The Rider of Waroona.

by Firth Scott.

CHAPTER I

CROTCHETY DUDGEON

In an old, rackety, single-horse buggy, a vehicle which, to judge by the antiquity of its build and appearance and the rattle of its loose worn bolts, might have done duty since the days of the first pioneers, Dudgeon drove from his homestead to the bank.

He was a man who never discarded any article of use or clothing until it was hopelessly beyond repair. With a huge fortune stowed away in gilt-edged securities and metropolitan house property, he grudged even a coat of paint for the vehicle he had driven for nearly forty years. The local wheelwright had long since declined to attempt to repair it, so the old man fell back on fencing-wire and his own skill whenever the final collapse seemed imminent.

There was a legend circulating among the older residents of the district as to the reason for his peculiarities. To the younger generation it was merely an out-of-date story, for young Australia has scant heed for everything which does not come within his own personal range of experience or knowledge. But the legend, as extant, gave some significance to the seemingly unreasonable actions of the eccentric old man.

In the early days, when railways were not and the land was open and free for the bold young bloods to conquer, Dudgeon had come out from the coastal cities of the south. He had health and strength, and a heart which knew not fear; but whatever of wealth he had had was left in the hands of gambling sharks in the cities whence he came. He arrived at the township on foot, a rare occurrence in those days when no man journeyed half a mile except in the saddle. But the fact that he had walked "looking for work," as he said, drew so much attention to him that offers were made from all sides to hire his services. He accepted the best, and went to Waroona Downs with the then owner, one Henry Lambton, who, with his wife and daughter, resided at the house beyond the range.

Another was there also, a young man about Dudgeon's age, an Irishman named O'Guire, a dashing, reckless fellow who made up in sharpness of wit and trickery what he lacked in moral stability and scruples.

Indirectly, he was the pivot on which the course of Dudgeon's life turned from the normal.

The direct cause was Kitty Lambton.

In a community where men predominate, every woman ranks as a belle; but throughout Waroona and the districts for hundreds of miles round, Kitty was queen, acknowledged even by her sister rivals. Before her charms young Dudgeon fell prostrate in adoration, and she, jealous of her sway over all with whom she came in contact, trifled and philandered with him until neither earth nor heaven held anything more adorable for him than herself. He was her slave, devoting himself to her with such abandon that her vanity was gratified to the extent of influencing her, when others began to remark upon the manly attractions of her admirer, to allow him the privilege of believing that she would marry him.

But she was only trifling with him, callously and not too gently, for the edification of herself and her real lover, O'Guire. The truth leaked out when one day O'Guire vanished from the district and with him vanished Kitty.

Thereafter Dudgeon was a changed man. Filled with an insensate belief that Lambton and his wife were mainly, if not entirely, responsible for an ill which brought them almost as much suffering as it brought him, he went from the place, hugging schemes of deep vengeance to his breast. It was in the days of the early gold finds, and Fortune showered on Dudgeon her compensation for the injury of Love. All that came to him he took and treasured, until he had enough for his purpose. Then he returned to Waroona, and set about exacting the full measure of his revenge upon the Lambtons.

He drove them from Waroona Downs, following them from the district when they went, following them until he found them living with Kitty and her husband in one of the southern cities, struggling fiercely for a bare existence. The slings and arrows of misfortune had not brought out the better side of O'Guire's nature and, at the time Dudgeon pounced down upon them, he had only just emerged from prison. Detail was lacking in the current legend as to what immediately happened thereafter, for when Dudgeon came back to Waroona Downs he was silent on the subject, and only rumours filtered through of Lambton and his wife going down, each heart-broken, to a pauper's grave, while O'Guire and his wife barely eluded the final act of vengeance by escaping over sea.

Under Dudgeon's ownership Waroona Downs flourished, and later he acquired the largest station in the district. The success he enjoyed at Waroona Downs followed him. His ownership of Taloona alone made him the richest man in the community.

