A HERO IN DINGO SCRUBS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 33, 8 February 1905, Page 11

A HERO IN DINGO SCRUBS.

♦ ! an Australian sketch. (A COMPLETE. STOKT.) This is a story—about the only one — of Job PcJconer, boss of the Talbragar sheep-station up-country in New South Wales in the early eighties, when there were still runs in the Dingo Scrubs out of the hands of the banks, and yet squartters who lived on their stations. Job would never tell the story himself, at least not complete; and as his family grew up he -would become as angry as it was in his easy-going na-1 ture to become if reference were made I to the incident in his presence. But his wife —little, plump; bright-eyed I Gerty Falconer—often told the story with brightening eyes to women- j friends over bra, and always to a new woman-friend, but always in tlie mysterious voice which women use in speaking of private matters amongst themselves. On such occasions she would be particularly tender towards unconscious Job. and ruffle bis thin sandy hair in a way that eannaraaeed him in company —made him look as sheepish as an old big-horned ram that has just been shorn and turned amongst the ewes. Then, on parting, the woman-friend would give Job's hand a. scnaeez-e that would sm-prise him mildly, and look at hin • s if she could love him. According to a theory «.<f mine. Job, to fit the story, should have been tall, and dark and stern, or gloomy and quicktempered: but he wasn't. He was fairly tall, bul he was fresb-cumpXexiotred and sandy—his skin was pink to scarlet, in some weathers, with blotches of umber— and his eyes were paie-gray: his big forehead loomed babyishly, his arms were short, and his legs bowed to the saddle. Altogether he was an awkward, unlovely bush-bird—on foot -, in the saddle it was different. The incident was brought about by Job's recollection, still strong and vivid, of a certain occurrence many years before. Job was a boy of fourteen when he saw his father's horse come home riderless, circling and .snorting up by the stockyard, head jerked down whenever the. hoof trod on one of the snapped ends of the bridle reins-, the saddle twisted over the side, with brnised pommel and knee-pad broken off. Job's father wasn't hurt much: hut Job'-s mother, an emotional 'woman, and then in a diilicate state of health, survived tbe shock for only threee months. "She wasn't qirite right in her head," they said, "from the. day the horse came home till the last hour before she died." Strange to say. Job's father, from whom Job inherited tris seemingly placid nature, died three months after his wife. The doctor from tliie town was of the opinion that Job's father must have "sustained internal injuries" when the horse threw him. Doc. Wild (eccentric bush-doctor) reckoned that Job's father was hurt inside when his vrife died, and hurt so badly that be eouMn't pull round: but doctors differ all over the world. Well, iv came about in this way. Job Falconer bid been married a year, and had lately-started wool-raising on a pastoral lease he hat! taken up at Talbragar. It was a new run. with new slab-and-bark buts on tho creek for a homestead, new shearing-sbed, yards—wife and everything new, and he was expecting a baby. Job felt bmnd-new himself at the time, so he said. It was a lonely place for a young woman; but Gerty was a settler's daughter. The newness took away some of the loraeKness, she said, and there was truth in that. A bush-home in the scrubs looks lonelier ithe older it gets, and ghostlier in the twilight, as the bark and slabs whiten, ar rather grow gray, in fierce summers; and there's nothing under God's sk?r so weird, so aggressively lonely, as a deserted old home in the bush. Job's wife had a half-caste "gin" for company when Job was away on the rim, and the nearest white woman—a hard but honest Lancashire woman from within the kicking radius in Lancashire, wife of a seQectoT—was only seven miles away. She l promised to be at band, and came over two or three times a week; but Job grew restless as Gerty-'s time grew near, and wished that he had insisted on sending ber to the nearest town, thirty utiles off, ac originally proposed. Gerty!s mother, who lived, in town, was coming to see her over her trouble; Job had made arrangements with tlie town doctor; but prompt attendance could hardly be expected of a doctor who was very busy, who was too fat to ride, and who lived thirty miles away. Job, in common with most bushmen and their families .round there, had more faith in Dr. Wili, a weird American, who made medicine in a saucepan, and worked more cures on bushmen than the other three doctors-of the district- —maybe because the bushmen had faith in him, or he knew the\bush and bosh