GENTLEMEN ADVENTURERS
‟MOTHER, could Rex and I go for a picnic?” Billy’s eager face showed at
the dining-room window. Behind him Rex peeped in, more sober, but
evidently just as anxious.
“A picnic?” Mrs. Weston said, bewildered. “What, all by yourselves?”
“Well, there’s no one to go with us,” Billy said. “The Lawrences are
coming out to play tennis, and _we_ can’t play when big people are
there. You know it’s always a case of picking the balls up, for Rex and
me, and a bit of extra cake is all we get out of it! And we’d love a
ride. Couldn’t we take some lunch and go out? It would be no end of
fun.”
“But is Rex safe? You know, he has never gone far without Father.”
“Oh, abso-lutely!” said Billy, with evident pride in the long word. “He
really rides quite decently now, don’t you, Rexona?”
“I’ll give you a hiding if you call me that,” stated his guest.
“Sorry—it was a slip,” Billy said, grinning. “Forgot you didn’t like
soap. But he can ride all right, Mother; Father says so. And we’d be
awfully careful, and keep our weather-eye out for snakes, and all that
sort of thing. Anyhow, the ground’s so bare you can see a snake half a
mile off. Oh, do let’s go!”
“What do you say, girls?” Mrs. Weston asked.
“I don’t think they could damage themselves, do you, Jean?” Jo asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” her twin answered. “They’re really quite safe,
if they promise to be sensible. I’d rather you didn’t jump, Rex, when
you’re by yourselves.”
“All right, I won’t,” Rex promised eagerly.
“Then may we go, Mother?”
“Well, you must ask Father. I couldn’t let you go without his consent.”
“But may we say you say we may?”
“Is that a poem?” asked Rex solemnly, “or just a ‘hidden-word’
competition?”
“Oh, be quiet, donkey!” said Billy, joining in the general laugh. “You
know what I mean, Mother—may we?”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Weston. “If you’ll really promise to be careful.”
Then, as the racing feet of the petitioners carried them out of earshot,
“You really think it’s safe, girls?”
“I don’t see how they can get into any trouble,” Jean said: “Rex can
ride quite decently, and Merrilegs is so steady. And they can swim—not
that there’s enough water in the river to drown them, even if they
couldn’t.”
“And I do like to see Rex getting independent,” added Jo. “He’s twice
the boy he was, in that respect. They’ll feel just like men, going off
together on their own account, bless them!”
“Father says we may!” shrilled a high, ecstatic voice from afar off: and
in a moment Rex was back at the window, flushed and eager.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Weston! And Billy’s gone to run the ponies up, and
he says, please, twins, will you fix up some grub for us—lots of grub,
please? I’m off to help him.” He was gone, like an arrow.
“Come along, Jo,” said Jean, laughing. “Good old thick sandwiches, with
the crust left on, I suppose. It’s a mercy we made extra cake!”
They stood together at the yard gate, twenty minutes later, to watch the
pair ride away, each boy with a respectable parcel of lunch tied to his
saddle. Their Scout blouses bulged in a peculiar way that suggested
apples. They dug their heels into their ponies’ sides, and departed at
full gallop, uttering demoniacal yells after the approved fashion of Red
Indians.
“Nice kids!” said Jo inelegantly. “Hurry up, Jean; I’ve got a frock to
iron, and there’s heaps to do. The Lawrences said they’d be out early.”
It was Saturday, and the spell of heat still lay upon the land.
Everywhere was the thick blue haze that told of far-off bush-fires;
although the Gulgong Flat fires had been checked, there had been other
outbreaks, and there were miles of burnt country where charred logs and
trees were smouldering; ready, should a wind spring up, to send burning
fragments far enough to start a fresh blaze. Day after day the water
shrank in the creeks and rivers, and the little remnant of dried grass
grew less and less; day after day the worry-lines deepened on the faces
of the men who saw their sheep and cattle grow weaker and weaker. The
household at Emu Plains was cheery enough, to all outward seeming, for
Mr. and Mrs. Weston had determined that the shadow should not lie
heavily on the boys and girls there, if they could keep it from them
awhile yet. But at night, when the children were in bed, they talked
long together; and often it was hard next morning to follow the Scout
prescription,—“Keep smiling!”—which they had adopted as the rule of
the house.
