THE HOTEL OWNER'S ESTATE

Strange Sequel To Couple's Quarrel

Actual happenings often prove to be more bizarre, astonishing, or macabre, than anything ever conceived by the imagination of a novelist. Who among the disciples of Edgar Allen Poe, for example, worked out anything so strange as that well-nigh incredible yet authentic, Sydney 'Shark-arm' case? The following story recounted by 'H.A.L.' is one which sounds far-fetched, yet it actually occurred, and a member of one of Australia's oldest legal firms vouches for its truth.

A woman owned a country hotel, and employed her husband as barman. They had three children, two girls and a boy, the latter being the youngest. Whenever a quarrel took place, the wife would always remind her husband that she owned the hotel, and that he was only her paid employe.

'I'm just about fed up with this.' he retorted one day. 'If you throw that up to me again I'll take the boy and clear out. And if I go, I'll never come back.' The wife laughed at the threat.

The next time they had a difference of opinion, she again informed him that she was the boss. The husband immediately packed a handbag, dressed the little boy in his best clothes, and carried him to the railway station, where he caught the next train. His wife never saw him or her son again.

Years later, when the woman knew she was dying, she sent for the man who told me this story. 'I've never ceased regretting the way I drove my husband out of the house,' she informed the lawyer, and now I want you to advertise for him —I want to see him and the boy again. In any case. I want to make a will leaving them a share of my property.'

The firm sent advertisements to all the leading Australian newspapers, but the woman died before any replies were received. Then one day a big, sun-burned young bushman walked into the firm's office. 'I've come about this advertisement,'' he announced, producing a newspaper clipping. 'This is my name, and that was my father's name.'

He was shown into the office of the man who was handling the business of that particular estate, but the lawyer soon found that the visitor had brought no proof of his identity. 'Father. died years ago,' the claimant said, 'I have no papers or anything like that. All I know is that both our names correspond with these in the advertisements, and I remember Dad telling me that we left this town when I was a kiddy.'

The lawyer sent for the two daughters, but they failed to see any resemblance between the claimant and the brother, whom they had last seen as a child of four. There was no reason to doubt the sincerity of the claimant, but his case looked hopeless, when he failed to identify his mother's photograph, and admitted that he could remember nothing of the home, which he had left long ago.

Finally the lawyer rose to conclude the interview. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'but unless you can produce proof of your identity, we cannot admit your claim to a share in this estate.' The man nodded and picked up his hat.

'Just a moment,' said one of the daughters. 'Isn't there one single thing you can remember of our home, or Mother?' The man fingered his hat in an embarrassed way. 'There is something,' he said thoughtfully, 'but I'm afraid you'll only laugh at me if I tell you.' The two women begged him to mention it, no matter how absurd of trivial it was. The man's face reddened.

'Look here,' he cried, 'tell me this. Did Mother smoke a pipe in the kitchen, and when she heard someone coming, would she shove it on the mantelpiece, take a peppermint out of her apron pocket, and start to suck it....?'

He got no farther. With cries of joy both women ran to him. caught him by the arms, and turned to the astounded lawyer. 'It's him,' they cried happily. 'It's our Don. Fancy him remembering that!'

They later explained that their mother had smoked a pipe, in the seclusion of the hotel kitchen, but had kept her little vice so close a secret that even her closest friends did not suspect it. Upon that piece of evidence alone, the young man's claim to a share of the estate was admitted. - 'H.A.L.'

Swagmen Left To Die On The Track

Real stories of early bush days read at the present time like the wildest fiction, but old bushmen have seen gruesome sights during the development of the back country. Deaths from thirst were all too frequent, and I have come in contact with dead swagmen bearing evidence of terrible suffering.

One was an aged shepherd in dingo infested country and camped in a wild gorge ten miles from the station, where he lived alone with his flock and his dog. He was visited by someone from the homestead at irregular intervals and on one of such visits a station hand found him recovering from what was believed to be a heat stroke. The sheep were still in the yard where on account of the old man's illness they had remained for two days.

