Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

“Have you been doing station work ever since you left the university, Bony?” she asked softly.

“Mostly station work, yes,” he replied, turning. “You see, had I been a half-caste Chinaman, or a half-caste anything else, I should not have felt the call of the bush as I did and do. A lot of white people, even in the Australian cities, know very little about the Australian native, and nothing whatever of the cause of his being the happy nomad that he is. White people, some of whom are quite intelligent, imagine it to be possible to throw the mantle of the white man’s civilization about a native or a half-native and keep it there. I have never known a half-caste, even with the educational attainments I possess, remain all his life in a city among white people.”

“Nor I either, Bony.”

“From the mission where I was reared I graduated to a high school and from there to the university. Mastering the arts and sciences came to me with extraordinary ease. Many people who knew me foretold for me a brilliant future. ‘Observe the white man’s culture in Bony,’ they said. For a little while I believed them, and then one day I began to want something that I couldn’t define or name. You yourself, having been born in the bush, might be able to name my want.”

“Well, it is hard to describe it, Bony, unless we name it the Call of the Bush. I have felt that call when I was at college and during the time I was in England with Dad.”

“That is it, Miss Stanton. You were born in the bush, and have felt the call. How much more plainly must I have heard that call with the blood of countless nomadic ancestors in my veins! I left Sydney when I was twenty-two and went back to North Queensland, where I first saw the light. And my body craved for complete freedom from the white man’s clothes. I wanted to goahunting as my mother’s father had hunted, and I wanted to eat flesh, raw flesh, and feast on tree grubs, and then lie down in the shade and go to sleep, fed full and feeling the wind play over my naked skin.

“That is what I wanted to do; but reason, the trained white man’s reason in me, caused me to behave a little less primitively, and in the end the white and the black blood in me called a truce; and behold the result to-day-Bony!

“I have worked on stations. I have taught children their ‘three R’s’. I go to Sydney to study psychology occasionally, and to Brisbane to supervise the education of my three children. Marie, my wife, also a half-caste, stays there because of them, but neither she nor my children normyself can resist the call of the bush. You understand and sympathize; but how can the white fool understand who has never been farther than a few miles from a city? It is like caging a full-grown galah and expecting it to be happy.”

“And are you happy?”

“Quite, although for many years I was very unhappy. Now I have come to balance accurately the white man’s impulses against those of the black man.”

“Tell me about your wife and children,” she said. He did so, the while making a bread-pudding for the men. He told her of his firstborn, who was following so decidedly in his footsteps, of Bob being tortured by the call of the bush, and of baby Ed, who was adventuring to his first school. He watched the changing expressions on her face and glimpsed the purity of her in her eyes, and he came to know that in spite of the ring she wore she knew nothing of what lay behind the blackfellow’s sign of the sheep’s leg and the sticks fashioned as a fan. To know that was why he had conducted their conversation as he had done. In the art of guiding conversation, and establishing scientific conclusions from it, Bony had few, if any, superiors.

He was, however, in several respects not unlike the great man whose names he bore. In conducting a case he knew how to make his depositions, and when and how to force his opponents into inextricable situations. Within rigid bounds he was unscrupulous. If he wanted an object as proof of a contention, and that object was in the pocket of another person, he would not hesitate to obtain it through sleight of hand with a dexterity that many expert pickpockets would have envied. Nor would he scruple to employ the gentle art of “pumping” to extract information from unsuspicious people. He proceeded to “pump” Marion.

“The bush always had a very strange fascination for me,” he remarked in his gentle way. “Birds and insects and animals always interest me. The honey ants, those peculiar ants who live in a tiny cavern deep in the earth, and are fed with honey by the other ants until they become so full they are unable to move; and the black ants, who heat small stones by laying them in the sun to take down to keep their eggs warm. I know a man who, watching a nest of thoseants, actually saw one bring up a tiny nugget of gold. The nugget had dropped off someone’s watch-chain, for it was quite evident that it had had a fastener of some sort.”

“How strange!”Marionsaid, her face alive with interest. “It reminds me of the sapphire I lost from this ring months ago. I lost it, however, in the house somewhere, so the ants hadn’t a chance. I am positive about that, because all the stones were in my ring when I had breakfast one morning, and I hadn’t been out of the house when I missed it.”

“That was very unfortunate.” Bony was watching her.

“Indeed, yes. The ring was my mother’s engagement ring, and she willed it to me before she died. I was obliged to send it to Adelaide to get the stone replaced.”

“Perhaps I may be able to track it.” Bony smiled. “They say I am rather good at tracking. Once in Queensland I tracked a lost man when the aboriginals gave it up.”

“Indeed! That’s another thing you can do! It is a pity you weren’t here a month or two back. There was a man lost not two miles from here. I expect you’ve heard all about that?”

“Yes. The affair appears most peculiar.”

“It was. All the men and even Dad and I, rode out day after day and never found a trace of him. No one ever saw him after he left the house, having taken lunch with us. Dot and Dash were kangarooing in the next paddock south, and never came across his tracks. Of course, it was some time after he went away that his car was found and the search was made.”

“Were there no trackers among the blacks here?” inquired Bony innocently.

“Yes. There were Ludbi and old Moongalliti, and the day we took them to the car you would think they couldn’t track a horse after rain. They were almost useless. Said too many days past when Marks walked away from the car.”

“Very sad. Most sad. I suppose Mr Marks was a friend of your family?”

“Oh, no. Dad had had some business with him years ago, and he called on Dad to persuade him to make some investment or other. If he had been a friend it would have been dreadful… Why, just look at the time! I’ve been here an hour. You are to be complimented, Bony.”

“And you, madam, to be heartily thanked.”

Marion rose, but at the door paused to say:

“Do you think I could ride Grey Cloud this evening?”

“Decidedly, but permit someone to ride with you until Grey Cloud has proved himself.”

“Thank you! I will.” Marion smiled and was gone.

Bony Goes Courting

A CONVERSATION conducted by Bony was seldom without result to him. The conversation he had had with Marion pleased him immensely.

There was certainly a good deal of the mystic in Bony, although he seldom admitted it. Of all the great world religions he was sceptical, but where several religions agreed he agreed also. Which is to say he believed in the fundamental existence of God. Of all things spiritually beautiful Bony was a worshipper. A beautiful view, a glorious sunset, and a lovely woman-not necessarily a beautifully featured woman-always won homage from him. Seeing and sensing the spiritual beauty of Marion Stanton, the soul of this strange man thrilled, and he was made positively happy to be once and for all convinced that she had nothing whatever to do with the disappearance of Marks.