The Barrakee Mystery

by Arthur W. Upfield

  At the point opposite that where Dugdale rode over the sand ridge there was one such pad, a few hundred yards above the place where Sinclair had thought to defy Sergeant Knowles. It was the pad both he and the sergeant had used the day before. Now it was covered with water.

  The young man reined in and gasped. Whilst he knew that the flood down the Paroo was approaching, he was astounded to see that already it was between him and Thurlow Lake. Slowly, irresistibly, it was moving down to join the floodwaters of the Darling.

  How far down was the head of it? Would he have to ride forty miles to cross by the bridge three miles above Wilcannia? Aghast, he turned his horse south, and followed the stream. Two miles down he was halted by a creek discharging a bank-high stream of reddish water from the clay-pans a few miles westward, water accumulated by the rain of the last night and not by the general flood rains of a few weeks earlier. The chances were that the creek waters would fall in five or six hours—but the Paroo water would be rising.

  “Tiger, old man, you’ve got to swim,” Dugdale remarked to his restive mount. The creek banks were steep, but where the flow entered the flat country they shelved away into gentle slopes. The current was strong, and the horse objected to entering it; yet there was no time to be lost in gentle persuasive methods. Dugdale dismounted and cut himself a switch.

  Only after punishment from switch and spurs did the grey abandon his resistance and sidle into the rushing torrent. He whinnied with fright when swept off his feet, but swam gamely while being swept out into the broader stream of the Paroo. With voice and rein his rider urged him towards the same side of the Paroo as the creek, well knowing that once in the Paroo proper the water would be only a foot or two in depth, but the grey black bottom would be almost as bad as a quicksand.

  Even as it was, when the horse, having swum the creek stream, found bottom on semi-black soil and sand, it was only with difficulty that it reached dry land. After that Dugdale rode at a hand-gallop for four miles, and then, crossing a sand-pit at a wide bend, he gave an exultant shout; for there, but half a mile ahead, was the edge of the creeping flood.

  The edge of the flood consisted of a floating mass of logs, boughs, and sticks, branches of trees and rubbish. Even from the shore he could see that the mass was crawling with snakes, bulldog-ants, goannas, lizards, and even rabbits. It was being carried along at about four miles an hour.

  He rode on a further mile. The main course there was a little more than a mile across—dry ground, but rubbly and soft from the recent rain. Was it possible to cross before the flood travelled that one mile? He thought not, and rode on.

  For another half-mile he cantered, deciding to cross where a dead box-tree stood at the point of a wide bend; but when he reached the tree he pulled up sharply, for, beyond it, the Paroo bed was covered with water, which, whilst mainly flowing down, was also creeping up to meet the main flood.

  Dugdale knew then what was happening, and what he would have to face if he attempted to cross between the two masses of water. The main flood was flowing through the cracks, deep below the general surface. Somewhere below him the subterranean stream had met an obstacle in the shape of a sand-bar, and, being unable to pass, was rising up the cracks to the surface. In very short time the dry ground opposite would be covered by the rising water and the meeting of the main with the subsidiary flow. If he was to cross, he must cross instantly.

  He was fully aware of the risks he ran. He knew that when the water in the ground cracks rose to a certain distance from the surface, the surface would dissolve in mud exactly as sugar dissolves in tea. If that occurred whilst he was crossing, his horse would be inevitably bogged and he himself likely enough to be bogged as well, and finally overwhelmed by the water while stuck fast. Yet these risks were dismissed from his thoughts almost as soon as they occurred. Sinclair’s urgency for the letter and wallet to be delivered to the Little Lady as quickly as possible was sufficient spur to one who almost worshipped her.

  Whipping his horse to a gallop, he retraced his tracks for a quarter of a mile, to where the red sand-hills along the east side of the river were a mile and a half distant. Here he reined his mount to the right and dashed out on the rubbly, sticking mullock intersected by a mad mosaic pattern of cracks yards deep.

