Part 14

Again, behold! a rapid change of tactics. The outlaw whips round his head with open mouth and snaps at the rider's leg. Again and again, on both sides, and it is only by the utmost dexterity that the lad escapes. This, more than anything else, begets fear; for Billy, like the horse, is fast tiring. With despair in his eyes the boy looks round him for help, and catches sight of the whip handle, which is hanging, with some two feet or more of thong, from where it is tied to the neck. In a trice his knife is out and the thong is severed near the knot. This end, coiled round his hand, becomes a weapon of offence. A loaded stock-whip handle is as formidable as an Irishman's shillelah. And now every snap is met with a cruel smack, and this not for long can even the warrigal stand. Yellow Billy does more, he rains blows upon the steed's shoulders and head with such severity as almost to paralyse the brute. The end is coming fast now. Worn, blown, trembling with weakness, dazed, the battle has indeed turned.

There is a point in horse-nature up to which no man may call himself master. In some animals it lies low down. In others, the warrigal, to wit, it is placed at the apex of his mettlesome temper. Let that point in mastery be taken by the adversary and all is yielded. That citadel stormed, there is naught left but the white flag. The independence once surrendered is never regained. In other words, once the complete master, always the master.

See now the lord of the wilderness! the equine conjurer of tricks! There he stands with shrunken form, drooping head, lack-lustrous eyes, motionless and clinging tail, subservience incarnate: fit statue of unconditional surrender! The struggle has been gallant, heroic, prolonged; the capitulation is complete. A well planted blow, now, between the ears, and that noble creature; that thing of bone and muscle, of arching neck and glossy coat; that creature of will and courage, which made him emperor among his kind by right of merit--with a stride worthy the envy of Lucifer! Just one blow in the right spot--he staggers, trembles, and falls.

Yellow Billy is standing at the horse's head. 'Twas a glorious ride, a royal fight, a grand victory. Nothing is left now but--pity! And so, with soft and cheery word, rubbing the nostrils, wiping the drying sweat, massaging the trembling limbs, the boy is mercifully engaged when footsteps are heard, and in a moment the squatter, Jacky, and a couple of men ride on to the battle-field.

Darkness is mantling the earth, and the men at the Glen camp have all gone, save a few, including the boys and Neville, who are still anxiously waiting. The striking of iron on the flints of the creek-bed breaks the dismal silence, as a group of horsemen steal out of the surrounding gloom, and stand half-revealed in the light of the camp fire. Yellow Billy is perched on the croup behind one of the men, while, with a stock whip converted into a halter, Jacky leads the bone and soul sore warrigal, who, in this abject spectacle, drinks the cup of humiliation to its bitterest dregs.

*CHAPTER XXIII*

*A DAY'S SHOOT*

"Alas! that, when the changing year Brings round the blessed day, The hearts of little native boys Wax keen to hunt and slay, As if the chime of Christmas time Were but a call to prey." BRUNTON STEPHENS.

"S-a-n-d-e-e! S-a-n-d-e-e!"

"H-e-ll-o! H-e-ll-o!"

"Where--are--you?"

"Down--here."

"Where's here?"

"Find--out!"

"Where's that horrid Sandy, Joe?" exclaimed Jessie M'Intyre to Joe Blain, as she came out into the back yard, shortly after breakfast, one fine morning a few days after the brumby hunt.

"Can't split on me mates, Jess."

"You're a nasty, good-for-nothing boy, Joe Blain: that's what I think of _you_, and I don't care if you _do_ know it."

"Tweedlum, tweedlum, tweedlum twee, The cat and the rat ran up the tree,"

quoth Joe, as he capered about just out of reach of the girl, who chased him round the room with a broom.

It so happened that as Joe was dancing past the kitchen window, Ah Fat the cook was in the very act of throwing out a dish of kitchen slops, and the contents struck him fair on the head and shoulders.

This unintended but well-delivered blow came so swiftly and so unexpectedly that for the moment Joe was stupefied, gasping and spluttering between wind and water, so to speak. He cut so ludicrous a figure that Jessie had to fairly hold her sides with laughter. Meanwhile the innocent Ah Fat stood gazing at the spectacle in amazement.

"Oh, Missee Joe, I welly solly. Me neffer see you when me tlew um----"

"You jolly Chinaman!" cried Joe, in great wrath. "You--you--yellow joss!"