There was no shadow resting on the small boys’ solitary picnic. Beyond
doubt, it was a great adventure to ride out alone into the wide paddocks
where a hundred interesting things might happen. They were Red Indians
first; braves armed with deadly weapons and intent on scalps: they rode
stealthily in the timber, keeping a keen look-out for palefaces and
wolves; ejaculating “Hist!” when a leaf rustled, and stalking the sound
in single file, prepared for anything, from a grizzly bear to a hostile
Choctaw. Then a fox slipped away into the open, and on the instant they
were pig-stickers, bursting out of the Indian jungle. They raced after
him across a bare plain, Merrilegs hopelessly outdistanced by the
swifter Punch, until an unexpected turn on the part of the quarry gave
Rex a chance of cutting across and getting in the lead, where he
remained until the fox dived under a fence to safety. This was triumph,
and he exulted openly.
“Yah! Beat you!”
“He beat both of us,” said Billy, laughing.
“Yes, but I was nearest to him when he got away. Good old Merrilegs!”
boasted Rex, patting his ancient steed.
They ate their lunch in a shady hollow near the river. It was a noble
lunch, with a solid foundation of sandwiches and cake, and such added
details as mince-pies, dried figs and prunes, and a package of toffee!
“There’s no mistake, the girls do know how to pack a lunch!” said the
sated Billy, lying back on the ground. A large lump of toffee impeded,
but by no means prevented, speech.
“They’re great!” agreed Rex, similarly employed. “D’you know, I used to
hate girls!”
“Don’t you now?”
“Not like I used to, since I knew Jean and Jo. They’ve made me think
better of girls!” said the philosopher of nine. “The sort I used to see
at home were awful! They were all pretty old—about seventeen or
eighteen—and they used to put powder on their noses. And some of ’em
wanted to kiss me. Now that’s a thing Jean and Jo have never done!”
“I s’pecs they don’t think you’d be up to much to kiss,” said Billy,
grinning. “I don’t, either!”
“Nobody wants you to, smarty!” returned Master Forester. “I was awfully
afraid they would, though. But they’re so jolly and so sensible. They
really don’t seem to me like girls at all!”
“Well, they’ve really got as much sense as if they were boys,” Billy
agreed. “I thought I’d be able to do as I jolly well liked when I heard
they were going to teach me. But——” he paused, with a grin.
“But you don’t, do you?”
“Not much!” said Billy. “And all the same, they never get exactly wild.
I don’t know how it is. They’ve got a queer way of just expecting you to
be decent, and so it just happens.”
“Yes, and they’re never bossy,” Rex remarked. “Old Miss Green, now—she
just _was_ bossy. She used to finish up everything with, ‘Now, Rex, obey
me instantly!’” He imitated Miss Green’s high falsetto squeak.
“And so you never did, I suppose?”
“Well, not if I could help it!”
“And didn’t you get into rows?”
“Oh—not much.” Rex shrugged his thin little shoulders. “She hardly ever
told Mother, and if she did, I didn’t get much done to me, ’cause I was
nearly always sick.” He paused, and his face grew red. “You know, I
didn’t mind taking advantage of that then. It didn’t seem to matter,
with old Miss Green. But if I did it now, with the twins, I’d feel
awfully low-down.”
“I should think you would,” agreed Billy. “But then, you aren’t sick
now, ever, so it wouldn’t be any good.”
“No. But I guess I wouldn’t do it, anyhow,” said Rex, reddening more
deeply.
This was as far as soul-analysis would reasonably take small boys, and
they fell silent, pitching dry grass-roots sleepily at the little brown
lizards that ran over some big stones near them. Presently they grew
tired of inaction, and went roaming along the river-bank. Rex had long
ago fought down his fear of climbing; they “shinned up” wattle-trees in
search of gum, and practised gymnastics on the low, swinging branches of
other trees. Then a rabbit darted out of a hole near by, and they chased
it wildly, dodging hither and thither among the stones: the chase coming
to an end when the rabbit found another hole, and whisked down it with a
final twist of his white tail. They wandered aimlessly back towards the
ponies and Rex almost trod on a big black snake, which lay sunning
itself in a dusty patch. He jumped back, with a little cry. It was the
first snake he had seen, and he had all the town boy’s dread of the evil
thing.
