Kitabı oku: «Tom Gerrard», sayfa 3
CHAPTER V
Soon after sunrise, as the two friends were drinking their morning tea ere they started back for Marumbah, Westonley told Gerrard that he had decided to let him take Jim away with him to Ocho Rios.
“He is provided for in my will, Tom, but you must never let him know it. I think it is a mistake to let youngsters know that they will have money left to them some day.”
“Quite so, Ted. And I am sure that you will never regret letting me have him, and I will bring him up as if he were my own son. There is no school within two hundred miles of Ocho Rios, but I think I am quite capable of giving him a decent education.”
“Little Mary won’t like it, Tom. She is passionately fond of him, and will cut up very rough over the parting, I fear.”
“Poor child! But, of course, she will see him again in a few years. I can see, that next to you, Jim is her ‘dearest and best.’ If I were a married man, Ted, I would ask you for her as well. Every time she looks at me with those big, soft eyes of hers, I see poor Mary again, and when she speaks, hear the soft sweet voice again.”
“She is a lovable child, and, look here, Tom, old man, I’ll tell you something that has made me grizzle in secret for many years—Lizzie doesn’t care for her. I don’t mind her being a bit sharp with the boy how and then, for he’s a terrible young Turk at times, and I’m too easy with him; but little Mary is such a gentle, soft sort of kid, that I wonder how anyone could possibly help loving her. But, somehow or other, Lizzie doesn’t. Still, within the last few days—ever since you came in fact—she has been a bit warmer in her manner.”
Gerrard nodded. “Lizzie will come round to like her in time, Ted, And, I say, old fellow, since you have been so open with me, I’m going to say something to you that you perhaps may not like, and think I’m an interfering ass. But, ‘honest Injun,’ Ted, I mean well—like a good many other idiots do when they meddle with other people’s domestic affairs.”
“Go on, sonny,” said the big man, quietly, “you never talk rot.”
“Well, it’s this. Lizzie is simply fretting her life out at Marumbah, and I think that, in a way, you are to blame. She does not like living in the bush, and does not seem to care for the people hereabout. I had quite a long yarn with her the first day I came to Marumbah, and although at first she tried to be the stiff, austere lady with me, I wouldn’t have it. Made her sit on my knee, and all that, you know, stroked her hair, and pinched her pretty little nose.”
“Tom, if I didn’t know you better, I would call you a liar.”
“Fact! You know as well as I do that she has always looked upon me as a black sheep. But she is going to change her mind about me, and I’ll bet you a fiver that before I leave Marumbah, I’m going to be ‘Tommy’ to her, as I was in the old, old days.”
Westonley’s sun-tanned face flushed with pleasure. “Tom, I’d give half of all I’m worth to see her and you friends again. I know how bitterly she affronted you years ago.”
“Oh! that is all forgotten, old son. I was to blame for going off in such a silly huff. I behaved like a bear. We men don’t understand women, Ted, and make hideous fools of ourselves. And that brings me to what I wanted to tell you—which is, that you are a blazing idiot.”
“Tom, whatever you say, and whatever cheek you give me, I will take it quietly, although I could knock you out in four rounds,” and Westonley thumped Gerrard affectionately on his back with his great hand. “Now, I know I’m a thundering ass but I’ll be as meek as a lamb to you, you black-faced, under-sized little beggar.”
Gerrard laughed. There was a difference of four inches in their respective heights; Westonley being six feet two inches. He knew by the inflection of the big man’s voice that he had become a much happier man within the last ten minutes, and the knowledge of it gave him a great satisfaction.
“I may not be as big as you,” he said, “but if I was the same shape, I’d go to a bush carpenter, and get him to trim me down with an adze.” Then after this jest, he resumed seriously. “Well, Ted, it is just this. Lizzie says that she likes Sydney but you do not, and that you will never stay there for more than a week at a time. Now, that isn’t doing the square thing by her. You and I as well, never think that the many years she spent in England gave her a taste for many of the refinements of civilisation—pictures, high-class music, especially Churchy music, and all kind of things like that, which are always dear to a highly-educated and naturally clever woman, Now, when she married you, and settled down to a station life, she gave up a good deal, and as the years go on, she feels it more and more, and no woman in the world can always be an angel, you know, although we tell ‘em so when we ask ‘em to marry us. Do you follow me?”
“I’m listening for all I’m worth, my son. If we were in a room, you could distinctly hear the wall paper adhering to the wall.”
