"Oh, I say! Look here! I didn't mean to hit off at the missus,
you know!" and then catching the twinkle in Tam's eyes, stopped short,
and with a characteristic shrug "reckoned he was making a fair mess of
things."
Mac would never be other than our impetuous brither Scot, distinct from
all other men, for the bush never robs her children of their
individuality. In some mysterious way she clean-cuts out the personality
of each of them, and keeps it sharply clean-cut; and just as Mac stood
apart from all men, so Tam also stood apart, the quiet self-reliant man,
though, we had seen among the horses, for that was the real man; and as
Mac built castles, and made calculations, Tam put his shoulder to the
drudgery, and before Mac quite knew what had happened, he was hauling
logs and laying foundations for a brumby trap in the south-east country,
while Bertie's Nellie found herself obliged to divide her attention
between the homestead and the brumby camp.
As Mac hauled and drudged, the melons paid their first dividend;
half-past eleven four weeks drew near; "Just-So Stories" did all they
could, and Dan coming in found the Quiet Stockman away back in the days
of old, deep in a simply written volume of Scottish history.
Dan had great news of the showers, but had to find other audience than
Jack, for he was away in a world all his own, and, bent over the little
volume, was standing shoulder to shoulder with his Scottish fathers,
fighting with them for his nation. All evening he followed where they
led, enduring and suffering, and mourning with them and rejoicing over
their final victory with a ringing "You can't beat the Scots," as the
little volume, coming to with a bang, roused the Quarters at midnight.
"You can't beat the Scots, missus!" he repeated, coming over in the
morning for "more of that sort," all unconscious how true he was to type,
as he stood there, flushed with the victories of his forefathers, a
strong, young Scot, with a newly conquered world of his own at his feet.
As we hunted for "more of that sort," through a medley of odds and ends,
the Quiet Stockman scanned titles and dipped here and there into unknown
worlds, and Dan coming by, stared open-eyed.
"You don't say he's got the whole mob mouthed and reined and schooled in
all the paces?" he gasped; but Jack put aside the word of praise.
"There's writing and spelling yet," he said, and Dan, with his interest
in booklearning reviving, watched the square chin setting squarer, and
was bewildered. "Seems to have struck a mob of brumbies," he commented.
But before Jack could "get properly going" with the brumbies, two
travellers rode into the homestead, supporting between them a third
rider, a man picked up off the track delirious with fever, and foodless;
and at the sight of his ghastly face our hearts stood still with fear.
But the man was one of the Scots another Mac of the race that loves a
good fight, and his plucky heart stood by him so well that within
twenty-four hours he was Iying contentedly in the shade of the Quarters,
looking on, while the homestead shared the Fizzer's welcome with Mac and
Tam and a traveller or two.
Out of the south came the Fizzer, lopping once more in his saddle, with
the year's dry stages behind him, and the set lines all gone from his
shoulders, shouting as he came: "Hullo! What ho! Here's a crowd of us!"
but on his return trip the Fizzer was a man of leisure, and we had to
wait for news until his camp was fixed up.
"Now for it!" he shouted, at last joining the company, and Mac felt the
time was ripe for his jocular greeting and, ogling the Fizzer, noticed
that "The flats get greener every year about the Elsey."
But the Fizzer was a dangerous subject to joke with. "So I've noticed,"
he shouted as, improving on Mac's ogle, he singled him out from the
company, then dropping his voice to an insinuating drawl he challenged
him to have a deal.
Instantly the Sanguine Scot became a Canny Scot, for Mac prided himself
on a horse-deal. And as no one had yet got the better of the Fizzer the
company gathered round to enjoy itself.
"A swop," suggested the Fizzer, and Mac agreeing with a "Right ho!" a
preliminary hand-shake was exchanged before "getting to business"; and
then, as each made a great presence of mentally reviewing his team, each
eyed the other with the shrewdness of a fighting cock.
"My brown mare!" Mac offered at last, and knowing the staunch little
beast, the homestead wondered what Mac had up his sleeve.
We explained our suspicions in asides to the travellers, but the Fizzer
seemed taken by surprise. "By George!" he said. "She's a stunner! I've
nothing fit to put near her excepting that upstanding chestnut down
there."
The chestnut was standing near the creek-crossing, and every one knowing
him well, and sure of that "something" up Mac's sleeve, feared for the
Fizzer as Mac's hand came out with a "Done!" and the Fizzer gripped it
with a clinching "Right ho!"
Naturally we waited for the denouement, and the Fizzer appearing
unsuspicious and well-pleased with the deal, we turned our attention to
the Sanguine Scot.
Mac felt the unspoken flattery, and with an introductory cough, and a
great show of indifference, said: "By the way! Perhaps I should have
mentioned it, but the brown mare's down with the puffs since the
showers," and looked around the company for approval.
But the Fizzer was filling the homestead with shoutings:
"Don't apologise," he yelled. "That's nothing! The chestnut's
just broken his leg; can't think how he got here.
