Читать книгу Short Stories Volume 4 - John Arthur Barry - Страница 8

Table of Contents

Boorali was considered by everyone who had to do with it, except the shareholders, an ideal station. For the people of the neighboring township there was practically open house kept; the employees were well fed, well paid, and not overworked; the small holders on the run were never interfered with when using the station water or eating the station grass—or even when, as was rumored, appropriating the station sheep. It was a very fine station indeed, except, as already mentioned, for those financially concerned. And these, for the most part, lived in the United Kingdom—a very long way off indeed, in the days of which we write. Certainly, they were represented in Endeavor, the capital of the colony, by a board of directors—all most worthy and conscientious old gentlemen. But these had their own businesses to attend to; and although they met once a month with the utmost regularity, and pocketed their three guinea fees with equanimity, not one of the four seemed to care about undertaking the long journey into the interior to personally discuss why, good seasons or bad ones, the Boorali properties never paid a dividend, large or small.

Of course, even in those days, there were returns made up on the main station and forwarded at more or less regular intervals to the board in Endeavor, which, after reading, as duly forwarded them on to the one in England, which as duly printed them for the edification of the shareholders. And from these it appeared that in bad seasons, which, of course, predominated, as they always do, the stock simply vanished in tens of thousands, for want of grass and water, and that in good ones the animal, vegetable, and other pests, such as dingoes, kangaroos, wallabies: burrs (both Bathurst and clover), grass-seed, prickly pear, wild indigo; fluke, footrot, and worms, made any chance of profit impossible. Such was the unvarying tenor of the reports; although the cost of upkeep and the rate of wages never appeared to diminish.

And at last the British directorate lost all patience.

* * * * * *

One fine hot morning in December, a fortnight or so before Christmas, a man, riding one horse and leading another, entered Coolibah, the nearest township to Boorali. Choosing the smallest hotel out of the half-dozen that with some scattered stores and houses made up the main street, he rode into the yard and saw that his horses were watered and sent to a paddock. Then, lounging into the bar with his pack he called for a drink, and invited the landlord to also partake.

"Far to Boorali?" asked the stranger, as he meditatively sipped his glass of "English."

"Lookin' for a job?" replied the other, in true bush fashion.

The stranger nodded affirmatively.

"Thought so," said the landlord, in drawling approval of his own farsightedness. "But it ain't no sorter use goin' out to the station to-day, 'cause the station's comin' here. You see," continued the landlord, as his guest motioned him to refill the glasses, "always to'rds Christmas there's a big cricket match atween the stations an' the township. Ginerally lasts three days—an' sometimes they makes the bloomin' week of it. Oh, high old times we has, I can tell you. What's that you say? Mus' be a fine station? You bet, it is just that. See this 'ouse? Well, I made it at Boorali in three years."

"Hard graft?" asked the other laconically.

"'Igh prices," replied the landlord, "an' other little matters. Fifty pound a mile for skelliton fences—pine posts 12 foot apart an' five wires—soon runs inter money. You bet!"

"I should imagine it did," replied the stranger drily. "Wouldn't mind a few miles myself at that rate."

"Well, well," said the landlord patronisingly, "I daresay there's a show for somethin'; but I think the work now in that line's mos'ly repairin'. 'Owever, there's generally a couple of the overseers stops here, an' I'll put a word in for you."

The traveller thanked him, and remarked, "I suppose the manager doesn't come in to play cricket?"

"'Im!" exclaimed the landlord, aghast. "'Im play cricket! Why, he don't know a bat from a ball. 'E don't worry about such matters. 'E's a wirtuoso."

"A what?" asked the other, in a puzzled tone.

"A wirtuoso," repeated his host. "Which means somebody as draws an' paints an' makes werses. You see, Mr. Vere-Stackpoole don't take no part much in the management. 'E's got a manager under 'im, an' two assistant managers, an' six or seven overseers. Why, sometimes you'd never know 'e was on the station for weeks together. 'E keeps in his studio, as he calls it, and don't worry his head about what goes on outside of it."

"Umph!" grunted the stranger. "Must be a fine place to work on, as you say."

"Fine's no name," exclaimed the landlord enthusiastically, as in a fit of abstraction he filled the glasses once more. "Cricket an' croquet all the summer; claret cup an' all sorts o' flash drinks for the swells—the P.M. and the surroundin' squatters an' their fam'lies, stayin' at the homestead for weeks at a time. Then in winter there's football, an' lashin's of drink in 'ut an' 'ouse all the year round. Never was such a station as Boorali!"

"No, I should imagine not," replied the other, as he paid for the drinks, lit his pipe, and, going out, sat on a bench in the verandah facing the street. He was a short-set man, with tanned face, a remarkably white set of teeth, grizzled hair, beard, and moustache, and a small, sharp pair of blue eyes. He might, from his dress, have been a shearer, a drover, or just what he assumed to be, a "traveller" looking for a job.

As he sat and smoked and pondered, a cloud of dust at the end of the street—it was over a mile in length—caught his eye, and presently, led by two four-in-hand drags, came a crowd of horsemen.

"Here's Booraii going a-cricketing," he muttered, with a grin. "Why, hang it, there can't be anybody left in the station, except, perhaps, the 'Wirtuoso' himself!" As the cavalcade broke up, and made for the different hotels, the sleepy little township seemed transformed. Six or seven young men dismounted in front of where he sat, and, shouting for the groom, rushed tumultuously into the bar, and called for drinks. From snatches of talk he gathered that in addition to cricket, there were to be races, and that the "fun" would last a week.

