At Large
I
A NUCLEUS OF FORTUNE
A hooded wagon was creeping across a depressing desert in the middle ofAustralia; layers of boxes under the hood, and of brass-handled,mahogany drawers below the boxes, revealed the licensed hawker of thebush. Now, the hawker out there is a very extensive development of hisprototype here at home; he is Westbourne Grove on wheels, with theprices of Piccadilly, W. But these particular providers were neither souniversal nor so exorbitant as the generality of their class. There werebut two of them; they drove but two horses; and sat shoulder to shoulderon the box.
The afternoon was late; all day the horses had been crawling, for thetrack was unusually heavy. There had been recent rains; red mud cloggedthe wheels at every yard, and clung to them in sticky tires. Littlepools had formed all over the plain; and westward, on the off-side ofthe wagon, these pools caught the glow of the setting sun, and filledwith flame. Far over the horses' ears a long low line of trees wasvisible; otherwise the plain was unbroken; you might ride all day onthese plains and descry no other horse nor man.
The pair upon the box were partners. Their names were Flint andEdmonstone. Flint was enjoying a senior partner's prerogative, andlolling back wreathed in smoke. His thick bare arms were idly folded. Hewas a stout, brown, bearded man, who at thirty looked many years older;indolence, contentment, and goodwill were written upon his face.
The junior partner was driving, and taking some pains about it--keepingclear of the deep ruts, and pushing the pace only where the track wasgood. He looked twenty years Flint's junior, and was, in fact, just ofage. He was strongly built and five-feet-ten, with honest gray eyes,fair hair, and an inelastic mouth.
Both of these men wore flannel shirts, buff cord trousers, gray feltwideawakes; both were public-school men, drawn together in the firstinstance by that mutually surprising fact, and for the rest as differentas friends could be. Flint had been ten years in the Colonies,Edmonstone not quite ten weeks. Flint had tried everything, and failed;Edmonstone had everything before him, and did not mean to fail. Flintwas experienced, Edmonstone sanguine; things surprised Edmonstone,nothing surprised Flint. Edmonstone had dreams of the future, and goldendreams; Flint troubled only about the present, and that very little. Infine, while Edmonstone saw licensed hawking leading them both by a shortcut to fortune, and earnestly intended that it should, Flint said theywould be lucky if their second trip was as successful as their first,now all but come to an end.
The shadow of horses and wagon wavered upon the undulating plain asthey drove. The shadows grew longer and longer; there was a noticeablechange in them whenever young Edmonstone bent forward to gaze at the sunaway to the right, and then across at the eastern sky already tingedwith purple; and that was every five minutes.
"It will be dark in less than an hour," the lad exclaimed at last, inhis quick, anxious way; "dark just as we reach the scrub; we shall haveno moon until eleven or so, and very likely not strike the riverto-night."
The sentences were punctuated with sharp cracks of the whip. An answercame from Edmonstone's left, in the mild falsetto that contrasted soqueerly with the bodily bulk of Mr. John Flint, and startled all whoheard him speak for the first time.
"My good fellow, I implore you again to spare the horseflesh and thewhipcord--both important items--and take it easy like me."
"Jack," replied Edmonstone warmly, "you know well enough why I want toget to the Murrumbidgee to-night. No? Well, at all events, you own thatwe should lose no time about getting to some bank or other?"
"Yes, on the whole. But I don't see the good of hurrying on now to reachthe township at an unearthly hour, when all the time we might camp incomfort anywhere here. To my mind, a few hours, or even a night or two,more or less----"
"Are neither here nor there? Exactly!" broke in Edmonstone, withincreasing warmth. "Jack, Jack! the days those very words cost us! Addthem up--subtract them from the time we've been on the roads--and we'dhave been back a week ago at least. I shall have no peace of mind untilI step out of the bank, and that's the truth of it." As he spoke, thefingers of Edmonstone's right hand rested for a moment, with a curious,involuntary movement, upon his right breast.