But no amount of money could bring back to him the nature which had been his before the bitterness of betrayal changed him to a misanthropical cynic. His hatred of women was not appeased by the revenge he had on the Lambtons and O'Guires. He would not employ a woman; he would not employ a man who was married; he would not tolerate the presence of a woman on any of his properties. However valuable a man might be to him as an employee, instant dismissal was inevitable directly that man announced his intention of marrying.

In one instance the effect of this rule recoiled almost entirely on his own head, but that did not deter Dudgeon from adhering to it.

He employed a man, first as overseer, then as manager, and finally as confidential factotum. Unknown to him, Dudgeon set numberless traps and pitfalls to test his reliability, and when, on every occasion, the man came through the tests unscathed, he received so much consideration from the taciturn old misanthrope, that he was currently regarded in the light of the heir to the Dudgeon millions.

Perhaps something of the current belief crept into his own mind, for there came a time when he cast his eyes upon the sister of a neighbour and, braving the risk of Dudgeon's anger, sought her hand in marriage.

Unfortunately for him she accepted him, and the news, travelling apace, reached the ears of Dudgeon before the happy lover had a chance to impart it personally. The old man rode direct to the station.

"I'll have no women folk on my property," he blurted out as soon as he was face to face with his factotum. "Nor any man who has dealings with them. Clear out."

It was vain to argue. All appeals to years of bygone service, all reference to business transactions then pending which would be jeopardised by the removal of the man who had the negotiations in hand, were curtly brushed aside. Dudgeon had spoken, and no power on earth would change him from his purpose. The would-be Bened.i.c.k had chosen, and by that choice he had to abide.

From that arose a quarrel with the bank, for the sudden dismissal led to an important transaction failing for the want of a simple act. The bank officials, knowing the man with whom they were dealing waited for the instructions which never came. Had they acted without them he would probably have repudiated their action, but as they did not act, he blamed them for his loss, accused them of dishonesty and removed his account, vowing never to have dealings with them again if he could avoid it, and always putting them to the greatest inconvenience when he was compelled to deal with or through them.

Now, by an irony of fate, he was forced to have dealings with them again, dealings which he resented for more reasons than his antagonism to the inst.i.tution, and dealings, moreover, which he was prepared to leave no stone unturned to bring to naught.

He had placed Waroona Downs in the hands of Gale, the local auctioneer, for sale. The one condition he had imposed was that the purchaser should be a resident of the district, a condition he had considered ample to prevent the property pa.s.sing into the possession of one of the opposite--and hated--s.e.x. Yet that condition had failed. A purchaser had been found, a purchaser for whom the bank was acting, and a purchaser who, while being a resident in the district, was also a woman.

Dudgeon--"Crotchety Dudgeon" as he was termed by his neighbours, who, despite his wealth, usually regarded him as being of no account in the general scheme of Nature--had done his best to repudiate the bargain; had bl.u.s.tered and fumed, threatening actions and penalties against all and sundry, but in vain. The bank officials were polite, listening to all he had to say in silence and only speaking in cold, precise, formal phrases to reiterate the intention of the purchaser to hold to her bargain, and the readiness of the bank to complete, on her behalf, the transaction.

He refused to meet or see her, but he could not help hearing of her, and what he heard only served to stimulate his resentment, for her name, Nora Burke, recalled memories of his Irish rival O'Guire, while the bitterness of his surrender to the charms of Kitty Lambton was revived when he understood that Mrs. Burke also belonged to the fascinating type of woman.

She had, he learned, the coal-black hair of the Western Irish, and grey-blue eyes which flickered and flashed behind thick dark lashes.

What her other features were he did not hear, for her wealth of hair and the charm of her eyes carried all before them. But, as a matter of fact, no other feature was conspicuously beautiful, and it was difficult to realise where the charm of her face rested until the full force of the dark-lashed eyes was recognised. Within them lay the secret of the power she wielded.

Although not above the average height, a graceful and well-proportioned figure gave the impression of a greater stature. One of the most accomplished horsewomen who ever sat a side-saddle, her appearance on horseback would alone have sufficed, in a community like Waroona, to have won for her the admiration and homage of the public. But there were yet other reasons for the popularity she acquired within an hour of her arrival.

