For three years now had the rodents taken command of Meena Lake, breeding steadily and without halt until late the preceding summer when the water had vanished and there had been no green feed left on the surrounding uplands. The April rain had given the host another lease of reproductive life, and throughout the gentle winter endless relays of young rabbits had appeared, to grow to maturity in nine weeks, when the does began to vie with their mothers. Then, in early September, an unknown intelligence, foreseeing the drought, commanded the breeding to cease that the host might be strong to wage the battle with advancing Death.
Familiarity, it is said, breeds contempt—or indifference—and Gordon failed to appreciate the glowing colours of the red and white homestead buildings set upon a red base and backed by a blue-green canopy. The horse carried him upward among the dunes to reach the edge of the plateau and thus to pass the main building and halt outside the harness shed.
The man patted the animal before removing the bridle and allowing it to walk, shaking its hide, to drink at the trough. Two barking dogs claimed his attention. He freed them from their chains, and they raced madly about him as he walked across to the men’s quarters.
All this belonged to him, and the three hundred thousand acres of excellent country surrounding it. In comparison with Karwir, and other great stations, Meena was almost a selection, but it provided the Gordons with a living as the lake had provided the Kalchut tribe with sustenance for countless years. Upon his shoulders rested responsibility inherited from the first and the second Gordons; for, besides his mother, there were the blacks under Nero who looked upon him as someone infinitely more powerful than their own chief. He could hear the cries of their children from along the lake’s shore, and as he drew near the men’s quarters he heard, too, the strains of an accordion being played with no little skill. John Gordon, unlike Eric Lacy, was years older than his age.
Entering the men’s quarters he was met by a smiling Jimmy Partner who, softening his music, said:
“Hullo, Johnny Boss! You lookin’ for a wrestle?”
“Wrestle, my foot!” Gordon exclaimed somewhat impatiently. “Wrestling is all you think about. If I could only beat you now and then we’d hear less of it.” Then, as though to atone for the impatience, he laughed, saying: “Why, you big boob, if you couldn’t wrestle so well I could box you for the count any day.”
White teeth flashed.
“Too right you could, Johnny Boss. Good job I can wrestle, else you’d be walkin’ round with your head and your feet about a yard behind your tummy.”
Jimmy Partner laughed at his own witticism, a deep-throated, musical laugh, and now he set the accordion upon the heat-blistered mantelshelf and stood up to fall into the true wrestler’s pose. Home before his tribal brother, he had already washed all over and was now wearing clean moleskin trousers and a white tennis shirt. His hair was brushed and parted down the centre, and his dark-brown face was shining. Not excessively big but beautifully proportioned and in the prime of his life, he began to advance on John Gordon, moving on the balls of his feet and with his arms held out invitingly.
Gordon backed swiftly out of the doorway and seized the wash-basin on the case standing near the door. It was still nearly full with Jimmy Partner’s recent suds.
“Come on!” cried Gordon. “It’s here waiting for you, my Salvoldi.”
Jimmy Partner did not emerge. From within he laughed again and shouted:
“No, no, Johnny Boss! I’ve just put on a clean shirt. It’s the only clean one I’ve got, and the other’s drying.”
“Very well, then. No nonsense, or you’ll get it,” Gordon told him laughingly, and, carrying the basin, he entered to see Jimmy Partner again seated and fondling his instrument. Setting the basin down on the table within easy reach, he sat himself beside it. The lighter mood subsided, and he became serious.
“How were the traps?” he asked.
“I seen ’em all,” Jimmy answered. “Two were sprung. There was a dingo in that one we set over near Black Gate.”
“Good! Purebred?”
“Not quite. Things is getting dry, Johnny Boss.”
“Yes, they are, and it looks as though they’ll be pretty bad everywhere before the summer has gone. By that time you and the blacks will be richer than me.”
“No fear,” instantly argued Jimmy Partner. “You want cash, you take it outer my bank. You can take the tribe’s money, too, when you want it. What’s money, anyhow?”
“Ha-um! It won’t come to that, Jimmy. Do you know how much you’ve got in the bank?”
“’Bout a hundred.”
“A hundred and eighty-two pounds ten shillings.”
“You can have it, Johnny Boss. All I want is another shirt.”
“But mum got you shirts only last week. Where are they?”
“Nero wanted a couple.”
Gordon frowned, saying:
“You keep your own, Jimmy. The tribe’s account is more than enough to keep them all going. Why, when I bank the dog-scalp money there will be close on seven hundred pounds behind them. What with the rabbit skins and fox skins got last month, the Kalchut will weather any drought.”
“It weathered droughts before Grandfer Gordon came, and it didn’t have no money and no bank then.”
“Rot! Times are not what they were, Jimmy.”
For seven years, since he had reached his twentieth year, Jimmy Partner had drawn station hand’s wages from Meena. It had been no easy task to make him save a little of the money earned, but once the pounds and the shillings were in the bank there was no getting it out, since it was controlled jointly by Mrs Gordon and her son.
They controlled, too, an account for the Kalchut tribe, paying into it all money earned by the tribe by the sale of rabbit and fox skins, drawing from it money to buy the meagre clothes necessary for winter wear. The Kalchuts were no mendicants, and never had been, and during these last few years they had reaped a harvest of fur around Meena Lake. The supply to them of the white man’s rations had always been kept down to a minimum and the accounts accurately kept.
“Anyhow, you seen Nero?” inquired Jimmy Partner.
“No, why?”
“He come along half-hour ago to say that big feller blackfeller p’liceman come to Opal Town.”
Gordon’s easy attitude at once became stiff, and into the hazel eyes flashed unease.
“What for? Did Nero say?”
“No,” answered Jimmy Partner indifferently.
“What else did Nero say?”
“Nothin’. Only to tell you when you came home. Wandin sent him the mulga wire, I suppose.”
“Is that so? Well, I don’t quite understand it, and dinner must be ready. See you later.”
Gordon was walking towards the gate in the wicket fence surrounding the house when his mother beat a triangle with an iron bar, announcing that dinner was ready. Seeing her son coming, Mary stood at the edge of the veranda, her tall, spare figure encased in blue striped linen that had the effect of reducing her age and the number of lines about her smiling eyes.
“There’s a cheque come from the skin agents for seventy-two pounds odd for the rabbit skins the blacks consigned last month,” she said brightly.
“They may want it if this dry spell keeps up,” John said, smiling at her. “Anything else?”
“Only receipts and a letter from the windmill people. How did you find South Paddock?”
“Still in good nick, but