"Was his
missus sick at all?"
"I dunno," replied the driver. "She might have been. He said so, anyway.
I ain't got no call to call a man a liar."
"See here," said the cannibalistic individual to the driver,
in the tone of a man who has made up his mind for a row,
"has that shanty-keeper got a wife at all?"
"I believe he has."
"And is she living with him?"
"No, she ain't -- if yer wanter know."
"Then where is she?"
"I dunno. How am I to know? She left him three or four years ago. She was
in Sydney last time I heard of her. It ain't no affair of mine, anyways."
"And is there any woman about the place at all, driver?"
inquired a
professionalwanderer reflectively.
"No -- not that I knows on. There useter be a old black gin
come pottering round sometimes, but I ain't seen her lately."
"And excuse me, driver, but is there anyone round there at all?"
enquired the
professionalwanderer, with the air of a
conscientious writer,
collecting material for an Australian novel from life, with an eye to detail.
"Naw," said the driver -- and recollecting that he was expected
to be civil and obliging to his employers' patrons, he added
in surly
apology, "Only the boss and the stableman, that I knows of."
Then repenting of the
apology, he asserted his
manhood again,
and asked, in a tone calculated to risk a
breach of the peace,
"Any more questions, gentlemen -- while the shop's open?"
There was a long pause.
"Driver," asked the Pilgrim appealingly, "was them horses lost at all?"
"I dunno," said the driver. "He said they was. He's got
the looking after them. It was nothing to do with me."
. . . . .
"Twelve drinks at
sixpence a drink" -- said the Joker,
as if calculating to himself -- "that's six bob, and, say on an average,
four shouts -- that's one pound four. Twelve beds at eighteenpence a bed --
that's eighteen shillings; and say ten bob in various drinks
and the stuff we brought with us, that's two pound twelve.
That publican didn't do so bad out of us in two hours."
We wondered how much the driver got out of it, but thought it best
not to ask him.
. . . . .
We didn't say much for the rest of the journey. There was the usual man
who thought as much and knew all about it from the first,
but he wasn't appreciated. We suppressed him. One or two
wanted to go back and "stoush" that
landlord, and the driver
stopped the coach
cheerfully at their request; but they said
they'd come across him again and allowed themselves to be persuaded out of it.
It made us feel bad to think how we had allowed ourselves
to be delayed, and robbed, and had sneaked round on tiptoe,
and how we had sat on the inoffensive Pilgrim and his mate,
and all on
account of a sick wife who didn't exist.
The coach arrived at Dead Camel in an
atmosphere of mutual
suspicion and
distrust, and we spread ourselves over the train and departed.
A Gentleman Sharper and Steelman Sharper
Steelman and Smith had been staying at the hotel for several days
in the dress and
character of bushies down for what they considered a spree.
The gentleman sharper from the Other Side had been
hanging round them
for three days now. Steelman was the more sociable, and, to all appearances,
the greener of the two bush mates; but seemed rather too much
under the influence of Smith, who was reserved,
suspicious,
self-contained, or sulky. He almost scowled at Gentleman Sharper's
"Good-morning!" and "Fine day!", replied in monosyllables and turned half away
with an
uneasy,
sullen, resentful hump of his shoulder
and
shuffle of his feet.
Steelman took Smith for a
stroll on the round, bald tussock hills
surrounding the city, and rehearsed him for the last act until after sundown.
Gentleman Sharper was lounging, with a cigar, on the end of the
balcony,
where he had been contentedly contemplating the beautiful death of day.
His calm,
classic features began to
whiten (and sharpen)
in the
frosty moonlight.
Steelman and Smith sat on deck-chairs behind a half-screen of ferns
on the other end of the
balcony, smoked their after-dinner smoke,
and talked in subdued tones as befitted the time and the scene --
great, softened, misty hills in a semicircle, and the water and harbour lights
in moonlight.
The other boarders were loitering over dinner, in their rooms, or gone out;
the three were alone on the
balcony, which was a rear one.
Gentleman Sharper moved his position,
carelessly,
noiselessly, yet quickly,
until he leaned on the rail close to the ferns and could overhear
every word the bushies said. He had dropped his cigar overboard,
and his scented
handkerchief behind a fern-pot en route.
"But he looks all right, and acts all right, and talks all right --
and shouts all right," protested Steelman. "He's not stumped,
for I saw twenty or thirty sovereigns when he shouted;
and he doesn't seem to care a damn whether we stand in with him or not."
"There you are! That's just where it is!" said Smith, with some logic,
but in a tone a wife uses in
argument (which tone, by the way,
especially if backed by logic or common sense, makes a man wild
sooner than anything else in this world of troubles).
Steelman jerked his chair half-round in
disgust. "That's you!" he snorted,
"always
suspicious! Always
suspicious of everybody and everything!
If I found myself shot into a world where I couldn't trust anybody
I'd shoot myself out of it. Life would be worse than not worth living.
Smith, you'll never make money, except by hard graft -- hard, bullocking,
nigger-driving graft like we had on that
damned railway section
for the last six months, up to our knees in water all winter,
and all for a paltry cheque of one-fifty -- twenty of that gone already.
How do you expect to make money in this country if you won't
take anything for granted, except hard cash? I tell you, Smith,
there's a thousand pounds lost for every one gained or saved
by
trusting too little. How did Vanderbilt and ----"
Steelman elaborated to a
climax, slipping a glance warily, once or twice,
out of the tail of his eye through the ferns, low down.
