The Sweep Winner

Nat Gould

Nat Gould

The Sweep Winner

CHAPTER I

THE GLITTERING WIRE

A man on horseback shaded his eyes with his hands as he looked along the glittering line of wire which runs for hundreds of miles between New South Wales and Queensland, and forms the great rabbit-proof fence, of which he was one of the keepers.

The blazing sunlight scorched all things living. Not a blade of grass was to be seen. The baked ground gasped with thirst. The slight breeze was like the breath from a huge furnace.

The wire was hot and dazzling. Millions of glimmering specks and hundreds of thousands of electric sparks danced on it in revelry. Merely to look at the shimmering wire blinded the eyes. The horse turned his head away. He was dried, shrivelled, mere skin and bone. Yet he was strong, enduring, capable of going long journeys; an heroic beast, fighting a terrific battle against tremendous odds; a faithful companion, a true friend – always reliable. There was a mute appeal in his puzzled pathetic eyes, which questioned why such things were; why he should be rewarded for his efforts with a parched throat, an empty stomach, and a hot skin.

The man dismounted, carelessly placing his hand on the wire, then snatching it back quickly, with a sharp oath.

"Everything burns in this cursed country," he muttered.

The horse rubbed his nose against the man's arm.

"Ping, old fellow, it's hotter than hell. Thirsty? of course; so am I. We'll have to thirst until we reach the next hole."

The man was strong, well-built, six feet high; even the hard life had not sapped his strength. His dark hair, moustache, and beard, gave him a sombre appearance. His eyes shone fiercely under bushy brows. His face, hands and arms were tanned a deep brown, as also was his chest, where the shirt opened from the throat. He was no common man. His speech was not that of the keepers of the fence, or the bulk of them, for there were many and strange beings on these hundreds of miles of wire line. The majority were old boundary riders, stockmen, tank sinkers, fencers, teamsters. In another class were criminals, convicts and men whose hands were against their fellows; who were dangerous sometimes, when they scented betrayal, or suspected they were being tracked. The man looking at the mirage in the distance belonged to none of these classes; he stood out alone. They knew it, and gave him a show of respect, when they met him, which was seldom.

There must have been some weighty reason for him to bury himself in this solitude, and to accept an occupation from which any educated man must shrink. He wanted to be alone. He could not have come to a better place. Boonara, the nearest bush town, was fifty miles away from where he stood, and a dozen less from his hut.

He descended upon Boonara at night, and waited for it to wake up. When it did, surprise was visible on every face as one by one the inhabitants looked forth from their habitation. The surprise was genuine. It was long since a man of this stamp had entered Boonara. He was amused at the people, and wondered if there was one respectably clean inhabitant. Then he remembered the scarcity of water and pardoned the dirt. He was not clean himself, but he felt wholesome. His body had been cared for as much as possible during the week's tramp.

He soon became acquainted with the Boonarites. They gathered round him, and questions were levelled at him. It was quick firing to which he responded with solitary shots. At the end of the first day the people of Boonara were not a jot wiser about him. One fact was patent, he had money. It was difficult to discover how much, but he "shouted" at Bill Big's "shanty," and paid his footing, and was so far granted the freedom of Boonara.

The township of Boonara consisted of one main street, with irregular, irresponsible-looking houses dotted about, built anyhow. They had been put up at various times by many different sorts of men. Building operations commenced at one end and continued at intervals until a sort of street was formed. The first inhabitant had been a "kee