constitutions, or perhjiple because he'd do things which no "respectable practitioner" dared do. I've described him in another story. Some said he was a quack, and some said he wasn't. There are scores of wrecks and. mysteries like him in the bush. He drank fearfully, and "on Ms own."' but was seldom incapable of prescribing or performing an operation. Experienced bushmen preferred him three-quarters drunk-, when perfectly sober he was apt to be a bit shaky. He was tall and gaunt, and had a pointed black moustache, bushy <»yebrows and piercing black eyes. The worst of him was that his moTements were eccentric. He lived -where he hap-penedT-to be: in a town hotel, in the best room of a homestead, in the skillion of a sJy-jroje: sianty, in a sbeireex's

or digger's or shepherd's or boundaryrider's hut, in a surveyor's camp, in a black fellow's camp, or by a log in the lonely bush when the horrors Were on him. It seemed all one to him. He lost all his things sometimes, even his clothes; but he never lost a pig-skin bag which contained . his. surgical instruments and papers—except once; then he gave the blacks five pounds to find it for him. His patients included all, from the big squatter to Blank Jimmy; and he rode as far and fast fo a home as to a swagman's camp. When nothing was to be expected from a pobr selector or station-hand, and the doctor was bard up, he went to the squatter for a few pounds. He had occasionally been offered cheeks Of fifty and a hundred pounds by squatters for "pulling round" their wives or children ; but such offers always angered lum. When lie asked for five pounds he resented being offered a teh-pound check. He once, under the influence of his demon, sued a doctor; for alleging that he held no diploma; but the magistrates, on reading certain papers, suggested it settlement out of court, Which both doctors agreed to. the other doctor apologising briefly in the local paper. It was noticed thereafter that the magistrate and town doctors treated Doc. Wild with great respect —even at his worst. The thing was never explained, and the ease deepened the mystery which surrounded Doe Wild. As Job Falconer's crisis approached Doe Wild was located at a shanty on the main road, about half-way between Job's station and the town; township of Come-by-Chance—expressive name; and the shanty was the Dead Dingo Hotel, kept by James Myles, who was known as Poisonous Jimmy, either as a compliment to or a libel on the liquor he sold. Job's brother Mac was stationed at the Dead Dingo Hotel, with instructions to hang around on. some pretence, and see that tbe doctor didn't either drink himself into delirium tremens or get sober enough to become restless; to prevent his going away, or to follow him if he did: and to bring him to the station in about a week's time. Mac—rather more careless, brighter 'and more energetic than his brother—was carrying out these instructions while pretending, with rather great success, to be himself on tbe spree at the shanty. * One morning early in the specified week, Job's uneasiness was suddenly increased by certain symptoms: so be sent the black-boy for the neighbour's wife, and decided to ride to Come-by-Chance to hurry out Gerty's mother, and see, by the way, how Doc. Wild and Mac were getting on. On the arri- . val. of the neighbour's wife, who drove over in a spring-cart. Job mounted his horse, a freshly broken filly, and started. "Don't be anxious. Job," said Gerty as he bent down to kiss her. "We'll be all right. Wart! you'd better take the gun—you might see those dingoes again. I'll get'it for yon." I The dingoes (native dogs) were very bad amongst the sheep, and Job and Gerty had started three together close ! to the track the last time they were out, in company—without the gun, of course. Gerty took the lbaded gun carefully down from its straps oh the bedroom wall, carried it out and handed it up to Job, who bent and kissed her again: she brought the powder and shot flasks, got another kiss, and then he I rode off. , It was a hot day—-the beginning of a i long drought, as Job found to bis bitter cost. He followed the track for five or six miles through the thick, monotonous scrub, and then turned off to riiake a short cut to the main road across a big, ring-barked flat. Tbe tall gum trees had been ring-barked (a ring of bark taken out round the butts), or rather "sapped"—that is, a ring cut in through the sap—in order to kill them, so that the little strength in the poor soil should not be drawn out by the living roots, and the natural grass on which the Australian's stock depends should have a better show. For three or four miles the hard dead trees raised their barkless and whitened trunks and leafless branches, and the