Smith saw. He had been sitting on the bed with a studiously

vacant expression. It was Smith's policy not to seem, except by request,
to take any interest in, or, in fact, to be aware of anything unusual

that Steelman might be doing -- from patching his pants to reading poetry.
"There's twenty-one sovereigns there!" remarked Steelman casually.

"Yes?"
"Ten of 'em's yours."

"Thank yer, Steely."
"And," added Steelman, solemnly and grimly, "if you get taken down for 'em,

or lose 'em out of the top-hole in your pocket, or spend so much as a shilling
in riotous living, I'll stoush you, Smith."

Smith didn't seem interested. They sat on the beds opposite each other
for two or three minutes, in something of the atmosphere that pervades things

when conversation has petered out and the dinner-bell is expected to ring.
Smith screwed his face and squeezed a pimple on his throat;

Steelman absently counted the flies on the wall. Presently Steelman,
with a yawning sigh, lay back on the pillow with his hands clasped

under his head.
"Better take a few quid, Smith, and get that suit you were looking at

the other day. Get a couple of shirts and collars, and some socks;
better get a hat while you're at it -- yours is a disgrace to your benefactor.

And, I say, go to a chemist and get some cough stuff
for that churchyarder of yours -- we've got no use for it just now,

and it makes me sentimental. I'll give you a cough when you want one.
Bring me a syphon of soda, some fruit, and a tract."

"A what?"
"A tract. Go on. Start your boots."

While Smith was gone, Steelman paced the room with a strange,
worried, haunted expression. He divided the gold that was left

-- (Smith had taken four pounds) -- and put ten sovereigns in a pile
on the extreme corner of the table. Then he walked up and down,

up and down the room, arms tightly folded, and forehead knitted painfully,
pausing abruptly now and then by the table to stare at the gold,

until he heard Smith's step. Then his face cleared;
he sat down and counted flies.

Smith was undoing and inspecting the parcels, having placed
the syphon and fruit on the table. Behind his back Steelman hurriedly opened

a leather pocketbook and glanced at the portrait of a woman and child
and at the date of a post-office order receipt.

"Smith," said Steelman, "we're two honest, ignorant, green coves;
hard-working chaps from the bush."

"Yes."
"It doesn't matter whether we are or not -- we are as far

as the world is concerned. Now we've grafted like bullocks,
in heat and wet, for six months, and made a hundred and fifty,

and come down to have a bit of a holiday before going back to bullock
for another six months or a year. Isn't that so, Smith?"

"Yes."
"You could take your oath on it?"

"Yes."
"Well, it doesn't matter if it is so or not -- it IS so,

so far as the world is concerned. Now we've paid our way straight.
We've always been pretty straight anyway, even if we are a pair of vagabonds,

and I don't half like this new business; but it had to be done.
If I hadn't taken down that sharper you'd have lost confidence in me

and wouldn't have been able to mask your feelings, and I'd have had
to stoush you. We're two hard-working, innocent bushies, down for

an innocent spree, and we run against a cold-blooded professional sharper,
a paltry sneak and a coward, who's got neither the brains nor the pluck

to work in the station of life he togs himself for. He tries
to do us out of our hard-earned little hundred and fifty

-- no matter whether we had it or not -- and I'm obliged to take him down.
Serve him right for a crawler. You haven't the least idea

what I'm driving at, Smith, and that's the best of it.
I've driven a nail of my life home, and no pincers ever made will get it out."

"Why, Steely, what's the matter with you?"
Steelman rose, took up the pile of ten sovereigns, and placed it neatly

on top of the rest.
"Put the stuff away, Smith."

After breakfast next morning, Gentleman Sharper hung round a bit,
and then suggested a stroll. But Steelman thought the weather looked too bad,

so they went on the balcony for a smoke. They talked of the weather,
wrecks, and things, Steelman leaning with his elbows on the balcony rail,

and Sharper sociably and confidently in the same position close beside him.
But the professional was evidently growing uneasy in his mind;

his side of the conversation grew awkward and disjointed,
and he made the blunder of drifting into an embarrassing silence

before coming to the point. He took one elbow from the rail, and said,
with a bungling attempt at carelessness which was made more transparent

by the awkward pause before it:
"Ah, well, I must see to my correspondence. By the way,

when could you make it convenient to let me have that hundred?
The shares are starting up the last rise now, and we've got no time to lose

if we want to double it."
Steelman turned his face to him and winked once -- a very hard, tight,

cold wink -- a wink in which there was no humour: such a wink
as Steelman had once winked at a half-drunken bully who was going to have

a lark with Smith.
The sharper was one of those men who pull themselves together in a bad cause,

as they stagger from the blow. But he wanted to think this time.
Later on he approached Steelman quietly and proposed partnership.

But Steelman gave him to understand (as between themselves)
that he wasn't taking on any pupils just then.

An Incident at Stiffner's
They called him "Stiffner" because he used, long before,

to get a living by poisoning wild dogs near the Queensland border.
The name stuck to him closer than misfortune did, for when he rose

to the proud and independent position of landlord and sole proprietor
of an out-back pub he was Stiffner still, and his place was "Stiffner's" --

widely known.
They do say that the name ceased not to be applicable -- that it fitted

even better than in the old dingo days, but -- well, they do say so.
All we can say is that when a shearer arrived with a cheque,

and had a drink or two, he was almost invariably seized
with a desire to camp on the premises for good, spend his cheque

in the shortest possible time, and forcibly shout for everything within hail
-- including the Chinaman cook and Stiffner's disreputable old ram.

The shanty was of the usual kind, and the scenery is as easily disposed of.
There was a great grey plain stretching away from the door in front,

and a mulga scrub from the rear; and in that scrub, not fifty yards
from the kitchen door, were half a dozen nameless graves.

Stiffner was always drunk, and Stiffner's wife -- a hard-featured Amazon --
was boss. The children were brought up in a detached cottage,

under the care of a "governess".
Stiffner had a barmaid as a bait for chequemen. She came from Sydney,

they said, and her name was Alice. She was tall, boyishly handsome,
and characterless; her figure might be described as "fine" or "strapping",

but her face was very cold -- nearly colourless. She was one of those
selfishly sensual women -- thin lips, and hard, almost vacant grey eyes;

no thought of anything but her own pleasures, none for the man's.
Some shearers would roughly call her "a squatter's girl".

But she "drew"; she was handsome where women are scarce -- very handsome,
thought a tall, melancholy-looking jackeroo, whose evil spirit

had drawn him to Stiffner's and the last shilling out of his pocket.
Over the great grey plain, about a fortnight before, had come "Old Danny",

a station hand, for his semi-annual spree, and one "Yankee Jack" and his mate,
shearers with horses, travelling for grass; and, about a week later,

the Sydney jackeroo. There was also a sprinkling of assorted swagmen,
who came in through the scrub and went out across the plain,

or came in over the plain and went away through the scrub,