With that the irate boy jumped through the window and vigorously assaulted the cook with hands and feet.

"Oh!--Missee Joe--welly solly. O--h! Oh, Clismus! O-u-c-h!"

At first genuine sorrow controlled the Celestial. And indeed the onset was so furious and determined that the Chinaman had enough to do in fending blows, and was not a little alarmed. But when Joe, in closing, clutched him by the head, and essayed to unwind his pig-tail, alarm yielded to horror at this unexpected indignity. An ominous glitter came into his eye, and a string of curses in his native tongue flew from the angry heathen.

The boy, having loosened the tail, wound a coil of it round his hand, and began to give fierce tugs. Passion in an Oriental may take any turn. A passion-fired Chinaman, however well-disposed and peaceably inclined at other times, will wreak his vengeance regardless of moral issues. With a yell of mingled pain and rage the maddened man executed a Chinese edition of Jiu-jitsu, sending his youthful antagonist whirling through the air, to come down with a rattling bump that shook the breath from his body. Fortunately for Joe, the part of his anatomy which bore the brunt of the contact was that least susceptible to damage.

This act would have been followed by one severer still had not Mrs. M'Intyre at that moment run into the kitchen, and, seeing the fallen boy at the mercy of the rage-possessed Chow, who was in the act of assault and battery, made for the man with a shrill scream, and hauled him off the prostrate lad. All the while, John Chinaman was in a state of wild excitability, sending forth a torrential stream of pidgin-English.

Joe tumbled to his feet none the worse for the bout save a bruise or two. The sight of Ah Fat with flowing pig-tail and grotesque gesticulation sent the lad into fits of laughter. This only the more incensed his adversary, who made another effort to get at him, being hardly prevented by Mrs. M'Intyre. In this hilarity Joe was joined by Jess, who had followed her mother and stood first in terror, but now with hearty laughter.

"Joe Blain, get out of this kitchen this moment, you wicked boy! Be quiet, Ah Fat, or I'll call for one of the men! Stop laughing at once, Jess, you bold hussy, or I'll box your ears!"

Both Joe and Jess disappeared in a flash, and this had the effect of calming the Chinaman, who told the tale to his mistress as well as his perturbed condition and broken English would allow.

"Me thlo dirtee watah outa window. Joee comin' plast. Me no see him. Watah 'it 'im head and soljer. He jumpee tloo window, pullee hair, welly angly. Me get angly too, and thlo 'im down."

"Quite true," said Joe, who suddenly appeared at the window. "It's all my fault. He didn't see me, I'm sure, when he pitched the stuff out. My paddy got up, an' I went for him like a terrier. I think the terrier's got the worst of it, eh, Ah Fat?"

The quick acknowledgment of wrong produced an immediate effect on Ah Fat. There was a winning grace about Joe that few could withstand. Hitherto he had been the cook's favourite. And now, no sooner did he express his sorrow for the summary proceedings, and own his defeat, than the mantling frown of anger on the Chinaman's forehead vanished, and his dingy and stolid countenance lit up with a smile.

"Me welly solly----"

"Oh, stow that! No harm done. I'm off to get rid of this muck," cried Joe, as he disappeared from the window. A few moments later, Joe was in the act of passing this same opening to convey a message to Sandy, who was doing a job for his father in the carpenter's room, at the rear of the stables.

The act was observed by Ah Fat, who made a rapid move to the window.

"Hello, Joe!"

"Hello, Ah Fat!"

"Come here, Joe," said the Flowery-Lander, beckoning as he spoke.

"No more soap-suds, Ah Fat?"

"No mo dirtee watah," said he of the pig-tail grinningly. "See a-here, Joe"--displaying a jam pasty, hot from the oven. "You takee dis plastee. Stlawbelly jam, welly good."

"By Caesar! Ah Fat, you're no end of a brick!" cried Joe, as he received the peace-offering with eager hands and glistening eyes.

"Saundy, ye scoondrel!" shouted he a moment later, bursting in upon Sandy, who was spoke-shaving a piece of timber designed for a swingle bar. "Didn't you hear Jess call you a few minutes ago?"

"I did hear some sort of a cackling an' flustration. What's up?"

"We've got to go an' shoot some ducks."

"That all?"