  Having been bred on Barrakee, where no such country existed, Tiger was at once at a great disadvantage. The irregularly spaced islands of firm rubble hindered his swinging stride so much that he was forced to proceed in a series of hops and jumps. More than once a hind-hoof slithered into a crack, and only by a miracle did he keep his feet.

  His attention divided between the treacherous ground and the coming water, Dugdale helped his horse as much as possible with rein and knees. So imminent was the danger around and below him that he then did not notice the sun shining through the first rift in the clouds, forgot entirely Knowles’ probable pursuit, even his own mission.

  The recent rain had made the rubble—in size varying from marbles to small oranges—pudgy outside but still as hard as flint inside. This rubble clogged the horse’s hoofs, forming great balls beneath each which eventually flew off, whereupon the clogging process was repeated. Tiger broke out into a white lather of sweat; his breathing rasped through scarlet nostrils and grinning teeth. The first half of the crossing was far worse than a ten-mile gallop.

  And it was about halfway that the animal misjudged a short leap and dropped both hind feet into a crack. Prepared though he was, Dugdale was sent hurtling over the gelding’s withers and landed with stunning force. In his turn he felt in a lesser degree the sensations of Sergeant Knowles when hit by Sinclair’s waddy and later tricked by Dugdale in the hut.

  Dazed, semi-conscious, the young man lurched to his feet, the reins fortunately still in his grip. The horse scrambled forward and out of the crack, mercifully uninjured, but the rider swayed on his feet with giddiness. For an entire minute the earth spun round and over and under with the sky, and only his iron will prevented him from lying down until the effect of the fall had passed.

  Knowledge, however, of the creeping waters kept him up, whilst clinging to a stirrup-leather for support.

  “Gad, Tiger, that was a buster, to be sure!” he gasped at last, and then when his vision cleared he added: “You’re in a nice state, old boy, but we’re not across yet.”

  Once more in the saddle he urged Tiger, trembling and afraid, again into the leaps and hops, so unnatural to an animal of Tiger’s youth and freedom of action.

  Three minutes later, when yet more than a quarter of a mile from high ground, he heard the sinister rush of water down in the cracks, water that “clucked” and “guggled” and “swished”, water that was rising slowly to the surface.

  The rubbish-littered lip of the main flood was less than a quarter of a mile from him. He could see the sinuous movement, the rise and fall of dead limbs and branches rolling over and over. And at less, much less than that short distance, he saw the silver glint of the water lower down moving upward to meet the main flow.

  At that instant Dugdale knew that he had about one chance in a hundred of ever gaining firm ground. The beckoning sand-hills looked so close that it seemed possible to lean forward and touch them.

  Now the upper surface of the ground was beginning to sink. He could discern the sheen of water less than a foot down in the cracks, water of a million eyes winking up at him malevolently. Tiger floundered worse and worse every second. Pools were forming between the two waters, ahead, behind, and on each side—pools that assumed sinister personalities. Dugdale felt as perhaps the escaped convict feels with a circle of armed warders creeping upon him.

  Fifty, forty, thirty yards off now was the barrage of rubbish, with its six-yard vanguard of frothy water. Three hundred yards now separated horse and rider from the shelving red sand. Tiger’s speed, in spite of prodigious efforts, had dropped to the pace of a walking man.

  The next hundred yards took an eternity of terrific effort. A million times worse was the second h
undred yards, and before ten of the remaining hundred were covered Tiger suddenly sank.

  The mud and water reached Dugdale’s knees. The horse screamed once, just before the whirling, floating, reptile-covered barrage rolled upon horse and man.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  A Nice Day

  THERE WAS in all that long, many-curved line of sticks and branches not a log of sufficient buoyancy to support a man of Dugdale’s weight. When the horse sank to its shoulders, its rider threw himself sideways out of the saddle, whereupon he slushed cheek-down into a two-foot ridge of froth covering a further foot of water. Bunching his knees, he raised himself sufficiently to see a rotten fence-post within reach.

