Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/233

Rh or laconic, master of his work in a marvellous degree, he usually resented light converse, advice infuriated him, and sympathy was outrage.

The roads were bad, even dangerous in places. Muddy creeks, bush-tracks, sidelings, washed-out crossings, increased the responsibilities and tried the tempers of these pioneer sons of Nimshi. Men of mark they mostly were. Americans to a man in that day, though subsequently native-born Australians, acclimatised Irishmen, and other recruits of merit, began to show up in the ranks.

I remember the astonishment of a newly-arrived traveller at seeing Carter, a gigantic, fair-bearded Canadian, coming along a baddish road one wet day, with seven horses and a huge coach, containing about fifty Chinamen. How he swayed the heavy reins with practised ease, his three leaders at a hand-gallop; how he piloted his immense vehicle through stumps and ruts, by creek and hill-side, with accuracy almost miraculous to the uninitiated.

Mr. Carter was not a 'man of much blandishment.' I recall the occasion, when a spring having gone wrong, he was, with the assistance of a stalwart passenger, silently repairing damage. A frivolous insider commenced to condole and offer suggestions in a weakly voluble way. 'Go to h——l,' was the abrupt rejoinder, which so astonished the well-meaning person, that he retreated into the coach like a rabbit into a burrow, and was silent for hours afterwards.

One always had the consciousness, however, that whatever could be done by mortal man, would be accomplished by them. Accidents might happen, but they belonged to the category of the inevitable.

One dark night, near Sawpit Gully, a tire came off. Al. Hamilton (poor fellow! he was killed by an upset in New South Wales afterwards) was off in a minute; found his way to the smith's house; had him back in an inconceivably short time; left word for us to get the fire lighted and blown up it—was cold, and we thought that great fun; and before another man would have finished swearing at the road, the darkness, and things in general, the hammer was clinking on the red-hot tire, the welding was progressing, and in three-quarters of an hour we were bowling along much as before. We had time to make up, and did it too. But suppose the blacksmith