"That all, ye cauld-blooded Scotchman!"

"An' when have we to go?"

"Now, at once, immediately, if not sooner, ye spalpeen."

"Ye're an odd mixture of Scotch an' Irish this morn, me hairy-breasted hero, an' a bad hand at either. But why all the hurry about the ducks?"

"Your mother's just got word to say some chaps are coming out from Tareela to dinner this evening, an' they're sure to expect game."

"All serene. Tom comin'?"

"No, he ain't. He's out with Harry on the run. There's only you an' me for't."

"I'll be with you in a jiff, my son. Just finishing this bar."

"Where'll we go for the birds, Sandy?"

"Up the creek, I s'pose. Too far out to the swamp if it's to-night they want them. There's a mob o' woods I'd like to get a smack at--the ones we saw when we were fishin'."

"Jacky told me yesterday he saw 'em the other night roosting on the old dead gum just at the junction of Mosquito Crick an' the Crocodile. How far d'ye call that?"

"'Bout three mile."

"Your mother said we are to try and get some pigeons when we're out."

"Used to be a lot o' pigeons in the scrub; but the last time Dickson and some other coves came out shooting, they went through the scrub, but didn't see a feather--so they said."

"No good goin' there, then?"

"Well, I don't know. We can give it a try, I s'pose. What's the time, Joe?"

"Struck ten as I came along; so we'd bes' be off in less'n no time, sonny."

In a few minutes the boys were loaded up with guns, ammunition, sculls, and the tucker bag. They decided to take the skiff and try their luck on the water, instead of stalking the game along the banks.

"Don't be later than four o'clock. Try and be back before, if possible."

"All serene, mother; we'll be back on time, luck or no luck."

"We'll fetch you some shags anyhow for fish soup," yelled back Joe as the lads walked briskly along.

Sandy took the oars at the start, Joe sitting in the stern with his muzzle-loader. Breech-loaders were at that time a rarity in Australia. There were handicaps in shooting in those days of the muzzle-loader, the powder-horn, and the shot belt, when compared with the modern choke-bore, smokeless powder, etc. But there were compensations. Men were far more careful of their ammunition. Loading itself was an art in which the expert took considerable pride. To every novice the formula was carefully given by the senior--

"Ram your powder well, but not your lead, If you want to kill dead."

But, beyond all other considerations, there was more of the element of sport in it. There was a greater call for skill. The very limitations of gunnery in those days put the game on a nearer footing of equality with the hunter. There were greater chances for the quarry, and therefore greater merit in the kill. These are the days of machinery, and even in gunnery there is a disposition to do the work by turning a handle--"pumping the lead into 'em," as the moderns put it.

Sandy's father was the possessor of a renowned Joe Manton, and many were the tales told by the lad of his father's prowess and the wonderful distances at which this Joe Manton could kill.

The creek on both sides was lined for the most part with rushes, weeds, and water-reeds, which afforded fine cover and food for the wild-fowl. It was possible to pass within short distances of the ducks in the rushes without being aware of their presence.

"Keep your eyes skinned along here, Joe," remarked Sandy, after rowing some distance. "Might start a brace at any time."

The words were hardly out of the boy's mouth when a bird rose out of the reeds with a great flutter. Joe's gun was up in a trice, and before it had flown a dozen yards, it fell into the water with a splash.

"Good shot, Joe; but what's the use of wasting powder and shot over a red-bill? Thought you knew a coot from a duck."

"Well--I--I'm blest! If I'm not a dumplin'-headed, double-dyed duffer! As if I hadn't shot tons of 'em. Well, well, well!"

"It's not well at all," answered Sandy with a grin, as the boat glided past the beautiful glossy black and purple-hued bird, which, though edible enough, generally ran to toughness, and was not classed as game. Yet a plump red-bill that has fattened on the river-end patch of the settlers' maize is by no means to be despised.

Joe quietly reloaded, and was doubly on the _qui vive_ after the misadventure. He had his revenge before long, for on rounding the point they ran into a mob of teal which were camping on a shady mud-beach. The teal rose in a very alert fashion, flying back over the boat. Quickly turning, Joe poured the contents of right and left barrels into the retreating birds. Three of them soused into the water, two of which were stone-dead. The third, though badly wounded, was nevertheless exceedingly agile in dodging the boat by diving. After some trouble the boys managed to secure it, and so a good start towards a full bag was made.