  A red-hot iron was thrust through his right hand when a bulldog-ant bit; a cold contracting thing wrapped itself about his other wrist, but pain and sensation were hardly felt in that supreme moment wherein the earth vanished beneath the mass of cracking, lurching, upthrusting snags and branches. And then, as suddenly as it had come, so the barrage passed horse and man, leaving them in comparatively clear water.

  Again Tiger screamed, this time with pain, not fright. Dugdale guessed that some venomous insect had taken refuge on his sweat—and mud-covered body and then proceeded to assert its irritability. The pain of the bite or sting proved to be the horse’s salvation, proved to be just the necessary stimulus applied at the right moment; for Dugdale saw his animal make one tremendous effort to reach the high ground. He could never decide whether it was chance or equine sagacity; but Tiger lurched a little sideways, almost gained his feet, slithered forward two or three yards, sank deep with only his head out of the shallow water, paused for one more tremendous effort, moved forward again—and, amazingly, found his feet, and stood still.

  The sluggishly moving water did not rise to Tiger’s fore-knees. He trembled violently, and finally looked back with wide eyes at his rider. Mud and water dropped from him. He had become a brown horse. Dugdale saw that Tiger by miraculous chance stood on firm ground, and that if he could join him he might find a way, a causeway, from the island of firm ground to the shore of the river.

  He was still clutching the rotten fence-post, and when he removed his left hand a small brown snake reared its graceful head and hissed. Had the snake been less frightened it would have struck, and without thought Dugdale flung up his arm sharply, whereupon the reptile was sent far into the water. Beneath him the ground felt slushy and glutinous, and only by lying full-length, allowing the water partially to support him, was he able to pull himself forward towards his horse. And then he found that Tiger stood on hard red sand.

  For a full minute he patted and coaxed and generally worked to reduce Tiger’s almost humanly hysterical fright. The slowly-moving water was imperceptibly rising and bore on its dark-brown surface countless half-drowned insects. Dugdale, without conscious thought, removed a dozen harmless ants and one of the ferocious bulldog-ants from the fidgeting Tiger, as well as several that clung to himself; and then, sliding one foot forward at a time, gingerly prospected for a firm crossing to dry land eighty or ninety yards distant.

  In such manner did he fortunately find a way, his animal reluctant to leave the safe spot he had found, yet obviously frightened by the conditions surrounding them; and when at last they did clear the Paroo river, the bed behind them was no longer dry.

  Dugdale first of all removed his coat. Then off came Tiger’s saddle. The saddle-cloth he used to wash the animal down, and when again clean and saddled Tiger appeared little the worse for the crossing. The next matter of importance was the condition of Sinclair’s letter. It was soppy from immersion, and the bearer of it was obliged to lay it against a sand-ripple facing the sun to dry. Sinclair’s wallet was less affected, a cursory examination showing that the water had not penetrated to the folding pockets. After that there was nothing to do but wait till the letter dried.

  The adventure of the crossing had in a way calmed Dugdale’s mind sufficiently to allow of consecutive thought on what had occurred and what the future might hold in store. While riding towards Thurlow Lake at a quiet amble, knowing that he was safe from personal pursuit by Sergeant Knowles, Dugdale made up his mind to experience a trying time at least from the further activities of the police sergeant.

  From his official standpoint Knowles had been right in his demand for the handing over of Sinclair’s property, because the wallet had been Sinclair’s property and now was the temporary property of the State. That Dugdale refused to divulge the name of the person to whom he was to take the wallet made it quite evident to the policeman that the act was perpetrated to benefit Dugdale or one of Dugdale’s friends in an unlawful way, because, Sinclair being dead, there remained no one to prove Dugdale’s words.

  A southerly wind blew chillingly through the rider’s wet clothes, and he urged Tiger into an easy canter. Arrived at the boundary-fence, he lashed the top wire to the bottom wire with his waist-belt, and had no difficulty in getting the horse over, this being a method Tiger was quite used to. Pressing onward, yet without undue haste, horse and rider finally came in sight of Thurlow Lake homestead about three o’clock in the afternoon.

