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.