Badly needing a drink they were at once taken to water, and after a few hours on saltbush were reyarded and the man returned to report the situation. Next morning the shepherd was temporarily relieved of his job and advised to go to the station until he recovered.

He, however, refused to leave the camp, saying he had decided to go south and by going to the station would add ten miles to his journey as he would have that distance to walk back again on his way down. He was paid off, and after a few days in camp rolled his swag for a start. He had about 200 miles to travel and the weather was so hot that he decided to leave his dog until his return, as he considered the sand would be too hot for the dog's feet.

He struck across country to strike what was known as the 'tableland track,' a track running across miles of stony open country passable only by camels at that time, but it junctioned with the mail road about 18 miles from where he would strike it and was certainly the nearest route.

The next heard of him was when a horseman arrived several days later from a station 70 miles in the opposite direction to which the swagman was travelling. Three Afghans with a train of camels reported that while proceeding along the tableland track 70 miles south they had seen a mad white man. The Afghans were recent arrivals in Australia, and it was hard to understand them, but they conveyed the impression that they were terrified by what they had seen and it could not be clearly gathered whether they had offered him water. In those days the Afghans adhered so strictly to their religion that they would destroy any vessel a white man drank from, so the evidence appeared as though they hastened to report what they had seen without trying to save the unfortunate traveller.

When I saw the corpse it was lying by the gate post of a boundary fence, and the first signs of something unusual in the vicinity was indicated by the behaviour of our horses. I was accompanied by a black boy and our horses refused to go near enough to distinguish what the distant object was. I handed the reins to the boy and walked on.

I could not recognise the features, although I knew the man well in life. He was half naked and had been dead a few days. There was evidence of terrible suffering in the little furrows made by the heels of his boots, and the marks on the hard earth where he clawed with his fingers in his efforts to shift around with the shade of the post as it veered with the sun, and the time of death as indicated by the shadow would be about half past two. — FarNorth.

Tragedy Because Boys Heard 'Ghosts'

About the year 1870 two brothers, the younger a lad of 13 years, set out to walk from Mt. Gambier to Bordertown. At the close of the first day they chose their resting place beside a hollow log.

The elder lad was soon asleep, but the younger, overtired, was kept awake by the eerie croaking of the frogs, and the night calls of the birds. He fancied that he heard the sound of a baby crying and awakened his brother, who, unable to detect the cry, said that he was dreaming and soon went to sleep again.

But the younger lad, still unable to sleep, again heard the sound as of a baby crying, and again roused his brother, who this time heard the cry and also the voice of a woman speaking. The boys, firmly believing that the place was haunted, packed up their bundles and fled. The story behind it was this: —

A certain early squatter had several daughters whom he wished to marry off, so that when an eligible young man put in an appearance at the farm, the father gave him £200 to marry one of his daughters, which he did. They lived together on the farm for some time, and then one morning walked off together, but as this mode of moving from place to place was quite common in those days, no one took any particular notice of it, and, there being few mails, no one worried at the prolonged silence.

Then, one day, the husband was discovered, a raving lunatic, and was put in an asylum, where he eventually died. No trace of the missing wife and child could be found at that time.

The mystery was not solved until 20 years later, when the log, beside which the boys had rested, was split open and found to contain the bones of two people, a woman and a babe. The bodies were decayed beyond recognition, but the boots were identified by the maker as those he had made for the wife who had left home with her husband and child 20 years previously.

The story, reassembled, points to the following solution. After several days in the bush, the husband, perhaps overcome by the worry of helping his wife traverse the rough track, perhaps breaking down under the strain of spending nights in the eerie stillness of the bush, lost his reason, attacked his wife and child, and, believing them dead, wedged them in a hollow log and wandered off. The tragic story of the unfortunate mother and babe — so near to and yet so far from rescue, is yet another instance of how the bush took toll of life in the early days. — 'T.'