The Sands of Windee Page 3

  The sign made by the aboriginal—or aboriginals—next claimed his attention. Like all nomads the Australian native is profuse in his sign language, and the sign language is known to a far greater number of people than any one spoken tongue. It is evident that the sign language has been enriched by the coming of the white man, for to-day often the white man’s beer-bottles, his discarded motor-tyres, and the bones of the white man’s sheep and cattle, are used in conveying a message to be read by a black who possibly cannot understand a word of the sender’s spoken language.

  The half-caste stood before and a little below the sign that had brought him from Sydney, eight hundred miles to the east. Nine fairly straight sticks, each about one foot in length, were fastened at one end by a piece of old pliable fencing wire, which was so interlaced that each stick was forced away from its neighbours in the form of a fan. He knew that this arrangement was one of five signs of death, and his gaze, moving downward two feet, dwelt on the sheep’s thigh-bone suspended from the fan-sticks by the same length of wire.

  Now had it been a blackfellow who had died there, the bone would have come from the animal or bird representing the dead man’s tribal totem. If his tribal totem had been the emu, then a bone from that bird would have been used. But this bone was a sheep’s bone, and the sheep is entirely the white man’s animal. Had it been a bullock’s bone the meaning would have been the same, and for the same reason.

  Bony went back to the clay-pan and seated himself midway between the almost invisible wheel-tracks, with the low bank for a comfortable back-rest, and at his side one of the black ants’ nests; and there he rolled a cigarette and settled himself comfortably to enjoy it after he had carefully deposited the used match in a pocket. He had not been there three seconds when a piece of living black and white fluff settled on one of his sheepskin sandals and began an eternal dance. To this fairy bird Bony addressed his thoughts in a low voice:

  “Quite a number of people in this very wicked world scoff at luck. They jeer also at coincidence. Yet both luck and coincidence play a most important part in human history. Without a mixture of both, life would be of no interest to me, for the lines of human destiny would be so clearly laid down that there would be no little surprises, no freshness, no—yes, no gamble in life.

  “Now it was quite a piece of luck that I saw Sergeant Morris’s snapshot, and quite a coincidence that I happened to be in Sydney to see it. Through both luck and coincidence I’m here this warm afternoon engaged on what promises to be an unusual case.

  “Mr Marks leaves Windee at two-thirty alone in the car he drives, and is slightly intoxicated. Did he, however, reach the road junction alone in his car? There is a probability that he did not go to sleep at the wheel, that he was stopped between the homestead and the junction, where he was incapacitated and brought to this identical spot to be disposed of. The sign states that he was killed here. If he was killed anywhere else the sign would not be just where it is.

  “Presently I must go into the matter of the business about which Marks went to see Mr Stanton—I should have said Jeff Stanton. Everything in its order. Let us first decide, if possible, whether Marks was killed by a white man aided by a blackfellow, or observed by a blackfellow unobserved by him, or if he was killed by a blackfellow or fellows who left that sign to warn their countrymen.

  “As it is assumed that Marks had a lot of money on him at the time, we may, I think, dismiss the blacks as the actual murderers. They would have little use for banknotes and no use for negotiable securities. This, of course, Mr Dancing Billy Wagtail, is all conjecture. Somewhere about here Marks was killed. The odds are that he was not killed without a struggle, and wherever that struggle took place, there the ground will have received some evidence of it. By this time the sand will doubtless have buried it, but all the same it will be there—a spot or two of blood, a coin, even a hair or wisp of cloth, or a dozen other things that can be detached from human beings through carelessness or violence.

  “I must proceed along two distinct lines. First, to find out what has become of Marks’s body, and second, to find what living person benefited by Marks’s death. We must go into the history of Marks. Mr Chief Commissioner, that is your job. Anyway, Marks was one of your satellites. In the meantime I must study the Windee people, both black and white—especially black; because the black who put up the sign can tell me what happened here. Now, what...”