Then their luck departed for a while. Two or three pairs of black duck rose, but out of range.

"Here, Sandy, let me take the oars and give you a spell," said Joe, after proceeding about two miles from the landing. The positions were reversed, and the boat sped on its way to the junction.

"Pull easy, Joe," said Sandy, as that point came in sight. "There's a chance of the wood-duck on the spit. We mustn't miss this lot, anyway. You'd best land me here, ole man, an' I'll stalk 'em."

Joe, whose back faced the spit, to coin an Irishism, turned round to survey the birds, which clustered thickly on the spit-end.

"See 'em, Joe," said Sandy excitedly. "It's a grand mob. If I don't knock half a dozen, you may----"

"Bag the whole bloomin' lot if you like, Sandy M'Intyre," replied the rower, who had been gazing intently on the birds, and now turned to his mate with an amused smile.

"Why--why--whatcher mean?"

"Mean! Mr. Alexander Duff M'Intyre, bushman, waterman, sportsman, and naturalist by profession, but only a Scotch mixture of bat an' mole for all that! Why----"

"Do you mean to insinuate, Joe Blain, that yon's not a mob of wood-duck?"

"Yes; and ready to swear to it till all's blue. I _did_ think you knew the difference between a duck of any sort and a plover!"

"You call 'em plov----?"

Here one of the birds stretched its neck, flapped its wings, gave a hop and a short run, plover-ways, and finished with the typical harsh note.

"Great Donald! you're right, man!" finished the boy, in a mortified tone and with a considerable amount of disgust.

"Oh, well," he resumed, after a moment's silence, "a few plover won't come amiss, especially if we don't collar any more duck. Like 'em myself, grilled, as well as anything; they've such plump little breasts. Pull on, Joe."

Joe made for the spit, coming in so quickly with a few quiet but vigorous strokes that Sandy was able to get in a pot and a flying shot, accounting for no fewer than five.

"I vote," exclaimed that youth, when they had bagged the plover, "that we pull into the mouth of 'Skeeter Crick, tie up to the bank, an' stalk the crick for a mile or so; then we can cross over to the scrub by the old tree. We'll chance to get a pigeon or two, or I'm mistaken. P'r'aps we'll have better luck with the ducks on our way back. Never saw 'em so scarce on the Crocodile before."

Accordingly, they landed a hundred yards or so up the creek, assailed the contents of the tucker bag, and then proceeded to skirt the right bank, on the look out for duck. A single bird, a very fine drake, fell to Joe's gun near the fallen log which bridged the narrow stream. This crossed, the boys entered into a belt of virgin scrub that extended back a mile or so from Crocodile Creek, abutting Mosquito Creek along its breadth.

"We'd bes' separate, Joe," said Sandy, when they had gone a little distance into the jungle. "You keep on a few hundred yards, and then bear on the left towards the Crocodile. I'll make straight for there from here. It'll be hard if we don't account for a bird or two."

The scrub was very thick and interwoven in places. It contained a number of native fig trees of great height and spread. These trees were in fruit, therefore there was a better chance of getting pigeon, some varieties of which are exceedingly fond of the native fig.

The umbrageous trees formed a lofty canopy whose cool shades were very agreeable after a couple of hours on the water under a January sun. The lawyer and other cane vines hung from the great trees in long festoons, varying in thickness from ropes no thicker than one's little finger to the great cables extending downward from the huge limbs of the fig trees. Besides these growths were scrub bushes, many of which were covered with blossom, and still others with berries, blue and red. There were also spaces of bare ground, occupied only by giant fig and other columnar trees. These, by natural formation, made arched aisles, whose loftiness, lights, distances, and vistas constituted a grandeur, and even splendour, unapproached by any of the great cathedrals of earth. These, however ancient, are but things of yesterday when compared with nature's porticoes, cloisters, and altar spaces.

The boys, however, took little heed of these things. They were in the scrub neither for architectural nor devotional purposes. Pigeons and other scrub game alone had any attractions for them.

After separating they walked warily, listening with both ears and scanning with both eyes. Sounds there were in abundance. The ubiquitous minah, as the noisy and saucy soldier-bird is called, is as widespread as the gum tree itself. The thrush, though smaller than its English namesake, and with a differing note, is equally melodious. Then peculiar to scrub country are the musically metallic notes of the pretty but exceedingly coy bell-bird.

