An Outback Marriage | Page 9

breathing hard and feeling his eye.
Charlie leant forward and peered out into the darkness. They were
nearly at the club before they spoke. Then he said, "Well, I'm blessed!
We made a nice mess of that, didn't we?"
"I'd like to have got one fair crack at some of 'em," said the Englishman,
with heartfelt earnestness. "Couldn't we go back now?"
"No what's the good? We'd never get in. Let the thing alone. We
needn't say anything about it. If once it gets known that we were
chucked out, we'll never hear the last of it. Are you marked at all?"
"Got an awful swipe in the eye," replied the other briefly.
"I've got a cut lip, and my head nearly screwed off. You did that. I'll
know the place again. Some day we'll get a few of the right sort to
come with us, and we'll just go there quietly, as if we didn't mean
anything, and then, all of a sudden, we'll turn in and break the whole
place up! Come and have a drink now."
They had a silent drink in the deserted club. The mind of each was
filled with a sickening sense of defeat, and without much conversation
they retired to bed. They thanked heaven that the Bo'sun, Pinnock, and
Gillespie had disappeared.

Even then Fate hadn't quite finished with the bushman. A newly-joined
member of the club, he had lived a life in which he had to shift for
himself, and the ways of luxury were new to him. Consequently, when
he awoke next morning and saw a man moving with cat-like tread
about his room, absolutely taking the money out of his clothes before
his very eyes, he sprang out of bed with a bound and half-throttled the
robber. Then, of course, it turned out that it was only the bedroom
waiter, who was taking his clothes away to brush them. This
contretemps, on top of the overnight mishap, made him determined to
get away from town with all speed. When he looked in the glass, he
found his lip so much swelled that his moustache stuck out in front like
the bowsprit of a ship. At breakfast he joined the Englishman, who had
an eye with as many colours as an opal, not to mention a tired look and
dusty boots.
"Are you only just up?" asked Charlie, as they contemplated each other.
Carew had resumed his mantle of stolidity, but he coloured a little at
the question. "I've been out for a bit of a walk round town," he said.
"Fact is," he added in a sudden burst of confidence, "I've been all over
town lookin' for that place where we were last night. Couldn't find
anything like it at all."
Charlie laughed at his earnestness. "Oh, bother the place," he said. "If
you had found it, there wouldn't have been any of them there. Now,
about ourselves--we can't show out like this. We'd better be off to-day,
and no one need know anything about it. Besides, I half-killed a waiter
this morning. I thought he was some chap stealing my money, when he
only wanted to take my clothes away to brush 'em. Sooner we're out of
town the better. I'll wire to the old man that I've taken you with me."
So saying, they settled down to breakfast, and by tacit agreement
avoided the club for the rest of the day.
Before leaving, Charlie had to call and interview Pinnock, and left
Carew waiting outside while he went in. He didn't want to parade their
injuries, and knew that Carew's eye would excite remark; but by
keeping his upper lip well drawn over his teeth, he hoped his own

trouble would escape notice.
"Seems a harmless sort of chap, that new chum," said Pinnock.
"He'll do all right," said Charlie casually. "I've met his sort before. He's
not such a fool as he lets on to be. Shouldn't wonder if he killed
somebody before he gets back here, anyhow."
"How did you get on at the dancing saloon?" asked Pinnock.
"Oh, slow enough. Nothing worth seeing. Good-bye."
They sneaked on board the steamer without meeting the Bo'sun or
anybody, and before evening were well on their way to No Man's Land.
CHAPTER IV.
THE OLD STATION.

There are few countries in the world with such varieties of climate as
Australia, and though some stations are out in the great, red-hot, frying
wastes of the Never-Never, others are up in the hills where a hot night
is a thing unknown, where snow falls occasionally, and where it is no
uncommon thing to spend a summer's evening by the side of a roaring
fire. In the matter of improvements, too, stations vary greatly. Some are
in a wilderness, with fittings to