for they had to suffer for it in the end. Such generosity
is often born of vanity, or moral cowardice, or both mixed. It's very nice

to hear the chaps sing `For he's a jolly good fellow', but you've mostly
got to pay for it twice -- first in company, and afterwards alone.

I once heard the chaps singing that I was a jolly good fellow,
when I was leaving a place and they were giving me a send-off.

It thrilled me, and brought a warm gush to my eyes; but, all the same,
I wished I had half the money I'd lent them, and spent on 'em,

and I wished I'd used the time I'd wasted to be a jolly good fellow.
When I first met Bob Baker he was a boss-drover on the great

north-western route, and his wife lived at the township of Solong
on the Sydney side. He was going north to new country

round by the Gulf of Carpentaria, with a big mob of cattle,
on a two years' trip; and I and my mate, Andy M`Culloch,

engaged to go with him. We wanted to have a look at the Gulf Country.
After we had crossed the Queensland border it seemed to me

that the Boss was too fond of going into wayside shanties and town pubs.
Andy had been with him on another trip, and he told me

that the Boss was only going this way lately. Andy knew Mrs Baker well,
and seemed to think a deal of her. `She's a good little woman,' said Andy.

`One of the right stuff. I worked on their station for a while
when I was a nipper, and I know. She was always a damned sight too good

for the Boss, but she believed in him. When I was coming away this time
she says to me, "Look here, Andy, I'm afraid Robert is drinking again.

Now I want you to look after him for me, as much as you can --
you seem to have as much influence with him as any one.

I want you to promise me that you'll never have a drink with him."
`And I promised,' said Andy, `and I'll keep my word.'

Andy was a chap who could keep his word, and nothing else.
And, no matter how the Boss persuaded, or sneered, or swore at him,

Andy would never drink with him.
It got worse and worse: the Boss would ride on ahead and get drunk at

a shanty, and sometimes he'd be days behind us; and when he'd catch up to us
his temper would be just about as much as we could stand. At last he went

on a howling spree at Mulgatown, about a hundred and fifty miles
north of the border, and, what was worse, he got in tow

with a flash barmaid there -- one of those girls who are engaged,
by the publicans up country, as baits for chequemen.

He went mad over that girl. He drew an advance cheque
from the stock-owner's agent there, and knocked that down;

then he raised some more money somehow, and spent that -- mostly on the girl.
We did all we could. Andy got him along the track for a couple of stages,

and just when we thought he was all right, he slipped us in the night
and went back.

We had two other men with us, but had the devil's own bother
on account of the cattle. It was a mixed-up job all round.

You see it was all big runs round there, and we had to keep the bullocks
moving along the route all the time, or else get into trouble for trespass.

The agent wasn't going to go to the expense of putting the cattle in a paddock
until the Boss sobered up; there was very little grass

on the route or the travelling-stock reserves or camps,
so we had to keep travelling for grass.

The world might wobble and all the banks go bung, but the cattle
have to go through -- that's the law of the stock-routes.

So the agent wired to the owners, and, when he got their reply,
he sacked the Boss and sent the cattle on in charge of another man.

The new Boss was a drover coming south after a trip;
he had his two brothers with him, so he didn't want me and Andy;

but, anyway, we were full up of this trip, so we arranged,
between the agent and the new Boss, to get most of the wages due to us --

the Boss had drawn some of our stuff and spent it.
We could have started on the back track at once, but, drunk or sober,

mad or sane, good or bad, it isn't Bush religion to desert a mate in a hole;
and the Boss was a mate of ours; so we stuck to him.

We camped on the creek, outside the town, and kept him in the camp with us
as much as possible, and did all we could for him.

`How could I face his wife if I went home without him?' asked Andy,
`or any of his old mates?'

The Boss got himself turned out of the pub. where the barmaid was,
and then he'd hang round the other pubs., and get drink somehow,

and fight, and get knocked about. He was an awful object by this time,
wild-eyed and gaunt, and he hadn't washed or shaved for days.

Andy got the constable in charge of the police station
to lock him up for a night, but it only made him worse: we took him back

to the camp next morning and while our eyes were off him for a few minutes
he slipped away into the scrub, stripped himself naked, and started

to hang himself to a leaning tree with a piece of clothes-line rope.
We got to him just in time.

Then Andy wired to the Boss's brother Ned, who was fighting the drought,
the rabbit-pest, and the banks, on a small station back on the border.