“Well, now, as I was saying, that isn’t fair to Lizzie. What is the use of her going to Sydney for a week? Just as she is beginning to enjoy herself, and feel something of the life she had in England, you drag her back to Marumbah to your beastly bullock punching.”
“But I don’t want her to come, Tom. I’ve always urged her to stay there for three months—or six, if she liked.”
“Bosh! What pleasure would she have in being there alone; for although a woman may have lots of women friends, she’s practically alone if her husband isn’t with her. Tumble?”
Westonley nodded. “Go on, Tommy, go on to a dead finish. I am beginning to see I’m in fault.”
“Of course you are. And if you don’t give her a long change in Sydney, and stay there with her, you’ll feel sorry for it; she’ll become a religious monomaniac, and go in for High Church, auricular confession, and an empty stomach on Fridays. She’s got a turn that way, remember. A conventual education in a High Church school in England isn’t a very healthy preparation for a girl who afterwards marries a hulking, horse-racing, hard-riding Australian squatter.”
“What am I to do?” asked Westonley.
“Take her to Sydney next week. We’ll all go together, little Mary included, and I’ll stay with you for a couple of months. I’ll stand half the racket.”
“Shut up! Do you think I can’t run Lizzie, little Mary, and myself without you chipping in?”
“All right!” and Gerrard, secretly delighted, but showing no sign of it, went on placidly: “you see, Ted, you have a good man in Black” (head stockman at Marumbah). “What he doesn’t know about cattle isn’t worth knowing, and there’s no need for you to come tearing back for mustering, and branding, and attending to things generally. D’ye think that if you died to-morrow the cattle would go into mourning, and would refuse ‘to increase and multiply’? No one in this world is indispensable, although everyone thinks he is, and that, when he pegs out, the Universe is going to fall into serious trouble. Now, that’s all I have to say. Are you satisfied I’m talking sense?”
“Sonny, it’s all right. I’ll do any blessed thing you want, although I hate the idea of leaving Marumbah to loaf about in Sydney for six months,” and the big man gripped Gerrard by his pointed beard, and tugged it affectionately. “I can see that I have thought too much of myself and too little of others.”
“Not a bit; you were only thinking of Marumbah. Ted, old man, I think I’ll come back next year, and well see the Melbourne Cup together, hey?”
“Its a deal! If you don’t come, I’ll–”
“Kick me when I do come. Time we were off home, fatty.”
Just about midnight, as Gerrard lay on his bed reading, he heard a low sound of sobbing from little Mary’s room, which adjourned his own. He rose quietly, stepped to her door, and gently opened it.
The child was in her nightdress, leaning out of the window, with her hands outstretched to the night.
“Oh Jim, Jim, dear Jim! I wish Uncle Tom had never come to Marumbah. He must be a godless and wicked man to take you away from me when I love you. I hate him, I hate him!”
Gerrard went back to his room, lit his pipe and walked out on to the verandah, and paced slowly up and down, thinking.
“I wish I had ‘em both,” he said to himself.
CHAPTER VI
The charming little town of Bowen, on the shores of the beautiful harbour named Port Denison, was in the zenith of its glory and prosperity. There were certainly other towns in the north of Queensland—Mackay for instance—which enjoyed the advantage of being nearer the capital, and so obtaining more consideration from the Treasury; but Bowen, although six hundred miles from Brisbane, was the most thriving town in the north, and affected a haughty indifference to her rivals for supremacy, such as the “sugar” growing towns of Bundaberg and Mackay to the south, and the vulgar, upstart, and newly-founded Townsville to the north.
