"You're just the man I was looking for," said Hugh, taking in the
stranger with his eyes. "I want to get out to Reeves's buffalo camp,
and I hear you're the only man who knows that country at all. Can
you get time to come down with me? I'll make it worth your while."
He waited for the reply with a beating heart. If this man failed
him he saw nothing for it but to go back. The stranger lit his pipe
with the leisurely movements of a man who had never been in a real
hurry in his life.
Then he spoke slowly.
"Well, it's this way, boss, you see. I'm just startin' off in no
end of a hurry to go and take a team of bullocks to the Oriental
to draw quartz."
"Can't you put it off for a while?" said Hugh. "It's getting near
the wet season."
"Well, I'd like to go with you, boss, but I couldn't chuck 'em
over--not rightly I couldn't." He stroked his beard and relapsed
into thought.
"Let's go in and get a drink," said Hugh. "I suppose there is some
square-face inside."
The square-face settled it. They had one drink, and the stranger
began to think less of the needs of the Oriental. They had another,
and he said he didn't suppose it'd matter much if the Oriental had
to wait a bit for their stone, and the bullocks were all over the
bush and very poor, and by the time he got them together the wet
season would be on. They had a third, and he said that the Oriental
had been hanging on for six months, and it wouldn't hurt it to hang
on for seven, and he wouldn't see a man like Hugh stuck.
So the shareholders in that valuable concern, the Oriental Mine,
were kept in pleasing suspense for some months longer, while the
mine-manager (whose salary was going on all the time) did nothing
but smoke, and write reports to the effect that "a very valuable
body of stone was at grass, awaiting cartage to the battery, when
a splendid crushing was a certainty." Meanwhile Tommy Prince was
gaily journeying with Hugh down to the buffalo camp.
Prince, a typical moleskin-trousered, cotton-shirted, cabbage-tree-hatted
bushman, soon fixed up all details. He annexed the horses belonging
to the store, sagely remarking that, as Hugh had saved their owner's
life, he could afford to let him have a few horses. He also helped
himself to pack-saddles, camping gear, supplies, and all sorts of
odds and ends--not forgetting a couple of gallons of rum, mosquito-nets
made of cheese cloth, blankets, and a rifle and cartridges. They
fitted out the expedition in fine style, while unconscious Sampson
slept the sleep of the half-drowned. The placid Chinese cook fried
great lumps of goat for them to eat, heedless of all things except
his opium-pipe, to which he had recourse in the evening, the curious
dreamy odour of the opium blending strangely with the aromatic
scent of the bush.