Andy reckoned it was about time to do something.
Perhaps the Boss hadn't been quite right in his head before he

started drinking -- he had acted queer some time, now we came to think of it;
maybe he'd got a touch of sunstroke or got brooding over his troubles --

anyway he died in the horrors within the week.
His brother Ned turned up on the last day, and Bob thought

he was the devil, and grappled with him. It took the three of us
to hold the Boss down sometimes.

Sometimes, towards the end, he'd be sensible for a few minutes
and talk about his `poor wife and children'; and immediately afterwards

he'd fall a-cursing me, and Andy, and Ned, and calling us devils.
He cursed everything; he cursed his wife and children,

and yelled that they were dragging him down to hell. He died raving mad.
It was the worst case of death in the horrors of drink

that I ever saw or heard of in the Bush.
Ned saw to the funeral: it was very hot weather, and men have to be

buried quick who die out there in the hot weather -- especially men
who die in the state the Boss was in. Then Ned went to the public-house

where the barmaid was and called the landlord out. It was a desperate fight:
the publican was a big man, and a bit of a fighting man;

but Ned was one of those quiet, simple-minded chaps who
will carry a thing through to death when they make up their minds.

He gave that publican nearly as good a thrashing as he deserved.
The constable in charge of the station backed Ned, while another policeman

picked up the publican. Sounds queer to you city people, doesn't it?
Next morning we three started south. We stayed a couple of days

at Ned Baker's station on the border, and then started
on our three-hundred-mile ride down-country. The weather was still very hot,

so we decided to travel at night for a while, and left Ned's place at dusk.
He parted from us at the homestead gate. He gave Andy a small packet,

done up in canvas, for Mrs Baker, which Andy told me contained
Bob's pocket-book, letters, and papers. We looked back,

after we'd gone a piece along the dusty road, and saw Ned still standing
by the gate; and a very lonely figure he looked. Ned was a bachelor.

`Poor old Ned,' said Andy to me. `He was in love with Mrs Bob Baker
before she got married, but she picked the wrong man -- girls mostly do.

Ned and Bob were together on the Macquarie, but Ned left
when his brother married, and he's been up in these God-forsaken scrubs

ever since. Look, I want to tell you something, Jack:
Ned has written to Mrs Bob to tell her that Bob died of fever,

and everything was done for him that could be done, and that he died easy --
and all that sort of thing. Ned sent her some money,

and she is to think that it was the money due to Bob when he died.
Now I'll have to go and see her when we get to Solong;

there's no getting out of it, I'll have to face her --
and you'll have to come with me.'

`Damned if I will!' I said.
`But you'll have to,' said Andy. `You'll have to stick to me;

you're surely not crawler enough to desert a mate in a case like this?
I'll have to lie like hell -- I'll have to lie as I never lied

to a woman before; and you'll have to back me and corroborate every lie.'
I'd never seen Andy show so much emotion.

`There's plenty of time to fix up a good yarn,' said Andy. He said no more
about Mrs Baker, and we only mentioned the Boss's name casually,

until we were within about a day's ride of Solong; then Andy told me
the yarn he'd made up about the Boss's death.

`And I want you to listen, Jack,' he said, `and remember every word --
and if you can fix up a better yarn you can tell me afterwards.

Now it was like this: the Boss wasn't too well when he crossed the border.
He complained of pains in his back and head and a stinging pain

in the back of his neck, and he had dysentery bad, -- but that doesn't matter;
it's lucky I ain't supposed to tell a woman all the symptoms.

The Boss stuck to the job as long as he could, but we managed the cattle
and made it as easy as we could for him. He'd just take it easy,

and ride on from camp to camp, and rest. One night I rode to a town
off the route (or you did, if you like) and got some medicine for him;

that made him better for a while, but at last, a day or two
this side of Mulgatown, he had to give up. A squatter there

drove him into town in his buggy and put him up at the best hotel.
The publican knew the Boss and did all he could for him --

put him in the best room and wired for another doctor.
We wired for Ned as soon as we saw how bad the Boss was,

and Ned rode night and day and got there three days before the Boss died.
The Boss was a bit off his head some of the time with the fever,

but was calm and quiet towards the end and died easy. He talked a lot
about his wife and children, and told us to tell the wife not to fret

but to cheer up for the children's sake. How does that sound?'
I'd been thinking while I listened, and an idea struck me.

