Chapter 21

THE SUNDAY HUNT

Finn's new friends were distinctly an odd couple. The type to which Wallaby Bill belonged is not a very rare one in Australia. He was one of those men of whom storekeepers and publicans, and country-folk generally, say that they are nobody's enemies but their own. Bill had been a small farmer, a "cockatoo," at one time, with land of his own; but when he received a cheque for stock or for a crop, it was his wont to leave the farm for days together while he "blew in his cheque" in the township. After that, he would have to buy flour on credit, eat kangaroo flesh and rabbit--even the despised and accursed rabbit--and his stock would have to live upon what they could pick up for themselves in the bush. So an end had come to Bill's farming, naturally.

His present life could only be described as nomadic; and it seemed to be the only life he cared for. He was an excellent boundary-rider, shrewd, capable, and far-seeing. As such he would work for weeks, and even, occasionally, for months at a stretch, utterly alone, save for his dog, and apparently quite content. Then, without apparent reason, and certainly without any kind of warning, he would make tracks for the nearest township, and be seen no more outside its "hotel" till every penny he could lay hands upon was transferred to the publican's till. Then, if his employer cared to allow him to resume work, he would go back to his boundary-riding as contented and efficient as ever. If the employer had so much as a word of criticism for his conduct, Bill would be off into the bush like a wild creature, and that particular boss would see him no more. He never argued. He simply fled. His life was as purely nomadic as that of any Bedouin, and he had not spoken to a woman for years. Outside public-houses, he never thought of drinking anything but water and tea, generally tea, of which beverage he consumed several quarts every day of his life. He was a keen hunter, and at his worst had never been known to sell his horse or his dog, both good of their kind; though there had been occasions upon which he had sold everything else he possessed, and then knocked a man down for refusing to purchase the ragged coat he was wearing.

This man had reared Jess by hand, with the aid of a cracked tea-pot; and the kangaroo-hound bitch knew him better than any one else