Arthur Upfield - The Barrakee Mystery

“Better sit down, old boy, or you’ll flop down.”

The trooper looked sideways at the owner of the drawling voice, and stared with dazed wonder right into the barrel of a revolver. Dugdale entered the hut. Again Flash Harry spoke, saying something about tea being made shortly.

“Oh!”

At the threshold Dugdale paused, taking in the scene with narrowed eyes and quickly taut muscles. The trooper was fascinated by the intimidating barrel, which never wavered. Flash Harry’s eyes gleamed beyond the small black circle, and in them the trooper saw deadly determination. The newcomer walked across to the fireplace which was behind Flash Harry.

“What’s the great scheme, Harry?” he asked.

“Oh, some feller rang up from Thurlow Lake giving orders that you were to be arrested,” Flash Harry replied evenly. “This is my hut, and there is no arrests going to be made inside it. It follows that, as I am king within these four walls, things go as I want ’emto go. Where are you heading for?”

“The river,” came from Dugdale, making tea in the now boiling billy. “That is, when I’ve had a drink of tea and a bite to eat. I’m dog tired.”

“Righto! Have a feed. The trooper an’me will give each other the glad eye.”

“Then you want to mind your step,” the uniformed man informed Flash Harry. As a policeman he was very much annoyed, but as a sportsman he was optimistic. “When my chance comes, as it will do, things will happen. They’ll happen all right in any case.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Flash Harry remarked calmly. “Somehow things are always happening to me. In my time I’ve whitewashed more jails than I have fingers and toes. In fact, me and Blair are tradesmen.”

“Are your horses in the night paddock?” Dugdale asked.

“Yaas, Mister Dugdale. You’ll have to run ’emin if you want a fresh hack. Better take ‘The Devil’-he’s lively, but he’s a great swimmer, and it’s a lot o’ swimming you’ll have to do if you want to get to the ‘Gutter’.”

“Why, is the flood down the Washaways already?”

“If the water rises another foot, orl them creeks will become a single river. Me and the trooper are going to bet a level pound that both you and The Devil gitsdrownded: at least, I’m going to bet you do, and he is going to bet you don’t.”

“I’m not going to bet he doesn’t get drowned,” the trooper cut in emphatically. “I was down along the Washaways this morning, and they are not to be crossed without wings. You haven’t got a chance in the world, Dugdale, so you may as well tell this idiot to lower his fool gun and you come quietly with me. You’ll be making more rods for your back by carrying on.”

Dugdale sighed. He was cold, stiff, and weary. Whilst still determined to carry out Sinclair’s request, he was heartily sorry that he had ever undertaken it. It seemed preposterous that such a to-do should be made over his possession of a wallet explicitly confided to him by the dying Sinclair; but, having accepted the commission, he was not going to be daunted by the difficulties ahead of him, or the consequences of his defiance of the police.

Whilst he ate and drank, Flash Harry and the trooper maintained the tableau that might well have been labelled “Stalemate”. Never for an instant did either man’s eyes wander nor did the revolver waver. It was a pose trying enough for the stoutest nerves.

“I’ll be getting along, Harry,” Dugdale said at last. “I’m grateful for your assistance, which you might extend long enough for me to catch and saddle The Devil.”

“Well, don’t be too long,”came the drawling voice. “I always have one cigarette every half hour, and I’m sure our friend is dying for a draw, too. This ’ere act finishes directly you’re mounted, ’coswe must give the trooper a sporting chance. Now, about that there bet, it’s a level chance-”

Dugdale was compelled to smile on hearing the half sentence when crossing to the night paddock gate. Yet he wasted no time. Knowing that the paddock in area was only about three hundred acres, he started to cross it quickly with the intention of getting beyond the rider’s mounts and driving them into the catching yards. But luck favoured him for once. The two loose horses were not fifty yards beyond the hut, being attracted to that part of the paddock by the stranger horse ridden by the trooper.

The Devil was a gigantic black gelding, of uncertain temper but of unquestionable courage; and it was almost dark when Dugdale had him saddled and led him towards the hut door after allowing Tiger to go in search of grass.

Flash Harry was as good as his word. Immediately Dugdale was astride The Devil, his gun dropped and the trooper rushed out and dashed for his horse. Out upon the track the black stretched his glossy neck and laid himself out into a hard gallop.

It can be truthfully said that most men are but indifferentbushmen on a dark night. Some there are, however, who can ride a straight course home when caught out in their paddocks after daylight has gone; but one bushman here and there is no less efficient on the blackest night than under the brightest sun. Dugdale was one of these latter, and an added advantage to his keen night vision was absolute knowledge of every single acre of the Barrakee run.

Knowing that the Washaways wereaflood, he realized that the point of his attempted crossing would best be about a mile below the main track, where many of the interwoven creeks formed but three separate channels. The flood having risen to the level of the creek banks, there would be no possibility of fording them, and, whilst the width of the streams was no more than sixty yards, the danger would lie in even a good horse being unable to land on the precipitous banks.

He could hear the trooper’s horse thundering along behind him, and found that he could maintain the distance between them without allowing The Devil a slack rein. That was all to the good, because the fresher in wind and muscle The Devil was when they reached the creeks the greater the chances of safely crossing them.

Five miles along the track they came to a wire fence and a gate. Dugdale saw no necessity for putting his horse at either fence or gate, and, with a quiet smile, he dismounted and opened wide the two gates. He was through them and in his saddle when the trooper swept up.

“Now, Dugdale, stop the foolery and submit,” ordered the trooper, bringing out his heavy calibre revolver and kneeing his horse towards The Devil who, under pressure, sidled away.

“Be a sport, Smithy!” coaxed Dugdale. “I opened the gate for you, and I want to shut the gate because the sheep in the two paddocks will get boxed, and Mr Thornton has enough on his hands already without having to draft about nine thousand sheep. Let one of us dismount and shut the gates while the other stands by. Once both are mounted again we stand a level chance.”

“Darn it!” the trooper cried. Being a true sportsman he should never have been a policeman. It was he who dismounted and closed the gates, and not a second before he was comfortably in the saddle did Dugdale spurt The Devil into a lightning getaway. The trooper, however, was determined. He had his duty to perform, and his revolver cracked three times in rapid succession. The first bullet flicked The Devil along his rump; the second tore a strip of trousers and strip of skin across Dugdale’s body just above his belt. The owner of Eucla Station felt as though a crowbar had struck him; The Devil “went to market”.

He screamed and then squealed with pain and outraged dignity; he almost unseated the nauseated Dugdale in a series of evil bucks that so delayed progress that the trooper was almost upon them before Dugdale could master him.

At that point, but a quarter of a mile from the first creek, The Devil was reined off the track into the soft black soil of the flood areas. Only the darkness prevented the determined Smith from again using his weapon, because a mere ten yards separated the two men during the one mile to the chosen crossing.