Joe Wilson and His Mates [104]
become restless; to prevent his going away, or to follow him if he did;
and to bring him to the station in about a week's time.
Mac. (rather more careless, brighter, and more energetic than his brother)
was carrying out these instructions while pretending,
with rather great success, to be himself on the spree at the shanty.
But one morning, early in the specified week, Job's uneasiness
was suddenly greatly increased by certain symptoms, so he sent the black boy
for the neighbour's wife and decided to ride to Come-by-Chance
to hurry out Gerty's mother, and see, by the way, how Doc. Wild and Mac.
were getting on. On the arrival of the neighbour's wife, who drove over
in a spring-cart, Job mounted his horse (a freshly broken filly) and started.
`Don't be anxious, Job,' said Gerty, as he bent down to kiss her.
`We'll be all right. Wait! you'd better take the gun --
you might see those dingoes again. I'll get it for you.'
The dingoes (native dogs) were very bad amongst the sheep;
and Job and Gerty had started three together close to the track
the last time they were out in company -- without the gun, of course.
Gerty took the loaded gun carefully down from its straps on the bedroom wall,
carried it out, and handed it up to Job, who bent and kissed her again
and then rode off.
It was a hot day -- the beginning of a long drought, as Job found
to his bitter cost. He followed the track for five or six miles
through the thick, monotonous scrub, and then turned off
to make a short cut to the main road across a big ring-barked flat.
The tall gum-trees had been ring-barked (a ring of bark taken out
round the butts), or rather `sapped' -- that is, a ring cut in through the sap
-- in order to kill them, so that the little strength in the `poor' soil
should not be drawn out by the living roots, and the natural grass
(on which Australian stock depends) should have a better show. The hard,
dead trees raised their barkless and whitened trunks and leafless branches
for three or four miles, and the grey and brown grass stood tall between,
dying in the first breaths of the coming drought. All was becoming
grey and ashen here, the heat blazing and dancing across objects,
and the pale brassy dome of the sky cloudless over all,
the sun a glaring white disc with its edges almost melting into the sky.
Job held his gun carelessly ready (it was a double-barrelled muzzle-loader,
one barrel choke-bore for shot, and the other rifled),
and he kept an eye out for dingoes. He was saving his horse for a long ride,
jogging along in the careless Bush fashion, hitched a little to one side --
and I'm not sure that he didn't have a leg thrown up and across
in front of the pommel of the saddle -- he was riding along
in the careless Bush fashion, and thinking fatherly thoughts in advance,
perhaps, when suddenly a great black, greasy-looking iguana
scuttled off from the side of the track amongst the dry tufts of grass
and shreds of dead bark, and started up a sapling. `It was a whopper,'
Job said afterwards; `must have been over six feet, and a foot
across the body. It scared me nearly as much as the filly.'
The filly shied off like a rocket. Job kept his seat instinctively,
as was natural to him; but before he could more than grab at the rein --
lying loosely on the pommel -- the filly `fetched up' against a dead box-tree,
hard as cast-iron, and Job's left leg was jammed from stirrup to pocket.
`I felt the blood flare up,' he said, `and I knowed that that'
-- (Job swore now and then in an easy-going way) -- `I knowed
that that blanky leg was broken alright. I threw the gun from me
and freed my left foot from the stirrup with my hand, and managed to fall
to the right, as the filly started off again.'
What follows comes from the statements of Doc. Wild and Mac. Falconer,
and Job's own `wanderings in his mind', as he called them.
`They took a blanky mean advantage of me,' he said, `when they had me down
and I couldn't talk sense.'
The filly circled off a bit, and then stood staring
and to bring him to the station in about a week's time.
Mac. (rather more careless, brighter, and more energetic than his brother)
was carrying out these instructions while pretending,
with rather great success, to be himself on the spree at the shanty.
But one morning, early in the specified week, Job's uneasiness
was suddenly greatly increased by certain symptoms, so he sent the black boy
for the neighbour's wife and decided to ride to Come-by-Chance
to hurry out Gerty's mother, and see, by the way, how Doc. Wild and Mac.
were getting on. On the arrival of the neighbour's wife, who drove over
in a spring-cart, Job mounted his horse (a freshly broken filly) and started.
`Don't be anxious, Job,' said Gerty, as he bent down to kiss her.
`We'll be all right. Wait! you'd better take the gun --
you might see those dingoes again. I'll get it for you.'
The dingoes (native dogs) were very bad amongst the sheep;
and Job and Gerty had started three together close to the track
the last time they were out in company -- without the gun, of course.
Gerty took the loaded gun carefully down from its straps on the bedroom wall,
carried it out, and handed it up to Job, who bent and kissed her again
and then rode off.
It was a hot day -- the beginning of a long drought, as Job found
to his bitter cost. He followed the track for five or six miles
through the thick, monotonous scrub, and then turned off
to make a short cut to the main road across a big ring-barked flat.
The tall gum-trees had been ring-barked (a ring of bark taken out
round the butts), or rather `sapped' -- that is, a ring cut in through the sap
-- in order to kill them, so that the little strength in the `poor' soil
should not be drawn out by the living roots, and the natural grass
(on which Australian stock depends) should have a better show. The hard,
dead trees raised their barkless and whitened trunks and leafless branches
for three or four miles, and the grey and brown grass stood tall between,
dying in the first breaths of the coming drought. All was becoming
grey and ashen here, the heat blazing and dancing across objects,
and the pale brassy dome of the sky cloudless over all,
the sun a glaring white disc with its edges almost melting into the sky.
Job held his gun carelessly ready (it was a double-barrelled muzzle-loader,
one barrel choke-bore for shot, and the other rifled),
and he kept an eye out for dingoes. He was saving his horse for a long ride,
jogging along in the careless Bush fashion, hitched a little to one side --
and I'm not sure that he didn't have a leg thrown up and across
in front of the pommel of the saddle -- he was riding along
in the careless Bush fashion, and thinking fatherly thoughts in advance,
perhaps, when suddenly a great black, greasy-looking iguana
scuttled off from the side of the track amongst the dry tufts of grass
and shreds of dead bark, and started up a sapling. `It was a whopper,'
Job said afterwards; `must have been over six feet, and a foot
across the body. It scared me nearly as much as the filly.'
The filly shied off like a rocket. Job kept his seat instinctively,
as was natural to him; but before he could more than grab at the rein --
lying loosely on the pommel -- the filly `fetched up' against a dead box-tree,
hard as cast-iron, and Job's left leg was jammed from stirrup to pocket.
`I felt the blood flare up,' he said, `and I knowed that that'
-- (Job swore now and then in an easy-going way) -- `I knowed
that that blanky leg was broken alright. I threw the gun from me
and freed my left foot from the stirrup with my hand, and managed to fall
to the right, as the filly started off again.'
What follows comes from the statements of Doc. Wild and Mac. Falconer,
and Job's own `wanderings in his mind', as he called them.
`They took a blanky mean advantage of me,' he said, `when they had me down
and I couldn't talk sense.'
The filly circled off a bit, and then stood staring