  Bony’s attention was drawn to the ants’ nest at his side. From the corner of his eye he had seen a sparkle of blue light, but when he looked directly at the nest it had vanished. The large circular hole within the rampart was alive with the black ants. Watching them, he observed that they were bringing up out of the nest small stones about half the size of a field pea. These they deposited on the inside slope of the rampart. The man observed that each ant laid down its tiny load on the west side of the hole, where the surrounding rampart cast a shade, thence to hurry round to the east side, which was in full sunlight, and from there pick up another small stone and with it hurry below.

  The lesser problem immediately absorbed Bony. Why did the ants bring up out of the nest one stone and take another down? And whence had they collected the small smooth stones in all that great expanse of sand, fine almost as a speck of whirling dust in a sunbeam?

  The ants worked on, unheeding him. They all appeared possessed of but one idea. There came to Bony memory of reading of the punishments meted out to prisoners in the old convict days, when a man was compelled to carry a heavy shot up an incline, there to let it roll back, then to return and again carry it up.

  But that was all insensate stupidity and cruelty. There is certainly no stupidity of that order among ants. They were not carrying stones up and down for mere exercise, and they were not so developed as to impose such work as a punishment.

  “Bony, you read too much,” he said aloud. “You read so much that you forget ninety per cent of what you have read. Somewhere, some time, you’ve read about ants carrying stones.” For many minutes he sat, leaning back on his elbow, his mind’s eye so active that his physical eyes were without vision. Almost fifteen minutes expired before he sighed with satisfaction. He had remembered. The ants were taking down sunheated stones to keep the eggs warm, and were bringing up cold stones to be heated by the early rays of the sun when next it rose. “That’s it!” he murmured. “They do nothing without a logical cause. Ah! Why, here comes one with a piece of blue glass. Evidently glass does not retain heat as rock will. I must inquire into that.”

  Up out of the hole an ant carried a piece of blue glass, which reflected the light strongly whilst it was still deep in the shadow. The insect brought it up to the west slope of the rampart and laid it there before hurrying round for a sun-warmed stone. Bony picked it up with the point of his knife and examined it closely on the palm of his hand.

  It was flattened on one side, and faceted accurately on the other. It was not glass. It was a cut sapphire.

  Chapter Five

  An Inspection

  WINDEE STATION had grown from quite a small beginning. Many years before the Great War Jeffrey Stanton had bought out a selector holding a Government lease of a hundred thousand acres, of which most was wild hill-country. On that block he ran cattle because his predecessor had run sheep and the dingoes killed most of them. They paid ten shillings a scalp for wild dogs in those days, and Stanton made more money out of the pest than he did from his stock.

  The range of hills on which his small property was situated ran almost north and south. The great plain to the west was leased by two brothers and the plain to the east was held chiefly by a pastoral company with offices in Adelaide. Drought and overstocking ruined the brothers on the west of him, and Stanton bought them out with borrowed money. The season changed. He struck several good cattle-markets, and eventually repaid the borrowed money and found himself sole owner of six hundred thousand acres. When the Adelaide company went into liquidation, Stanton again borrowed money and acquired the eastern prop
erty, adding a further seven hundred thousand acres to his holding.

  At the time of Bony’s introduction to Windee, Stanton possessed thirteen hundred thousand acres of land, seventy thousand sheep, and no cattle. He owned, too, a sheep stud-farm in Victoria, an enormous amount of property in Adelaide, and most of the shares in an important shipping line.

  Despite his wealth, however, he had never been to any Australian city other than Adelaide, and had taken but one short trip to England, which had occurred after the death of his wife in the Year of the Peace. During this trip he had decided to inaugurate a custom he had practised ever since. On the liner he had been struck by the scrupulous cleanliness enforced by the captain’s bi-weekly inspections. It came to him that the captain of a ship must know every little cabin and corner in it, whereas he, Stanton, could not remember how many horse saddles, or how many drays, buggies and buckboards he had on Windee.

