First thing I did was to reduce the staff and bar everything but bare necessaries--I sent off the Chinamen and every spare hand. Ninnis and I and the stockman--a first-rate chap, Moongarr Bill--worked the run--just the three of us. You can guess how we managed it. A Malay boy did cooky for the head-station.

After Christmas I left Ninnis and Bill to look after the place. I had to go to Leichardt's Town. I had been thinking things out about Biddy all that time--you know I'm too much of the Scotchy to make hasty determinations. Well, I had that Parliament Bill, allowing divorce after two years desertion in my head, from the day Biddy left me. It seemed the best way out--for her. I had heard about that fellow going Home in the same boat with her, and never guessed but that it was a concerted plan between them. That note Harris showed me made me think it was so. I don't think this now--after what you told me.

But what did rub itself into me then was that I ought to let her marry him as soon as she decently could. I couldn't see the matter any other way--I don't now. He has lots of money--though a man who would buy happiness with another woman out of the money his wife had left him--well, that's a matter of opinion. Besides, she has got the fortune the old lady left her and can be independent of him if she chooses.

There's nothing to prevent her living any kind of life that pleases her--except me, and I'm ready and willing to clear out of the show. One thing I'm sorry for now, and that is having torn up the draft she sent to pay me back her pa.s.sage money, and putting the bits in an envelope and posting them to her without a word. I suppose it should have been done through a lawyer, with all the proper palaver. Perhaps she didn't tell you about that. I somehow fancy she didn't. But I know that it would have hurt her--I knew that when I did it. And perhaps that is why I did it. You are right. I haven't acted the part of a gentleman all through this miserable business. But what could you expect?

For you see, my father worked his own way up, and my grandfather was a crofter--and I haven't got the blood of Irish kings, on the other side, behind me.

Now I'm being nasty, as you used to say in the old Bungroopim days when I wouldn't play. YOU were my Ideal, in those days, Joan--before you went and got married. I've been an unlucky devil all round.

Well there! I had to try and arrange things for an overdraft with the Bank in Leichardt's Town, but I went down chiefly to consult lawyers about the divorce question, so that it should be done with as little publicity and unpleasantness as possible. It appeared that it could be done all right--as I wrote you. What would have been the good of my havering in that letter over my own feelings and the bad times I had struck? It never was my habit to whine over what couldn't be helped.

Luck was up against me down there too. I got pitched off a buckjumper at a horse-dealers', Bungroopim way. I had been 'blowing,' Australian fashion, that I could handle that colt if n.o.body else was able to. The end of it was that the buckjumper got home, not me. I was laid up in hospital for close on two months, with a broken leg and complications.

The complications were that old spear wound, which inflamed, and they found that a splinter from the jagged tip had been left in.

Blood-poisoning was the next thing; and when I came out of that hospital I was more like the used up bit of soap you'll see by the COOLIBAH* outside a shepherd's hut on ration-bringing day, than anything else I can think of.

[*Coolibah--a basin made from the scooped out excrescence of a tree.]

As soon as I could sit a horse again I went to work at Moongarr. I had found things there at a pretty pa.s.s. Not a drop of rain had fallen up to now on the station for nearly nine months. YOU know what that means on the top of two dry seasons. As soon as I was fit, we rode over the run inspecting--I and Ninnis and Moongarr Bill. There's a lot of riding over one thousand square miles, and we didn't get our inspection done quickly. Day after day we travelled through desolation--gra.s.s withered to chips, creeks and waterholes all but empty, cattle staggering like drunken men, only it was for WANT of drink. The trees were dying in the wooded country; and in the plains the earth was crumbling and shrinking, and great cracks like creva.s.ses were gaping in the black soil where there used to be beautiful green gra.s.s and flowers in spring.

The lagoon was practically dried up, and the little drain of water left was undrinkable because of the dead beasts that had got bogged and dropped dead in it. They were short of water at the head-station, and we had to fetch it in from a waterhole several miles off that we fenced round and used for drinking--so long as it lasted. When we were mustering the other side of the run, it came to our camping at a sandy creek where we could dig in the sand and get just enough for horses and men. The water of the Bore I'd made, was a bit brackish, but it kept the gra.s.s alive round about and was all the cattle had to depend on.

You can think of the job it was shifting the beasts over there from other parts of the run which was what we tried to do, so long as they were fit for it.

We were selling what we could while there was still life left in the herd, but the cattle were too far gone for droving. We managed to collect a hundred or so--sent them in trucks from Crocodile Creek Terminus, for boiling down and netted about thirty shillings a head on them. That was all. I guess that--by this time, out of my eleven thousand head with No. 666 brand on them I'd muster from four to five hundred. The mistake I made was in not selling out for what I could get at the beginning of the Drought. But it was the long time in Leichardt's Town that had me there.