“With our matchless harbour, surpassed only on this island continent by that of Sydney,” said the Port Denison Clarion, in one of its inspired and lofty-languaged leaders, “we can regard with a serene, yet not discourteous or contemptuous indifference, the statements of our esteemed, though hasty contemporary, the Mackay Planters’ Friend, that Bowen may yet find that the newly-founded hamlet of Townsville on the shores of Cleveland Bay will ere long usurp the claim of beautiful Bowen to be the natural entrepôt for all that vast extent of territory to the northward and the westward of Port Denison, and which, ere many decades have passed, will, through its marvellous agricultural, pastoral, and auriferous resources, add not a jewel but a confiscation of blazing and lustrous gems of the most priceless value to the already glorious crown of that noble lady upon whose Empire the sun never sets. Townsville is simply a collection of humpies and shanties built upon an ill-smelling mud bank. We have personally satisfied ourselves that unless some enterprising British capitalist can convert the only available possession of Townsville (which is mud, and bad mud at that) into bricks, which, perhaps, may be used for the minor classes of buildings which must of necessity soon be built for the accommodation of the poorer classes of working men who, in their thousands, will soon be established in Bowen, Townsville will no more prove a factor towards the development of this great country of North Queensland than the numerous alligators in the Burdekin River will be employed by the municipality of Bowen as paid scavengers, and be provided brass badges, dust shovels, and other such implements to denote their vocation. As for the other assertions of the editor of the Planters Friend, we, with all kindliness, should like to point out that the Friend is the organ of the Sugar Planters; it sees nothing beyond Sugar; Sugar is its God, its Mokanna, and (incidentally) we may remark that Rum is a product resulting from the manufacture of the saccharine plant, and we fear that many samples of this aromatic liquid may have found their way into the editorial sanctum of our esteemed and valued contemporary in Mackay. At least, we judge so when a dirty, ill-smelling mud bank is compared with one of the most noble evidences of God’s handiwork—Port Denison!”
To such a courteous reproof as this, the Planters’ Friend would invariably make the same reply in the form of a leaderette of ten or twenty lines, enclosed in a square of black to denote mourning:
“Our esteemed Bowen contemporary has ‘got ‘em’ again. We are sorry we cannot #do any more than again, in the most kindly spirit, urge him to try the Dr Jordan cure, an advertisement of which will be found on page 3. We have personal knowledge of a case of the rescue from utter wreck and degradation of one of the brightest intellects of the present century by the use of the Jordan system; and as the price is but trifling, it should be within easy access of our squatter-adoring contemporary.”
To these vaguely-worded, funereal-encompassed remarks, the Clarion would retort:
“No one who believes in the trite but, nevertheless, all-powerfully true assertion that the Press is the Archimidean lever which moves the world, cannot but regret the unblushing statement of the editor of our esteemed contemporary, the Planters’ Friend, that he has been the victim of a soul-destroying, home-wrecking, and accursed habit, which that gifted American, Colonel Robert Ingersoll, has, in words of fiery eloquence, called ‘the treacherous, insidious murderer of home and happiness; the Will-o’-the-Wisp that draws honour, genius, and all that is good into its fatal, deadly quagmire.’ To the assertion that our valued contemporary is ‘the possessor of one of the brightest intellects of the present century’ (as he so modestly informs us) we do not cavil at for one moment. But even the patients under the Jordan (American quack) system may have relapses; and, when the Planters’ Friend can calmly publish two columns of leaded matter insinuating that a mud bank on the shores of Cleveland Bay is to become the leading port of North Queensland, we can but regretfully infer that the Jordan cure is not entirely satisfactory, and that even the ‘brightest intellects’ suffer terrible and deplorable relapses.”
These journalistic amenities were accorded serious attention by the society of Bowen, which, by reason of the many Government officials established there, considered itself very exclusive. The majority of these officials were connected with the law, for Bowen was the proud possessor of not only a resident judge, but also a new courthouse of such ample dimensions that the whole population of the town could have been accommodated therein. How the numerous barristers, solicitors, and the smaller legal fry lived was a mystery. Perhaps, like the mythical French town whose population supported themselves by doing each other’s washing, the legal gentry of Bowen existed by performing each other’s clerical work. Next in numbers—though not in social standing—were the Government officials connected with the Harbour and Lights Department, and “The Jetty.” The Jetty was one of Bowen’s triumphs; was over a quarter of a mile long, cost twenty thousand pounds to build, and was costing four thousand pounds a year to keep in order, and enable the staff of engineers, inspectors, etc., to dress in a gentlemanly style, and maintain their prestige as officials of higher importance than the Customs officers, of whom Bowen was provided with six, all dressed very becomingly, and all more or less related to members of the Queensland Cabinet—as a matter of fact it would have been a difficult task to find any male person in the Government service in Bowen—from His Honour Judge Coker to Paddy Shea, the letter-carrier, who was not connected with, or did not owe his position to a member of the Ministry. And Bowen revelled in the knowledge that Brisbane and the Legislature dared not refuse Bowen any reasonable request, for already there was a dark rumour concerning Separation—the division of the colony into North and South—and the Clarion had warned the “inert and muddling Government” of the colony “that unless the just and courteous request of the telegraphic staff of the Bowen Repeating Office for a punkah is acceded to without further circumlocution, the growing movement in favour of Separation will be openly advocated by this journal. Already (of this we have private knowledge) has Lord Kimberley expressed himself astonished at the heartless refusal of our benighted Colonial Secretary and Treasurer to grant the insignificant sum of two hundred pounds to the necessitous widow of Samuel Wilson, who was killed by being run over by a trolley on our beautiful jetty. Does the Colonial Secretary know the meaning of the word Nemesis? Let him ponder!”
