An Outback Marriage Part 25

"I dunno," said the storekeeper, who was getting tired of talking so long without a drink. "I dunno how you'll get out there. Better have a drink--what'll you have?"

Hugh walked out of the store in despair. He found himself engaged in what appeared to be an endless chase after a phantom Considine, and the difficulties in his way semed insuperable. Yet how could he go back and tell them all at home that he had failed? What would they think of him?

The thought made him miserable; and he determined, if he failed, never to go back to the old station at all.

So he returned to his hotel, packed his valise, and set out to look for the pack-horse man. He found him fairly sober; soon bargained to be allowed to ride one of the horses, and in due course was deposited at the Margaret--a city consisting of one galvanised-iron building, apparently unoccupied. His friend dismounted and had a drink with him out of his flask. They kicked at the door unavailingly; then his mate went on into the indefinite, leaving him face to face with general desolation.

The Margaret store was the only feature in the landscape--a small building with a heap of empty bottles in the immediate foreground, and all round it the grim bush, a vista of weird twisted trees and dull grey earth with scanty gra.s.s. At the back were a well, a windla.s.s, and a trough for water, round which about a hundred goats were encamped. Hugh sat and smoked, and looked at the prospect. By-and-by out of the bush came two men, a Chinaman and a white man. The Chinaman was like all Chinamen; the white man was a fiery, red-faced, red-bearded, red-nosed little fellow. The Chinee was dragging a goat along by the horns, the goat hanging back and protesting loudly in semi-human screams; every now and again a black mongrel dog would make sudden fiendish dashes at the captive, and fasten its teeth in its neck. This made it bellow louder; but the Chinaman, with the impa.s.sibility of his race, dragged goat, dog, and all along, without the slightest show of interest.

The white man trudged ahead, staring fixedly in front; when they reached the store he stared at Hugh as if he were the Bunyip, but said no word.

Then he unlocked the door, went in, and came out with a large knife, with which he proceeded to murder the goat scientifically. The Chinee meanwhile bailed up the rest of the animals, and caught and milked a couple of "nannies," while a patriarchal old "billy" walked fragrantly round the yard, uttering hoa.r.s.e "buukhs" of defiance.

It was a truly pastoral scene, but Hugh took little interest in it. He was engrossed with the task of getting out to the buffalo camp, finding Considine, and making him come forward and save the family. He approached the white, or rather red man, who c.o.c.ked a suspicious eye at him, and went on tearing the hide off the goat. Hugh noticed that his hand trembled a good deal, and that a sort of foam gathered on his lips as he worked.

"Good day," said Hugh.

The man glared at him, but said nothing.

"My name is Lambton," said Hugh. "I want to go out to the buffalo camp.

I want to find Tommy Prince, to see if he can go out with me. Do you know where he is?"

The man put the blade of the butcher's knife between his teeth, and stared again at Hugh, apparently having some difficulty in focussing him. Then his lips moved, and he was evidently trying to frame speech.

He said, "Boo, Boo, Boo," for a few seconds; then he pulled himself together, and said,

"Wha' you want?"

"I want to get to the buffalo camp," said Hugh. "You know Reeves's camp."

Here a twig fell to the ground just behind the man; he gave one blood-curdling yell, dropped the knife, and rushed past Hugh, screaming out, "Save me! Save me! They're after me! Look at 'em; look at 'em!" His hair stood perfectly erect with fright, and, as he ran, he glanced over his shoulder with frightened eyes. He didn't get far. In his panic he ran straight towards the well, banged his head against the windla.s.s, and went thundering down the twenty or thirty feet of shaft souse into the water at the bottom, where he splashed and shrieked like a fiend, the noise reverberating up the long shaft.

Hugh and the Chinaman ran to the well-top, Hugh cursing under his breath. Every possible obstacle that could arise had arisen to block his journey; every man that could have helped him was away, or dead, or otherwise missing; and now, to crown all, after getting thus far, he had apparently struck a prize lunatic, and would have to stay in that awful desolation, perhaps for a week, with him and a Chinaman. Perhaps he would have to give evidence on the lunatic's dead body, and even be accused of causing his death. All these thoughts flashed through his mind as he ran to the well-head. From the noise he made the man was evidently not dead yet, and, looking down, he saw his eyes glaring up as he splashed in the water.

"What's up with him?" roared Hugh to the Chinaman.

"Him, dlink, dlink--all-a-time dlink, him catchee hollows."

They had started to lower the bucket, when suddenly the yells ceased, a loud bubbling was heard, and looking down they saw only a dim, round object above the water. Without an instant's delay Hugh put his foot in the bucket and signed to the Chinee to lower him. Swiftly and silently he descended the well, jumped out of the bucket, and grabbed the floating body of the drunkard with one hand, holding on to the rope with the other. The man had collapsed, and was as limp as a rag. Hugh made the rope fast under his armpits, and gave the old mining cry, "On top there, haul away."