gray-and-brown grass stood tall between, dying in the first breath of the coming drought. All was becoming gray and ashen here, the heat biasing and dancing across objects, and the pale brassy dome of the sky elondless over all, the sun a glaring white disc With its edges almost melting into the sky. Job held his gun carelessly ready—it was a double-barrelled muzzle-loader, one barrel smooth-bore for shot, and the other rifled—and he kept a lookout for : dingoes. He was saving his horse for a long ride, jogging along in a careless bush-fashion, hitched a little to one side; and I'm not sure that he didn't have a leg thrown up and across in front of the pommel of his saddle. He was riding along, and thinking fatherly thoughts in advance - perhaps, when suddenly a great, black, greasy-looking iguana scuttled off from the side of the track, amongst the dry tufts of grass and shreds of dead bark, and started up a sapling. "It was a whopper," Job said afterwards. "Must hive been ov>er six feet, and a foot across the body. It scared mc neaTly as much as the filly." The filly shied off like a rocket. Job kept his seat instinctively, as was natural to him; but, before he could more than grab at the rein lying loosely on the pommel, the filly "fetched up" against a dead box-tree," hard as castiron ; and Job's left leg was jammed from stirrup to pocket. "I felt the blood flare lip," he said, "and I knowed that that"—Job swore now and then in an easy-going way—"l knowed that that btenky leg was broken all right. I threw the gun from mc and freed the left foot from the stirrup with my hand, and managed to fall to tbe right, as the filly started off again." What follows comes from the statements of Doc Wild and Mac Falconer, and Job's own "wanderings in his mind," as he called them. "They took a blanky mean advantage of mc," he said, "when they had mc down and I couldn't talk sense." The filly circled off a bit, and tl«n stood staring—as a mob of brumbies (wild horses —shot to save grass, for horse-hair, and because of the scrub stallions betting amongst station stock) when fired at Will sometimes stand watching the smoke. Job's leg was smashed badly, and the pain must have been terrible; but he thought then instantaneously, as men do in a fix. No doubt the scene at the lonely hushhouse of his boyhood flashed* before him; his father's horse appeared riderless, and he saw the look in his mother's eyes— Now, a bushman's first, beat and quickest chance in a fix like Job's is that bis horse goes home riderless, the alarm is raised, and the horse's tracks are followed back to him; otherwise he might lie for days 1 or weeks; till the growing grass buried his mouldering bones! , The place where Jofc I*s wit an' old

sheep-track across a flat where few • might have occasion \o come ibr ■ months; but he did 'not consider this, i He crawled to his gun, then, to a log, dragging gun and smashed leg after him. How he did it he doesn't kri^w.. Half-lying on one side.. he\ rested the" barrel oh the log, took aim at the filry\. pulled both triggers, and thin fell oyfer\ and lay with his head against the log; and the gun-barrel, sliding dawn, rested on his neck. He had fainted. The crows were interested, and the ants would come by-and-by. Doc. Wild had inspirations;, anyway he did things which seemed, after they were done, to have been suggested by inspiration, and In no other possible way. He often turned up whelre and •wheh he was wanted above an men, and at no other time. He had,gypsy blood, they said; but anyway, being the mystery he was, and having the face he had. and living the life he lived, and doing the things he did, it was quite probable that he was motet nearly in touch than we with that awful, invisible world all round and between us, of Which we biily see distorted! faces and. hear disjointed utterances wrien \re are '•'suffering a recovery" or mad. On the morning of Job's accident, and after a long brooding silence, Doc. Wild suddenly said to Mac Falconet: "Get the hosses, Mac. We'll lo the station." Mac, used to the doctor's eceehtricities. went to see about the horses. Then, who should drive up bu\fc Mrs Spencer, Job's mother-in-law, oft her way from town to the station. \ She stayed to have a cup of tea arid' give her hdrse a feed. She was square-ficed and was considered a rather hard Wnd practical woman; but she had plenty, of solid flesh, good sympathetic comhion sense, and deep set and humorous 'blue eyes. She lived in the town eomfprfcably on the interest of some ritotley which her husband had left in the bank, and drove an. American waggonette with a good width and length of "ti»|y" behind: and oh this occasion she had a pole and two horses. In the trkp was a new mattress