  Home once more, he placed a man in sole charge of all the plant at the homestead, at the out-station called Nullawil, and in use at the several boundary-riders’ huts. The holder of this position, which was anything but a sinecure, had to possess a fair knowledge of the saddlery and carpentering trades. The name of the present holder was Bates.

  Every Saturday morning Bates called at the office at about ten o’clock. Jeffrey Stanton, accompanied by his bookkeeper and Bates, then made a round of inspection. This was why Bates entered the office at ten in the morning of the Saturday following Bony’s examination of the blackfellows’ sign.

  “Ready for inspection, Jeff?” he asked casually, leaning back against the open door. Stanton, who had just finished talking over the telephone with his overseer at Nullawil, rose from his private desk and was followed by the bookkeeper, who snatched up notebook and pencil.

  A casual examination of these three men would have decided one that Mr Roberts, the bookkeeper, was the owner, Bates a station tradesman, as indeed he was, and Stanton anything. The bookkeeper had been at Windee four years, and immediately Stanton learned that he had held a commission during the war he began the custom he had kept up ever afterwards of invariably addressing him as “Mister” Roberts. Roberts had insisted on returning the courtesy although Stanton had fumed and fussed. However, since Roberts knew all about the office work of a great sheep-station, and Stanton knew nothing of clerical work but all about sheep, they compromised; and, as a battalion well run by a temperamentally balanced commanding officer and adjutant, the work on Windee went ahead smoothly.

  The first place to be inspected was the men’s kitchen. On their entrance they found the cook examining very carefully a whole carcass of mutton, killed the previous evening. He was a small man, the cook, pale of face, the paleness accentuated by a full black moustache. Taking no notice of the inspecting party, he dragged the carcass along the table nearer the window, where he continued his examination even more carefully.

  “What’s the matter, Alf?” inquired Jeffrey Stanton.

  Alf looked up as though for the first time noticing his employer. He spoke with a trace of the Cockney.

  “Oh, nothing much,” he said acidly. “I was just wondering whether that there was a dead Goanna or a skinned cat.”

  “Looks like a sheep to me,” Stanton stated.

  “A sheep! Not it. That ain’t no sheep,” Alf snarled. “Think I can’t tell a sheep when I see one? A sheep! If them’s the sort of sheep we’re breeding nowadays, Gawd ’elp Orstralia!”

  “It’s a sheep all right. But on the poor side,” Stanton admitted.

  “I should say hit is!” Alf danced with rage, but he went on coolly enough: “Now you don’t expect me to cook that for real men with guts, do you?”

  “No, damme, I don’t!” Stanton suddenly roared. To Mr Roberts he snapped: “Note—inquire into supply of killing-sheep.” Then to Alf: “Heave that out to the dogs. Draw tinned meat from the store. Anything else?”

  “Nope. But I ain’t chuckin’ this art to the dawgs. I’ll make stew of it. But it’s the second carcass I’ve’ ad like that this week.”

  “Yes, yes,” Stanton said more softly. “I suppose it’s because young Jeff is away. I’ll see what I can do.”

  In the men’s quarters they found one of the hands reading a novel on his bunk, his set task for the day having been already accomplished. Stanton gave him a good-natured nod, and glanced over the building before leaving for the cart and harness sheds.

  As an object lesson to the general mass of Australian squatters and farmers, Windee Station was probably supreme. Not a piece of harness, not a cart or a machine, was ever found in the open. The saving in general upkeep was treble the wage given to Bates. Every item of harness and saddlery was oiled and clean, the three trucks appeared as though they were seldom used, as also did the two powerful motor-cycles requisitioned when important work in far-off paddocks had to be done quickly. The trade shops, situated in one building, were ever a revelation to the visitor. Everything required on Windee was constructed from raw material brought by motor-truck from Broken Hill, a hundred and fifty miles distant.

