No footprints in the bush b-8 Page 11

  It was half-past two o’clock when he reached Watson’s Bore.

  Tich, obviously untroubled by the consumption of the cigar, welcomed them with broad smiles and the intelligence that the spare horses were yarded. The inevitable tea had to be sipped scalding hot and the five minutes spent in smoking and gossip. After that McPherson brought into the hut a part-bolt of unbleached calico and needles and thread, and started the two aborigines at the task of making small ration bags. On such an expedition as he was about to lead there would be no time for hunting food.

  They were thus engaged when the absent stockmen returned, to pour like black water into the hut with the intelligence about the Illprinka smoke signals. The black water then had to pour out again, carrying McPherson with it, and, to obtain a better view, he and Jack Johnson climbed to the hut roof and sat astride the apex.

  “Looks like they’re going to hold a corroboree away over at Duck Lake,” he shouted down to those on the ground. “Whatd’youthink?”

  “Too right, boss,” they and Johnson agreed, the latter adding: “All them Illprinka men go away back from our boundary.”

  The squatter reached the ground before he spoke again.

  “It’ll give us a chance to move a long way into the Illprinka country in quick time,” he said. “It lets us in through an open gate. They’ll be at the corroboree for days, but we must give them a chance to get away back. I’ll go to the homestead for Burning Water and one or two more, and we’ll wait till near sundown before leaving.”

  The squatter saw the significance of those signals but he failed to look into the mind directing them. He saw only the surface, the fact that the withdrawal of the Illprinka men to Duck Lake would mean the removal of the human screen protecting his son’s head-quarters. He was governed by the thought of exacting the McPherson justice, of dealing with an “annoyance” in the established McPherson manner.

  An expeditionary force numbering no more than twenty would have distinct advantagesover a more numerous enemy. Such a force would be able to move more swiftly and secretly than a large body of men. The horses would have to be discarded to reduce the chances of discovery before the moment of attack. His force would be partly armed with rifles to blast a way to Rex, the fountain-head of dishonour and disaster out there in country inhabited only by wild aborigines, in country beyond the law’s normal reach and authority. If it could possibly be prevented there would be no outside publicity.

  These thought occupied his mind whilst he drove his car along the road to the homestead, a mere track crossing undulating country belted with low scrub, paved with clay-pans, ridged by sand-dunes and graded by strips of plain.

  The telephone posts carrying the single wire to the outermost post of white civilization came westward to flank the winding road when the road crossed a wide area of wind-scoured land dotted with fantastically shaped cores of sand still to be removed by the wind and the rain and the sun’s heat. The track wound in and out among these sand-cores, passing sometimes under the telephone wire, and presently McPherson saw ahead the wire lying across the road.

  A break! It had not been broken when he passed a few hours before on the outward journey, but it is the last straw presented here by the alighting of a bird or the buffeting of awilli-willi that finally parts rusting wire.

  He stopped the car to effect repairs, having the leg irons and body harness of the linesman on the car’s floor, and by chance he stopped the car beside a sand-core shaped not unlike a small cathedral. And he was standing on the running board with head and shoulders over the side whilst “fossicking” for the tools when he heard from behind him the voice which always had been clipped, concise and unemotional.

  “Come backward with your hands empty, father.”

  He knew the voice only too well, the flat tones beneath which lurked the cultural training, and even before he obeyed the command and stepped down to the ground the fire of anger burned into his neck and face. His actions, however, were deliberate, unhurried. The unknown depths of his son’s character he suspected.

  And so he turned to look upon Tarlalin’s son, in his heart the desire that he would not witness the man’s smile. About Rex McPherson were five Illprinka men, desert blacks, three wearing not even the public tassel, their bodies caked with grime, their hair and beards rolled into tassels of filthy fat and grit. Rex was dressed in khaki drill shirt and trousers. He was shaved and clean and spruce, and despite his rage McPherson felt a degree of pride.

  “Come forward, father, away from the car,” Rex ordered.

