Bill scored another drink on account of girl-pity for bad luck,shouldered his swag,said,`So long,Mary!'and drifted out and along the road towards Tinned Dog,on the Bourke side.
A long,drowsy,half hour passed --the sort of half hour that is as long as an hour in the places where days are as long as years,and years hold about as much as days do in other places.
The man on the sofa woke with a start,and looked scared and wild for a moment;then he brought his dusty broken boots to the floor,rested his elbows on his knees,took his unfortunate head between his hands,and came back to life gradually.
He lifted his head,looked at the girl across the top of the bar,and formed with his lips,rather than spoke,the words --`Put up a drink?'
She shook her head tightly and went on reading.
He staggered up,and,leaning on the bar,made desperate distress signals with hand,eyes,and mouth.
`No!'she snapped.`I means no when I says no!You've had too many last drinks already,and the boss says you ain't to have another.
If you swear again,or bother me,I'll call him.'
He hung sullenly on the counter for a while,then lurched to his swag,and shouldered it hopelessly and wearily.Then he blinked round,whistled,waited a moment,went on to the front verandah,peered round,through the heat,with bloodshot eyes,and whistled again.
He turned and started through to the back-door.
`What the devil do you want now?'demanded the girl,interrupted in her reading for the third time by him.
`Stampin'all over the house.You can't go through there!
It's privit!I do wish to goodness you'd git!'
`Where the blazes is that there dog o'mine got to?'he muttered.
`Did you see a dog?'
`No!What do I want with your dog?'
He whistled out in front again,and round each corner.Then he came back with a decided step and tone.
`Look here!that there dog was lyin'there agin the wall when I went to sleep.
He wouldn't stir from me,or my swag,in a year,if he wasn't dragged.
He's been blanky well touched [stolen],and I wouldn'ter lost him for a fiver.
Are you sure you ain't seen a dog?'then suddenly,as the thought struck him:
`Where's them two chaps that was playin'cards when I wenter sleep?'
`Why!'exclaimed the girl,without thinking,`there was a dog,now I come to think of it,but I thought it belonged to one of them chaps.
Anyway,they played for it,and the other chap won it and took it away.'
He stared at her blankly,with thunder gathering in the blankness.
`What sort of a dog was it?'
Dog described;the chain round the neck settled it.
He scowled at her darkly.
`Now,look here,'he said;`you've allowed gamblin'in this bar --your boss has.You've got no right to let spielers gamble away a man's dog.
Is a customer to lose his dog every time he has a doze to suit your boss?
I'll go straight across to the police camp and put you away,and I don't care if you lose your licence.I ain't goin'to lose my dog.
I wouldn'ter taken a ten-pound note for that blanky dog!I --'
She was filling a pewter hastily.
`Here!for God's sake have a drink an'stop yer row.'
He drank with satisfaction.Then he hung on the bar with one elbow and scowled out the door.
`Which blanky way did them chaps go?'he growled.
`The one that took the dog went towards Tinned Dog.'
`And I'll haveter go all the blanky way back after him,and most likely lose me shed!Here!'jerking the empty pewter across the bar,`fill that up again;I'm narked properly,I am,and I'll take twenty-four blanky hours to cool down now.I wouldn'ter lost that dog for twenty quid.'
He drank again with deeper satisfaction,then he shuffled out,muttering,swearing,and threatening louder every step,and took the track to Tinned Dog.
--
Now the man,girl,or woman,who told me this yarn has never quite settled it in his or her mind as to who really owned the dog.I leave it to you.
Telling Mrs Baker.
Most Bushmen who hadn't `known Bob Baker to speak to',had `heard tell of him'.He'd been a squatter,not many years before,on the Macquarie river in New South Wales,and had made money in the good seasons,and had gone in for horse-racing and racehorse-breeding,and long trips to Sydney,where he put up at swell hotels and went the pace.
So after a pretty severe drought,when the sheep died by thousands on his runs,Bob Baker went under,and the bank took over his station and put a manager in charge.
He'd been a jolly,open-handed,popular man,which means that he'd been a selfish man as far as his wife and children were concerned,for they had to suffer for it in the end.Such generosity is often born of vanity,or moral cowardice,or both mixed.It's very nice to hear the chaps sing `For he's a jolly good fellow',but you've mostly got to pay for it twice --first in company,and afterwards alone.
I once heard the chaps singing that I was a jolly good fellow,when I was leaving a place and they were giving me a send-off.
It thrilled me,and brought a warm gush to my eyes;but,all the same,I wished I had half the money I'd lent them,and spent on 'em,and I wished I'd used the time I'd wasted to be a jolly good fellow.
When I first met Bob Baker he was a boss-drover on the great north-western route,and his wife lived at the township of Solong on the Sydney side.He was going north to new country round by the Gulf of Carpentaria,with a big mob of cattle,on a two years'trip;and I and my mate,Andy M`Culloch,engaged to go with him.We wanted to have a look at the Gulf Country.
After we had crossed the Queensland border it seemed to me that the Boss was too fond of going into wayside shanties and town pubs.
Andy had been with him on another trip,and he told me that the Boss was only going this way lately.Andy knew Mrs Baker well,and seemed to think a deal of her.`She's a good little woman,'said Andy.
`One of the right stuff.I worked on their station for a while when I was a nipper,and I know.She was always a damned sight too good for the Boss,but she believed in him.When I was coming away this time she says to me,"Look here,Andy,I'm afraid Robert is drinking again.