The appearance of Bowen at this time of latent agitation for Separation and open and undisguised animosity to the “upstart collection of humpies on a mud bank in Cleveland Bay,” was pleasing in the extreme. Wide, tree-planted, grassy streets, kept scrupulously clean, handsomely-built bungalows, enclosed in gardens containing tropical and sub-tropical plants (the residences of the officials and their families), a court-house and other public buildings of such size and ornate construction that they surpassed those of any other town in the colony, except the capital; an environment of back country grateful to look upon, and a harbour of surpassing beauty.
The editor of the Clarion despite his inflated leaders, was a thoroughly sensible man, who fully recognised the potentialities of the port, and yet saw that it was doomed to sink into comparative insignificance, and that the “collection of humpies on a mud bank” was to be the future capital of the Far North. But he struggled on gamely. He was a genial, merry-hearted old bachelor, who had once loved his paper as a mother loves her one child, and had spent his capital of two thousand pounds in trying to keep the town alive as long as possible. A refined, highly-educated man, he was obliged—after two years’ bitter financial experience—to resort to the type of journalism prevalent amongst Australian country newspapers; otherwise he could not have made a living. But he despised the very people for whom he was apparently fighting so strenuously, and often savagely reproached himself for having turned aside from the straight path.
“Thank Heaven, I’m not married!” he said to himself one evening, as throwing himself down upon a couch in his bedroom at the Queen’s Hotel, he began to glance through a bundle of exchanges which he had brought from the office, and in a few minutes a smile spread over his face, as he read the following in the Rockhampton Bulletin:
“The Bowen Clarion is making a game effort to bolster up that little tin-pot township with its coterie of highly-paid, useless officials, who for six years past have battened on the public revenues. It was the misfortune of a representative of this journal to be obliged to spend two weeks in Port Denison not long since, and his terse description of the spot and its inhabitants deserves a place in the guide book of the colony which has yet to be written. Bowen is a delightfully laid-out town on the shores of Port Denison. It is inhabited by some six hundred people—mostly official loafers and spongers of the worst type. The community consists of boozy squatters, snobbish wives of snobbish officials, anaemic old maids, obsequious tradesmen on the verge of insolvency, and two respectable and hard-working persons—the latter are Chinamen. The ‘tony’ society of Bowen is about as lively and intelligent as that of a decaying Cathedral town in the old country. The atmosphere of matchless snobbery and vulgarity that pervades Bowen can be perceived by the passing voyager many miles out at sea.”
“By Jove! he’s not far wrong,” commented the editor, as putting down the paper he took up another, and had just ripped off the the cover, when the chambermaid tapped at the door, then entered with a card.
“The gentleman wishes to see you particularly, sir.”
He took the card from the tray, and read,
THOMAS GERRARD. Ocho Rios.
beneath was written, “Urgently desires to see the editor of the Clarion on business of importance.”
“Ask him to come in, Milly,” he said as he kicked a chair into position.
CHAPTER VII
“How do you do, Mr Gerrard?” he said, as with outstretched hand he met his visitor at the door. “I am glad to meet Ted Westonley’s brother-in-law at last. How is he?”
“Very well, indeed, when I last saw him,” replied Gerrard, as he sat down, and Lacey rang the bell.
“I have not seen him for ten years,” said the editor. “Ah, here you are, M illy! What will you take, Mr Gerrard? You must excuse my rig” (he was in his pyjamas); “but it’s so infernally hot that I always get into these the minute I’m back in my room. When did you arrive?”
“Only an hour ago, in the Tinonee.”
“Going back to your station, I suppose? By the way, aren’t you—or is it Jardine?—who is the ‘furthest north’ cattle man?”
“Jardine; but his station is on the east side. I’m on the west; the Gulf side, between the Batavia River and Duyfhen Point.”
Lacey looked admiringly at the well-knit figure and handsome, tanned face of his visitor. “Well, the climate up there can’t be as bad as it is painted. I never saw a man look better than you do.”
