A Town like Alice

with Don about a month."
    "Do they know where on the station he was going to?"
    "Up by Disappointment Creek."
    "For Christ's sake," Joe said. "Then I know what he's been up to." Jean, looking at him, saw his mouth set in a hard line.
    "What's that?" asked Pete.
    "He's been at my poddys again," said Joe. "The mugger's got a poddy corral up there."
    "How do you know that?" asked Pete.
    "Found the sod," said Joe. "I'll tell you where it is. You know where Disappointment Creek runs into the Fish River?" The boy nodded. "Well, from there you go up Disappointment Creek about four miles and you'll come to an island and a little bit of a creek running in from the north just by it. Well, go on past that about a mile and you'll see a lot of thick bush north of the creek with a little bare hill behind. You can't mistake it. The poddy corral's round the back of the thick bush, just under the bare hill. If you get up on that hill-it's only about fifty feet high-you'll see the poddy corral to the south of you." He paused. "If you're going on a search party I'd start off with that."
    "Thanks, Joe," Pete said. "I'll tell them at Windermere."
    "Aye, you'd better. I don't suppose Mrs Curtis knows anything about it."
    Jean had been hesitant to break in on a discussion about things that she knew nothing of, but now she said, "How did you get to know about it, Joe?"
    He turned to her. "I was up at the top end just after Christmas with Bourneville, and I thought poddys were a bit scarcer than they ought to be. So then Bourneville got to tracking and the rain hadn't hardly begun then, so it was easy. The Cartwright River makes the station boundary just there, and we followed the tracks across and on to Windermere. Two horses there were, with a lot of poddys. We found the corral like I said, and there they were; been there two or three days. I let 'em out, of course, and drove them back. Had a cow of a job to get them past the first water, oh my word."
    Pete asked, "How many were there, Joe?"
    "Forty-seven."
    "All cleanskins?"
    "Oh yes." Joe was rather shocked at the implied suggestion. "Don wouldn't go and do a thing like that," he said.
    The boy put on his boots and got up. "What'll you do, Joe? Come along with me?"
    "I don't think so," Joe replied slowly. "I think I'll get up to the top end of my station, where he got those poddys from. Maybe he's been after some more, and had his accident up there. That's south of the Cartwright River, and east of the new bore we made. If I can't see any trace of him on my land, then I'll follow the way he drove those poddys to his corral. Maybe I'll meet you around there somewhere tomorrow or the next day."
    Pete nodded. "I'll tell Phil."
    "Tell him I'll be taking Bourneville with me, and I'll start as soon as I've run Miss Paget here back into town in the utility."
    Forty miles in the utility in those wet conditions would take the best part of three hours. Jean said, "Joe, don't bother about me. I'll stay here till you come back. You get off at once."
    He hesitated. "I may be away for days."
    "Well then, I'll ride into town on Sally. One of the boongs can come with me and bring Sally back."
    "You could do that," he said slowly. "Moonshine will be here, and he could go with you. I'll be taking Bourneville along with me."
    "Well then," she said, "that's perfectly all right. What time's Dave coming back?"
    "Should be back this afternoon," he said. He turned to Pete. "I've got Jim Lennon on holiday, and Dave's off visiting a girl, one of the nurses down at Normanton. But he'll be back today."
    Jean said, "I'll stay here till Dave comes, in case anything crops up, Joe."
    He smiled at her. "Well, that would be a help. I don't like leaving the place with just the boongs. I'll tell Moonshine he's to take you into town any time you want to go. He turned to Pete. "Want another horse?"
    "I don't think so. 'Bout thirty miles to Windermere from here?"
    "That's right. Cross over the river here, you know, and you'll find a track that leads there all the way. It's not been used much lately. If you miss it, go north to the Gilbert and follow up a mile or two and you'll find a little hut Jeff Pocock uses when he's hunting 'gators. There's a shallow about two miles up from that where you can get across. Go north from there about ten miles and you'll find their track from the homestead to Willstown. You can't mistake that."
    "Okay."
    "What about some tucker?"
    The boy shook his head. "Think I'll get on my way."
    They