Henry Kendal, the greatest of Australian nature poets, has limned it in song. Here is a stanza--

"The silver-voiced bell-birds, the darlings of daytime, They sing in September their songs of the Maytime. When shadows wax strong and the thunder-bolts hurtle, They hide with their fear in the leaves of the myrtle; They start up like fairies that follow fair weather, And straightway the hues of their feathers unfolden Are the green and the purple, the blue and the golden."

There is also the merry Coachman, who cracks his whip with his beak, so to speak, in such verisimilitude that the wandering new chum looks round eagerly for a coach-team.

Added to these are the soft coo-coo of the doves and the stronger and booming note of the pigeon tribe. And beyond all these, the calls, chirpings, and chatterings of scores of feathered favourites. They who call the Australian bush songless libel it.

The pigeon has a coo that is as monotonous and far-reaching as a fog horn. For this sound the boys are now cocking their ears. Presently the loved note reaches Sandy's ears: coo--coo--coo!

"A wonga for a dollar, and where's one is sure to be another."

To locate a pigeon by its note is often a most difficult thing in the scrub. It may be on the tree under which one happens to be standing, or hundreds of yards away. To run down a pigeon by its note is a work that needs experience and patience.

Sandy listened intently, mind as well as ears working. "Not high up, that's certain. Seems to be right behind me. Bet tuppence he's on that white cedar," said the boy to himself after a further scrutiny in the supposed direction. Away in the locality indicated, distant a hundred yards or so, rising above a clump of myrtles, was a white cedar tree, its shining yellow berries revealing its presence as seen through the tree boles and shrubs.

Stealthily moving through the undergrowth and timber, the lad cautiously advanced towards the cedar. Gaining the myrtle cluster, he was thereby screened to some extent even when viewed from above. Just then a coo gave him the location. Moving to the edge of the saplings, he now got a fair view of the tree beyond; and there, on a lateral limb, distant from him not more than thirty-five yards, sat a glorious wonga-wonga, the finest species of Australian pigeon, not to be beaten for table purposes throughout the wide world. The specimen before Sandy was a male bird as big as three ordinary pigeons.

"That fellow's calling his mate, and she's not far off, by the way he's noddin' his head," surmised the youth. "Shall I pot him, or wait for his mate and cop 'em both?"

The question was soon settled, for suddenly, and with a great whirr, the hen rose from the ground, or rather, tiny water pool: for she had been drinking and bathing and admiring her reflected image in the glassy water. Her return, alas! is the signal of death, for what time she alighted on the bough at her spouse's side, the remorseless hunter, with hasty but true aim, brought both fluttering to the ground.

Their necks are wrung and they are bagged instanter, with a laconic but satisfied grunt from the sportsman: "Not so bad."

At this moment a double shot broke on Sandy's ears. This was immediately followed by a deep, mellow sound that formed the common signal of the pals. Putting his two hands with hollowed palms together, conch-shell fashion, the boy raised them to his lips and blew a prolonged and resonant note followed by three short notes staccato, which conveyed to the other's ears the answer: "Heard you, am coming."

"Joe wants me for something. Got into a covey of bronze-wings, or maybe a mob o' flocks," muttered the lad as he made in the direction of the sound.

He soon espied his mate at the butt of an enormous fig tree, and signalled his advent. The moment Joe perceived Sandy he stooped down and picked up a couple of large black-looking birds, and waved them excitedly.

"My word! ole Joe's run into a flock of turkeys. Hurrah! here's luck."

Yes, Joe had been fortunate enough to "rise" a fine lot of tallagalla, to call them by their native name, better known as scrub turkey.

Unlike the so-called turkey of the plains--which, indeed, is not a true turkey, but a bustard--the scrub turkey is true to its title, being seldom or never seen out of thickly wooded country. Its breeding home is a huge mound raised by scratching together the dry leaves and bits of rotten bark and wood. On the top of this elevation of debris the eggs are laid, some scores of them, and barely covered. As the birds use the same spot for many years, the nests become in time mounds of vast dimensions. Turkey nest, as it is called, becomes in time a rich compost of leaf-mould, and is eagerly sought for garden purposes.