It was bad luck all through from first to last. Mustering those beasts for boiling down started that old spear wound afresh. Until it got well again, there was nothing for it but to sit tight and wait.

Moongarr Bill left to make a prospecting trip on my old tracks up the Bight--took Cudgee and the black-boy with him. He had an idea that he'd strike a place where we'd seen the colour of gold on our last expedition, but weren't able then to investigate it. I've never been bitten by the gold fever like some fellows, and I daresay that I've missed chances. But I thought cattle were a safer investment, and I've seen too much misery and destruction come from following that gold will o' the wisp, for me to have been tempted to run after it.

Old Ninnis was the next to leave, I made him take the offer of a job that he had. When it came to drawing water five miles for the head-station, and keeping it in an iron tank sunk in the ground, with a manhole and padlocked cover for fear of its being got at, the fewer there were of us the better. Now the station is being run by the Boss and the Malay boy, who is a sharp little chap, and more use in the circ.u.mstances than any white man. We've killed the calves we were trying to PODDY*. And the dogs--except one cattle dog--Veno--Biddy would remember her; how she used to lollop about the front veranda outside her room. Now, what the deuce made me write that!--Well, the dog goes with me in the cart when I fetch water, and takes her drink with the horses at the hole.

[*Poddy--to bring up by hand.]

I'm getting used to the life--making jobs in the daytime to keep myself from feeling the place a worse h.e.l.l than it really is. There's always the water to be fetched and the two horses and the dog to be taken for their big drink. If you could see me h.o.a.rding the precious stuff--washing my face in the morning in a soup plate, and what's left kept for night for the dog. When I want a bath I ride ten miles to the bore. Then there's saddlery to mend, and dry-cleaning the place and pipes between whiles--more of them than is good for me. Stores are low, but I've still got enough of tobacco. I daresay it's a mercy there's no whiskey--nothing but a bottle or two of brandy in case of snake-bites--or I might have taken to it.

Thank G.o.d I've got a pretty strong will, and I've never done as I see so many chaps do, find forgetfulness in drink--but there's no saying what a man may come to. It's the nights that are the worst. I'm glad to get up at dawn and see to the beasts. And there's that infernal watching of the sky--looking out all the time for clouds that don't come--or if they do, end in nothing. You know that bra.s.sy glare of the sun rising that means always scorching dry heat? Think of it a hundred times worse than you've ever seen it! The country as far as you can look is like the floor of an enormous oven, with the sky, red and white-hot for a roof, and all the life there is, being slowly baked inside. The birds are getting scarce, and it seems too much trouble for those that are about to lift their voices. Except for a fiend of a laughing-jacka.s.s in a gum tree close by the veranda that drives me mad with his devilish chuckling.

Well, how do you think now, that her ladyship would have stood up against these sort of conditions? Many a time, walking up and down the veranda when I couldn't sleep, I've thanked my stars that there was no woman hanging on to me any more. Most of the men on the river have sent away their women--stockmen's wives and all. There was one here at the Bachelors' Quarters, but I packed her off before I went to Leichardt's Town.

I'm just waiting on to get Moongarr Bill's report of the country up north--how it stands the drought, and what the chances are for pushing out. As for the gold find--well, I'm not banking on that. As soon as I hear--or if I don't hear in the course of the next two or three weeks--I shall pull up stakes, and burn all my personal belongings, except what a pair of saddle bags will carry.

Before long, I'm going to begin packing Biddy's things. They'll be shipped off to her all right.

When the divorce business is over, I shall make new tracks, and you won't hear of me unless I come out on top. I've got a queer feeling inside me that I shall win through yet.

Well, I'm finished; and it's about time. I've run my pen over a good many sheets, and it has been a kind of relief--I began writing this about three weeks ago. Harry the Blower--that's the mailman--comes only once a month now, and not on time at that.

I suppose the drought will break sooner or later, and when it breaks, the Bank is certain to send up and take possession of what's left. So I'm a ruined man, any way.

Good-bye, Joan, old friend. I've written to the lawyer, and Biddy will be served with the papers soon after this reaches you. I'm not sending her any message. If she doesn't understand, there's no use in words--but YOU know this. She's been the one woman in the universe for me--and there will never be another.

He signed his name at the end of the letter; and that was all.

CHAPTER 12

Harry the Blower came up with his mails a day or two later. Among the letters he brought, there were three at least of special importance to Colin McKeith.

One was from the late Attorney General of Leichardt's Land, in whose following he had been while sitting in the Legislative a.s.sembly, and whom he had consulted in reference to the Divorce pet.i.tion. This gentleman informed Colin that proceedings were already begun in the case of McKeith versus McKeith, and that notification of the pending suit had been sent to Lady Bridget at Castle Gaverick, in the province of Connaught, Ireland.