“Watch-him-while-I-get-a-stick!” said Billy, all in one word.
He darted aside, and in a moment came racing back with a stick. The
snake was just slipping away through the grass; Billy brought down the
stick with a quick blow that broke its back.
“Run, Billy! Oh, do run!” Rex cried, shrinking back from the creature
that thrashed wildly round on the ground. He caught at Billy’s sleeve.
“You’ll only be killed. Do run!”
“Run!” ejaculated Billy, in huge scorn. “Whatever for? He can’t move,
bless you. He’s done—his back’s broken.”
“You never broke it, did you?”
“Rather! He’d be a mile away by now if I hadn’t.”
“But you couldn’t break it with a little hit like that!”
“Oh, well, I s’pose you know all about it!” Billy uttered. “Think I
never killed a snake before? How many’ve you killed yourself, I’d like
to know? That chap’s never going to bite any one again, anyhow!”
“But he’s not dead! He’s moving!”
Indeed, “moving” was a mild term to apply to the struggles of the black
snake.
“’Course he’s moving, you little silly!” said Billy, in superb scorn.
“But he isn’t getting anywhere, is he? Only his head ’n’ his tail’s
moving: ’n’ that’s only what’s called nerfs. Nerfs are things that keep
wriggling long after a snake’s dead.”
“But he isn’t safe!”
“Well, he isn’t if you go near the business end of him,” Billy answered,
keenly pleased with his mastery of the situation. Rex could beat him at
boxing, but when it came to dealing with a snake, he, too, was evidently
a prey to “nerfs.” “Only no one but an idjit goes near a snake’s head,
even if he’s dead. Father puts his heel on the heads of the snakes he
kills, but he made me promise not to. That chap’s back’s broken, an’ he
couldn’t never move from where he is till he died. ’Course, it would be
cruel not to finish killing him: I’d have finished ever so long ago if
you hadn’t kept grabbing at me!”
His stick sang in the air again, and came down just behind the snake’s
head.
“That’s done for a lot of his ole nerfs!” said Billy, darkly. He
continued the slaying of the reptile, with the thoroughness dear to
every boy.
“’Tisn’t hard. You have a hit and see if it is. You only got to keep
your hair on an’ hit straight.”
“Can I really?” Rex asked. Gingerly he took the stick and whacked the
unpleasant remnant of the snake.
“It isn’t hard, is it? Do you think I killed a bit of him?” he asked,
his face glowing.
“Oh, I s’pecs you did,” admitted Billy, who felt he could afford to be
generous. “Now you can say you aren’t quite a new-chum any more. Next
snake we meet you’ll have to tackle on your own!”
“Shall I, really? I believe I’d be scared.”
“Not you. It’s dead easy. Why, I killed my first when I was six, and
you’re nine!” They moved on, Rex feeling that the sum of his out-back
experiences had been considerably developed.
The ponies awaited them under a shady light-wood tree, drooping sleepy
heads in the hot afternoon stillness. They saddled them and rode on,
looking for new worlds to conquer.
“Where’ll we go?” Rex said.
“I d’no. There’s so much smoke about that every place looks the same,”
Billy answered. He suddenly broke out in youthful impatience of the long
drought. “My word, I’ll be glad when we get rain! It just is sickenin’,
seeing the place all burnt up to a cinder with heat and dryness! By
rights there ought to be green grass everywhere, all thick ’n’ long, ’n’
simply scrumptious to gallop over. I’ve seen it on these flats many a
time so high I could tie it over Merrilegs’ neck!”
“Go on! Is that a yarn?”
“No, it isn’t. It’s plain truth. An’ everywhere you could see cattle and
sheep, thick as anything, an’ all rolling fat. ’Cept the stores, of
course.”
“What’s stores?”
“Cattle that aren’t fat,” said Billy, in blank amazement at such
ignorance. “They’re stores when you buy ’em first, an’ then you put ’em
on good paddocks an’ watch ’em fatten. Then you sell ’em for heaps of
money.”
“Is that how your father gets his living?”
“Yes, of course it is.”
“Then how does he get a living now?”
“He doesn’t,” said Billy simply.
“Well, but . . . but . . . he’s going _on_ living, isn’t he, silly?”