“Oh! the climate doesn’t hurt me now. I’ve had my share of fever of course; so has everyone on Ocho Rios. The niggers are our chief trouble.”
“Ah! no doubt. By the way, Aulain, of the Black Police is down here on sick leave. He’ll be glad to see you.”
“And I him. He’s a fine fellow, isn’t he?”
“A whiter man—or a better gentleman—never put foot in a stirrup. I’ve got to like him very much. And he thinks no end of you. Says you’re the best scrub rider he ever saw.”
Gerrard laughed. “‘Praise from him is praise indeed.’ All I can say is that I have never seen anyone who can go through scrub or thick timber like Randolph Aulain. Where is he staying?”
“Here—at the Queen’s. He’s had a terrible time with fever, and can’t do more than sit up. We’ll go and see him presently.”
“Oh, yes! But I want to speak to you on a matter of some importance first. That is why I have ventured to come to your hotel. I did go to the Clarion office, but just missed you.”
“I’m only too delighted to see you, even if you were not Westonley’s brother-in-law. You know that he and I were at Rugby together, and then at Oxford? But, before I say anything else, when does your steamer leave?”
“This afternoon at four o’clock; but I am not going on in her. I’m in somewhat of a hole, and I felt sure you would assist me.”
“Indeed I will. I’m not flush. This blessed rag of mine doesn’t pay, but I can raise a hundred from the bank here.”
Gerrard laughed. “No, not that, Mr Lacey. I’m not ‘broke,’ and it is not money I want. At the same time I appreciate your generosity. Ted has often told me you would do any mortal thing for a friend in need.” He paused, and then began, “Mr Lacey–”
“Drop the ‘Mr’ please.”
“Well, then, Lacey, I want your advice and assistance. Do you know any decent family here who would take care of a boy of eleven years of age for about a fortnight?”
The editor of the Clarion tugged thoughtfully at his long, white moustache for a few moments. “Yes, I think I do know of such a family. I used to board with them when I first came to this infernal hole. Their name is Woodfall. The father is a dairyman here, and a very decent hard-working man. His wife is a thoroughly, good honest woman, and they have no children. I think they would be suitable people; and I’m sure would look after the boy very well. Where is he?”
“On board the steamer, just now, waiting for me. I’ll tell you how I’m fixed. The youngster is an orphan who was living with my brother-in-law at Marumbah. I took a great fancy to him, and as my sister did not care much for the young ‘un, though Ted did, I persuaded Ted to let me have him to ‘father.’ I should have liked to have had my poor sister Mary’s little girl—you know that my sister died soon after her husband and my father and mother all went together in the Cassowary—but, of course, I couldn’t bring her away from civilisation—there’s no white woman within two hundred miles of Ocho Rios.” Then he went on telling his host the history of Jim, from the time Westonley had brought him away from Newcastle to the present. Lacey listened with interest.
“Well, a few weeks ago in Sydney I met a Mrs Tallis, a widow. Her husband was a squatter, and died a few months ago in Sydney.”
“I knew him. His station is called Kaburie—it is between here and Mackay—and is a rattling good cattle run.”
“Yes. She wants to sell it. I suppose the poor little woman doesn’t like going back to the place now. However now I’m coming to the point I’ve an idea that it might suit me as a breeding station, and told her I would stop at Bowen, and go and look at it. Now it would suit me very well if I could leave my protégé here for a couple of weeks, as the young scamp has managed to sprain his wrist on board, and so can’t very well come with me, though I should like to take him very much.”
“The Woodfalls will take him, I’m sure. And I will look after him as well. Now, will you come and see Aulain for a few minutes? Then I’ll take you up to Mrs Woodfall.”
Aulain, a strikingly handsome, slightly-built, olive-faced man, with jet-black beard and moustache, was delighted to see Gerrard.
“Hallo! old ‘Tom-and-Jerry,’ I’m glad to see you again. Sit down and tell me o’ the wondrous sights o’ Sydney and Melbourne. Heavens, man, I wish I could get away down South for six months.”
They remained talking for half an hour, during which time Gerrard told Aulain the reason of his stopping at Bowen.
“By Jove! old fellow, I shall be glad if you buy Kaburie, for you’ll have to put in some of your time there, of course, and I’ve applied for a removal from the Cape York District to Port Denison. I’m sick to death of nigger chasing in the Far North, and want to be somewhere where I can feel I’m not entirely an outcast from the world, with no one to talk to but my own black troopers, any one of whom would put a bullet into my back if I turned rusty.”
