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

and that was the collie pup. That budding genius, blundering along after his master, suddenly stopped, turned towards the fallen tree, and sniffed the air. Then he ran a few steps towards them, and stopped, his ears pricked and his eyes fixed on the tree; barked sharply, drew back a pace or two, bristled up the hair on his neck, and growled.

Red Mick turned round; “ ’Ello, pup,” he drawled, “what’s up?”

The puppy came forward again, quite close to the tree this time, and barked sharply. “Good pup,” said Mick, “fitch him out, pup!⁠—What is it⁠—native cat? Goo for ’im!”

Thus encouraged, the puppy darted forward barking, and Red Mick stopped leisurely, picked up a large stone, and sent it crashing among the branches. It passed between Hugh and Miss Grant, and came near enough to stunning one or other of them. They jumped to their feet hurriedly, and without dignity climbed out of the branches, and advanced on Red Mick, while the puppy ran yelping behind his master.

It is only reasonable to suppose that Mick was somewhat astonished at the apparition. He could scarcely have expected his shot to disturb two such fine birds from such an extraordinary nest; but before they had extricated themselves from the branches his face had assumed the stolid, cow-like, unintelligent look which had so often baffled judges and Crown Prosecutors. He was bland and childlike as Bret Harte’s Chinee.

He spoke as if he were quite accustomed to unearthing young couples out of trees. His voice had a sort of “I quite understand how it is” tone, and he spoke cheerfully.

“Good day, Misther Hugh! Where’s your horses? Have you had a fall?”

“Fall! No!” snapped Hugh, whose temper was gradually rising as the absurdity of the situation dawned on him. “We haven’t had a fall. We ran the tracks of a lot of our sheep from the big paddock, and here they are now. I’d like to know what this means?”

“Is thim your sheep?” said the bland Mick, surprised. “I wuz wondherin’ whose sheep they wuz, comin’ up the flat. I knew they wuzn’t travellin’ sheep, ’cause of gettin’ no notice, an me bein’ laid up in the house this two days⁠—”

“Oh, that’s all very fine, Mick Donohoe?” said the young man angrily. “Your own dogs have brought them here.”

Red Mick laughed gaily. “Ah, thim dogs is always yardin’ up things. They never see a mob of sheep, but they’ll start to dhrive ’em some place. When I was travellin’ down the Darlin’, goin’ through Dunloe Station, in one paddock I missed th’ old slut, and when I see her again, she had gethered fifteen thousand sheep, and was bringin’ ’em after me. But, Lord bless your heart, Mr. Hugh,” he added with a comforting smile, “she wouldn’t hurt a hair of a sheep’s head, nor the young dog ayther. Them sheep’ll be all right. Sorra sheep ever she bit in her life. I wonder where they gethered them?”

“I’ll tell you where they gathered them,” said Hugh. “The fence of our paddock was dug up, and the sheep were run out, and then the fence was put up again. That’s how they gathered them.”

“The fence wuz dug up! Ah, look at that now. Terrible, ain’t it. An’ who done it, do ye think? Some of them carriers, I expect, puttin’ their horses in unbeknownst to you. I’ll bet ’twas them done it. Or, perhaps,” he added, with an evident desire to assist in solving the difficulty, “perhaps the wind blew it down.”

“What!” said Hugh scornfully. “Wind blow down a fence! What next!”

“Well it does blow terrible hard sometimes in these parts,” said Red Mick, shaking his head dolefully; “look at me crop of onions I planted⁠—the wind blew ’em out of the ground, and hung ’em on the fence. But wait now, till we have a look at these sheep.”

“No, we won’t wait,” said Hugh angrily. “We will be off home now, and send a man for them. And I advise you to be very careful, Mick Donohoe, for I have my own idea who dug up that fence.”

“Well, you don’t suppose that I done it, do you?” said Red Mick. “I’ve been in the house this three days. Besides, I wouldn’t steal my brother-in-law’s sheep, anyhow. Won’t ye come up, and have a dhrink of tea now, you and the lady? It’s terrible hot.”

“No, thank you,” said Hugh stiffly. “Come along, Miss Grant.” And they marched off towards the horses.

“It beats all who could have took them posts down, doesn’t it?” said Mick. “I’d offer a reward, if I was you. Them fellows about here would steal the eyes out of your head. Good day to ye, Mr. Hugh.”

And the cockatoo added, “Goodbye, Cockie,” in a sepulchral voice, as they trudged off, smitten hip and thigh.

Hugh was suffering intensely at his defeat, and when Mary Grant said, “I suppose you will have him put in gaol at once?” he muttered that he would have to think it over. “It wouldn’t do to prosecute him and fail, and we have no proof that he dug up the fence.”

“But why did he say that the sheep belonged to his brother-in-law?”

Hugh started. “Did he say that? Well, he⁠—he must have wanted to make out that he did not know whose sheep they were” but he thought to himself, “Is Red Mick going to bring up that old scandal?”

Mick, as he watched them go, winked twice to himself, and then stooped and patted the head of the collie pup. The other dogs, in answer to a silent wave of his hand, had slunk off quietly. The riders had disappeared. It had been a narrow escape, and Red Mick knew it; and even as things had turned out, there was still ample chance of a conviction.

On the way back to the homestead Hugh began to talk of the chance of a conviction, and the delight it would be to give Mick seven years, but his ideas were disturbed by thoughts of Mick’s face