The second letter was from the Manager of the Bank of Leichardt's Land, regretfully conveying the decision of the Board that, failing immediate repayment of the loan, the mortgage on Moongarr station must be foreclosed and that in due course a representative of the Bank would arrive to take over the property.

The third letter was from Moongarr Bill, dated from the furthest Bush township at the foot of the Great Bight, which had formed the base of Colin's last exploring expedition. A mere outpost of civilisation it was--that very one which he had described at the dinner party at Government House where he had first met Lady Bridget O'Hara.

Apparently, in Moongarr Bill's estimation, its only reason for existence lay in the fact that it had an office under the jurisdiction of the Warden of Goldfields, for the proclamation of new goldfields, and the obtaining of Miner's Rights.

Moongarr Bill's epistolary style was bald in its directness.

Dear Sir-- he began:--

The biggest mistake we ever made in our lives was not following up the streak of colour you spotted in that gully running down from Bardo Range to Pelican River. If we had stopped, and done a bit of stripping for alluvial, for certain, we should have found heavy, shotty gold, with only a few feet of stripping. But I've done better than that--got on the lead--dead on the gutter. To my belief, that gully is the top dressing of a dried up underground watercourse. It's a pocket chock full of gold.

You see, it's like this:

Here followed technical details given in local gold-digger's phraseology which would only be intelligible to a backwoods prospector or a Leichardt's Land mining expert. McKeith read all the details carefully, turning the page over and back again in order to read it once more. There was no doubt--making due allowance for Moongarr Bill's exaggerative optimism--that the find was a genuine one.

The writer resumed:

'I've pegged off a twenty men's ground, this--being outside the area of a proclaimed goldfield--our reward as joint discoverers. The ground joins on to your old pegs; and the wonder to me is that n.o.body has ever struck the place. However, that's not so queer as you might think, for there has been very little talk of gold up here--in fact the P.M. does Warden's work. Besides, the drought has kept squatters from pushing out, and it's too far off for the casual prospector. Luckily, the drought has driven the Blacks away too, further into the ranges; and I haven't seen any Myalls this trip like the ones that went for us last time. It's a pity Hensor pegged out then. He'd have come in for a slice of luck now--we three being the only persons in the world--until I lodged my information at the Warden's office this morning--who had ever raised the colour in this district or had any suspicion of a show. I reckon though that if the find turns out as I think, you'll be making things up to little Tommy.

I'm to have my Miners' Right all properly filled up to-morrow, and shall make tracks back to the gully at once, so as to leave no chance of the claim being jumped. I've named it "McKeith's Find" so your name won't be forgotten. I don't count on a big rush at first--all the better for you--but I shall be surprised if we are not ent.i.tled at the end of four months to our Government reward of 500 pounds, as there are pretty sure to be two hundred miners at work by that time.

I'm writing to Ninnis--though I don't know if he has done his job yet--telling him to lose no time in getting here; and you won't want telling to do the same. I reckon that whether the drought has broken by this time or not, it will pay you better to start for here than to wait at the station until there are calves coming on to brand and muster.

Ninnis will be in with us all right, and it would be a fine thing if you came up together. He's a first-rate man, and has had a lot of experience in the Californian goldfields. Poor luck, however, or he wouldn't have come over to free-select on the Leura.

It took me a good three weeks to get as far as the Pelican Creek, and I couldn't have done it in the time if there had been Blacks about.

Knowing the lay of the country too, made it easier than it was before for us. Cudgee has turned out a smarter boy than Wombo was. No fear of Myalls with their infernal jagged spears being round without his sniffing them. One of the horses died from eating poison-bush. Don't go in for camping at a bend in Pelican Creek, between it and a brigalow scrub, first day you sight Bardo Range going up the Creek, where there's a pocket full of good gra.s.s one side of a broken slate ridge--IT'S NO GOOD. But I wouldn't swop the other horses for any of Windeatt's famous breed. There's some things it would be well for you and Ninnis to bring, and a box of surveyor's compa.s.ses would come in handy.

Here followed half a page on practical matters, and then the letter ended.

McKeith pondered long over Moongarr Bill's letter, as he sat in the veranda smoking and watching a little cloud on the horizon, and wondering whether rain was coming at last.... If Moongarr Bill was right, the gold-find would mean a fresh start for him in his baulked career. At any rate, it behoved him to take advantage of the chance and to go forth on the new adventure without unnecessary delay. But the savour was gone for him from adventure--the salt out of life. The stroke of luck--if it were one--had come too late.

And now the Great Drought had broken at last.

Next evening there came up a terrific thunderstorm, and a hurricane such as had not visited the district for years. It broke in the direction of the gidia scrub, and razed many trees. It pa.s.sed over the head-station and travelled at a furious rate along the plain.

Hailstones fell, as large as a pigeon's egg, and stripped off such leaf.a.ge as the drought had left. Thunder volleyed and lightning blazed.