`Why not let her know the truth?' I asked. `She's sure to hear of it
sooner or later; and if she knew he was only a selfish, drunken blackguard

she might get over it all the sooner.'
`You don't know women, Jack,' said Andy quietly. `And, anyway,

even if she is a sensible woman, we've got a dead mate to consider
as well as a living woman.'

`But she's sure to hear the truth sooner or later,' I said,
`the Boss was so well known.'

`And that's just the reason why the truth might be kept from her,' said Andy.
`If he wasn't well known -- and nobody could help liking him,

after all, when he was straight -- if he wasn't so well known
the truth might leak out unawares. She won't know if I can help it,

or at least not yet a while. If I see any chaps that come from the North
I'll put them up to it. I'll tell M`Grath, the publican at Solong, too:

he's a straight man -- he'll keep his ears open and warn chaps.
One of Mrs Baker's sisters is staying with her, and I'll give her a hint

so that she can warn off any women that might get hold of a yarn. Besides,
Mrs Baker is sure to go and live in Sydney, where all her people are --

she was a Sydney girl; and she's not likely to meet any one there
that will tell her the truth. I can tell her that it was

the last wish of the Boss that she should shift to Sydney.'
We smoked and thought a while, and by-and-by Andy had what he called

a `happy thought'. He went to his saddle-bags and got out
the small canvaspacket that Ned had given him: it was sewn up

with packing-thread, and Andy ripped it open with his pocket-knife.
`What are you doing, Andy?' I asked.

`Ned's an innocent old fool, as far as sin is concerned,' said Andy.
`I guess he hasn't looked through the Boss's letters, and I'm just going

to see that there's nothing here that will make liars of us.'
He looked through the letters and papers by the light of the fire.

There were some letters from Mrs Baker to her husband,
also a portrait of her and the children; these Andy put aside.

But there were other letters from barmaids and women who were not fit
to be seen in the same street with the Boss's wife; and there were portraits

-- one or two flash ones. There were two letters from other men's wives too.
`And one of those men, at least, was an old mate of his!' said Andy,

in a tone of disgust.
He threw the lot into the fire; then he went through the Boss's pocket-book

and tore out some leaves that had notes and addresses on them,
and burnt them too. Then he sewed up the packet again and put it away

in his saddle-bag.
`Such is life!' said Andy, with a yawn that might have been half a sigh.

We rode into Solong early in the day, turned our horses out in a paddock,

• vanity [´væniti] n.虚荣；自负；空虚 (初中英语单词)
• lately [´leitli] ad.近来，不久前 (初中英语单词)
• temper [´tempə] n.韧度 v.锻炼；调和 (初中英语单词)
• mostly [´məustli] ad.主要地；多半；通常 (初中英语单词)
• account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
• charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
• sensible [´sensəbəl] a.感觉得到的 (初中英语单词)
• funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
• landlord [´lændlɔ:d] n.地主；房东；店主 (初中英语单词)
• desperate [´despərit] a.拼死的；绝望的 (初中英语单词)
• canvas [´kænvəs] n.帆布；油画(布) (初中英语单词)
• lonely [´ləunli] a.孤独的；无人烟的 (初中英语单词)
• supposed [sə´pəuzd] a.想象的；假定的 (初中英语单词)
• selfish [´selfiʃ] a.自私的，利己的 (初中英语单词)
• drunken [´drʌŋkən] a.喝醉的；常醉的 (初中英语单词)
• innocent [´inəsənt] a.无罪的；单纯的 (初中英语单词)
• damned [dæmd] a.该死的 ad.非常，极 (高中英语单词)
• constable [´kʌnstəbəl] n.警察；警官 (高中英语单词)
• decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
• portrait [´pɔ:trit] n.肖像；相片；雕像 (高中英语单词)
• township [´taunʃip] n.乡；区 (英语四级单词)
• homestead [´həumsted] n.家宅，宅基 (英语四级单词)
• packet [´pækit] n.盒 vt....打成小包 (英语四级单词)
• cowardice [´kauədis] n.懦弱，胆怯 (英语六级单词)
• sydney [´sidni] n.悉尼 (英语六级单词)
• wayside [´weisaid] n.&a.路边(的) (英语六级单词)
• calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
• liking [´laikiŋ] n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 (英语六级单词)