Now I want you to look after him for me,as much as you can --you seem to have as much influence with him as any one.
I want you to promise me that you'll never have a drink with him."`And I promised,'said Andy,`and I'll keep my word.'
Andy was a chap who could keep his word,and nothing else.
And,no matter how the Boss persuaded,or sneered,or swore at him,Andy would never drink with him.
It got worse and worse:the Boss would ride on ahead and get drunk at a shanty,and sometimes he'd be days behind us;and when he'd catch up to us his temper would be just about as much as we could stand.At last he went on a howling spree at Mulgatown,about a hundred and fifty miles north of the border,and,what was worse,he got in tow with a flash barmaid there --one of those girls who are engaged,by the publicans up country,as baits for chequemen.
He went mad over that girl.He drew an advance cheque from the stock-owner's agent there,and knocked that down;then he raised some more money somehow,and spent that --mostly on the girl.
We did all we could.Andy got him along the track for a couple of stages,and just when we thought he was all right,he slipped us in the night and went back.
We had two other men with us,but had the devil's own bother on account of the cattle.It was a mixed-up job all round.
You see it was all big runs round there,and we had to keep the bullocks moving along the route all the time,or else get into trouble for trespass.
The agent wasn't going to go to the expense of putting the cattle in a paddock until the Boss sobered up;there was very little grass on the route or the travelling-stock reserves or camps,so we had to keep travelling for grass.
The world might wobble and all the banks go bung,but the cattle have to go through --that's the law of the stock-routes.
So the agent wired to the owners,and,when he got their reply,he sacked the Boss and sent the cattle on in charge of another man.
The new Boss was a drover coming south after a trip;he had his two brothers with him,so he didn't want me and Andy;but,anyway,we were full up of this trip,so we arranged,between the agent and the new Boss,to get most of the wages due to us --the Boss had drawn some of our stuff and spent it.
We could have started on the back track at once,but,drunk or sober,mad or sane,good or bad,it isn't Bush religion to desert a mate in a hole;and the Boss was a mate of ours;so we stuck to him.
We camped on the creek,outside the town,and kept him in the camp with us as much as possible,and did all we could for him.
`How could I face his wife if I went home without him?'asked Andy,`or any of his old mates?'
The Boss got himself turned out of the pub.where the barmaid was,and then he'd hang round the other pubs.and get drink somehow,and fight,and get knocked about.He was an awful object by this time,wild-eyed and gaunt,and he hadn't washed or shaved for days.
Andy got the constable in charge of the police station to lock him up for a night,but it only made him worse:we took him back to the camp next morning and while our eyes were off him for a few minutes he slipped away into the scrub,stripped himself naked,and started to hang himself to a leaning tree with a piece of clothes-line rope.
We got to him just in time.
Then Andy wired to the Boss's brother Ned,who was fighting the drought,the rabbit-pest,and the banks,on a small station back on the border.
Andy reckoned it was about time to do something.
Perhaps the Boss hadn't been quite right in his head before he started drinking --he had acted queer some time,now we came to think of it;maybe he'd got a touch of sunstroke or got brooding over his troubles --anyway he died in the horrors within the week.
His brother Ned turned up on the last day,and Bob thought he was the devil,and grappled with him.It took the three of us to hold the Boss down sometimes.
Sometimes,towards the end,he'd be sensible for a few minutes and talk about his `poor wife and children';and immediately afterwards he'd fall a-cursing me,and Andy,and Ned,and calling us devils.
He cursed everything;he cursed his wife and children,and yelled that they were dragging him down to hell.He died raving mad.
It was the worst case of death in the horrors of drink that I ever saw or heard of in the Bush.
Ned saw to the funeral:it was very hot weather,and men have to be buried quick who die out there in the hot weather --especially men who die in the state the Boss was in.Then Ned went to the public-house where the barmaid was and called the landlord out.It was a desperate fight:the publican was a big man,and a bit of a fighting man;but Ned was one of those quiet,simple-minded chaps who will carry a thing through to death when they make up their minds.
He gave that publican nearly as good a thrashing as he deserved.
The constable in charge of the station backed Ned,while another policeman picked up the publican.Sounds queer to you city people,doesn't it?
Next morning we three started south.We stayed a couple of days at Ned Baker's station on the border,and then started on our three-hundred-mile ride down-country.The weather was still very hot,so we decided to travel at night for a while,and left Ned's place at dusk.
He parted from us at the homestead gate.He gave Andy a small packet,done up in canvas,for Mrs Baker,which Andy told me contained Bob's pocket-book,letters,and papers.We looked back,after we'd gone a piece along the dusty road,and saw Ned still standing by the gate;and a very lonely figure he looked.Ned was a bachelor.
`Poor old Ned,'said Andy to me.`He was in love with Mrs Bob Baker before she got married,but she picked the wrong man --girls mostly do.
Ned and Bob were together on the Macquarie,but Ned left when his brother married,and he's been up in these God-forsaken scrubs ever since.Look,I want to tell you something,Jack:
Ned has written to Mrs Bob to tell her that Bob died of fever,and everything was done for him that could be done,and that he died easy --and all that sort of thing.Ned sent her some money,and she is to think that it was the money due to Bob when he died.