and pillows, a getterdus pair of new white blankets, aikd boxes containing necessaries', delieaci&, and luxuries. All round, she Was an excellent mother-in-law for a man to have on hand at a critical time. Speaking of the mother-in-law, I would like to put in a word for her right here. She is universally considered a nuisance in times of peace and comfort; but when illness or trouble comes home, then it's "Write to mother!" "Wire for mother!" "Send some one to fetch mother!" "I'll go and bring mother!" If' she is not neat:. "Oh, I wish mother was here!" "If mother were only near!" When she is] on the spot, hear the anxious son-in-law: "Don't you go, mother! "You'llj stay—won't you, mother—till we're all' right ? I'll get some one to look - after your house, mother, while you're here." But Job Falconer was fond of his mother-in-law at all times. Mac had some trouble in finding and catching one of the horses. Mrs Spencer drove oh, and Mac and the doctor caught up to her about a mile before she reached the homestead track, which turned in through the scrubs at the corner of the big ring-barked flat. Doc. Wild and Mac followed the cartroad, and as they jogged along on the edge of the scrub the doctor glanced once or twice across the flat through the dead, naked branches. Mac looked that way. The crows were hopping! about the branches of a tree away out in the. middle of the fiat, flopping down from branch to branch to the grass, then rising hurriedly and circling. "Dead beast there!" said' Mac, out of his bushera'ft. "No, dying,'' said Doc. Wild, with less bush experience but more intellect. "There's some steers of Job's ...put there somewhere." muttered Mac. Then, suddenly, "It ain't drought—it's" tne ploorer at last, or I'm blanked!" Mac feared the advent of that cattleplague pleurb - pneumonia, which was raging on some stations, but, had hitherto kept clear of Job's run. "We'll go and see if yon like," suggested Doe. Wild. - They turned out across the flat, the horses picking their Way amongst the dried tufts and fallen branches. "There ain't no sign o' cattle theer," said the doctor. "More likely a ewe in trouble about her lamb." "Or the blanky dingoes at a sheep," said Mac. "I wish we had a gun; might get a shot at them." Dec. Wjld hitched the skirts of a long China silk coat he wore free of a hip-_ pocket. He always carried a revolver. "In case I feel obliged to shoot a first person singular one of these" hot days," he explained once — whereat bushmen scratched the backs of their heads and, .thought feebly, without result. "Wed never git near enough for a shot," the doctor said; then he commenced to bum fragments from a bush-song about the finding of a lost bushman in the last stages of death from thirst: The crowskept flyiri up, boys! Tlie crows" kept flyiri' up! The dog, he seen and whimpered, boys, Thefagh be was but a pup. "It must be somethin' or other," muttered Mac. "Look at them blanky crows!" The lost was found, we brought trim round, And took him from the place, While the ants was swarmtn' on the ground, An' the crows was sayin' grace. "Halloa! what's that?"' cried Mac, who was a little in advance, and rode a tall horse. It -was Job's filly lying saddled and bridled, with a rifle-bullet through shoulder and chest, as they found on subsequent examination, and her head full of kangaroo-shot. She was feebly rocking her head against the ground, and marking the dust with her hoof, as if trying to write the reason there. The'doctor drew his revolver, took a cartridge from his waistcoat pocket, and put the filly out of her misery in a very scientific manner; then something —professional instinct "* ot the something snpernaßtural about tbe doctor— led him straight to the logs, hiddenin the grass, where Job lay as we left him, j and about fifty yards from the dead 1 filly, which mast hswe staggered a few" yards off after being shot. Mac followed; shaking violently. "OK, my God!" he cried, with the woman ill hJB voice and h» face so' pafe that bis freckles stood out like buttons, as the doctor said afterwards. "Oh, my God! he's shot himself!" "<Nd, he hasn't," said the doctor, deftly turning Job into a healthier position, with his head from under the log and his mouth to the air. He ran his eyes and hands over him, and Job moaned. "He's got a broken leg," said the doctor. Even then he couldn't resist making a characteristic remark,.half to huh- , self: "A iman doesn't shoot himself when he's going to be made a' lawful father for the first thw—unless he can see a long Way into tbe future." Thenhe" book out .bis flask and saM 1 briskly to(Mac 1 ,, mW your watercarried a canvas water bag ■Jung uhuer-fiM ridi