"There never was a fortune made that wasn't made by chancing it."
He nudged Smith to come to the point. Presently Smith asked, sulkily:
"Well, what was he saying?"
"I thought I told you! He says he's behind the scenes in this gold boom,
and, if he had a hundred pounds ready cash to-morrow, he'd make three of it
before Saturday. He said he could put one-fifty to one-fifty."
"And isn't he worth three hundred?"
"Didn't I tell you," demanded Steelman, with an
impatient ring,
and
speaking rapidly, "that he lost his mail in the wreck of the `Tasman'?
You know she went down the day before
yesterday, and the
divers haven't got
at the mails yet."
"Yes. . . . But why doesn't he wire to Sydney for some stuff?"
"I'm ----! Well, I suppose I'll have to have
patience with a born natural.
Look here, Smith, the fact of the matter is that he's a sort of black-sheep --
sent out on the remittance
system, if the truth is known,
and with letters of
introduction to some big-bugs out here --
that explains how he gets to know these wire-pullers behind the boom.
His people have probably got the quarterly
allowance business
fixed hard and tight with a bank or a
lawyer in Sydney;
and there'll have to be enquiries about the lost `draft'
(as he calls a cheque) and a letter or maybe a cable home to England;
and it might take weeks."
"Yes," said Smith, hesitatingly. "That all sounds right enough.
But" -- with an
inspiration -- "why don't he go to one of these
big-bug boomsters he knows -- that he got letters of
introduction to --
and get him to fix him up?"
"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Steelman,
hopelessly. "Listen to him!
Can't you see that they're the last men he wants to let into his game?
Why, he wants to use THEM! They're the mugs as far as he is concerned!"
"Oh -- I see!" said Smith, after hesitating, and rather slowly --
as if he hadn't quite finished
seeing yet.
Steelman glanced furtively at the fern-screen, and nudged Smith again.
"He said if he had three hundred, he'd double it by Saturday?"
"That's what he said," replied Steelman,
seeming by his tone
to be losing interest in the conversation.
"And . . . well, if he had a hundred he could double that, I suppose."
"Yes. What are you driving at now?"
"If he had twenty ----"
"Oh, God! I'm sick of you, Smith. What the ----!"
"Hold on. Let me finish. I was only going to say that I'm willing
to put up a fiver, and you put up another fiver, and if he doubles that for us
then we can talk about
standing in with him with a hundred --
provided he can show his hundred."
After some snarling Steelman said: "Well, I'll try him!
Now are you satisfied?" . . .
"He's moved off now," he added in a
whisper; "but stay here and talk
a bit longer."
Passing through the hall they saw Gentleman Sharper
standingcarelessly by
the door of the private bar. He jerked his head in the direction of drinks.
Steelman accepted the
invitation -- Smith passed on.
Steelman took the opportunity to
whisper to the Sharper --
"I've been talking that over with my mate, and ----"
"Come for a
stroll," suggested the
professional.
"I don't mind," said Steelman.
"Have a cigar?" and they passed out.
When they returned Steelman went straight to the room he occupied with Smith.
"How much stuff have we got, Smith?"
"Nine pounds seventeen and threepence."
Steelman gave an
exclamation of
disapproval with that state
of
financial affairs. He thought a second. "I know the barman here,
and I think he knows me. I'll chew his lug for a bob or may be a quid."
Twenty minutes later he went to Gentleman Sharper's room with ten pounds
-- in very dirty Bank of New Zealand notes -- such as those with which
bush contractors pay their men.
Two mornings later the sharper suggested a
stroll. Steelman went with him,
with a face carefully made up to hear the worst.
After walking a hundred yards in a silence which might have been ominous
-- and was certainly
pregnant -- the sharper said:
"Well . . . I tried the water."
"Yes!" said Steelman in a
nervous tone. "And how did you find it?"
"Just as warm as I thought. Warm for a big splash."
"How? Did you lose the ten quid?"
"Lose it! What did you take me for? I put ten to your ten
as I told you I would. I landed 50 Pounds ----"
"Fifty pounds for twenty?"
"That's the tune of it -- and not much of a tune, either. My God!
If I'd only had that thousand of mine by me, or even half of it,
I'd have made a pile!"
"Fifty pounds for twenty!" cried Steelman
excitedly. "Why, that's grand!
And to think we chaps have been grafting like niggers all our lives!
By God, we'll stand in with you for all we've got!"
"There's my hand on it," as they reached the hotel.
"If you come to my room I'll give you the 25 Pounds now, if you like."
"Oh, that's all right," exclaimed Steelman impulsively;
"you mustn't think I don't ----"
"That's all right. Don't you say any more about it. You'd best have
the stuff to-night to show your mate."
"Perhaps so; he's a
suspicious fool, but I made a
bargain with him
about our last cheque. He can hang on to the stuff, and I can't.
If I'd been on my own I'd have blued it a week ago. Tell you what I'll do --
we'll call our share (Smith's and mine) twenty quid. You take the odd fiver
for your trouble."
"That looks fair enough. We'll call it twenty guineas to you and your mate.
We'll want him, you know."
In his own and Smith's room Steelman
thoughtfully counted
twenty-one sovereigns on the toilet-table cover, and left them there
in a pile.
He stretched himself, scratched behind his ear, and blinked
at the money abstractedly. Then he asked, as if the thought
just occurred to him: "By the way, Smith, do you see those yellow boys?"