"I can see that," returned Flint, serenely. "The burden of riches, yousee--and young blood! When you've been out here as long as I have,you'll take things easier, my son."
"You don't understand my position," said Edmonstone. "You laugh when Itell you I came out here to make money: all the same, I mean to do it. Iown I had rotten ideas about Australia--all new chums have. But if Ican't peg out my claim and pick up nuggets, I'm going to do the nextbest thing. It may be hawking and it may not. I mean to see. But we mustgive the thing a chance, and not run unnecessary risks with the grossproceeds of our very first trip. A hundred and thirty pounds isn't afortune; but it may be the nucleus of one; and it's all we've gotbetween us in this world meanwhile."
"My dear old boy, I'm fully alive to it. I only don't see the point offinishing the trip at a gallop."
"The point is that our little all is concealed about my person," saidEdmonstone, grimly.
"And my point is that it and we are absolutely safe. How many more timesam I to tell you so?" And there was a squeak of impatience in the absurdfalsetto voice, followed by clouds of smoke from the bearded lips.
Edmonstone drove some distance without a word.
"Yet only last week," he remarked at length, "a store was stuck up onthe Darling!"
"What of that?"
"The storekeeper was robbed of every cent he had."
"I know."
"Yet they shot him dead in the end."
"And they'll swing for it."
"Meanwhile they've shown clean heels, and nobody knows where theyare--or are not."
"Consequently you expect to find them waiting for us in the next clump,eh?"
"No, I don't. I only deny that we are absolutely safe."
Flint knocked out his pipe with sudden energy.
"My dear boy," cried he, "have I or have I not been as many years outhere as you've been weeks? I tell you I was in the mounted police, downin Vic, all through the Kelly business; joined in the hunt myself; andback myself to know a real bushranger when I see him or read about him.This fellow who has the cheek to call himself Sundown is not abushranger at all; he and his mates are mere robbers and murderers. NedKelly didn't go shooting miserable storekeepers; and he was the last ofthe bushrangers, and is likely to remain the last. Besides, these chapswill streak up-country, not down; but, if it's any comfort to you, seehere," and Flint pocketed his pipe, made a long arm overhead and reacheda Colt's revolver from a hook just inside the hood of the wagon, "letthis little plaything reassure you. What, didn't you know I was a deadshot with this? My dear chap, I wasn't in the mounted police fornothing. Why, I could pick out your front teeth at thirty yards andpaint my name on your waistcoat at twenty!"
Flint stroked the glittering barrel caressingly, and restored the pistolto its hook: there was a cartridge in every chamber.
The other said nothing for a time, but was more in earnest than everwhen he did speak.
"Jack," said he, "I can only tell you this: if we were to lose our moneystraight away at the outset I should be a lost man. How could we go onwithout it--hawking with an empty wagon? How could I push, push,push--as I've got to--after losing all to start with? A hundred pounds!It isn't much, but it is everything to me--everything. Let me only keepit a bit and it shall grow under my eyes. Take it away from me and I amdone for--completely done for."
He forgot that he was using the first person singular instead of plural;it had become natural to him to think out the business and itspossibilities in this way, and it was no less in Flint's nature to seeno selfishness in his friend's speech. Flint only said solemnly:
"You shouldn't think so much about money, old chap."
"Money and home!" exclaimed Dick Edmonstone in a low, ex
cited tone."Home and money! It's almost all I do think about."
Jack Flint leaned forward, and narrowly scanned the face of his friend;then lay back again, with a light laugh of forced cheerfulness.
"Why, Dick, you speak as though you had been exiled for years, and it'snot three months since you landed."
Dick started. It already seemed years to him.
"Besides," continued the elder man, "I protest against any man growingmorbid who can show a balance-sheet like ours. As to home-sickness, waituntil you have been out here ten years; wait until you have trieddigging, selecting, farming, droving; wait until you have worn atrooper's uniform and a counter jumper's apron, and ridden theboundaries at a pound a week, and tutored Young Australia for yourrations. When you have tried all these things--and done no good at anyof 'em, mark you--then, if you like, turn home-sick."