bacVt to; the stop Mrs;, Spencer, andy bring the waggonette here. Tell her k?s only a broken leg." , Mac mounted and rode off at a breakneck pace. - \As He worked, the doctor muttered. "fee's his horse. That's what git* mc. ..The fool might have lain here for a wefek. I'd never have suspected spite Uh tlyat carcass—and I ought to know, kren.* dßut as Job came round a little Doc. "v\ fcld wis enlightened. VWhljre's the filly?" cried Job suddei V 7? between groans. ".She's all right," said the doctor in a fcohe> that might have been resentfully envicttis. "StV>p her!" cried Job, struggling to rise. her!—O God! my leg." "Ifceep quiet, yon "fool!" "stop\hcr!" yelled Job. "Why\stop her?" asked the doctor. "She won\t go fur," he added. "She'll y> home to Gerty," shouted Job. "Sto\» her! stop her!" "Oh—hb! T drawled the doctor to himself. "I miiVht have guessed that; and I ought to ktSpW men." "Don't takiN mc home!" demanded Job in a semi- Sensible interval. "Take mc to PoisbikNus Jiihriiy's, and tell Gerty I'm oh fife • spree." When Mac anilvMrs Spencer returned With the WaggbM.Ue, Doc. Wild was in his .shift-sleeves, ihSs Chinese silk coat having gone for Whdages. The lower half or Job's trouse,T-leg and his elasticif.ide bod* liy on th'fcv ground, neatly cut off, and his bandagedJeg was sandwiched between two strips by bark, with grass stuffed in the holloWo, and bound by saddle-straps.. "That's air I can do \fbr him'for the present." Mil, Sfiiencer \was a tetrbng womah mentally, mit she Arrived father pale and a little shaky; nevertheless she called out as soon as she got within earshot of the doctor: "What's Job been dOMrig now}" Job, by the-way, had never Veen remarkable for doing anything. N "He's got his leg broke), and shot 1 hit horse," replied the doctor.V "But," he added, "whether he's been a\ hero or * fool I dwrno. Anyway, it's ik mess an round." .....-, v They unrolled the bed, and pillows in the bottom of the \ trail backed it against the log to have a etep and got Job in. It was a ticklish but they had to manage it; Job, maddened by pain and heat, and only kept , from faintmg by whisky, groaning and ■£S g gto themt6 st^hi > dfcr » 'iSLZ* >FK£ im before the~ ants' did, muttered the. doctor; Then he' hid an inspiration. "Ybu br% hirii on c^ pberd?s hut side the 6 ta- • ]i.J7* must ieave Mm there.. Drive carefully, and pour brandy into Jlim now ami then; when the brandy's dona pour whisky, then gift; Keep the rum till the last." The doctor had put a supply of spirits in the waggonette at Poisonous Jimmy's. "I'll take Mac's horse and ride on and send Peter the station hahd ? back to the hut to meet you. I'll be back myself if I can. This business will hurry things up at tht station." Which last was one of these apparently insane remarks of the d.Qctor'9 which no Sane and'sober man could fathom' or see a reason for—eicept in Doe. Wild's madness. The doctor rodo off at a gallop. The burden of Job's raving all the Way was of the deaa",nily:: "Stop" her! She must hot go home "to GeYtV! God, help mc shoot!—W'boali Whoa, there! Steady,, Jessie, Old girl." Jessie was the filly's name. "Aim straight—aim straight! AH'! I've missed her!" "I never niet a character like . that inside a man that looked like Job. on the cdmmerited the doctJOfafterwards. 'TVc met men behind revolvers arfd- big moustaches itf California; hilt I've irie't a dette"d sight more men behind: nothing but a godd-hatured grin here in Australia. These" lanky sa#ny bushmen will do things, hi ah easy-go-ing way some day that'll iriake" the Old World sjt up and think hard.'.'- • . He reached the" station in time,-and twenty minutes or half-an-hour later he left the. case. in. the hands of,- the .Lancashire' woman, whom. he.saw, reason to admire, apd rode back to the.hut to help' Job, whom they soon: fixed,., up as comfortably as possible. They humbuggea Mrs Falconer first with ,a yarn' of Job's alleged phenomenal sbyhess and gradually as she grew stronger and thY truth less> important they told it to her; and so instead-ot Job being pnsbjid, scarletrfacedy into thebearoom to see" his first-borii; Gerty Falconer herself took the child down to the hut, and,so presented, Uncle Job with my first and favourite: cousin .and bush-chum. • -Doc. Wild stayed round until he 5 saw Job conlfbrtahiy moved to the home stead; then he prepared to depart;. "Pm sorry," said Job| who Was still weak—"l'm sorry for that -there .filly. I was breaking her into a side-saddle for Gerty when : she .should get about.,--v I wouldn't have lost her-for-- twenty quid." ■ "Never mind. Job," said, the; doctor. "I, too, once shotan animal I Was fond of-—and for the sake of a woman; but that animal. walked ,on . two. legs and wore trousers. Qbodrbye Job" And heleft for. Poisonous. JimmyJs. HENRY LAWSON.