Heavily the windla.s.s creaked. Mightily the Chinee strained. The unconscious figure was drawn out of the water and up the shaft, inch by inch. The weight of a man in wet clothes is considerably more than that of a bucket of water, and it seemed a certainty that either the old windla.s.s would break or the Chinaman's arms give out. Slowly, slowly, the limp wet figure ascended the shaft, while Hugh supported himself in the water, by gripping the logs at the side of the well, praying that the tackle would hold. The creaking of the windla.s.s ceased, and the ascending body stopped--evidently the Chinee was pausing to get his breath.

"Go on!" screamed Hugh. "Keep at it, John! Don't let it beat you! Wind away!"

Faintly came the gasped reply, "No can! No more can do!"

He lowered himself in the water as far as he could, to deaden the blow in case of the fellow falling back on him, and screamed encouragement, threats, and promises up the well. Suddenly from above came a new voice altogether, a white man's voice.

"Right oh, boss! We've got him."

The windla.s.s recommenced its creaking, and the figure at the end of the rope continued its slow, upward journey. Hugh saw the body hauled slowly to the top and grabbed by a strong hand; then it disappeared, and the sunlight once more streamed, uninterrupted, down the shaft. The bucket came down again, and Hugh clutched it and yelled out, "Haul away!" He could hear the men grunting above as they turned the handle.

When he had been hauled about fifteen feet there was a crack; the old windla.s.s had collapsed, and he went souse, feet first, into the water.

He sank till he touched the bottom, then rose gasping to the surface.

A head appeared, framed in the circle of the well, and a slow, drawling colonial voice said:

"Gord! boss, are you hurt? The windla.s.s is broke."

"No, I'm not hurt. Can't you fix that windla.s.s?" roared Hugh.

"No!" came the answer sepulchrally down the well. "She's cooked."

"Well, hold on," said Hugh. "I believe I can get up." He braced his feet against one side of the well, and his shoulders against the other, and so, working them alternately, he raised himself inch by inch. It is a feat that requires a good man to perform, and the strain was very great.

Grimly he kept at it, and drew nearer and nearer to the top. Then, at last, a hand seized him; half-sick with over-exertion, he struggled out and fell gasping to the ground. For a minute or two the universe was turning round with him. The Chinee and the strange white man moved in a kind of flicker, unreal as the figures in a cinematograph. Then all was blank for a while.

When he came to, he was lying by the well with a bag under his head, and the strange white man was trying to pour some spirits down his throat.

"I'm--all right--thanks!" gasped Hugh.

"By Gord, Mister, it's lucky I happened to come along," said the stranger. "You an' Sampson'd ha' both been drownded. That Chow couldn't haul him up. Dead beat the Chow was when I came. I jis' come ridin' up, thinkin' to get a few pound of onions to take out to the camp, and I see the Chow a-haulin' and a-haulin' at that windla.s.s like as if he was tryin' to pull the bottom out of the well. I rides up and sings out "What ho! Chaney, what yer got?" And he says, "Ketch hold," he says, and that was all he could say; he was fair beat. And then I heard you singing out, and I says to meself, "Is the whole popperlation of the Northern Territory down this here well? How many more is there, Chancy?"

I says. And then bung goes the old windla.s.s, and lucky it ketched in the top of the well; if it had fell down on the top of you, it'd ha'

stiffened you all right. And how you got up that well beats me. By Cripes, it does."

"How's the--man that--was down with me?" said Hugh slowly.

"What, Sampson? 'E's all right. Couldn't kill'm with a meat-axe. He must ha' swallowed very near all the water in that well. Me an' the Chow emptied very near two buckets out of him. He's dead to the world jes'

now. How do you feel, boss?"

"I'll be all right in a minute," said Hugh. "What's your name?"

"I'm Tommy Prince," said the stranger. "I jist kem in from my camp to-day for them onions."

Hugh drew a long breath. The luck had turned at last.

CHAPTER XXV. IN THE BUFFALO CAMP.

"You're just the man I was looking for," said Hugh, taking in the stranger with his eyes. "I want to get out to Reeves's buffalo camp, and I hear you're the only man who knows that country at all. Can you get time to come down with me? I'll make it worth your while."

He waited for the reply with a beating heart. If this man failed him he saw nothing for it but to go back. The stranger lit his pipe with the leisurely movements of a man who had never been in a real hurry in his life.

Then he spoke slowly.

"Well, it's this way, boss, you see. I'm just startin' off in no end of a hurry to go and take a team of bullocks to the Oriental to draw quartz."

"Can't you put it off for a while?" said Hugh. "It's getting near the wet season."

"Well, I'd like to go with you, boss, but I couldn't chuck 'em over--not rightly I couldn't." He stroked his beard and relapsed into thought.