13 May 1937

CURSE OR COINCIDENCE 

Callous Motorist Meets His Fate

Dusty Jacky is a well-known figure north of Port Augusta, and is considered to be one of the most reliable of all Aborigine shepherds. He is an old full-blood, with two wives and a large family, and in spite of long continued existence among the whites, still retains his old tribal customs and superstitions. Above all, he seems to have an instinct for discovering good areas of pasture for travelling sheep, and is therefore seldom without a flock to tend. 

On the last occasion on which I met Jacky and his retinue he was in charge of about 3,000 very poorly conditioned wethers north-west of the Flinders Ranges. I halted and spent an hour or so talking with him, and promised to bring him tobacco on my return trip four or five days later. 

In the meantime Jacky had shifted his mob off the open and was on the wide road in some fairly hilly country. His sheep were not faring too well, and he was hurrying them along south wards as speedily as possible. I was driving along fairly slowly; my truck was heavily laden, and the day was hot and dusty. 

About three miles before I caught up with Jacky and his flock, of which there were plain tracks on the roadway, a high powered, single seater car passed me at a furious speed with a solitary occupant at the wheel, likewise heading southwards. 

Twenty minutes later I came upon Jacky and his sheep, but there was very little sign of movement about the flock. His old buggy stood by the roadside, and the horses foraged about unattended. Jacky's wives and children were clustered about the buggy, and a great '-to-do' was in progress. I pulled up beside the group, and, to my amazement, found most of them in tears; the women wailing pathetically. 

In the centre of them sat the tragedy stricken Jacky, holding in his arms the dead body of Bluey, his best sheep dog. Jacky's face was stained with tears where they had washed away the dust from around his eyes. He constantly caressed the dead dog in a pathetic manner, and it was some time before he could be calmed sufficiently to speak coherently. When he finally did, he gasped out in a broken voice. 'That plurry M.! He pass you too with his mo-car. Hey, and him plurry well drive over my ole Blue and killum him.' Then followed a volley of aboriginal words of which I had no knowledge. 

Gradually his misery wore off, to give place to a terrible rage. Every little while he would hug his dead dog to his bosom and shake his fist down the roadway and yell frenziedly. I attempted to soothe him, but of no avail; even the sight of a quarter pound block of tobacco failed to have any effect on him. 'No! No! Mr. Smith,' he said. 'You leavum me. I payum him out. He killum my ole Bluey. I killum him. He die before when my dog's bones go rotten. Him will die. Mittlinga killum him. My pore ole Bluey.' 

I left Jacky and his family in a very subdued frame of mind. The black had recognised the driver of the car that had run over his dog, and the full-blooded black is a bad man when roused. I very much doubt if the death of one of his own children would have upset the old fellow any more than did the death of his best dog. A good sheepdog, and Bluey was this, is worth three men any day; and the black has as much love for the dumb friend of man as a white man has. In this case more. 

I knew M to be a fine fellow when sober, but not so when slightly intoxicated; and by the speed he was driving when he passed me I guessed that he was in a hurry to get to the hotel, and had run the dog down with callous indifference. That same night I pulled into the yard of a northern township's only hotel and brought my truck to a halt beside M's single seater. 

When later I entered the bar, M. was there 'shouting' away as a fine fellow usually does. Drinking with him was young Sid X., owner of the mob of sheep Jacky was driving. M. and X. both recognised me and asked me to have a drink with them. I refused, be cause I first wanted to discover whether M. was aware of what had happened to Jacky's dog. I put the question point blank. 

'I say, M. Do you know that you ran down Jacky's old bluey near the Limestone Bend and killed him?' He gave me a beery, but defiant look and replied, 'I know I did. The old beggar will know better next time than to let his confounded dogs roam all over the road. Bet he was sore. Still, he's got plenty other mongrels besides. Have another drink. Sid?' 

Sid X. did not accept the invitation. Instead, he favored M. with a steely glance. 'Did you run old Bluey down, M., and drive on without paying Jacky compensation?' he asked. 'Sure thing.' replied M. derisively. 'Do you think that I'd be bothered arguing the point with a nigger?' 'I suppose not,' snapped back Sid X. angrily. 'But Jacky is in my employ, and I'm going out tomorrow to give him another good dog to help the poor old chap along.'' And with that he turned his back on M. and left the bar. 

