?”

“Yes… if possible, Mr. Borradale. My mother’s condition is worrying me.”