Читать книгу Half Crown Bob and Tales of the Riverine - Price Warung - Страница 6

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Every steamer's exhaust, to all river people, had its own message. Hitherto the Jessie Jane's escaping steam had but one reading--"Kiss Jessie--Jim! Kiss Jessie--Jim! Kiss Jessie--Jim!" That was the mode of it. But this morning there was a distinctly audible change. Whether it was the rotten old boiler had taken a new lease of life, or that some part of the engine had gone wrong, or, having previously gone wrong, was now determining to go right, or something still more recondite and unexplainable, but certainly the sibilation was no longer heard. Jim noticed it as soon as he got into a fair way. He called down the speaking-tube to the engineer.

"Something wrong with the exhaust, Charlie?" Charlie came up on the main deck.

"Yes, skipper, she's changed her tune. Steam-pipe's got a bit choked, I expect. What does she say? Breakin' somethin', it sounds like."

"'Make you, break you--Jim! Make you, break you--Jim!' that's what it is, skipper," called out the mate. "Well, that's dashed funny, isn't it?"

"Very," replied Jim, who was leaning over the half-door of the pilot--house. And his heart throbbed painfully as the alternative to being "made" was voiced by the steam. Of course that was nonsense. If he did not get the Mungadel contract he would be no worse off than before. And if he did--well, he'd be made. Mortgage paid off, and open credit for a round thousand over-draft at the bank. Then he would build a new barge for next season, and with the prestige of one of the big frontage station contracts behind him, he would not be dependent on agencies' mercies, but would tackle half-a-dozen of the big back-blocks stations himself. Pull off Mungadel, and he would not change places with McCullochs! The next season would see him worth three thousand, and all squarely earned, clean money. How many of the river-men would be able to say the same? By Heavens, he would have the contract! And, to cheer him, came another tune on the exhaust, "Make you, make you--Jim."

That was it, then. Even the crazy old boat and boiler were bent on winning. Listen again! "Make you, make you--Jim!" Nothing more about "Break you!"

And he went to his bunk with a lighter spirit to gain a few hours' sleep. He was going to run all night and take the wheel himself. The "Make you, make you--Jim!" was a lullaby to him.

But as the dusk was rapidly filling the gap between the clumps of gums on the banks, and the only light on the stream was from the great reflecting lamps already ablaze, the mate sent the half-fledged hobbledehoy, who acted as cabin-boy for his keep, down to wake his skipper. And as Jim ran up-stairs to the pilot-deck, he heard once more the fateful murmur, "Make you, break you--Jim." No mistake this time. There was the "break you" quite distinct, and with a threatening accent too. So fancied the fevered brain of the captain.

"Say, skipper," said the mate, "I woke you a little sooner than you said, but there's some one on Pugga Milly signallin'."

Pugga Milly Island, formed by a branch and the main stream, was in shadow, but across the great reach which forms the river there were broad flashes of light. They were not from the Resolution and her barge. The great steamer and her consort were tying up for the night on the south bank, Linton having gone as far as he dared that day. He hoped that the fresh water from the Upper Murray would be down by daybreak to carry him over the shoal at the head of the reach, and so avoid the necessity for warping the craft up by means of lines from the trees. If he was not compelled to warp he could (by putting on another 10 lbs. of steam) overtake the Jessie Jane, and beat her through the Echuca port.

And as he put out his regulations, he cursed the regulations which compelled him to aid in the illumination of the stream. The more light in so stiff a part of the river the better for his rival.

But the broad flashes Jim noticed were not the steady fanlight beams of the Resolution's lamps. They were intermittent, now wavered by the breeze, now blown into vivid lightning-like zig-zags that shivered and darted into the interstices of the timber, and startled ducks and curlews and native companions from the lagoons. And a figure was now seen in the blaze, and now hidden by it.

"Yes," said Jim, "that's a signal or else a dodge. P'r'aps the Resolution has sent a man there to trick us. Anyhow, if it's a passenger we're not going to take him."

For of course if it were a passenger, and would-be passengers emerged from most unlikely places on the rivers, it must be a male. None but a crank would have supposed a woman would be there.