  There was a vast difference between this half-caste and Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte’s skin was a medium brown: this man’s skin was almost black, prevented from being black by a reddish tinge. He was six feet tall, fairly proportioned but not big. His features were devoid of the aborigine’s cast, strikingly handsome. His teeth were clean and perfect in formation. His eyes were small and black and steady in action.

  “You dirty renegade!” shouted the squatter.“You rotten murderer! What are you doing on my land? Are there no limits to your effrontery, you blackguard? You yourself murdered Sergeant Errey, if you didn’t actually kill my stockmen. Why, you-”

  “Now, now, father, calm yourself,” Rex urged, suavely polite, a smile on his face, cold hate in his eyes. “Did you get my note in the treacle tin? I aimed to drop it on the front lawn, but it was dark, you remember.”

  “I got it all right,” ground out McPherson. “What of it?”

  “What of it, my ancient parent? Why I expected to see your surrender smoke this morning. Did you forget about it?”

  “You know I didn’t forget about it,” shouted McPherson. “You must be mad if you’ve any hope of getting my property. I may be ancient, but, by heck, I’m still a man. And anyway, youfool, you wouldn’t have the station five minutes before you’d be hauled off for trial and execution.”

  “Tuttut, father!” Rex implored, and there was insult in the word father. “I will have to continue the campaign I see. You haven’t tasted sufficiently my growing power. When I have the station, as well as the Illprinka country, and then all the blacks at my call, I’ll defy a regiment of soldiers to capture me. I know what I’m doing, and what I am going to do. Age is always so stubborn, father, and you are growing old.”

  Before McPherson could again shout his rage, his son spoke an order and the Illprinka men rushed the squatter and proceeded, despite his struggles, to bind his arms to his sides with common white man’s rope. Panting from exertion, McPherson saw Rex vanish beyond the sand-core, to reappear a moment later carrying a portable telephone. He was pushed towards the half-caste who sat on the ground with the machine by his legs, and he was cuffed behind the knees to force him to sit beside the machine. Then one of the blacks brought to Rex the homestead end of the severed line and this end was attached to the portable telephone.

  “Now, father, I am going to call up Flora for you. You are going to tell her that your car has broken down and you want her to drive out here for you.”

  “Oh quit your father-ing, you mealy-mouthed devil. What’s your idea? Tell me that. Talk like a man-if you can.”

  “Nownow, father, don’t be impatient. All in good time. The idea, as you call it, is this. I ring the telephone. You call for Flora. You tell Flora your car has broken down and to come out here for you. You see, you are so stubborn. I want you to retire from business and hand the station over to me. All you have to do is to arrange about the deed of gift and sign it. In the present circumstances, of course, you could not do that, but you will transact the business if you know Flora is with me and will becomemyer -wife if you unduly delay in the transfer of the property.”

  “Bah, you rat! I’ll call Flora all right.”

  “Should you alarm her, should you raise her suspicions that all is not quite as it should be, I shall deal with you severely. Such hostile action taken by you won’t stop me eventually getting my own way.”

  McPherson’s mind raced.

  “Of c
ourse, father,” continued Rex inexorably, “that detective you have staying with you might want to accompany Flora, but he won’t really be in the way. However, you could tell Flora in a casual tone that you think the little trip would do her good, and that you are not keen for the detective to accompany her as you don’t like the fellow.”

  McPherson glowered and his lips creased in contempt.

  “Go to the devil,” he said wearily.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cane-Grass Splinters

  FLORA met Bony on the veranda after his visit to the blacks’ camp, and she was quick to note the frown of perplexity furrowing his brow.

  “Hullo!” she cried, cheerfully. “I’ve been waiting for you. Dinner will be ready almost at once, and I do like a tiny cocktail before dinner. Where have you been with your magnifying glass and litmus papers?”

  “I have been looking at smoke signals sent up by the Illprinka people. They are going to hold a corroboree at a place called Duck Lake. Your uncle has not yet returned?”