“Oh, well, I think it is pretty certain I shall buy Mrs Tallis’s station. I like Ocho Rios very well, but now, since this last trip of mine South, I feel as you do—I want to be a little less out of the world. I might, perhaps, sell Ocho Rios, and fix myself at Kaburie. If I don’t, I’ll put a manager there, and keep the place going, for I have a great belief that there will be some rich gold discoveries in the Batavia River country before long—and thousands of meat-hungry diggers means pots of money to a cattleman.”
“I’m certain, too, that there will be some big fields opened up that way soon,” said Aulain. “In that valise of mine, there under the bed, are three or four ounces of alluvial gold which my troopers and I washed out in one day at the head of a little creek running into the Batavia.”
“Place with a hunking big boulder standing up in the middle of a deep pool, with a lot of fish in it?” queried Gerrard.
“Yes; but how the deuce did you come across it? I’ve never seen a beast of yours within fifty miles of it—the country is too rough even for cattle—and I thought that my troopers and I were the first that ever saw the place.”
“When were you there?”
“About a month after you left Ocho Rios for Sydney.”
“Well, my dear little laddie, I was there a year ago, camped there for a couple of days, and did a little washing out—with two quart billy cans for a dish.”
“Get anything?”
“Seven ounces, sonny; mostly in coarse gold too.”
Aulain whistled. “And you never went back there?”
“No! I never had the time for one thing; another reason was that it would not have paid me to have left my station for the sake of a few hundred pounds’ worth of gold, and thirdly, although I know a little about alluvial mining, I don’t know anything about reefing—wouldn’t know a gold-bearing reef from a rank duffer, unless I saw the gold sticking up in it in lumps. And there are several parties of prospectors up in Cape York Peninsula now, and some of them are sure to make their way to the Batavia River country in the course of time. If any come to my place I’ll give them all the help I can. I’d like to see a really good gold-field discovered near Ocho Rios; it would mean thousands of pounds to me.”
“Of course it would. But, I say, Gerry, old fellow,” and here Aulain paused. “Will you do me a favour? Oh, no, hang it!” and he stopped suddenly.
“What is it, Aulain?”
The Inspector’s sallow face flushed. “I don’t think it is fair to ask you, as it will perhaps affect your interests.”
“Don’t be an ass! What is it?”
Lacey rose, thinking that Aulain hesitated to speak on account of him being present, but Aulain begged him to stay, and then said:
“Well, I’ll tell you what it is, Gerry. Will you keep it dark about that little creek up there; for six months anyway.”
“Certainly, I will.”
“You see, Gerry, it’s this way. I’m sick to death of life in the Black Police, and as soon as I get over this fever, I think I’ll resign and try my luck at mining. I can’t live on my salary, and I have no backstair’s influence in Brisbane to get me anything better in the Government service; and only this morning I was thinking of that very place where we both got gold. There are reefs all about the head of that creek, and every one of them carries payable gold. And so if you will keep it dark I stand a good chance of not only getting the usual Government reward of five thousand pounds for the discovery of a payable gold-field, but can peg out my reward claim beforehand.”
“My dear old chap, I shall be only too pleased. And, look here, why not send in your resignation right away, and then after I’ve finished this business at Kaburie, come away with me. There will be a steamer here in a fortnight, which will take us to Somerset, and from there we can get to Ocho Rios in one of the pearling luggers. We shall find plenty of them lying up at Somerset at this time of the year, and it will be a better and easier way of getting to my place than having to buy horses at Somerset, and travelling a hundred and fifty miles across the peninsula.”
Aulain shook his head. “It is a very tempting offer, Gerry; but I can’t accept it. I am obliged to wait six months after sending in my resignation before I can leave the service; it is a hard and fast rule.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Aulain,” said Gerrard; “however, when you do come, you will, of course, make my place your headquarters. Don’t buy any horses when you get to Somerset; I can lend you all you want. Now I must be off with Lacey. I’ll see you when I get back from Kaburie in a week or ten days, and we’ll have long yarns together, as I shall remain in Bowen until the next steamer for Somerset calls.”
“Right! Oh, by-the-way, Gerry, on your way to Kaburie you will have to pass a little mining camp called Fraser’s Gully. Will you leave a letter there for me? I’ll have it written by the time you come back from Woodfalls.”
