Come speedily, for the cutting of the
telegraph wire is as the ringing of an alarm-bell throughout the
Territory. In all haste the break is located, and food, water, and every
human help that suggests itself sent out from the nearest telegraph
station. There is no official delay - there rarely is in the
Territory - for by some marvellous good fortune, there everything belongs
to the Department in which it finds itself.
Just as Happy Dick is one of the pillars of the line party, so the line
party is one of the pillars of the line itself. Up and down this great
avenue, year in year out it creeps along, cutting scrub and repairing as
it goes, and moving cumbrous main camps from time to time, with its
waggon loads of stores, tents, furnishings, flocks of milking goats, its
fowls, its gramophone, and Chinese cook. Month after month it creeps on,
until, reaching the end of the section, it turns round to creep out
again.
Year in, year out, it had crept in and out, and for twenty years Happy
Dick had seen to its peace and comfort. Nothing ever ruffled him. "All
in the game" was his nearest approach to a complaint, as he pegged away
at his work, in between whiles going to the nearest station for killers,
carting water in tanks out to "dry stage camps," and doing any other work
that found itself undone. Dick's position was as elastic as his smile.
He considered himself an authority on three things only: the line party,
dog-fights, and cribbage. All else, including his dog Peter and his
cheque-book, he left to the discretion of his fellow-men.
Peter - a speckled, drab-coloured, prick-eared creation, a few sizes
larger than a fox-terrier - could be kept in order with a little
discretion, and by keeping hands off Happy Dick; but all the discretion
in the Territory, and a unanimous keeping off of hands, failed to keep
order in the cheque-book.
The personal payment of salaries to men scattered through hundreds of
miles of bush country being impracticable, the department pays all
salaries due to its servants into their bank accounts at Darwin, and
therefore when Happy Dick found himself the backbone of the line party,
he also found himself the possessor of a cheque-book. At first he was
inclined to look upon it as a poor substitute for hard cash; but after
the foreman had explained its mysteries, and taught him to sign his name
in magic tracery, he became more than reconciled to it and drew cheques
blithely, until one for five pounds was returned to a creditor: no
funds - and in due course returned to Happy Dick.
"No good?" he said to the creditor, looking critically at the piece of
paper in his hands. "Must have been writ wrong. Well, you've only
yourself to blame, seeing you wrote it"; then added magnanimously,
mistaking the creditor's scorn: "Never mind, write yourself out another.
I don't mind signing 'em."
The foreman and the creditor spent several hours trying to explain
banking principles, but Dick "couldn't see it." "There's stacks of 'em
left!" he persisted, showing his book of fluttering bank cheques.
Finally, in despair, the foreman took the cheque-book into custody, and
Dick found himself poor once more.
But it was only for a little while. In an evil hour he discovered that a
cheque from another man's book answered all purposes if it bore that
magic tracery, and Happy Dick was never solvent again. Gaily he signed
cheques, and the foreman did all he could to keep pace with him on the
cheque-book block; but as no one, excepting the accountant in the Darwin
bank, knew the state of his account from day to day, it was like taking a
ticket in a lottery to accept a cheque from Happy Dick.
"Real glad to see you," Happy Dick said in hearty greeting to us all as
he dismounted, and we waited to be entertained. Happy Dick had his
favourite places and people, and the Elsey community stood high in his
favour. "Can't beat the Elsey for a good dog-fight and a good game of
cribbage," he said, every time he came in or left us, and that from Happy
Dick was high praise. At times he added: "Nor for a square meal
neither," thereby inciting Cheon to further triumphs for his approval.
As usual, Happy Dick "played" the Quarters cribbage and related a good
dog-fight - "Peter's latest " - and, as usual before he left us, his
pockets were bulging with tobacco - the highest stakes used in the
Quarters - and Peter and Brown had furnished him with materials for a
still newer dog-fight recital. As usual, he rode off with his killers,
assuring all that he would "be along again soon," and, as usual, Peter
and Brown were tattered and hors-de-combat, but both still aggressive.
Peter's death lunge was the death lunge of Brown, and both dogs knew that
lunge too well to let the other "get in."
As usual, Happy Dick had hunted through the store, and taken anything he
"really needed," paying, of course, by cheque; but when he came to sign
that cheque, after the Maluka had written it, he entered the dining-room
for the first time since its completion.
With calm scrutiny he took in every detail, including the serviettes as
they lay folded in their rings on the waiting dinner-table, and before he
left the homestead he expressed his approval in the Quarters:
"Got everything up to the knocker, haven't they ?" he said. "Often heard
toffs decorated their tables with rags in hobble rings, but never
believed it before."
Happy Dick gone, Cheon turned his attention to the health of the missus;
but Dan, persuading the Maluka that "all she needed was a breath of fresh
air," we went bush on a tour of inspection.
