The Sands of Windee. Arthur W. Upfield
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managers, he shocked them by his manners and horrified them by his generosity to his employees. As was his morning custom on weekdays, he left the large “Government House” at half-past seven and walked along a beaten path skirting a deep water-filled hole in a now otherwise dry creek, to reach finally the men’s quarters.
Although he would never again see his sixtieth birthday, Mr Stanton’s movements were springy, his body was still lithe and supple, and beneath his white pent eyebrows scintillated searching grey eyes. Here was a man raised on the back of a horse, not on a cushioned seat behind a motor steering-wheel.
The men’s quarters were situated on the creek-bank, shaded by gnarled box-trees. Outside the weather-boarded, iron-roofed kitchen and dining-room, flanked by the cane-grass meat-house and a huge iron triangle supported by two posts and cross-beam, he found a number of his men awaiting their orders for the day. Seeing him, the men ceased talking, and, seeing them, Mr Stanton paused, scratched his head, and looked vacantly at the cook, the picture of a man trying hard to find jobs for a pack of useless loafers. At last:
“Morning!”
“Morning, Jeff!” several replied in unison.
“How were the sheep doing in the Seven-Mile, Ted?” Mr Stanton asked a stalwart brown-bearded man, dressed in white moleskin trousers, a blue shirt, an exceedingly old felt hat, and elastic-sided riding-boots.
“They’re settlin’ down—settlin’ down,” came the drawled reply.
“Well, you settle down into that saddle of yours and look ’em over again. We can’t risk them weaner ewes getting hung up in a corner. When you’ve got ’em broke in properly to find their way to water, you can have a day’s drunk in Mount Lion on full pay.”
Mr Stanton smiled grimly. Ted looked sheepish, but pleased, and moved away to the horse-yards. The boss glared at another rider, slim, agile and swarthy.
“Better take a ride round Hell’s Swamp, Joe,” he ordered. “Water should be dried up and swamp probably boggy. Alec can go with you. Engine going good at Stewart’s Well, Jack?”
“Not too good. Something wrong with the governors,” answered a man who was cursed with an atrocious squint.
“Humph! Archie, you go out to Stewart’s Well and overseer that engine. Take the small truck. Bill, Mrs Poulton wants wood. Fetch her in a couple of loads.” Mr Stanton turned to a young man of perhaps twenty, fresh-faced, and written all over him the word Englishman: “Take the big truck into Mount Lion and bring out a load from Hugo, the storekeeper. When you come back I’ll smell your breath, and if I smell whisky you’re sacked. Whisky and petrol won’t mix.”
Four remaining men were given their orders for the day, and although the work set them, as well as the others, would be done easily by two o’clock, they would not dream of asking for fresh orders, since Stanton never gave orders twice on the same day. For perhaps nine months in the year the average daily hours of labour would not exceed six, but during the remaining three they might well average fifteen. Lamb-marking and sheep-shearing are busy seasons. Fires and floods call for incessant labour, and that labour is cheerfully given on the old principle of give and take.
Half-way back to the “Government House”—so-called because a great station is governed from a squatter’s home—Mr Stanton met Bony.
“Are you Mr Stanton?” asked the disguised detective.
“I am sometimes. The last time I was called ‘Mister’ Stanton was by a stranger two months ago. My name is Jeff Stanton. Up here we are out of the Mister Country.”
Bony’s face remained immobile. Stanton’s grey eyes examined him keenly from head to foot. Bony said:
“I’m looking for work. Is there any chance of a job?”
“Work!” Stanton suddenly roared, the blood surging up behind the mahogany tint of his skin. “I lay awake half the night thinking out what in hell I’ll give my men to do the next day, and you want to keep me awake another half-hour! Things are bad.” His voice rose. “What with the politicians and the taxes and the price of wool, I’m that close to the rocks that a cat’s hair ain’t separating us. What can you do?”
The question was shot suddenly at Bony, who, had he not been prepared by Sergeant Morris, might excusably have been stunned. Entirely respectful, yet inwardly at ease, he replied, “I can paint, drive a truck, put up a fence, and break-in horses.”
“Ho! Break-in horses!” Stanton almost snarled. “I never met a nigger yet who could break-in a horse properly. You mesmerizes ’em, and cows ’em, and damns ’em. Anyway, I don’t like your looks. I never did like niggers. You’re——”
“That’s enough!” Bony cut in with assumed anger but secret amusement. “I’m no nigger, and you look like a half-caste Chinaman. Only for your age I’d knock you rotten. Don’t think that because you got a few million pounds you can blackguard me. You may think you’re Lord Jeffrey, but I’ll show you——”
Stanton suddenly threw back his whitened head and roared with laughter. The metamorphosis was astounding—so astounding as to make credible his next words, uttered in clapping Bony on the back: “You’ll do! I’ve got some horses I want broke in, and I’ll give you four pounds a head and tucker. Don’t mind me! You see, I only employ men with guts in ’em. I can’t stand the mistering, hat-raising sort. They get my goat with their bowing and scraping, and when they’re sent out to look over sheep they tie their horses to a tree and go to sleep till it’s time to come home again.”
Over the ruddy features of the half-caste slowly broke his wonderful understanding smile, and from then on the two men, so far apart in birth, brains, and wealth, were attracted to each other. Stanton, rough, clear-sighted, and inclined to call a spade a ruddy spade, glimpsed behind Bony’s blue eyes a personality wholly sympathetic and staunch. In Stanton Bony saw a real specimen of the original conquering, pioneering British race.
“When can I start?” he asked.
“Well, I’ll have to get them horses in and drafted,” Stanton answered, suddenly thoughtful. “That’ll take a couple of days. Let me think. Ah, yes! To-morrow the rabbit-inspector is due to arrive. In the horse-yards is a light-draft gelding with white forefeet. Harness him to one of the poison-carts in the shed and run it all around. Must make out we’re doing something.” He nodded and passed on.
Bony, chuckling, went over to the horse-yards, cut out the gelding, harnessed him, and took him over to the shed. He had no difficulty in finding the poison-carts. They were light two-wheeled affairs, carrying an iron cylinder to hold the poisoned pollard when it was churned up into small pills and carried by a pipe down to a position behind a disk-wheel and dropped into the furrow the wheel made.
Bony found the pollard in a barrel, and he also found another barrel full of water in which the cakes of phosphorus were kept. There was, however, only a very small piece of phosphorus remaining. It floated on the surface of the water, dirty white in colour, and as soon as he lifted it clear it began to smoke. Obviously it was insufficient to make even one cylinderful of baits.
Unable to discover any further supply of the poison, Bony, calculating that Mr Stanton would have had time to breakfast, sauntered over to the office building adjoining the house. Within he found his new employer.
“We want more phosphorus, Jeff,” he drawled. “There’s only about a quarter ounce left in the barrel.”
“Phosphorus? What do you want phosphorus for?” Stanton demanded.
“Want it for the poison-cart,” explained Bony patiently.
“You don’t want to worry about poison,” came the roared injunction. “All you got to do is to drive the cart about the homestead, so that when the inspector comes to-morrow he’ll see plenty of furrow-marks.”
“But the law——”
“Law be hanged! I won’t poison rabbits and have my horses and cattle poisoned