THE MAILMAN'S YARN.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2417, 7 January 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE MAILMAN'S YARN.

AN OWES, TRUE TALE. By Rolf Boldrkwood. " Kum things happen in the bush, you take my word for it," suddenly broke out Dan M'Elroy as we were sitting smoking round a camp fire far back in the NeverNever country one night. The whole tract of country west of the Barcoo was under water that spring. We were all stuck hard and fast about 50 miles from Sandringham, waiting for the creeks and cowalls to go down. They were'nt small either—twenty feet deep in places, and half a mile wide. There were half-a-dozen teamsters with wool waggons, Jim and me, and two black boys, with four hundred head of fat cattle from Marndoo. A police trooper .bringing down a horse-stealer for trial, that just had been committed by the Bench, made up the party. The prisoner was comfortable, but was chained to a log. Here we were, waiting, waiting, and had to make the best of it. We walked about in the daylight, and did a bit of shooting. We'd put up a bough yard toput the cattle in more for the exercise than any thing else. Aud to make the time pass we'd taken to telling yarns at night. Some of them were that curious, I wish I hadn't forgotten 'em. But this one that Dan told that night I shall remember to my dying day. He was mail contractor between St. George and Bolivar run, a weather-beaten Bathurst native, as hard as iron bark, who'd have contracted to run a mail from the Red Sea to Jordan, in spite of all the Arabs in the desert, if they'd make it worth his while. He was afraid of nothing and nobody. In his time he had been speared by blacks shot at by bushrangers, fished for dead out of flooded creeks, besides being "given up" in fever, ague aud sunstroke in his exploratin of proven mail routes in the Never Never country. Hairbreadth escapes and deadly risks were like daily bread to him. He seemed to thrive on 'em, but this adventure of his must have been a deal out of the common way, I must say.

He looked round over the great plain, where we could see tho glimmer of water on every side, by the light of the low moon that was just showing red and goblin-like. A murmuring wind began to whisper and sob among the stunted myall, swaying the long streamers as if they were mourning for the dead. It felt colder, though we piled up the logs on tho fire lately, when he filled his pipe aud said, " We'll turn in after this, but you may as well take it to sleep on. It was near 20 years ago it happened, and it comes back to me now nearly as fresh as I saw it that cursed night. You chaps remember," ho said, taking a good steady draw at his pipe, by way of starting it and tho yarn at tho samo time, " you remember as I told you I was running a horse mail between Marlborough Point and Waranah somewhere about '68. It was different season from this, I tell you. No rain for about 18 months, and when the autumn came in dry, with the nights long and cold, the sheep began to die faster than you could count 'em. I had a fairish contract, and though the mail was a heavy one, I was able to manage it by riding, one horse and leading a packer. A terrible long day's rido it was—threo times a week—Bs mile. Of course, I had a change of horses ; but I didn't get in till U or 12 at night to Waranah. The frosty night set in, and sometimes, between being half frozen and dead tired I could hardly sit on my horse. It was getting on towards Juue, and still no rain; only the frosts getting sharper and sharper, when I came along: to a sand-hill by the side of a billabong , of tho Murrumbidgee, about ten miles from Waranah. There was a big waterhole there, and it wae a favourite camping place between the township and Baranco station, I was lator than usual. I dare say it was somewhero about midnight when I got to this point. I'd had a weak horse, as had knocked up, and I'd had to walk five miles. I was uigh perished with the cold ; hungry, too, for I'd had no time to stop and get a feed ; aud as I'd been in the saddle since long before daylight, you may guess I was pretty well tuckered out. A particular spot, too, when you come to think of it. The sand ridge ran back from the waterhole a good way (there was a big kurrajong tree beside it, I remember) and spread out near upon a mile, till you got into a fair-sized plain. The ridge— that's the way of 'era in dry countrywas covered as thick as they could stand with pine scrub. An old cattle-track ran right through to tho plain, where they uaed to como to water in the old days, when .Baranco was a cattlo ruu. I was dozing on my horse, dog-tired and stiff with the cold, when I canio to the waterhole at the foot of this sand-hill. I always used to pull up there and have a smoke ; so I stopped and looked round about, in a half-sleepy, dazed kind of way. I felt for my box of matches, aud I'm dashed if they weren't gone—shot out, I expect, for I'd been working my passage, and been jumplod about more than enough. That put the cap ou. I felt as if I'd drop oil the horse then aud there. I was never one for drinking, and I didn't carry a flask. How I'd get on the next couplo of hours I couldn't think. " All of a sudden a stroak of light camo through tho darkness of the pine scrub to tho loft of mo. It got broader and broader. It wasn't the moon, I know, for that wouldn't show till nigh hand to daylight. It must bo a fire. Somebody camping, of course ; but why they didn't stop by the water, the regular place, with good feed and open ground all round them, I couldn't make out. " I was off like a shot and hung up my horse to a kurrajong tree, which stood handy. It was too thick to ride through tho scrub, and I thought tho walk would freshen me up. I started off quite jolly with the notion of the grand warm I should have at the fire, and the pipeful of baccy I should be able to borrow.

