Arthur Upfield: Sands of Windee

Four remaining men were given their orders for the day, and although the work set them, as well as the others, would be done easily by two o’clock, they would not dream of asking for fresh orders, since Stanton never gave orders twice on the same day. For perhaps nine months in the year the average daily hours of labour would not exceed six, but during the remaining three they might well average fifteen. Lamb-marking and sheep-shearing are busy seasons. Fires and floods call for incessant labour, and that labour is cheerfully given on the old principle of give and take.

Half-way back to the “Government House”-so-called because a great station is governed from a squatter’s home-Mr Stanton met Bony.

“Are you Mr Stanton?” asked the disguised detective.

“I am sometimes. The last time I was called ‘Mister’ Stanton was by a stranger two months ago. My name is Jeff Stanton. Up here we are out of the Mister Country.”

Bony’s face remained immobile. Stanton’s grey eyes examined him keenly from head to foot. Bony said:

“I’m looking for work. Is there any chance of a job?”

“Work!”Stanton suddenly roared, the blood surging up behind the mahogany tint of his skin. “I lay awake half the night thinking out what in hell I’ll give my men to do the next day, and you want to keep me awake another half-hour! Things are bad.” His voice rose. “What with the politicians and the taxes and the price of wool, I’m that close to the rocks that a cat’s hairain’t separating us. What can you do?”

The question was shot suddenly at Bony, who, had he not been prepared by Sergeant Morris, might excusably have been stunned. Entirely respectful, yet inwardly at ease, he replied, “I can paint, drive a truck, put up a fence, and break-in horses.”

“Ho! Break-in horses!” Stanton almost snarled. “I never met a nigger yet who could break-in a horse properly. Youmesmerizes ’em, and cows ’em, and damns ’em. Anyway, I don’t like your looks. I never did like niggers. You’re-”

“That’s enough!” Bony cut in with assumed anger but secret amusement. “I’m no nigger, and you look like a half-caste Chinaman. Only for your age I’d knock you rotten. Don’t think that because you got a few million pounds you can blackguard me. You may think you’re Lord Jeffrey, but I’ll show you-”

Stanton suddenly threw back his whitened head and roared with laughter. The metamorphosis was astounding-so astounding as to make credible his next words, uttered in clapping Bony on the back: “You’ll do! I’ve got some horses I want broke in, and I’ll give you four pounds a head and tucker. Don’t mind me! You see, I only employ men with guts in ’em. I can’t stand the mistering, hat-raising sort. They get my goat with their bowing and scraping, and when they’re sent out to look over sheep they tie their horses to a tree and go to sleep till it’s time to come home again.”

Over the ruddy features of the half-caste slowly broke his wonderful understanding smile, and from then on the two men, so far apart in birth, brains, and wealth, were attracted to each other. Stanton, rough, clear-sighted, and inclined to call a spade a ruddy spade, glimpsed behind Bony’s blue eyes a personality wholly sympathetic and staunch. In Stanton Bony saw a real specimen of the original conquering, pioneering British race.

“When can I start?” he asked.

“Well, I’ll have to get them horses in and drafted,” Stanton answered, suddenly thoughtful. “That’ll take a couple of days. Let me think. Ah, yes! Tomorrow the rabbit-inspector is due to arrive. In the horse-yards is a light-draft gelding with white forefeet. Harness him to one of the poison-carts in the shed and run it all around. Must make out we’re doing something.” He nodded and passed on.

Bony, chuckling, went over to the horse-yards, cut out the gelding, harnessed him, and took him over to the shed. He had no difficulty in finding the poison-carts. They were light two-wheeled affairs, carrying an iron cylinder to hold the poisoned pollard when it was churned up into small pills and carried by a pipe down to a position behind a disk-wheel and dropped into the furrow the wheel made.

Bony found the pollard in a barrel, and he also found another barrel full of water in which the cakes of phosphorus were kept. There was, however, only a very small piece of phosphorus remaining. It floated on the surface of the water, dirty white in colour, and as soon as he lifted it clear it began to smoke. Obviously it was insufficient to make even onecylinderful of baits.

Unable to discover any further supply of the poison, Bony, calculating that Mr Stanton would have had time to breakfast, sauntered over to the office building adjoining the house. Within he found his new employer.

“We want more phosphorus, Jeff,” he drawled. “There’s only about a quarter ounce left in the barrel.”

“Phosphorus? What do you want phosphorus for?” Stanton demanded.

“Want it for the poison-cart,” explained Bony patiently.

“You don’t want to worry about poison,”came the roared injunction. “All you got to do is to drive the cart about the homestead, so that when the inspectorcomes to-morrow he’ll see plenty of furrow-marks.”

“But the law-”

“Lawbe hanged! I won’t poison rabbits and have my horses and cattle poisoned by chewing the bones. ’Sides, I can’t afford poison, and it isn’t necessary. You drive the blamed cart, and leave the inspector to me.”

There was a suspicion of a twinkle in the grey eyes, which was reflected in the blue eyes of the half-caste. He went out and drove the empty poison-cart about until five o’clock, and at eleven next morning he saw the rabbit-inspector arrive, and was near enough to hear and see Mr Stanton shake hands with him and invite him into the office for a drink before lunch.

The Ants’ Nest

THE SUNDAY following Bony’s arrival at Windee gave him his first chance to examine the place where the abandoned motorcar belonging to the man calling himself Marks was discovered. Careful to avoid observation, he slipped away after the midday meal and arrived at the junction of the two roads. Under his arm were two strips of sheepskin roughly fashioned as sandals, the wool on theoutside. Before leaving the comparatively hard road he put the sheepskin sandalson, and, walking off the track on to the loose sand, observed with satisfaction that the marks he left were very faint, and would be obliterated by the first puff of wind. His feet left no defined footprints, nothing but a faint pattern of minute curves and circles. Even while he stood looking on the first half-dozen marks, the soft south wind wiped them out, whereas marks of his boots or even his naked feet would have remained for days with the wind at its present softness.

Thenceforth he moved about freely, knowing full well that no white man would ever espy his tracks, and knowing, too, that no aboriginal would brave the spirits of the place where, according to the death-sign, violence had been done. In the art of tracking Bony had no equal, and that had led him to become no less expert at covering his own tracks.

The place where Marks’s car had been discovered he found without difficulty. There was, however, no faintest indication of wheel-tracks. Standing approximately where the car stood in relation to the black’s sign, Bony traced the probable path it had taken when it left the road, and made out the sand ridge which had stopped it. The ridge was not two feet high, and ran due north and south. The wind had shaped it into perfect symmetry. Its northern end was lost amidst a wilderness of sand-hummocks, and its southern end rested against a much higher ridge of sand running due east and west. On the west side of the low ridge which had stopped the car the sand was ankle-deep and fine, but east of it lay a strip of ground three to four yards wide, hard as cement, and known as clay-pan, which ran the length of the low ridge. The car had crossed the clay-pan, and when it stopped its rear wheels would still have rested on it.