“Oh, well, you don’t expect him to turn up his toes an’ die as soon as a
drought comes,” Billy said, laughing. “Of course, every one has money in
Banks and things. That’s what Banks are for. You stick money in ’em when
times are good, and then there’s something to live on when they’re bad.”
“And do the Banks just shell it out when you want it?”
“You bet they do. Why, they wouldn’t dare to keep it—the police would
get them. It isn’t really their money—it’s the money people have put
in. They’d just better try to stick to it, an’ I bet they’d see!”
“Well, I don’t see what the Banks get out of it,” Rex said doubtfully.
“Who pays ’em?”
“Blessed if I know,” Billy answered, without any sympathy for the
difficulties of financial institutions. “I s’pecs they’ve got their own
ways of making a living. The one in Barrabri must be jolly fond of
Father, ’cause I heard Mr. Holmes say to him, ‘Don’t you worry, old man:
the Bank will stick to you.’ But I know Father reckons he hasn’t got
enough money in it, an’ that’s why we’re so jolly poor now.”
“Are you poor?” queried Rex, round-eyed.
“Oh, horrid poor,” Billy answered lightly. “But it doesn’t seem to
matter much: we have lots of fun, I say, Rex, s’pose we ride round the
back paddock where we went with Father that day, an’ have a look at the
bullocks. I s’pect he’d be glad to know how they are; I heard him say he
must go out there next week, so we might save him the trouble.”
“Right-oh!” Rex agreed.
They shook the ponies into a canter, and, after following the winding of
the river for a time, struck across the paddock to a gate. Passing
through this, they found themselves in the back paddock of the Emu
Plains run. It was a wide stretch of plain, sloping gently back to the
river that formed Mr. Weston’s southern boundary, and at present it
represented almost all the grazing land on which he could still run
cattle. There was coarse grass on it, rough and poor: still, it meant
something of a living for cattle, dry as it was, for the water in the
river was good, and good water helps stock to live on very poor fare.
There were very few cattle in sight on the plain, and the boys trotted
across to the timber near the river, where they knew they would find the
bullocks sheltering from the fierce sun. It was not very easy to
distinguish anything, so thick was the smoke-haze. Dense as it had been
all day, in this corner of the run it was worse than anywhere else.
“My word, you’d think the fires were close!” Billy uttered. “Let’s go
over to the corner by Moncrieff’s, Rex, and see if we can see any sign
of ’em.”
“What if we did?” queried Rex.
“Well, it’d mean we’d have to fly round,” said Billy, speaking as one
might speak of an earthquake, without any real belief that such a thing
might happen. “Fight it, if we could: but I don’t s’pose we could do
anything to stop it. We’d have to get the cattle out, and get word to
Father. It would be rather a lark, if it didn’t do much damage. They’ve
never let me go out if there was a fire, an’ I’ve always wanted to.” He
broke off, peering through the haze: then he spoke excitedly. “Rex, I’m
not sure, but I could nearly swear I saw flames! Did you see anything?
Over there in Moncrieff’s.” He pointed to the southeast.
“I don’t see anything but smoke,” said Rex, straining his eyes.
“Neither do I, now, but I’ll swear I saw a flash of flames—high up.
Let’s gallop over and see!”
They raced over the dry grass, keeping just outside the timber. The
boundary fence loomed up presently out of the haze, and then Billy
uttered a cry.
“My word, it is burning, Rex! Look—can’t you see men working at it?”
There were red flashes of fire coming out of the smoke-drift in the next
paddock, and, as they looked, a burning tree sent a tongue of flame
skyward. Here and there they could make out the forms of men, beating
out the fire in the grass. It was difficult to see how much fire there
was: but presently a blazing stick fell from the top of a tree, and,
caught by a sudden eddy of wind high up, sailed towards them for a
moment and then dropped, a blaze springing up the moment it touched the
grass. A man on a smart pony came tearing across to it, and beat it out.
Then he caught sight of the two little figures at the fence and galloped
to them.
“It’s Mr. Moncrieff!” Billy exclaimed.
“Is that you, Billy?” The man peered at them with smoke-reddened eyes.
“Is your father about?”
“No; he’s at home, Mr. Moncrieff,” Billy said. “Is the fire very bad?”
