The individual addressed, who is a cattle-drover of a superior kind, replies in a husky voice that he has not only met him, but was with him some time in the Northern Territory the year before.
“He was a beggar to shoot niggers,” this gentleman adds, “and no mistake. Why, hang me, if he didn’t order six cases of Sniders up to the station when he first took up that MacArthur country.”
“What on earth did he want with that lot?” asks the new manager of Hanga run.
“Oh,” replies the drover, “he said the niggers’ heads up that way were so precious thick that his boys would break all their gun-stocks if he didn’t keep a good supply of ’em.”
A general laugh greets the news that the red-faced drover has just retailed concerning this latest piece of eccentricity of the famous Milby.
“I was with him for two years up at Hidamoor,” observes the dark-eyed man. “He hadn’t a single ‘boy’ on the run; they was all lubras (girls). He used to tog them out in trousers and shirts, and they made jolly good stockmen. Does he do that still up north?”
“Yes,” replies the drover, “they all do it up there. He lets his white stockmen have two gins (women) apiece. I brought a couple down with me to the Springs last trip; give them to Boker there.”
“Milby’s a smart fellow all round,” remarks Mr. Browne, who has just entered, dismissing all save two of his furry following, these latter taking the seats demurely upon the chintz-covered sofa.
“Yes; first time I was out with Milby,” continues the manager, stooping to use the tobacco-cutter, “we got nicely on to about a dozen buck niggers near Wiseman’s water-hole—you know it, Lawrence? Well, I saw Milby taking a long feather out of his pocket when we’d grassed all the black devils, and wondered what he was going to do with it. Hanged if he didn’t send a ‘boy’ round to each of the beggars we’d knocked over to tickle their noses.
“‘What’s that for?’ I asked. ‘Oh, you’ll see,’ said he. And sure enough presently the ‘boy’ with the feather ranged up alongside a nigger who’d been shamming. I’d tried the beggar before with a match, in the ordinary way, and he hadn’t shown a sign. I thought I’d have died o’ laughing,” the manager continues, after moistening his inner man, “when I saw the beggar twitching his nose as the feather tickled it; he couldn’t for the life of him keep it still. That was a very good ‘dart’ of Milby’s; we’d have missed that buck without the feather dodge.”