  Half an hour later he was close enough to see the several boundary-riders standing in a group near the horse-yards, and of these he made out Fred Blair and his bullock-wagon offsider, Henry McIntosh. That these two were now occupied on horsework was obvious to him, because it had been essential to get all the sheep east of the Washaways before the flood waters divided the run into two, and to beat the flood every available man was necessary.

  What Dugdale didn’t know was that the three men talking to Blair and McIntosh had been waiting at Thurlow Lake since nine o’clock that morning for the express purpose of apprehending him, the three men in question being members of the police stationed at Thurlow Lake in the general search for Sinclair. They were not wearing uniform: each of them appearing to the observer as either a jackaroo or a well-dressed ordinary hand.

  Two of them had already had the pleasure of meeting Blair in their professional capacity. Consequently Blair knew them. Knowing, too, that they would be loath to devote their time, urgently needed in the search for Sinclair, to escorting him to the jail at Wilcannia, Blair was airing his view about policemen in general and these three specimens in particular. It was as well, perhaps, that Blair did not know that the search for Sinclair was over.

  Dugdale rode up to the stockyard and dismounted. Nodding to the others, he said to Blair:

  “Is Mr Watts home, Fred?”

  “Just come in,” Blair replied, the heat of argument still in evidence on his brick-red face and in the angle of his beard. “I think he is in the office.”

  “Thanks! I want to see him.”

  But as he moved towards the house the three plainclothes men edged around him. Blair saw the movement, the significance of which brought a gleam into his eyes.

  “Mr Dugdale?” inquired a big, raw-boned man, evidently the senior officer.

  Dugdale paused in his walk. Upon him also the significance of the three men about him was not lost. He saw now what their avocation in life was. They were too hard, too suspicious, too efficient-looking to be anything but bush-troopers. Allowing Tiger’s reins to drop to the ground, where upon the animal stood and would continue to stand for hours, he braced his shoulders and gave answer in the affirmative.

  “Then I am going to arrest you for being in possession of stolen property,” the leader said grimly. “You will be charged with having removed from the clothes of William Clair, now deceased, a leather wallet and contents, and a further charge will be laid against you of having assaulted Sergeant Knowles, causing grievous bodily harm. Just to save trouble, give me the wallet.”

  Dugdale stood with his hands on his hips, the ever-ready poise of the fighter. The information that Sinclair was dead shocked Blair into immobility, because less than twenty four hours previously he had seen, spoken to, and supplied the gaunt man with rations. The matter of the pocket book was a puzzle. The
outstanding facts were that Clair was dead, that Dugdale had his wallet, and that Dugdale had fought the sergeant either to obtain or to retain the wallet. Natural instinct prompted Blair to side with Dugdale. Still Blair waited.

  To ask why Frederick Blair so loved fighting is to ask why a dog loves to chase and kill a cat. The love of fighting may have been inherited, for Blair’s grandfather had been a notorious blackbirder, almost officially designated a pirate. The little man lived some three hundred years too late. Even in Bully Hayes’ time he would have secured worldwide fame; because, not only was he a natural fighter, but he also was a natural leader. Suddenly he seized McIntosh’s arm and drew him aside.

  “When I w’istles, ’Enery,” he said, “you bolt to the stockyards and turn out all them ’orses. Then you come back and have Tiger waiting and ready for Mister Dugdale to git away. Savvy?”

  Henry intimated with his usual grin of vacancy that he did savvy, and the grin was still a grin when Dugdale’s fist crashed into the police leader’s face and Blair whistled precisely one second before ramming his head between another policeman’s legs and heaving him over his back like a bag of potatoes.

  Now, when a ten stone man hits a twelve stone man a glancing blow on the lower jaw, it seldom occurs that the bigger man goes to sleep. The leader of the police party was but slightly jarred. Like Blair, he, too, loved a fight, and with a broad grin of joy stepped in with amazing swiftness to return the punch. But somehow his fist shot skyward. A volcano opened the earth beneath him and sent him up in a parabolic curve which ended when he returned to earth on his head.