That night Boorali let it be known to the full that it was visiting Coolibah. So much so that early next morning, long before sunrise, the stranger had caught his horses, saddled, and packed them, and was on his way to Boorali. The price of his supper and bed he left on the table in his room, quite certain that it was useless to attempt arousing anybody belonging to the house. At the end of a ten-mile ride he came to a dilapidated fence that a slatternly boundary rider's wife told him was the boundary of Boorali. Inside the fence the grass was plentiful and green. Evidently a good season. The stranger, leaving the road, struck across a paddock to look at some sheep. The mob, he found, was composed of wethers, ewes, lambs, and a few rams. At a tank, half-silted up, he found three full-woolled ewes rolling; out of the bog he pulled four more that had evidently been there some time—perhaps for days. His face grew very black as he remounted and noted the utter neglect everywhere apparent—the great groves of burrs, the luxuriant patches of "pear," and the fences smashed by fallen timber, and showing wide gaps of broken posts and wires.

The homestead was like a small village, but a deserted one; and not until after some search could he find anybody to tell him where the men's quarters were situated. At last, however, glancing into a building, he discovered a man asleep on a couch. On a table were scattered many books—ledgers, journals, etc. Among them stood a half-empty brandy bottle. Evidently this must be the station office. As the traveller stared around the man awoke. "Hello!" he said, "what do you want-a job of bookkeeping or burr-cutting, eh?" And, sitting up, the speaker, a dissipated-looking young man, grinned and helped himself liberally out of the bottle. "I'd prefer the first, I think," replied the traveller, "knowing, as I do, more about double entry than about burrs."

"The deuce you do!" exclaimed the other, with animation. "Then I'm hanged if you shan't fix up these books for me. I've been waiting months for some fellow who understood the business to come along. I was going to Coolibah with' the others, only the returns were nearly due down below. There's always a row if they don't get 'em in time. Not that they're any the wiser for having 'em. See?"

"All right," replied the other. "But aren't you the bookkeeper?"

"Accountant," corrected the man, as he again applied himself to the bottle, and this time pushed it across to the traveller. "No; I ain't. The chief accountant died six months ago in Coolibah Hospital, and the assistant accountant cleared out with the petty cash and anything else he could lay his hands on. So the bosses gave me the billet. I am the head storekeeper. I told 'em I knew precious little about bookkeeping. But they said I'd be sure to pick it up in time. So, knowing they didn't want a stranger, I took the job on. But it's been a tight pull to get these returns out, I can tell you. Besides, I don't fancy, somehow or other, that the books themselves are quite right since Sinclair—the chap who died—left."

"I don't think they are," replied the traveller grimly, as he turned over a few leaves, "considering that apparently you've forgotten to make any of the accounts balance."

"Oh, that'll be all right now you've come," said the other cheerfully. "You'll be the assistant accountant. See? By the way. what's your name—Brown, Jones, or Robinson?"

"The last," was the prompt reply; "Alexander Robinson, of Bamba Station, Victoria, and the new manager of Boorali."

The other's jaw dropped for a minute, and he looked foolish. Then, glancing at the well-worn clothes of the visitor, and out to where the patient horses hung at the fence, he recovered himself, and said: "Come, my good man, none of your bluff here! It won't do! If you want a job, I've offered you one. Take it, or leave it; but you'll have to behave yourself."

"Go and tell Mr. Stackpoole that I want to see him," said the other sternly, his eyes flashing like sparks of blue fire.

The man cowered and shrivelled. He seemed by a momentary insight to realise the position.

"It's God's truth?" he asked, cringing.

For answer, the stranger took a paper out of his pocket-book, and said, "Read that!"

Glancing at the contents, the "accountant" muttered, "I thought it couldn't last much longer!" Then to Mr. Robinson, "If I tell you the whole business, will you let me off? The others roped me into it. As God's my judge, they did! Sinclair knew it, and it drove him to drink and death."

"Well, well," replied the other impatiently, "what is there to make such a fuss about? Only a story of waste and extravagance; a mismanaged property; defrauded shareholders and an incompetent head—all bad enough, of course. But nothing to make you look as if you'd committed murder. Go and tell the manager I want to see him at once!"

The other hesitated. Then he blurted out, "He isn't here, sir. He left twelve months ago, and we've never seen him since."

The new-comer whistled long and loud. "How did you manage?" he asked suspiciously.

"No trouble," said the other; "he was always a hermit, and sometimes kept in his house for days together. He had a studio and a laboratory, and an astronomical outfit, to keep him busy. He seldom or ever saw visitors; and he left all the entertaining and that sort of thing to us."

"And a very good job you made of it, no doubt," remarked Mr. Robinson, cynically. "And then, when the manager vanished," he continued, "you fellows kept carrying on? And you expect me to believe this cock-and-bull story, eh? I tell you what, young man, the whole business looks very fishy, and one the police must have something to say on. I'm off to Coolibah now to interview the managers and assistant managers, and assistant deputy-overseers, and all the other dignitaries; also the police."

But when Mr. Robinson reached the township he found that a "bush telegram" had preceded him, and that the responsible station officials had disappeared as totally as their late manager seemed to have done. The police came out, and ransacked the homestead and grounds; but of the missing manager no trace was found, Then Mr. Robinson took things in hand, and made them "hum" to such a tune as fully justified the English directors in their choice of a man to look after their interests. But Coolibah and the neighborhood sulked for a long time, and until they realised the fact that the station was being run on permanently economical principles, and that, so to speak, the notice was up of "No Admittance Except on Business." A long time after the new manager took possession an old dry well, not far from the homestead, was being deepened, when the workmen found the skeleton of a man, and alongside it a shattered and rusty sextant. The unfortunate "wirtuoso" had evidently emerged one night to "take a star" by whose aid to work out some of the intricate problems he so delighted in, and, forgetting the old shaft, had fallen fifty feet and broken his neck.