  “No. He’ll be home some time, though. Now please come along and join me at the bar.”

  “Indeed! But what of all these ancestors? Are they not sufficiently convivial forbar company?”

  It was his pretendednaivete that delighted her most in him.

  “Uncle says they look terribly jealous and spoil the drink,” she explained. “I agree with him. Just imagine the situation they are in, frozen there on the canvas and unable to step down and taste good ‘wuskey’. The poor dears can’t even smell it. Now please make me a corpse reviver.”

  “Ah-alas!” murmured Bony. “How constantly am I reminded of the deficiencies in myeducation! How does one make a corpse reviver?”

  “Don’t you know? I’ll show you. Will you have one, too?”

  “I beg to be excused. You see, I suffer from an awkward social disability. Spirits-and spirits appear to be the ingredients of a corpse reviver-have on me an effect of deep depression. Perhaps, in the circumstances, you will not mind if I choose a small glass of lager. Shall I do the shaking for you? Yes, I fear I’m a common man having common tastes.”

  “Now you are being sarcastic,” she told him, brightly.

  “I deny it. Has any one called up from Shaw’s Lagoon?”

  “No. Were you expecting a call?”

  “From Doctor Whyte.”

  “Oh!”

  “Is your uncle often detained out on the run? He said this morning he would be home for lunch.”

  “Yes, quite often,” she replied. “You see, uncle never goes away without food and camp gear in case he is forced to stay out. Generally, however, if he’s staying on at the out-station he rings and tells me so. You’re not worrying about him?”

  “No-oh no, Miss McPherson. An hour or so ago I tried to get through to the out-station on the telephone, but the line was dead. I wanted to get in touch with your uncle.”

  “Did you try again before you came in?”

  “No.”

  “It’s annoying, isn’t it? Something often happens to the line, even to the line to Shaw’s Lagoon. A tree branch will break and fall on it, or a mob of galahs will perch on it and break it-why, there’s the telephone bell ringing now!”

  “It is probably the reply telegram from Doctor Whyte,” Bony surmised. “Excuse me.”

  “Certainly. I must see about dinner. Come and tell me at once if it is about Doctor Whyte.”

  “I will-with all speed.”

  A minute later Bony was hearing a strange voice.

  “Hullo! That you, Mr McPherson?”

  “Mr McPherson has not yet returned home,” Bony said. “I am a guest staying here. Who are you?”

  “I’m Nevin, the overseer at the out-station. I’ve been trying to raise the homestead for the last couple of hours. D’youknow when the boss is expected home?”

  “Haven’t you seen him today?”

  “No. I’ve been away. But he’s been here. He had lunch with the wife and he left about one o’clock for Watson’s Bore. Are you the detective the boss was telling me about?”

  “I am. Why?”

  “Blast! I don’t know what to say or do,” said the gruff voice. “The telephone going bung and then coming right again makes me think things.”

  “When did you last ring up?” asked Bony.

  “Half an hour ago.”

  “Then Mr McPherson must have discovered and mended the break during the last thirty minutes. Why are you so uneasy about him?”

  Nevin did not reply and Bony waited before saying:

  “If you are doubtful about anything, if you think anything is wrong, please tell me. Mr McPherson left this morning with the intention of returning at lunch time. He didn’t say he was going as far as the out-station.”

  Still Nevin did not speak and Bony was beginning to believe he had broken the connection when he said:

  “I’d rather not say anything. If the boss mended the wire he must have found the break between you and the hut at Watson’s Bore. You ought to see him in less than an hour at longest.”

  “How is that?”

  “The telephone line runs nowhere near the road this side of Watson’s Bore. I’ll ring up later. When the boss gets in ask him to call me at once, will you?”

  “Hold on!” Bony urged. “Remember, an hour is quite a long time-period. Much may happen during such a period.”

  When Nevin again spoke his voicewas sharp and his words hurriedly spoken, indicative of anxiety not to continue the conversation.