" It was a big fire I saw as I stumbled along, getting nearer and nearer the head of any old man pine, the branches of which were as dry and tinder and burnt like matchwood. I could see three men standing round it. As I got nearer I was goiug to hollow out, partly for fun and partly for devilment, when the wind blew the flame round and made one of the men, who was poking a hole into the fire, shift and turn his face towards me. Mind I was in the dark shadow of the pines. The glare of the fire lit up his face and those of the two other men as clear as the day. " The man's face, as it turned towards where I was standing, had such a hellish expression that I stopped dead, and drew behind an overhanging balah that grew among the pines. He seemed to be listening. Another man, who had an axe in his hand, said something to him, when ho walked a few steps down the track down towards me, and then stopped. My God ! what a face it wasi No devil out of hell could have looked more fiendish than he did. It was like no human face I'd overseen. 1 began to think I was asleep and dreaming of a tale in a book.

"They were not more than twenty yards from where I stood. My heart beat that hard and loud I was afraid they must hear it. My hair stood on end, if anyone's did, while as the tall dark man began to poke tho fi.ro again, and pushed something furthor into it tuafc was uot a

log of wood, I nearly fainted, while the thick beads of perspiration rolled down j my forehead and face. "What did I see that caused every drop of blood in my veins to turn to iue —that threatened to stop my life-pulse, and cauao my heart to burst its veins ? What the strange man. stirred in the tire, making the sparks to fly upward and around amid tho red glowing embers, was a human corpse ! Yes ! there was no mistake, the dreadful shape and sight. One arm stuck out. Tho legs wore there —the skull, blackened and featureless— and, Heavenly Father! beyond and in the midst of the heap of glowing embers lay another shape huddled together and showing no angle of limb or bone. The other man had mado a broom of boughs tied together, and was busy sweeping in tho out-thrown [pieces of charcoal, so as to prevent tho flamo from spreading through tho tall dry grass. At a short distance I could mako out a largo tilted cart, such as hawkers chiefly use in the bush. 'By heavens!' said the man with tho pole, " I'll swear I heard a stick crack. If any traveller camo to the water-hole and followed tho track up, he'll have to be rugged out, and no two ways about it. It will be our lives against his.' ' Haven't we had blood enough for one day ?' said the man with the axe. 'By George when I think of those two poor chaps' faces just before you dropped them with the axe, I'd give all we've made ton times over to have'em alive again.' 'You was always a snivelling beggar," said the tall man. llf you had "your back scratched at Port Arthur half as often as I've had, you'd think no more of a man's lifo than a wild dog's. I believe it must ha' been me or a wallaby as made the noise.' I've faced a triflo of danger, and looked close at death, seen some near chances for life and limb in my time, but nothing that came near tho first half-an-hour I spent there before I could make myself steady enough to stir. I couldn't sit; I was too much exhausted to stand; yet there I had to crouch down and wait for nearly an hour before I got the ohanoe to go back upon ray track. "All tho time the horrible task of pushing tho bodies into the centre of the fire was kept out without intermission, as they got smaller and smaller. Two of the men were at this dreadful work, while the third was sweeping industriously round every edge of the fire. At last the two men I first saw seated themselves near the edge of tho fire, and began to smoke. Now was my turn. I crawled noiselessly from my post, or rather tree, and crept along the path until I came to where my horses were standing. I mounted one, somehow, and took tho other. I rode steadily for a while, and then, hustling the poor brutes to a hand gallop, I kept along the road to Waranah till I reached ;the gate at the boundary of the run. Then I felt as if I was not safe. I looked round and could almost see witches and demons following mo through the air, and waving spectra! arms in every bough of the stuntedjtree through which the road wound. "When I saw the lights of the little township, I was so glad that I shouted and sang all the way up to tho hotel where the mail was delivered. I had a strange sort of feeliug in my head as I galloped up to the door. Then a mist came before my eyes, I reeled in my saddle. Everything was dark. I remembered no more till at the end of a week I found myself in bed recovering from fever.

