"I suppose I could take Maggie and Lucy there," he went on, looking
doubtfully at his hearers. "They wouldn't mind a chap havin' a
couple of black lady friends, would they? Yer see, they've stuck
with me well, those two gins, and I wouldn't like to leave 'em
behind. They'd get into bad hands. They're two as good handy gins
as there is in the world. That little fat one--you start her out
with a bridle and enough tobacker after lost horses, and she'll
foller 'em till she gets 'em, if it takes a week. Camps out at
night anywhere she can get water, and gets her own grub--lizards
and young birds, and things like that. There ain't her equal as
a horse-hunter in Australia. Maggie ain't a bad gin after horses,
but if she don't find 'em first day, she won't camp out--she gets
frightened. I'd like to take 'em with me, yer know."
As he spoke the two moleskin-trousered, cotton-shirted little figures
passed in front of the hut. "There they go," he said. "Two real
good gins. Now, as man to man, you wouldn't arst me to turn them
loose, would you?"
Carew looked rather embarrassed, and smoked some time before
answering.
"Well, of course," he said at last, "they'd put up with a good
deal from you, bein' an Australian, don't you know. Fashion just
now to make a lot of fuss over Australian chappies, whatever they
do. But two black women--rather a large order. You might get
married over there, and then these two black ladies--"
He was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Considine. "Married!"
he said. "Married! I forgot all about my wife. I am married!"
"What!" said Charlie. "Are you married?"
"Yairs. Married. Yairs! Should just think I was."
"Not to a lubra, I suppose?"
"Lubra, no! A hot-tempered faggot of a woman I met at Pike's pub.
I lived with her three weeks and left her there. I haven't seen
her this six years."
"Did you and she have some er--differences, then?" said Carew.
"Differences? No I We had fights--plenty fights. You see, it was
this way. I hadn't long got these two gins; and just before the
rains the wild geese come down in thousands to breed, and the blacks
all clear out and camp by the lagoons, and kill geese and eat eggs
and young ones all day long, till they near bust. It's the same
every year--when the wild geese come the blacks have got to go,
and it's no use talkin'. So I was slavin' away here--out all day
on the run with the cattle--and one night I comes home after being
out three days, and there at the foot of the bunk was the two gins'
trousers and shirts, folded up; they'd run away with the others.