Peter gradually increased his horse's speed along the rough bush track
until he was riding at a good pace. It was ten miles to the main road,
and five from there to the shanty kept by Black.
For some time before Peter started the atmosphere had been very close
and oppressive. The great black edge of a storm-cloud had risen in the
east, and everything indicated the approach of a thunderstorm. It was
not long coming. Before Peter had completed six miles of his journey,
the clouds rolled over, obscuring the moon, and an Australian
thunderstorm came on with its mighty downpour, its blinding lightning,
and its earth-shaking thunder. Peter rode steadily on, only pausing now
and then until a flash revealed the track in front of him.
Black's shanty--or, rather, as the sign had it, “Post Office and General
Store”--was, as we have said, five miles along the main road from the
point where Middleton's track joined it. The building was of the usual
style of bush architecture. About two hundred yards nearer the creek,
which crossed the road further on, stood a large bark and slab stable,
large enough to have met the requirements of a legitimate bush “public”.
The reader may doubt that a “sly grog shop” could openly carry on
business on a main Government road along which mounted troopers were
continually passing. But then, you see, mounted troopers get thirsty
like other men; moreover, they could always get their thirst quenched
'gratis' at these places; so the reader will be prepared to hear that
on this very night two troopers' horses were stowed snugly away in the
stable, and two troopers were stowed snugly away in the back room of the
shanty, sleeping off the effects of their cheap but strong potations.
There were two rooms, of a sort, attached to the stables--one at each
end. One was occupied by a man who was “generally useful”, and the other
was the surgery, office, and bedroom 'pro tem.' of Doc. Wild.
Doc. Wild was a tall man, of spare proportions. He had a cadaverous
face, black hair, bushy black eyebrows, eagle nose, and eagle eyes. He
never slept while he was drinking. On this occasion he sat in front of
the fire on a low three-legged stool. His knees were drawn up, his toes
hooked round the front legs of the stool, one hand resting on one knee,
and one elbow (the hand supporting the chin) resting on the other. He
was staring intently into the fire, on which an old black saucepan
was boiling and sending forth a pungent odour of herbs. There seemed
something uncanny about the doctor as the red light of the fire fell on
his hawk-like face and gleaming eyes. He might have been Mephistopheles
watching some infernal brew.
He had sat there some time without stirring a finger, when the door
suddenly burst open and Middleton's Peter stood within, dripping wet.
The doctor turned his black, piercing eyes upon the intruder (who
regarded him silently) for a moment, and then asked quietly:
“What the hell do you want?”
“I want you,” said Peter.
“And what do you want me for?”
“I want you to come to Joe Middleton's wife. She's bad,” said Peter
calmly.
“I won't come,” shouted the doctor. “I've brought enough horse-stealers
into the world already. If any more want to come they can go to blazes
for me. Now, you get out of this!”
“Don't get yer rag out,” said Peter quietly. “The hoss-stealer's come,
an' nearly killed his mother ter begin with; an' if yer don't get yer
physic-box an' come wi' me, by the great God I'll----”
Here the revolver was produced and pointed at Doc. Wild's head. The
sight of the weapon had a sobering effect upon the doctor. He rose,
looked at Peter critically for a moment, knocked the weapon out of his
hand, and said slowly and deliberately:
“Wall, ef the case es as serious as that, I (hic) reckon I'd better
come.”
Peter was still of the same opinion, so Doc. Wild proceeded to get his
medicine chest ready. He explained afterwards, in one of his softer
moments, that the shooter didn't frighten him so much as it touched his
memory--“sorter put him in mind of the old days in California, and made
him think of the man he might have been,” he'd say,--“kinder touched
his heart and slid the durned old panorama in front of him like a flash;
made him think of the time when he slipped three leaden pills into 'Blue
Shirt' for winking at a new chum behind his (the Doc.'s) back when he
was telling a truthful yarn, and charged the said 'Blue Shirt' a hundred
dollars for extracting the said pills.”
Joe Middleton's wife is a grandmother now.
Peter passed after the manner of his sort; he was found dead in his
bunk.
Poor Doc. Wild died in a shepherd's hut at the Dry Creeks. The shepherds
(white men) found him, “naked as he was born and with the hide half
burned off him with the sun,” rounding up imaginary snakes on a dusty
clearing, one blazing hot day. The hut-keeper had some “quare” (queer)
experiences with the doctor during the next three days and used, in
after years, to tell of them, between the puffs of his pipe, calmly
and solemnly and as if the story was rather to the doctor's credit than
otherwise. The shepherds sent for the police and a doctor, and sent word
to Joe Middleton. Doc. Wild was sensible towards the end. His interview
with the other doctor was characteristic. “And, now you see how far I
am,” he said in conclusion--“have you brought the brandy?” The other
doctor had. Joe Middleton came with his waggonette, and in it the
softest mattress and pillows the station afforded. He also, in his
innocence, brought a dozen of soda-water. Doc. Wild took Joe's hand
feebly, and, a little later, he “passed out” (as he would have said)
murmuring “something that sounded like poetry”, in an unknown tongue.
Joe took the body to the home station. “Who's the boss bringin'?” asked
the shearers, seeing the waggonette coming very slowly and the boss
walking by the horses' heads. “Doc. Wild,” said a station hand. “Take
yer hats off.”
They buried him with bush honours, and chiselled his name on a slab of
bluegum--a wood that lasts.