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The Iron-Bark Chip
by
“Is that iron-bark?”
Jack Bentley, the fluent liar of the party, caught his breath with a jerk and coughed, to cover the gasp and gain time. “I–iron-bark? Of course it is! I thought you would know iron-bark, mister.” (Mister was silent.) “What else d’yer think it is?”
The dreamy, abstracted expression was back. The inspector, by-the-way, didn’t know much about timber, but he had a great deal of instinct, and went by it when in doubt.
“L–look here, mister!” put in Dave Regan, in a tone of innocent puzzlement and with a blank bucolic face. “B–but don’t the plans and specifications say iron-bark? Ours does, anyway. I–I’ll git the papers from the tent and show yer, if yer like.”
It was not necessary. The inspector admitted the fact slowly. He stooped, and with an absent air picked up a chip. He looked at it abstractedly for a moment, blinked his threefold blink; then, seeming to recollect an appointment, he woke up suddenly and asked briskly:
“Did this chip come off that girder?”
Blank silence. The inspector blinked six times, divided in threes, rapidly, mounted his horse, said “Day,” and rode off.
Regan and party stared at each other.
“Wha–what did he do that for?” asked Andy Page, the third in the party.
“Do what for, you fool?” enquired Dave.
“Ta–take that chip for?”
“He’s taking it to the office!” snarled Jack Bentley.
“What–what for? What does he want to do that for?”
“To get it blanky well analysed! You ass! Now are yer satisfied?” And Jack sat down hard on the timber, jerked out his pipe, and said to Dave, in a sharp, toothache tone:
“Gimmiamatch!”
“We–well! what are we to do now?” enquired Andy, who was the hardest grafter, but altogether helpless, hopeless, and useless in a crisis like this.
“Grain and varnish the bloomin’ culvert!” snapped Bentley.
But Dave’s eyes, that had been ruefully following the inspector, suddenly dilated. The inspector had ridden a short distance along the line, dismounted, thrown the bridle over a post, laid the chip (which was too big to go in his pocket) on top of it, got through the fence, and was now walking back at an angle across the line in the direction of the fencing party, who had worked up on the other side, a little more than opposite the culvert.
Dave took in the lay of the country at a glance and thought rapidly.
“Gimme an iron-bark chip!” he said suddenly.
Bentley, who was quick-witted when the track was shown him, as is a kangaroo dog (Jack ran by sight, not scent), glanced in the line of Dave’s eyes, jumped up, and got a chip about the same size as that which the inspector had taken.
Now the “lay of the country” sloped generally to the line from both sides, and the angle between the inspector’s horse, the fencing party, and the culvert was well within a clear concave space; but a couple of hundred yards back from the line and parallel to it (on the side on which Dave’s party worked their timber) a fringe of scrub ran to within a few yards of a point which would be about in line with a single tree on the cleared slope, the horse, and the fencing party.
Dave took the iron-bark chip, ran along the bed of the water-course into the scrub, raced up the siding behind the bushes, got safely, though without breathing, across the exposed space, and brought the tree into line between him and the inspector, who was talking to the fencers. Then he began to work quickly down the slope towards the tree (which was a thin one), keeping it in line, his arms close to his sides, and working, as it were, down the trunk of the tree, as if the fencing party were kangaroos and Dave was trying to get a shot at them. The inspector, by-the-bye, had a habit of glancing now and then in the direction of his horse, as though under the impression that it was flighty and restless and inclined to bolt on opportunity. It was an anxious moment for all parties concerned–except the inspector. They didn’t want HIM to be perturbed. And, just as Dave reached the foot of the tree, the inspector finished what he had to say to the fencers, turned, and started to walk briskly back to his horse. There was a thunderstorm coming. Now was the critical moment–there were certain prearranged signals between Dave’s party and the fencers which might have interested the inspector, but none to meet a case like this.