‘And one of those men, at least, was an old mate of his!’ said Andy, in a tone of disgust.
He threw the lot into the fire; then he went through the Boss’s pocket-book and tore out some leaves that had notes and addresses on them, and burnt them too. Then he sewed up the packet again and put it away in his saddle-bag.
‘Such is life!’ said Andy, with a yawn that might have been half a sigh.
We rode into Solong early in the day, turned our horses out in a paddock, and put up at M’Grath’s pub. until such time as we made up our minds as to what we’d do or where we’d go. We had an idea of waiting until the shearing season started and then making Out-Back to the big sheds.
Neither of us was in a hurry to go and face Mrs Baker. ‘We’ll go after dinner,’ said Andy at first; then after dinner we had a drink, and felt sleepy—we weren’t used to big dinners of roast-beef and vegetables and pudding, and, besides, it was drowsy weather—so we decided to have a snooze and then go. When we woke up it was late in the afternoon, so we thought we’d put it off till after tea. ‘It wouldn’t be manners to walk in while they’re at tea,’ said Andy—‘it would look as if we only came for some grub.’
But while we were at tea a little girl came with a message that Mrs Baker wanted to see us, and would be very much obliged if we’d call up as soon as possible. You see, in those small towns you can’t move without the thing getting round inside of half an hour.
‘We’ll have to face the music now!’ said Andy, ‘and no get out of it.’ He seemed to hang back more than I did. There was another pub. opposite where Mrs Baker lived, and when we got up the street a bit I said to Andy—
‘Suppose we go and have another drink first, Andy? We might be kept in there an hour or two.’
‘You don’t want another drink,’ said Andy, rather short. ‘Why, you seem to be going the same way as the Boss!’ But it was Andy that edged off towards the pub. when we got near Mrs Baker’s place. ‘All right!’ he said. ‘Come on! We’ll have this other drink, since you want it so bad.’
We had the drink, then we buttoned up our coats and started across the road—we’d bought new shirts and collars, and spruced up a bit. Half-way across Andy grabbed my arm and asked—