was a handsome man, this Weatherby, burned dark by the sun, made strong by the fight to succeed, poised like the man accustomed to giving orders. His dark eyes keenly examined the face of the lesser man, and his mind subconsciously noted the scuffing of the boot, the nervous reaction when in the presence of a superior. Accepting the letter, he broke the envelope and read it slowly as one habitually averse to scanning anything, be it a steer or a letter.
“All right, Black, you can collect your uncle’s stuff. We don’t want it, of course.” The voice was clear and deep, the accent ingrained by the ‘old’ school. “All Patsy’s things are stored in a hut we let him use. There’s a credit on the books, too. What about that?”
William Black hesitated, and Mr. Weatherby snapped fingers.
“Well?”
“Better let it stay, Mr. Weatherby. The lawyer never said nothing about any money. I can tell him.”
“All right! Tell him. You had better come to the office for the key to the hut. And before you go, you must make out a list of the things you take. Write?”
“Yes, Mr. Weatherby.”
The cattleman moved away, and Black took his swag from the tree and slouched after him to the store building behind the main house. The office was merely a corner of this store, stocked with foodstuffs, machinery parts, drapery, and a hundred other items needed on such a place.
“Now don’t forget that list, Black,” Weatherby said. “I’ll have it made in duplicate and you can sign one and I’ll sign the other for the lawyer. In the morning I’ll have the boys bring in the camels. The old man pass out comfortably?”
No hint of sympathy. Barely of interest. A hard man this Weatherby who, Bony surmised, was the elder of the brothers.
Again William Black sniggered, looked at everything save the man at the desk.
“Drunk as Chloe, Mr. Weatherby.”
The next question Weatherby put was wholly in order as the subject was the always problematic financial state of a gold prospector. He asked if Patsy Lonergan had left much of an estate, and was neatly informed that the lawyer hadn’t read the will excepting to a daughter and another nephew.
“H’m! What part d’you come from?” was the question bound to be asked by any intelligent white man, and this one was satisfied with the answer, and didn’t smile when William Black told him that Lonergan had spent several years in Queensland when a much younger man. The dinner triangle was beaten and Weatherby rose from behind the desk, saying:
“Your uncle was a tough old timer. You know, Black, now I come to think on him, he wasn’t so silly as he made out sometimes. The country got him all right, there’s no doubt about that. It’ll get any man who goes into it alone for weeks and months, and the man who does go out alone prospecting for metals and scalps and suchlike may be a fool, but he’s a damn courageous fool. Now you go along to the men’s quarters for dinner. See you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Mr. Weatherby,” William Black said respectfully, and departed.
Already in the meal hut were several aborigines, including the head stockman, and two half-castes. The head stockman laughed at him, but pointed to the huge aborigine cook, saying:
“See her, Bill! She’s the cook aroun’ here. Good cook, too, but jus’ nag and nag.”
There was a general guffaw, and William Black smiled at the lubra, having met her at afternoon smoko. She served him with a great heap of roast beef and vegetables, and laughingly told him to return for more. Indeed a happy race that employs laughter to hide many things, which includes nervousness with strangers.
They wanted to know where he came from, so he explained where the Diamantina country is, and how he came to travel down to Norseman, and how he was related to Patsy Lonergan. They were genuinely sorry to hear that Patsy had died, and laughed delightedly when he told them that Patsy passed on when ‘as drunk as Chloe’. And Bony knew that this friendly reaction to him was based on the opinion held by the medicine man-cum-head stockman, but they did not accept him as one of themselves and would not have been friendly to the stranger had he intended to seek work with them, or attempt to join their conservative community.
Following dinner, one of them pointed out Lonergan’s hut, then all of them wandered away to the scrub behind the homestead where doubtless their humpies would be.
The hut contained but the one room. There was a rough bunk fashioned with poles, to which was stretched hessian bags and bearing on them a hessian mattress stuffed with straw. The late tenant had stowed his camel gear in here and Bony had to carry the pack-saddle and the riding-saddle outside before he could move about. Until it was almost dark he proceeded with the inventory, noting a pair of well-kept leather saddle-bags, a pair of five-gallon water drums, hobbles and noselines, a tucker-box, blankets, old clothes, including an overcoat with silk lapels which must once have been worn by a duke when waiting on Queen Victoria.
He was lighting a hurricane lantern when a sound at the door brought to notice the wriggling body of a small brown dog of United Nations breed, small bright eyes, and ears which one ancestor had influenced to droop.
“Who are you?” asked William Black, and the dog entered and jumped to the bunk where she settled and coyly told him she was Lucy.
Chapter Five
Millie and Curley
Early the next morning the horse tailer brought in Lonergan’s camels. Actually they were the descendants of the originally imported dromedaries of one hump, but like most words requiring slight effort to pronounce, the shorter and inaccurate designation was ever employed in Australia.
Millie and Curley were in fine condition, and Bony found them in a high-railed yard, placidly chewing cud, and in their eyes the expression of resignation to more ruddy work. Millie was lighter in colour than her boy friend, and both appeared docile. Millie had her nose-plug in position, but Curley wore a strong leather halter, the ragged hole in his nose telling a story.
“Had experience with camels, I suppose,” remarked Weatherby, who had approached with his brother to join Bony at the rails. The younger man was slighter than the other, even darker of hair and eyes, and he lacked the outward placidity of his brother.
“Yes,” admitted Bony, and returned his gaze to the camels. “They’re quiet enough, but a little tricky. Made the inventory of your uncle’s gear?”
“Most of it, I reckon. There’s still the traps. The old feller didn’t bring them in.”
This was met with a silence attributable perhaps to the interest the others had in the camels. Ultimately the younger Weatherby said:
“As no one knows where old Patsy set his traps, you’ll have to pass them up.”
“Looks like it,” agreed the older man. “I doubt that the abos even know which way the old boy put down his last trap line. Be out west because that’s where the dogs are this year. Hey! Ringer! Come here.”
The head stockman, who was leading a saddled mare from a yard, led her to his employer. He was looking hard and efficient this morning.
“Any idea where old Patsy worked his last trap line?” Weatherby asked, and Ringer smiled and kicked dust.
“Dunno,” he replied. “Ole Patsy cunnin’ feller all right. Tommy seen camel tracks other side of the Splinter . . . jus’ before the rain. Could be, old Patsy worked them saltpans out there.”
“All right, Ringer. You get going, and don’t forget to look-see at Mason’s Hole.”
“Those traps hardly worth going after, even if you knew where to look,” remarked the younger Weatherby while rolling a cigarette. Casually Bony turned to him, his face empty of expression as they expected. This younger Weatherby seemed to be stronger in character than the other, and about him was an aura hinting at a far different background. Although dressed for riding and with that horsey