Arthur Upfield - The Barrakee Mystery

Bony’s headquarters had written to say that the imprint he had made of Martha’s boot did not correspond in important details with the one upon the slab of clay he had dug out of the ground near the garden gate. A simple yet effective plan was then carried out, with the cooperation of John Thornton, to obtain thebootprints of Clair.

A pretext was found to get Clair away from the Basin one morning. Ralph had been directed to call for him with the light truck, and to take the gaunt man to another part of the run to help repair a windmill. An hour after the two had left the Basin, the squatter and Bony arrived there, and the latter took plaster impressions of several of Clair’s tracks.

April continued dry, brilliant, and warm, and ended in a burst of unusual heat. At ten o’clock on the morning of the last day the sun was powerful in spite of its growing swing to the north.

That really hot morning of the last day of April saw Ralph and Kate Flinders riding in what was known as the North Paddock. The young man had been ordered to ride the thirty-odd miles of fence which formed its boundary, and turn in from it any sheep that might be ‘hanging on it’-a sheepman’s phrase meaning sheep that are hugging the fence instead of moving towards the great water-tank in the centre of the paddock.

Kate having elected to accompany him, much to his delight, Ralph had supervised the placing of her light lunch in the saddlebag and, in addition, the strapping of a quart pot to her saddle. The two were young, light-hearted, and rode mettlesome hacks that would prefer a galloping race to alternate walking and cantering.

They were cantering across a wide flat side by side, when suddenly the young man pulled up and went back a dozen yards, his eyes searching the ground. When the girl turned, Ralph was off his horse and walking in small circles with the earnest downward scrutiny of a Scotsman looking for a lost sixpence. Dismounting also, Kate joined her companion in searching for tracks.

“There’s nothing here, Ralph,” she said presently. “What did you think you saw?”

“I didn’t ‘think’ I saw anything, Katie,” he told her, still moving in circles, his horse’s reins over his arm. “No, I didn’t ‘think’ anything. Here, quite plainly, we have the tracks of three ewes and two lambs. Do you see them?”

“I see sheep-tracks,” was her reply.

“Yes, and they are travelling our way along the fence, and they are not walking. In fact, Katie, they are being chased by a dingo.”

“A dingo! Are you sure?”

“Quite. Here and there are his tracks. We’ll follow them for a while. They are quite fresh.”

Copying him, she mounted her horse and followed justbehind, watching with a curious sense ofproprietorial pride the way he unerringly rode his horse over the tracks. Only occasionally did she see a sheep-track on the hard ground of the flat, never once that of the dog.

Across the flat they came to a line of low sand-hills, and here she saw distinctly the tracks of three sheep and two lambs, as well as those of the pursuing dog. But her knowledge of tracks did not indicate to her which way the sheep were travelling, how many there were of them, and if they were walking or running.

Once off the sand-hills, the tracks on the hard surface were again invisible to her, but Ralph led the way, twisting first to the left and then again to the right close to the five-wire fence. In and out of timber belts, across another flat, and to yet another line of low sand-hills Ralph urged his horse, never once removing his gaze from the ground a yard or two beyond his animal’s head. And on the summit of the sand-hills, he yelled: “Come on, Kate!” Seeing his horse leap into a gallop, her own mount was eager to follow. The wind whistled in her ears and the pace became hard. Beyond the figure of her companion, a quarter of a mile distant, she saw the white mass of a dead sheep, saw beside it the red tawny shape of a wild dog. The dog, seeing them, stared at their oncoming rush for some six seconds, and then, turning, became a red streak flying northward, parallel with the fence.

The horses were wild for a gallop. Seeing the fleeing dog in the lead, the excitement of the chase gripped them no less than it did their riders.

Through the fence was the dog’s one salvation, but it did not realize it. At first increasing the distance between itself and its pursuers in a tremendous burst of speed, the horses’ greater stamina soon outstayed the increase and, for some two miles, dog and horses kept their relative positions. But the speed of both horses and dog began rapidly to lessen.

Immediately the dog showed signs of fatigue, Ralph gently pulled back his horse whilst keeping close to the fence, with the purpose of edging the dog away from it. Once it got beyond the fence it would have won the race, for the fence would have balked the riders, who were not mad enough to put untrained mounts at it.

Slowly but inevitably they drew near the sheep murderer, who led them across flat and sand-hill, and through belts and clumps of dense mulga. Quite suddenly the dog turned to the left, running along a narrow margin of clay-pan between flat and sand-hill.

When the dog turned, Kate immediately did likewise, but Ralph took a greater curve, bringing their positions relatively parallel, then about four hundred yards behind the quickly-tiring dog.

Sometimes it looked back at them, ears flattened, tongue lolling and dripping foam. Every hundred yards now its speed slackened, and slowly Ralph reined back his mount to an easy canter. There was plenty of time, the dog was well away from the fence, and two riders were behind him wide apart and able to head him off the fence, should he turn that way. There was nothing that could save the dog from imminent vengeance.

From a long lope the dog’s gait dropped into a laboured trot. The tender flesh between the cushions of its foot-pads was full of torturing burrs, and with a pitiful whimper it essayed to sit for a moment to extract them with its teeth.

But Ralph was upon him, and with a fresh burst of speed the wild dog increased its lead. Keeping his horse to its easy canter, all his actions closely followed by the girl, the young man pressed forward and, when he saw that the dog was almost done, he unbuckled his right stirrup-leather and, drawing it out of the saddle, gathered buckle and end together and swung the stirrup-iron like a sling in a circular motion, the iron forming a ring of burnished light.

The wild dog was now done up. Kate’s heart was sick with pity for its condition, but Ralph’s eyes were blazing with hate, his mind being filled with the picture of the torn, dead sheep.

Then followed a spell of sharp dodging, the dog allowing the rider to keep constantly at its heels. Dog and horse whirled and doubled back, circled and angled for half an hour. Never for a moment could the dog shake off Nemesis. Every second its actions were slower.

Finally it stopped suddenly and, whirling round, snapped at Ralph’s horse’s forefeet. The stirrup-iron was still whirling in its gleaming circle. The dog, seeing it, became fascinated. Kate closed her eyes, but those of the dog remained fixed on the revolving steel.

When the girl looked again, the dog was dead, and Ralph was dismounting. His face was red with excitement and his horse’s head was lowered, its sides heaving from the fatigue of the race. Kate slipped to the ground beside her companion.

“It’s a big brute, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed. “It’s the ‘Killer’.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

The dog’s depredations had become serious. For several years it had killed sheep after sheep, and all the efforts of thedoggers to trap it had been in vain. The Pastoral Protection Board paid two pounds for every dog’s scalp, and as a further incentive John Thornton had offered a reward of thirty pounds for the capture of this particular dog. It was estimated that the “Killer” had murdered quite half a thousand sheep during the six years of its activities on the Barrakee run.