“Keep the old fool off, or he’ll get hurt,” snarled Barcoo.
Stiffner jumped the counter. There were loud, hurried words of remonstrance, then some stump-splitting oaths and a scuffle, consequent upon an attempt to chuck the old man out. Then a crash. Stiffner and Box-o’-Tricks were down, two others were holding Barcoo back, and someone had pinned Awful Example by the shoulders from behind.
“Let me go!” he yelled, too blind with passion to notice the movements of surprise among the men before him. “Let me go! I’ll smash—any man—that—that says a word again’ a mate of mine behind his back. Barcoo, I’ll have your blood! Let me go! I’ll, I’ll, I’ll— Who’s holdin’ me? You—you—-”
“It’s Macquarie, old mate!” said a quiet voice.
Barcoo thought he heard his horse again, and went out in a hurry. Perhaps he thought that the horse would get impatient and break loose if he left it any longer, for he jumped into the saddle and rode off.
BALDY THOMPSON
Rough, squarish face, curly auburn wig, bushy grey eyebrows and moustache, and grizzly stubble—eyes that reminded one of Dampier the actor. He was a squatter of the old order—new chum, swagman, drover, shearer, super, pioneer, cocky, squatter, and finally bank victim. He had been through it all, and knew all about it.
He had been in parliament, and wanted too again; but the men mistrusted him as Thompson, M.P., though they swore by him as old Baldy Thompson the squatter. His hobby was politics, and his politics were badly boxed. When he wasn’t cursing the banks and government he cursed the country. He cursed the Labour leaders at intervals, and seemed to think that he could run the unions better than they could. Also, he seemed to think that he could run parliament better than any premier. He was generally voted a hard case, which term is mostly used in a kindly sense out back.
He was always grumbling about the country. If a shearer or rouseabout was good at argument, and a bit of a politician, he hadn’t to slave much at Thompson’s shed, for Baldy would argue with him all day and pay for it.
“I can’t put on any more men,” he’d say to travellers. “I can’t put on a lot of men to make big cheques when there’s no money in the bank to pay ’em—and I’ve got all I can do to get tucker for the family. I shore nothing but burrs and grass-seed last season, and it didn’t pay carriage. I’m just sending away a flock of sheep now, and I won’t make threepence a head on ’em. I had twenty thousand in the bank season before last, and now I can’t count on one. I’ll have to roll up my swag and go on the track myself next.”