They kept to camp through the heat of the day, and little was spoken the while. They smoked and stared up through a lattice of leaves at the lofty sky. The fierceness of the sun was spent when Power gave the signal by sitting up. The horses were saddled, the men found their seats—there was galloping of hoofs, a banging of whips, and the mob flowed on the journey over the plain.
It was half-past six in the evening and the sun was down on the western sky, when the mob splashed into the shallows at the lower end of Pelican Pool. Cleanskin Joe, the lean rusty cook, who had spent a busy life darkening the doorways of most hotels in Queensland and New South Wales, had arrived there early in the morning, steering a two-horse buckboard loaded up with swags, camp furniture and tucker bags. Cleanskin Joe had built his fireplace, had put his Johnnie-cake in the ashes, had talked half the day with Jackie the black horse-tailer, coming after him with spare horses. Now, with his stew simmering, he cast a hundred glances into the distance for the tardy cattle. His eyes, once quick to meet an emergency, were bleared a trifle from that constant darkening of doors. But finally they and his ears could not be deceived, and he peered into the camp oven and turned the contents with a long-handled ladle.
Now all the world knows that cooks from sheep stations give you grilled chops and curry and stew the round of the year, and cooks on cattle stations serve grilled steak and curry and stew until you turn aside in sorrow; but Cleanskin Joe was a man of resource, and every breakfast he chopped up rissoles, rolling them on the back of the buckboard where had gathered the grime of ten years' honest service. Because of this, and because too many whiskies had cured him of a love of water, either for inside or outer use, he had won his name of Cleanskin Joe.
He was a man of history.
Once upon a time Cleanskin Joe and the Honourable So-and-so, both out at elbows with the world just then, had found a copper show a round forty miles from the nearest hotel. They woke up one morning on bowing terms with wealth. They had broken a new lode going any percentage you like of ore. They stared at it without a word to say.
The Honourable So-and-so had a vision. He saw dogs and women and wine.
And Cleanskin Joe saw the price of a whisky.
And Mr. So-and-so saw horses and cards and more wine.
And Cleanskin Joe saw the price of another whisky.
And Mr. So-and-so saw freedom from the Jews, and green tables and yet more wine.