  “Things will be all right, I expect. I’ll ring later. So long!”

  Thoughtfully, Bony walked back to the house. A glance at the sun told him the time was half past six. That Nevin was anxious was evidenced by his voice and determination not to say too much. For the second time Bony was met by Flora at the open door.

  “Who was it?” she wanted to know.

  “It was Nevin,” he replied with a cheerfulness he did not feel. “Nevin says that your uncle had lunch with his wife, and that, as the broken telephone wire has been repaired during the last half-hour, we can expect him home within an hour.”

  “Nevin is right,” she said, steadily regarding her guest. “Uncle would follow the line for only two or three miles on the whole journey. He mightn’t have seen the break on his way out, or it could have happened when he was beyond that part of the line. Is there anything you haven’t told me?”

  “There are hundreds and thousands of things I haven’t told you,” he countered. “Why, if I told you everything I would be out of character. I wouldn’t even be a detective.”

  “I suggest that we wait for uncle to have dinner with us,” she said.

  During the meal they fought a duel with the weapons Bonaparte could so expertly use. Thrice whilst they smoked a cigarette with the coffee she tried to trap him into confessing what was giving him concern, her defeat adding to her growing admiration of him. He could raise a wall, defying even her feminine wit, when her uncle would have failed to lay the foundation.

  The glow of the sunset colours streamed into the room from thefrench windows, faintly tinting the silverware remaining on the table, seeming to pour colour into the roses comprising the table decorations.

  “We’ll have wind, I think, soon,” predicted Bony.

  “Yes, the sky promises wind,” Flora agreed. “I hate windstorms. One gets so sticky when they blow.”

  Bony pressed the stub of his cigarette into the ash-tray and said, cheerfully:

  “The weather signs urge me to offer a suggestion. In the motor shed I saw a smart single-seater. If your uncle doesn’t turn up in ten minutes, what about taking a run out to meet him?”

  “Excellent!” Flora cried, standing up. “I haven’t been away from the house for days. It’s my car you saw. May I drive?”

  “Were it my car you could drive,” Bony said, adding after a distinct pause: “I can drive but I much prefer to be a passenger so that I can admire the scenery. Shall we invite Burning Water and one other a
borigine to come with us?”

  “I’ll run across to the camp and tell Burning Water,” said Bony. “Shall we meet at the motor shed in ten minutes?”

  The girl nodded her assent, and her eyes narrowed speculatively whilst watching him till he disappeared beyond the veranda. She was still standing thus when she heard him ringing the telephone in the office.

  “Mr McPherson is not home yet, Nevin,” Bony was saying while Flora was preparing for the drive. “I am going out to see what has delayed him. What is on your mind?”

  He distinctly heard the overseer sigh.

  “The boss came here for a couple of saddles and bridles,” Nevin began. “He wanted two of the nigs, but one was out with me and he took only one, a buck named Jack Johnson. Iasks myself why he wanted two nigs and two saddles and bridles when there’s twelve nigs and twelve saddles and bridles at Watson’s Bore, where there’s not enough work for three nigs and saddles and bridles. D’youget me?

  “Then the boss leaves a letter for me which says a lot and yet doesn’t give much away. If I give much away to you he’s going to give me hell later on. So you see where I stand. On the other hand, the Illprinka crowd have been sending up smokesignals which means one thing and might mean something quite different.”

  “Hum! I appreciate your position,” Bony said, sympathetically. “What did Mr McPherson say in his letter to you?”

  “It’s the letter that’s baling me up. Oh blast! I’ll read it to you.” Then, when he had read the letter, he asked: “Whatd’youthink of it?”

  “I think that, adding fact to fact, Mr McPherson left here this morning with the purpose of leading those blacks camped at Watson’s Bore on an expedition into the Illprinka country,” Bony answered. “When he arrived at Watson’s Bore something happened causing him to decide to fetch two additional men from the out-station.”