“Bad enough. We’re holding it at present, and, luckily, what wind there
is is helping us. But we may not be able to keep it back—if the wind
changed to the east your place will go like smoke. I’d have moved your
cattle, only we can’t spare a hand.” He looked at them doubtfully. “Are
you boys by yourselves? I suppose you couldn’t get the cattle out?”
“We’ll jolly well try,” cried Billy. “Oh, Mr. Moncrieff, keep it back if
you can—it’s all the grass Father’s got left!”
“I know that well enough,” the neighbour said. “Every one of us would
keep it off your father’s place if work will do it. But it’s most likely
it will beat us. Shift the stock if you can, Billy, and get word to your
father as soon as you do it: we want all the help we can get. My word,
there’s another blaze starting——!” He wheeled his pony and went off at
full gallop.
“Come on, Rex!” Billy said, pulling his pony round.
“What have we got to do?” Rex kicked Merrilegs into a gallop, racing
beside him.
“Get the cattle out of the paddock, through that gate we came through.
You know how we mustered ’em with Father that day we came out? Well,
we’ve got to do the same, and as hard as we can lick, ’cause the fire
may be here any minute. If it does, I don’t know what we ought to do,”
said poor Billy, feeling suddenly that he was only a very small boy.
“Cut for the gate ourselves, I suppose: we mustn’t get trapped in the
timber. Ride all you know, Rex, an’ yell like the mischief! I’ll go in
near the river, an’ you keep towards this edge of the timber. Drive ’em
in front of you, an’ try to edge ’em out on the plain if you can, like
we did with Father.”
The cattle were standing about among the trees, uneasy with the smoke
and with the all-pervading smell of fire. To them suddenly appeared two
small demons on ponies, who rushed at them, shouting and waving
threatening arms. Hither and thither through the trees the demons
rushed, and the noise of their yelling was as the noise of ten. It was
no use to try to evade them: no use to slink into the shelter of a clump
of bushes, or to pretend to gallop clumsily off for a few yards in the
hope of persuading them that you were an obedient bullock. Both were bad
demons: but the smaller one was infinitely the more horrible of the two,
for he was like a will-o’-the-wisp among the trees, and he rode a black
pony that was a demon in itself, and just as alive as its rider to the
ways of bullocks. The other invader was slower, but he had a high,
shrill voice that was very terrible, and his eyes seemed to be of glass,
and reflected the light in a most alarming manner. The bullocks decided
that their only salvation lay in flight. The infection of their terror
spread quickly among them, and the timber was soon full of the sound of
frightened bellowing and pounding hoofs, with the high shrill cries of
the boys sounding over all.
“Keep looking behind you,” Billy panted, meeting Rex for a moment.
“Don’t let any of ’em break back if you can help it.” He shot off again,
yelling at a bullock that had dropped from a gallop into a jog-trot: and
the bullock shook his head in terror and galloped anew.
As for Rex, Merrilegs had taken possession of him. Every horse on Emu
Plains was thoroughly trained to stock work, and Merrilegs was the
oldest of them all. What he lacked in speed he made up in cunning: he
had an uncanny fore-knowledge of what a beast would do, and his
twistings and turnings and sudden rushes were more like the work of a
dog than a horse. A hundred times Rex was nearly off, saving himself
only by desperate clutching at the pommel: a hundred times he barely
saved his leg from the trunk of a tree, or ducked just in time to avoid
an overhanging limb. At first he was sick with fear: and then the wild
excitement of the moment took hold of him, and he forgot himself
altogether, and let Merrilegs take him where he would. The pony did the
work: the boy clung to the pommel and drummed with his heels on the lean
grey sides, and yelled!
In their inexperience and comparative helplessness the little fellows
accomplished what men, with quieter methods, might have failed to do.
They actually started a stampede among the cattle; and the quick sense
of overmastering fear leaped from beast to beast until every bullock in
the paddock was on the run. They burst out of the timber in a whirlwind,
converging to a point on the plain where they could see their galloping
leaders. Behind them Rex and Billy raced, with scarlet faces and very
little voices left.
“Can you keep ’em going?” Billy gasped. “I’ll get round ’em and open the
gate.”