The other did not answer. Leaning forward, he whipped up the horses, andgazed once more towards the setting sun. His companion could not see hisface; but trouble and anxiety were in that long, steady, westward gaze.He was very young, this lad Edmonstone--young even for his years. Unlikehis mate, his thoughts were all of the past and of the future; bothpresented happy pictures; so happy that his mind would fly from the oneto the other without touching the present. And so he thought now, gazingwestward, of home, and of something sweeter than home itself; and heblended that which had gone before with that which was yet to come; andso wonderful was the harmony between these two that to-day was entirelyforgotten. Then the sun swung half-way below the dark line of thehorizon; a golden pathway shone across the sandy track right to thewheels of the wagon; the dark line of scrub, now close at hand, lookedshadowy and mysterious; the sunset colours declared themselves finallyin orange and pink and gray, before the spreading purple caught andswallowed them. The dreamer's face grew indistinct, but his goldendreams were more vivid than before.
A deadly stillness enveloped the plain, making all sounds staccato: therhythmical footfall of the horses, the hoarse notes of crows wheelingthrough the twilight like uncanny heralds of night, the croaking ofcrickets in the scrub ahead.
Dick was recalled to the antipodes by a mild query from his mate.
"Are you asleep, driver?"
"No."
"You haven't noticed any one ahead of us this afternoon on horseback?"
"No; why?"
"Because here are some one's tracks," said Flint, pointing to a freshhorse-trail on the side of the road.
Edmonstone stretched across to look. It was difficult in the dusk todistinguish the trail, which was the simple one of a horse walking.
"I saw no one," he said; "but during the last hour it would have beenimpossible to see any one, as close to the scrub as we are now. Whoeverit is, he must have struck the track hereabouts somewhere, or we shouldhave seen his trail before sundown."
"Whoever it is," said Flint, "we shall see him in a minute. Don't youhear him? He is still at a walk."
Edmonstone listened, and the measured beat of hoofs grew upon his ear;another moment and a horseman's back was looming through the dusk--verybroad and round, with only the crown of a wideawake showing above theshoulders. As the wagon drew abreast his horse was wheeled to one side,and a hearty voice hailed the hawkers:
"Got a match, mateys? I've used my last, and I'm just weakening for asmoke."
"Here's my box," said Dick, pulling up. "Take as many as you like."
And he dropped his match-box into a great fat hand with a wrist like aship's cable, and strong stumpy fingers: it was not returned until aloaded pipe was satisfactorily alight; and as the tobacco glowed in thebowl the man's face glowed in company. It was huge like himself, andbearded to the eyes, which were singularly small and bright, and setvery close together.
"I don't like that face," said Dick when the fellow had thanked him withredoubled heartiness, and ridden on.
"It looked good-natured."
"It was and it wasn't. I don't want to see it again; but I shall know itif ever I do. I had as good a look at him as he had at us."
Flint made no reply; they entered the forest of low-sized malee and pinein silence.
"Jack," gasped Edmonstone, very suddenly, after half-an-hour, "there'ssome one galloping in the scrub somewhere--can't you hear?"
"Eh?" said Flint, waking from a doze.
"Some one's galloping in the scrub--can't you hear the branchesbreaking? Listen."
"I hear nothing."
"Listen again."
Flint listened intently.
"Yes--no. I thought for an instant--but no, there is no sound now."
He was right: there was no sound then, and he was somewhat ruffled.
"What are you giving us, Dick? If you will push on, why, let's do it;only we do one thing or the other."
Dick whipped up the horses without a word. For five minutes they trottedon gamely; then, without warning, they leaped to one side with a shythat half-overturned the wagon.
Side by side, and motionless in the starlight, sat two shadowy forms onhorseback, armed with rifles, and masked to the chin.
"Hands up," cried one of them, "or we plug."