Arthur Upfield - Sands of Windee

“One day, Fred and I came home from mustering sheep and found five horses tethered outside the garden gate. As we rode up a policeman came out, and I knew I was done. But, instead of arresting me, he greeted us affably, and said he hoped my pal wouldn’t mind him and his mates having a snack, because the lad had been insistent. In the kitchen we found Rosie feeding four more troopers. She had on her old felt hat, and there were smears of soot all down one side of her face. The girl had deliberately done what she could to further her disguise. She was a peculiar girl.

“After that she seemed to hate me less and love me more. You see, she always had loved me, but she was influenced against her will by her people into marrying Thomas. Still, for all that, I no longer loved her. I smarted too much beneath the lash of ridicule, and my stupid pride was seared and burned.

“A baby was born, and I was doctor and nurse, because I was afraid to send her to Wilcannia. The baby only lived a week, and that I believe brought about the climax. Had the child lived, I would have stuck to Rosie through thick and thin. It affected her in that she suddenly took to complaining about everything and everlastingly nagging. One can stand most things, bar a nagging woman. Fred got tired of it. Short of gagging her there was no stopping her. She sort of let herself go, only half-dressed, and some days wouldn’t even wash her hands. The baby dying must have done it. She swore I killed it. In the end I decided I had had enough. I thanked Fred for what he had done for me, and I had paid him by working for him almost twelve months for nothing. I took Rosie back to Louth, timing to get there about midnight, and outside the hotel I left her, having first knocked up the licensee.

“I never saw her again until the other day. The man Marks was her brother. She found out about me years ago, seeing my photo in an illustrated paper. The brother was something of a blackguard even to his mother, and during a weak or drunken moment Rose Thomas told him of her abduction and all about me.

“Strangely enough, she had no desire to force herself upon me or seek revenge. She prospered in Sydney, but the brother saw a way to blackmail me, and he did so for nine years. When he last left Sydney he intended to clear out of the country, and called on me to make a final and big demand for money… Not hearing from him, his sister thought he had left Australia, and did not know until just recently that his assumed name was Marks.

“Now she is accusing me of having killed him. She said that for having killed him-of which, of course, she has no proof-she intends to force me to marry her and to disown you and your brother. If I refuse and have made no definite arrangements for the marriage by New Year’s Day, she intends to expose me as the abductor of the ‘Stolen Bride’.”

The even voice suddenly ceased. Marion continued to sit very still. When she spoke only her lips moved.

“Let her expose you, Dad, but marry her you shan’t!”

“I shall have to,” Stanton said wearily. “You see, before he died, my old friend, Fred, left a document, signed and witnessed, in which he describes helping me bury a dead baby. He did so apparently under duress himself, fearing exposure of his part. The woman’s brother told me that he had this paper. He showed me a copy of it, and it formed the basis of his power. Now Rose says that the copy was all he did have. She still has in her possession the original. If I don’t marry Rose Thomas I shall be cast down into the dust.”

Spring-Cleaning

NEARLY EIGHT HUNDRED rabbit-skins, each stretched over a U-shaped length of stiff fencing wire with the two points thrust into the loose sandy ground, represented the last catch at White Well secured by Dot and Dash.

The partners, having breakfasted late, since that morning there was no skinning to be done, proceeded to pack this last catch in the wool-bale that finally would contain three thousand skins. The four corners of the open bale were secured to stout posts five feet high, and into the bale, already three parts full of skins, climbed Dash, being a heavier man than his partner. Dot now deftly gathered up a dozen skins on the wire bows, with one movement pulled away the wires, and with another handed to Dash the stiff, board-hard pelts. Dash then proceeded to build up a corner within the wool-bale, and to stand on the skins in that corner whilst he built up another. Thus with this human press the bale, when at last it was sewn up, presented a solid mass weighing nearly two and a half hundredweight.

Four other full bales lay near the truck, and, since the price of skins that summer was good, Dot and Dash expected to clear a hundred and fifty pounds on their last consignment for the year.

It wanted an hour to noon when the partners sat down to a pint of tea and cigarettes, having completed the fifth bale and having loaded the five bales on the truck.

“I guess Iain’t looking forward with eagerness to shaving,” the little man observed ruefully, pushing his fingers through a flaming beard. “Ole Samsonmusta felt the heat some afore that tart shaved ’is ’air and ’is whiskers. Me, I’m fearful of catching a chill. Couldn’t we-wot about leaving ’emon?”

Dash frowned with mocking gravity. “When in Rome we must ape the Romans. Out here in our ‘vast open spaces’, surrounded by our inspiring ‘natural resources’, we may please ourselves whether we cut our hair or not. At Windee we find ourselves among civilized human beings, who do not grow red-hot whiskers. In about ten minutes you may have the pleasure of cutting my hair very carefully, and my beard closely and without care.”

“Wot about me?”

“I will render you a like service. It will be the last time we shall so serve each other.”

“Wa’-do’-mean?”

“Precisely what I say. I do not anticipate that ever again I shall grow such whiskers as I now sport.”

“Are yougonna hire avally?” gasped Dot, looking extremely hot, although he had discarded his undervest, the upper part of his powerful body being naked.

“Not in the immediate future. I am, however, earnestly hoping to get married.”

“Married!”

“Is the idea so preposterous?”

“Married!”Dot’s voice was a harsh screech. His expression was a combination of anguish and horror. “Youain’t serious, pardner?” he implored, almost in a whisper.

“Yes, Dot, I am.” The assumed grandiloquent manner fell from the Englishman. It was as though he discarded mask and cloak, and stood revealed in his true personality. Dot received yet a second shock. Dash went on. “In the old days a fellow by the name of Jacob worked for fourteen years for a girl named Rachel. The work he did during that time was identical with the work he had done all his life. Before I became your partner I was and lived as an English gentleman, an allowance made me by my father enabling me to live without having to work.

“Five years ago there came over my house a financial cloud, and in order that my father and my dear mother might continue to live in reasonable comfort, I surrendered to them four-fifths of my allowance, threw up my commission in the finest regiment on earth, and came to Windee as a jackeroo, as you know.

“At Windee I fell in love with a lady with whom you are acquainted. In spite of my poverty, I dared to tell her I loved her. Dot-she accepted me. My next step as a man of honour was to ask Old Jeff for his sanction. What do you think Old Jeff said?”

“Get to hellouter here!” Dot replied promptly.

“He was a little more ambiguous than that, but his meaning was the same,” Dash went on unsmilingly. “In his usual blunt fashion he told me he thought I was hunting his girl’s dollars. Since he was an old man I couldn’t hit him, and, besides, he was Marion’s father. I did tell him, though, that I was prepared for him to test me, and without hesitation he set the test.”