" I suppose I'd been sickening for the fever before. What with hot days, dark nights, and drinking water out of swamps and dry holes that were half mud and half—pah ! something oue don't like to think of—the wonder is we don't get it oftoner. Anyhow I was down that time, and next morning it seems they had the doctor to me. He was a clever man, and a gentleman too ;my word ! He fetched me round after a month, but I was off my head the first week, and kept raving (so they told mo afterwarns) about men being- knocked on the head and burned, about hawkers' cart and Derwenters, and the big water-holo at Budgell Creek. "They thought it was my madness and noDiionse at first, aud took no notice, till one afternoon Mr Belton, the overseer at Baranco, came riding , into Waranah all in a flurry, waiting to seo the police and the magistrate, Mr Waterton. This was what he had to say:—

" There were some heavy lots of travelling sheep passing through the station, and he was keeping along with them for fear they might miss tho road and unt find it again'till they'd eat off a mile or two Of his best grass. All of a sudden a mob of the Baranco weauers went across a plain aud nearly boxed with 'em. Mr Belton gallops for hi 3 life. I except he swore a bit, too, and was just in time to head 'em off iuto tho pine scrub by the sandhill. They took the old cattle track over towards the water-hole, he following up till all of a sudden he came plump on a hawkcr'a cart.

This pulled him up short. Ho let the sheep run on to the frontage and got off his horse. He knew the Coleinans' cart. They always stayed at night at Baranco. When they passed a week since they were to be iu Waranah that uiglit. What the deuce were they doing here ? Dash the fellows, were they spoiling , their horses ! Feed was scarce. No ! they were not the men to do that. Honest, straightgoinjr chaps they'd always been. "Ho walked over to tho cart. Ha! something wrong, surely. The big plop chest was open. The cash-box had had the lock smashed and was empty. Boots, clothes, tobacco, which they always have of the best, lying scattered about. Where were the poor fellows themselves? If they had been robbed, why hadn't they gone to the police at Waranah and complained ? Whoever had done this must have camped here in the middle of tho scrub, There had been a lire over by the big pine stump—an "old man" fire too. Wonder lln'y hadn't sot a light to the dry grass ? N'»" rain for the half-year to speak of, No ; they had been too jolly careful. Swept in the twigs and ashes all round. Curious fire, too, for bushmen to make. Big enough to roast an ox. Curiously ho stares at the ashes, then gropes among them with his hand. My God! what arc all those small piecea of bone? Why, the place is full of then). And this ? and this ? A metal button, a metal buckle—one, two, threo, twelve iu all."

" It comes back to him now that three travellers loft the Baranco men's hut the samo morning as tho Colemaus —one a tall, dark-gfruy-haired old hand, with a scar across his face. He gets liia horse with a Ions: sort of half-whistle and half groan, aud rides slowly, ia u study like, towards the township. "Tho next day the magistrate, Mr Waterton (he's a squatter, but sits most times when the police magistrate isn t on hand), goes out with the Sergeant of the Police, and the best part of the towns people of Waranah. He holds an inquiry. Tho doctor also attended, and gave evidence to the effect that he had no doubt whatever that the bones recently formed part of a human skeleton. "The surface of the fire was raked over, and a lot of metal buttons and buckles, as many as would be used f>>>' two pairs of trousers, with other remaiua of clothing, found. A verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown was returned.

" It was subsequently ascertained that on the second day after the murder three men crossed the Murray River hiph up, near a public-house. Their manner and ways Arero very conspicuous, One of

them fired off a revolver. They had on, new suits of clothes, new boots, with elastic sides, and no end of tobacco of a queer brand—not known in those parts. They had nil large swaga. The boss of the crowd was a tall, dark man, with a soar and gray hair. He was the man who fired the revolver, and used wild and threatening language. "The police from Crowlands picked up the trail so far. If they had followed hard on like the avengers of biood, as the feller says in the play, they might have run down the murdering dogs. But tho publican had a bad memory. He coald'nt remember seeing any out-of-the-way travellers cross tho river that week, So tho police turned back, and lost the scent for good and all. What was a queer enough thing about the matter was that directly after the inquiry was published a telegram was sent from the poor fellows' friends to the police sergeant at Waranah. He was to look under the lid of the big slop-chest, and he'd find a false top that slid back— very ueat, made so that people mostly wouldn't notice it. Behind this was a drawer ; in it there were notes and cheques. They never kept more than a fiver or so in the cash-box, and left the secret with their relatives before leaving town. Sure enough, the sergeant finds the secret drawer, and in it, after being in the open bush nearly a fortnight, ninety pound odd in notes and good cheques, which, of course, we sent to their friends. The villains only got four pounds and a fit out of clothes and tobacco for the lives of two men. The police never could get wind of these double-dyed villains for years afterwards. However, they dropped upon the man with the scar, whose name was Campbell. He was sworn to as the man that left Baranco station with tho other two on the day of the murder, as the man that had fresh clothes and tobacco (such as nobody but the Colemans sold in the district) two days after. It was proved that they were all hard up and ragged when they left Baranco. The evidence was in dribs and drabs, but they pieced it together bit by bit. It was enough to hang him, and hang him they did. I swore to him as the man I saw at the fire that terrible night. And now, mates, I'll turn in. There's no fear of being burned to bits here, is there? Good-night all."