Forty miles from a railway, the township was the centre of a district divided into a series of sheep stations. When the season came for shearing the wool and despatching it to the markets in the cities on the coast hundreds of miles away, the population was fairly respectable in point of numbers, though with the riff-raff which formed the army of camp followers moving in the track of the shearers and teamsters, respectability was not otherwise manifest. But at other periods of the year, there were few men and fewer women scattered over the area marked on the map as Waroona, and including as many square miles as some English counties possess acres. Wherefore the arrival of any new-comer was an event; but when that new-comer was a woman, and one, moreover, of the many personal charms and accomplishments of Mrs. Burke, it was inevitable that her advent should form the subject of something more than pa.s.sing interest.

Her frank manner of speech also helped her, for there is nothing more objectionable to the average Colonial than the person who is reserved on the subject of his or her private and personal concerns.

There was no such reserve with Mrs. Burke. She had not been twenty-four hours in Waroona before it was known that she was a young widow left with a stepson to bring up and educate on the rents from an impoverished Irish estate. Year by year it became more and more difficult, she said, to collect those rents from tenants to whom politics were more attractive than commercial obligations. Therefore, when a chance occurred for her to sell the estate, she did not hesitate to entertain it. But, in order that her stepson might still derive as much benefit as possible from the wreck of his ancestors' wealth, she determined, before selling, to seek in Australia a new heritage for the last of the Burkes.

Waroona Downs was suggested to her as the very place to suit her, and Gale at once offered it to her. The negotiations were rapidly completed, and the community was collectively rejoicing at the good fortune of having so desirable an acquisition as the handsome Irishwoman added to it when a miniature thunder-bolt fell in the form of the emphatic refusal of the owner to sell the property to a woman.

Following the advice of her many friends and admirers, Mrs. Burke took up her residence at the place so that she might claim the nine points of the law possession is said to give, while she handed to the bank the deeds of her Irish property, and against them the bank agreed to complete the purchase.

Popular opinion was entirely with the young widow, and popular opinion was strong enough to force Dudgeon back to the last resource. This was a demand that the purchase price of the station should be paid in gold.

The price was twenty-five thousand pounds and, as Dudgeon well knew, there was not such a quant.i.ty of coin to be found in the district, where it was the almost invariable practice to pay everything by cheque or order. He had preferred his demand formally; had waited for a reply that the bank was prepared to meet it and, as no such reply had reached him, was about to declare the matter at an end.

He drew up at the bank. Eustace, the manager, was speaking to his a.s.sistant as the old man entered.

"I've come for the money," he said abruptly, and stood by the counter, holding out his gnarled, bony hands.

"You mean the purchase money for Waroona Downs, Mr. Dudgeon?" Eustace replied suavely. "You are rather early, are you not?"

"I gave you notice three days ago. You'll pay over or the deal's off.

Which is it?"

Harding, the a.s.sistant, pa.s.sed a doc.u.ment to Eustace.

"These are the terms of the sale, Mr. Dudgeon," Eustace said in the same smooth tone. "The completion of the purchase is to be performed one month from the date on which the agreement to buy was made. Mrs. Burke agreed on the 20th of last month. To-day is the 17th. She has therefore three days before you can make your final demand."

Dudgeon grabbed the doc.u.ment and read it through. The wording was as Eustace had said. He had played his card too soon.

"I'll beat you yet," he cried as he flung the paper across the counter.

"No matter what it costs, I'll never have a woman owning one of my properties. You're a lot of scheming scoundrels, but I'll beat you yet."

He bounced out and flogged his horse to a gallop as he drove away.

"If the head office had sent off the gold at once when I wired, it would have been here by now," Eustace said to his a.s.sistant.

"Then everyone would have known it was here, and there is no saying what might have happened," Harding jestingly answered. "Anyway, it is due to-night."

Later, when the bank had closed for the day, a light waggon drew up at the door with a couple of men in it.