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I seen Bill on ahead pegging out for the horizon, and I took after him and reached for the timber for all I was worth, for I'd seen Stiffner's missus coming with a shovel to bury the remains, I suppose; and those two were a good match Stiffner and his missus, I mean. Bill looked round once, and melted into the bush pretty soon after that.
We walked right into the bar, handed over our swags, put up four drinks, and tried to look as if we'd just drawn our cheques and didn't care a curse for any man. We looked solvent enough, as far as swagmen go. We were dirty and haggard and ragged and tired-looking, and that was all the more reason why we might have our cheques all right. This Stiffner was a hard customer.
When I caught up he was about done; but I grabbed my swag and we pushed on, for I told Bill that I'd seen Stiffner making for the stables when I'd last looked round; and Bill thought that we'd better get lost in the bush as soon as ever we could, and stay lost, too, for Stiffner was a man that couldn't stand being had.
"That," he said, "was the half-quid you give me last night. Half-quids ain't to be thrown away these times; and, besides, I had a down on Stiffner, and meant to pay him out; I reckoned that if we wasn't sharp enough to take him down we hadn't any business to be supposed to be alive. Anyway, I guessed we'd do it; and so we did and got a bottle of whisky into the bargain."
Behind it the great curse of the West is in evidence, the chief trouble of unionism drink, in its most selfish, barren, and useless form. All was quiet at Stiffner's. It was after midnight, and Stiffner lay dead-drunk on the broad of his back on the long moonlit verandah, with all his patrons asleep around him in various grotesque positions.
"Good morning, sir," says Stiffner. "It'll be a nice day, I think?" "Yes, I think so. I suppose you are going on?" "Yes, we'll have to make a move to-day." Then I hooked carelessly on to the counter with one elbow, and looked dreamy-like out across the clearing, and presently I gave a sort of sigh and said: "Ah, well! I think I'll have a beer." "Right you are! Where's your mate?"
"Oh, he's round at the back. He'll be round directly; but he ain't drinking this morning." Stiffner laughed that nasty empty laugh of his. He thought Bill was whipping the cat. "What's yours, boss?" I said. "Thankee!... Here's luck!" "Here's luck!"
I noticed that Stiffner was limping on his right foot this morning, so I said to him: "What's up with your foot?" putting my hand in my pocket. "Oh, it's a crimson nail in my boot," he said. "I thought I got the blanky thing out this morning; but I didn't." There just happened to be an old bag of shoemaker's tools in the bar, belonging to an old cobbler who was lying dead drunk on the veranda.
But during the meal he condescended to ask the landlord if he'd noticed that there horse that chap was ridin' yesterday; and Stiffner having intimated that he had, the native entertained the company with his opinion of that horse, and of a certain "youngster" he was breaking in at home, and divers other horses, mostly his or his father's, and of a certain cattle slut, &c.... He spoke at the landlord, but to the company, most of the time.
Then he added, reflectively: "I drove a cab myself, once, for five years in Sydney." Stiffner and Jim We were tramping down in Canterbury, Maoriland, at the time, swagging it me and Bill looking for work on the new railway line.
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