M. turned to me and snapped out. 'I suppose you feel the same about it!' 'Well,' I replied. 'It's no affair of mine, but I'll tell you this much. Jacky cursed you for hours on end, and swore that you would be a corpse be fore old Bluey's bones fell to pieces. And remember, Jacky's a full-blood.' 'Think I'm scared?' retorted M. 'Why, I'm almost tickled to death by his curses already.' 

I left M. to his drink and went to my room to get some much needed rest. Next morning M. left the hotel, and the last time I ever saw him alive was as he turned in the seat of his car and waved farewell to myself and the small group gathered in the hotel yard. 

Nine months later I was still driving the truck on the same route I usually stayed at the hotel on Wednesday nights because the mail from 'down under' arrived on Wednesday afternoons, and everyone from round about usually met in the hotel parlor and made it a sort of social and general news evening. Having a late tea at the hotel one night because of a blowout on the way down, I found quite a crowd congregated in the parlor as I entered and duly waited about for a glimpse of the previous week's papers. Everybody had a page of the 'Tiser,' and as the exchange went on the news section ultimately came into my hands. I read it through carefully, and was about to hand it on when a small item caught my eye. It announced the death in a foreign country of a prominent South Australian grazier— none other than M. 

I looked round the crowd and noticed Sid X. present and pointed the item out to him. He read it carefully, and then favored me with a curious glance, remarking casually. 'Curse or coincidence! But I passed old Jacky's Bluey's skeleton a week ago. and it was just falling to pieces.'— 'Recouterlin.' 

Hero Charged With Attempted Suicide

That one can be too careful with a new suit of clothes is illustrated by this story which happened at Murray Bridge. 

A young man, after having saved a woman from drowning, was charged before the local Magistrates Court with being a mental defect. It transpired afterwards that a young woman residing in the district had arranged to be married that day, and was to have met her prospective husband on the arrival of the Melbourne Express that morning. 

But he had fallen ill, and had been removed from the train at Horsham and admitted to hospital. The bride-to-be, under the impression that she had been jilted, became hysterical, and later in the day jumped into the river. 

The young man, who was dressed in his new suit, heard her screams and rushed to the rescue. Throwing off his coat, vest and trousers, he dived in and dragged the woman ashore. A passing motorist quickly rushed her to hospital. 

A crowd had now gathered at the water's edge. The central figure of course, was the rescuer, who was clad in his underclothing only. An elderly lady who arrived late on the scene thought, that he was an eccentric trying to commit suicide. This information she telephoned to the police. A constable hurried to investigate and arrested him. 

'Why are you taking me?' he inquired. 'I've just saved a woman from drowning.' 'You'd better tell that to the magistrate,' replied the officer. 'Well, let me get dressed first. I can easily prove my innocence.' 

During the excitement, however, somebody had stolen the man's suit Actually he was more concerned over this fact than over being under arrest. The policeman wrapped his overcoat around the shivering man, who was protesting vigorously, and took him to the station. There his story was investigated, and, of course found to be correct. 

Next morning the sick lover arrived and compensated the distracted man for having saved his bride from a watery grave. The stolen suit was later recovered from a second-hand dealer's shop. I met the young fellow wearing it at the Tailem Bend races the following week. He said that his recent experiences in the role of a hero would definitely be his last. — A.D. 

Blamed The Opossums 

A farmer's wife on Yorke Peninsula used to store apples in a disused cottage on the farm. 

The doors and windows were kept locked, but in spite of this, apples used to disappear from the trays almost every night. The stems and pips were invariably found lying on the floor in the morning. 

There was a small hole in one of the panes of glass in the window, and the woman thought that opossums got in through this and were responsible for the fruit disappearing. A wire screen was accordingly placed over the opening, but the mysterious thefts continued. 

Later the woman discovered that some of the farmhands had been helping themselves to the fruit with the aid of a sharp-pronged fork tied to a long stick. Inserting the stick through the hole in the window, they were able to 'spear' the fruit on the trays and haul it out. After eating the apples they tossed the stems and pips back through the opening to give the impression that opossums were responsible for the missing apples. 

One night they had the misfortune to drop the stick with an apple attached to it inside the hut, and were unable to recover it. Next day a pane of glass was fitted in the window.— R.V.H.