An Outback Marriage

"I suppose I could take Maggie and Lucy there," he went on, looking

doubtfully at his hearers. "They wouldn't mind a chap havin' a

couple of black lady friends, would they? Yer see, they've stuck

with me well, those two gins, and I wouldn't like to leave 'em

behind. They'd get into bad hands. They're two as good handy gins

as there is in the world. That little fat one--you start her out

with a bridle and enough tobacker after lost horses, and she'll

foller 'em till she gets 'em, if it takes a week. Camps out at

night anywhere she can get water, and gets her own grub--lizards

and young birds, and things like that. There ain't her equal as

a horse-hunter in Australia. Maggie ain't a bad gin after horses,

but if she don't find 'em first day, she won't camp out--she gets

frightened. I'd like to take 'em with me, yer know."

As he spoke the two moleskin-trousered, cotton-shirted little figures

passed in front of the hut. "There they go," he said. "Two real

good gins. Now, as man to man, you wouldn't arst me to turn them

loose, would you?"

Carew looked rather embarrassed, and smoked some time before

answering.

"Well, of course," he said at last, "they'd put up with a good

deal from you, bein' an Australian, don't you know. Fashion just

now to make a lot of fuss over Australian chappies, whatever they

do. But two black women--rather a large order. You might get

married over there, and then these two black ladies--"

He was interrupted by a startled exclamation from Considine. "Married!"

he said. "Married! I forgot all about my wife. I am married!"

"What!" said Charlie. "Are you married?"

"Yairs. Married. Yairs! Should just think I was."

"Not to a lubra, I suppose?"

"Lubra, no! A hot-tempered faggot of a woman I met at Pike's pub.

I lived with her three weeks and left her there. I haven't seen

her this six years."

"Did you and she have some er--differences, then?" said Carew.

"Differences? No I We had fights--plenty fights. You see, it was

this way. I hadn't long got these two gins; and just before the

rains the wild geese come down in thousands to breed, and the blacks

all clear out and camp by the lagoons, and kill geese and eat eggs

and young ones all day long, till they near bust. It's the same

every year--when the wild geese come the blacks have got to go,

and it's no use talkin'. So I was slavin' away here--out all day

on the run with the cattle--and one night I comes home after being

out three days, and there at the foot of the bunk was the two gins'

trousers and shirts, folded up; they'd run away with the others.