  On Windee there was plenty but no waste. On most stations and farms the waste and neglect are scandalous. In consequence profits are small and wages are kept down to the minimum demanded by law. Jeffrey Stanton raged and blasphemed if he saw a shovel lying unused in the sun, but he paid his men fifty per cent higher wages than those given by the great mass of station-owners and laid down by law as the minimum. For this he was unpopular in his own class—but he was a millionaire. He expected good service for his high wages, and saw that he got it.

  The inspecting party eventually arrived at the blacksmith’s shop. Here the blacksmith and two off-siders were welding and fitting dray tyres. It was work that could not be interrupted, and, after nodding to the smith, Stanton looked casually about and was on the point of leaving, when he saw in a corner a heavy cast-iron object that in shape and size was very similar to the case holding a four-point-nine howitzer shell.

  It was, he knew, a dolly-pot used by gold miners to pound up samples of ore to dust, then to flood the dust with water and roughly ascertain the gold content.

  “Where does that come from, Bates?” he asked, pointing to it.

  “Left here for the time by Dot and Dash,” was Bates’s reply. “They brought it in from Range Hut a month or so back.”

  A six-nick iron tyre was on the anvil, held by the two off-siders. The part resting on the anvil was white-hot, and the smith’s hammer clanged and clanged on it, shooting out white-hot sparks and flakes. Stanton watched for a few seconds, wondering who was the first man to discover that iron would run, and how.

  He was reminded of another matter.

  “By the way, Bates, we ordered a further supply of nitric acid for that job. It should reach us next week.”

  “Good!” said Bates. “It’s dooced funny where that bottle of acid went to.”

  “Yes,” agreed Stanton; “damned funny! Better lock up the next lot.”

  Out again in the strong sunshine, where the wind rustled through the leaves of the pepper-tree shading the shop, the clanging of iron on iron behind him, and the screeches of the grey-backed galahs over in the creek trees, Stanton nodded to Bates and walked to the house. The inspection was over.

  He paused at the wicket-gate and looked back at the familiar scene. He was facing then to the north, and could see how his home lay on the edge of a great plain. To the east the sand country, whereon grew the pines and mulga, a wide belt of them lying between him and Mount Lion, dark against the brazen sky. To the west all was light—quivering, dancing light. The mirage lay deep over the great plain of salt-bush and spear grass, magically transforming the scattered clumps of trees into towering umbrella-topped masts, and causing the summits of the hills forty miles westward to appear as islands floating on a cadmium sea.

  The stern weather-beaten face of Jeffrey Stanton softened. In his heart he felt a great peace. The strife and struggles of youth were over. His boy and his girl were safe from
want and neither would ever know the hardships he and the woman who lay in the cemetery close by had known. Not that he allowed them to lead soft lives.

  “Why, Dad, you are in a brown study!” exclaimed a voice behind him. “Come along! The morning tea is waiting.”

  And, turning, Jeffrey Stanton met the eyes of Marion, his daughter, and smiled.

  Chapter Six

  Bony Educates a Horse

  MARION STANTON was dark of hair, with a creamy complexion. The contrast was the most striking thing about her, noticeable long before the features were examined. Then it was that the observer wondered at the wide level forehead, so indicative of calm reason when allied to the beautifully curved chin, tempered by the soft, dainty mouth that made a man think of all that is delightful in womanhood.

  In repose her face was not beautiful, but when it was lit by the light of personality shining from her grey eyes it was to glimpse something of wonder and attraction, a richly lovely woman.

  She and Stanton sat on the wide fly-netted south veranda with a small tea laden table between them, father and daughter in appearance as opposite as the poles. The man over sixty, the girl not yet twenty-five; the father slight and lithe, the daughter big-boned and active; the one at sixty showing the effects of a hard, tough life spent mostly on a horse, the other at twenty-five revealing womanly gentleness and grace. Yet to observe them together was to know that one begat the other, for when they smiled it was very often with their eyes alone.