He shot off to one side, crouching low on his pony’s neck; and for a
moment Rex felt blank terror. What should he do, if the cattle turned
and came charging back to the shelter of the timber? What power had he
to stop them? Luckily, the problem was not given to him to solve. Billy
kept well away from the cattle, swinging round them in a wide
half-circle; and Merrilegs dropped to a canter, keeping them moving in
the right direction, while Rex continued to utter mechanical yells in a
kind of cracked yelp. Billy swung the gate open to its fullest extent,
and then came racing back as he had gone, well out from the bullocks,
until he could swing in behind them and push them on.
To the bullocks the open gate and the sun-dried plain beyond offered
respite from the demons in the rear. They jostled each other through the
opening, and lumbered away at full gallop, spreading out as they went.
“We’ve done it, Rex!” Billy gasped: “an’ I never thought we would.
_They_ can’t be burnt anyhow.” His face was scarlet, and his hat was
gone, but his eyes were dancing. He held the gate for Rex to pass
through. “I say, do you think you can hurry home an’ take word to
Father? I’m going back to help.”
“Not to the fire?”
“Rather. Some one ought to be there to help keep it off Emu Plains. You
can get home all right, can’t you, Rex? Merrilegs will take you.”
“I can get home all right,” Rex said. “But you—will you be safe,
Billy?”
“’Course I will.”
“But you said they didn’t let you go to fires.”
“I’m letting myself go to this one,” Billy returned. “Think I’m going
home now—to sit down an’ have tea? My word, no—I’m goin’ back with the
men!”
“Couldn’t I come too?”
“We can’t both go—some one must take word to Father. Oh, do go, Rex!”
Billy begged.
“You haven’t even got your hat!” said poor Rex, in a final protest.
“I know where I dropped it—I’ll get it. Cut along, old chap!” He
latched the gate as he spoke, and, swinging round, went off at a hard
gallop, Punch’s little hoofs drumming over the baked ground. Rex looked
after him enviously, feeling suddenly lonely. Then it came to him that
after all he had a job of importance: was he not a despatch-rider? If
you cannot be in the firing-line, it is at least something to bear
despatches. The small boy cheered, and sent Merrilegs galloping for
home.
It was a queer version of the usually spic-and-span Master Forester who
came, a little later, on the tennis-party at home. Afternoon tea was in
progress, and Jo was just handing her father a cup when the little boy
came up the path. He was still scarlet-faced, and his fair hair drooped
in a lank lock over his forehead: there was an angry red mark from brow
to chin where a branch of a sapling had struck him, swinging back after
the rush of a bullock. One sleeve of his blouse hung in tatters, and
there was a big triangular tear in his trousers, while his stockings, in
rags, hung round his ankles. His knees were scarred and cut. But he was
undeniably happy.
Mrs. Weston was the first to catch sight of him.
“Good gracious!” she ejaculated. “Whatever is the matter, Rex?”
Every one was looking at him. He stammered a little as he tried to
speak.
“There’s a fire,” he said. “Near your back paddock, Mr. Weston. I ’specs
it’s in it by now!”
“Good heavens!” uttered John Weston, putting down his cup hurriedly.
“The cattle!”
“Oh, we’ve got the cattle out,” Rex said, doing his best to speak
unconcernedly. “Billy and me. We had a great time. They’re all right—I
think we got them all.”
“Where is Billy?” put in Billy’s mother sharply.
“He’s fighting the fire. There’s a lot of men there. Billy went back to
help them. He told me to come and tell you. They’re going to do their
level best to keep it out of your paddock.”
“John!” Mrs. Weston’s voice was a cry.
“He’ll be all right, dear,” Mr. Weston said. “The men will take care of
him. I’ll go out at once. Jump on Merrilegs, Jean, and run up Cruiser
for me while I change: I won’t be five minutes.” He went off across the
grass with long strides, turning just for a moment to Rex. “Good boy,
Rex: you’re a real man!” he said.
“Sit down, Rex dear,” Mrs. Weston said.
The despatch-rider sat down. Other bearers of despatches, he knew, from
the stories he had read, finished with great excitement: generally their
horses dropped dead in the last furlong, or they themselves swooned on
delivering their message. But Merrilegs was already tearing off, with
Jean on his back: and he himself had no desire to swoon: no desire for
anything, indeed, except for tea. He eyed Mr. Weston’s untasted cup
wolfishly, and licked his dry lips. There was no sort of polish left to
him.
“My word, I’d like that cup of tea!” he said.