An Outback Marriage, Banjo Paterson [top ten books of all time .TXT] 📗

people should be able to steal sheep without suffering for it; and Hugh soon saw that she was a true daughter of William Grant, as far as fighting was concerned. She listened with set teeth to all stories of depredation and trespass, and they talked over many a plan together. But though they became quite friendly their intimacy seemed to make no progress. To her he was rather the employee than the friend. In fact he did not get on half so far as did Gavan Blake, who came up to Kuryong occasionally, and made himself so agreeable that already his name was being coupled with that of the heiress. Ellen Harriott always spoke to Blake when he came to the station, and gave no sign of jealousy at his attentions to Mary Grant; but she was waiting and watching, as one who has been a nurse learns to do. And things were in this state when an unexpected event put an altogether different complexion on affairs. XIV Red Mick and His Sheep Dogs

When Hugh came home one day with his face, as usual, full of trouble, Mary began to laugh him out of it.

“Well, Mr. Hugh, which is it today⁠—the Doyles or the Donohoes? Have they been stealing sheep or breaking gates?”

“Oh, it’s all very well for you to laugh,” he said; “you don’t understand. Some of that gang up the river went into the stud paddock yesterday to cut down a tree for a bee’s nest, and left the tree burning; might have set the whole run⁠—forty thousand acres of dry grass⁠—in a blaze. Then they drove their dray against the gate, knocking it sideways, and a lot of the stud sheep got out into the other paddock, and I’ll have to be off at daybreak tomorrow to get ’em back.”

“Why don’t you summon the wretches, and have them put in gaol, or go and break their gates, and cut down their trees?” she said, with a cheerful ignorance of details.

“I daren’t⁠—simply daren’t. If I summoned one of them, I’d never have dry grass but there’d be fires. I’d never have fat sheep but there’d be dogs among ’em. They ride all over the run; but if a bird belonging to the station flew over one of their selections they’d summon me for trespass. There’s no end to the injury a spiteful neighbour can do you in this sort of country. And your father would blame me.”

“Why?”

“Oh, it’s part of the management of a station to get on with your neighbours. Never quarrel if you can help it. But since shearing troubles started we have no friends at all.”

“Well,” she said, “I should like to have a look at those desperate neighbours I hear so much about. Red Mick Donohoe rode past the other day on such a beautiful horse, and he opened the gate for us, and asked if he might come down to hear me sing. Think of that, now.”

“Very well,” he said. “We’ll go for a ride up that way tomorrow afternoon. We might find Red Mick killing some of our sheep, and you can go into the box as the lady detective. If you’ll only sing him into gaol, the station will pay you at the same rate as Patti gets!”

Next afternoon they cantered away up the river towards the mountains. Poss and Binjie had long ago laid their dearest possessions at her feet, begging her to ride them⁠—horses so precious that it had hitherto been deemed sacrilege to put a sidesaddle on them. She had the divine gift of “hands,” and all manner of excitable, pulling horses went quietly and smoothly under her management. Her English training had taught her to ride over jumps, and she was very anxious to have a try at post-and-rail fences.

After much pressing, Hugh had this day allowed her to try Obadiah, Binjie’s celebrated show jumper, an animal that could be trusted to jump anything he could see over; so during their ride to the habitat of the Donohoes they left the regular track, and followed one of the fences for a mile or two, looking for a suitable place to try the horse. No good place offered itself, as the timber was thick, and the country so rugged that she would have had to ride at a stiff post-and-rail either up or down a steep slope. Loitering along, far off the track, they crossed a little ridge where stringybark trees, with an undergrowth of bushes and saplings, formed a regular thicket.

Suddenly Hugh gave a whistle of surprise, and jumped from his horse.

“Hold this horse a minute, please,” he said. “There has been a mob of sheep driven here.”

“Whereabouts?” said she, staring round her.

“All about here,” he said, pointing to the ground. “Don’t you see the tracks? Hundreds of ’em. But I can’t see what they were up to. There’s no place they could get ’em out without cutting the wires, and the fence is sound enough. Good heavens, I see it now! Well, that’s smart he continued, leaning against a post and giving it a shake.

“What have they done I don’t understand. How have they got the sheep through without breaking the fence?”

“They’ve dug up four or five posts,” he said, kicking over some red earth with his foot, “laid that piece of fence flat on the ground, driven the sheep over it, and then put the fence up again. No wonder we are missing sheep! Two or three hundred have gone out here! Here’s a chance at last⁠—the chance I’ve been waiting for all these years! What a lucky thing we came here! And now, Miss Grant,” he said, remounting, “we won’t have any jumping today. I’ll have to follow these tracks till I come on the sheep somewhere, if it’s in Red Mick Donohoe’s own yard. Do you think you can find your way back to the homestead?”

“What for?”

“To tell them to send Poss and Binjie after me. I don’t expect