Jimmy Whalin’s Dog

OVER THE PLATES.
Jimmy Whalin.

DEAR “Non-Com,”- In the early days of the fields there were some queer characters, and probably the queerest of them all was Jimmy Whalin. He always wore bowyangs and was rarely without a short dudeen in his mouth and was well known from Kimberley to Coolgardie, mainly because he had a habit of talking to himself, not just mumbling as lots of bushmen do that.

The first time I struck Jimmy was on Henry’s Gully, on the Western Shaw. We had adjoining claims, and it was a good while before I tumbled that he was talking to himself and not to me.

he said – “Yes. Jimmy Whalin, you do be telling yourself it’s a health trip to the coast you do want. Didn’t you eat a tin of meat for your breakfast, save for the bit you left in the tin for the tyke, and half a damper, and a quart pot full of tea. Sure, Jimmy Whalin, it’s as healthy as a dog you are. It’s the boose you do be after, that’s the health trip you do be wanting. Jimmy Whalin. I know you well, me boy.”

Jimmy always reminded me of one of those little dab chicks (small water bird). Wherever there are pools of water you will find them. They seem badly equipped for long-distance flying, and yet no matter how widespread or prolonged the drought, as soon as the pools fill up with water, you will find them amongst the first waterfowl to arrive.

I never knew Jimmy to have horses. One could hardly imagine him on horseback, but in spite of his short legs, he was generally amongst the early arrivals on a new field, no matter how remote. It was a general custom amongst diggers looking for a place to set in, to ask: “How’s the metal?” “No good, digger,” or “I’m doing fair. If you set in below there you might get a few dwts,” but not so Jimmy. If you asked him he would always say:

“Just colours, boy, just colours,”

and that’s all you would get out of Jimmy. But Jimmy had a nondescript sort of a dog he had brought from Kimberley, and if you watched the dog you could make a fair guess whether Jimmy was on gold or not. If the dog was lying on Jimmy’s coat or frisking around you could bet he was on gold, but when things were not too good, he knew he was likely to collect a kick, and was generally missing. Then if you looked carefully up the hillside you would see two black ears showing above a bunch of spinifex. The dog was watching Jimmy. Sometimes he would watch for hours. He seemed to know the moment Jimmy had a bit of luck and would come racing down the hill.

“Oh. he’s a nice little dog, so he is.”

If Jimmy had a good day the dog would be racing ahead going back to camp, but if Jimmy’s luck had been bad, he would be tailing along a couple of chains behind, the picture of misery.

I often tried to make friends with him but he wouldn’t take the least notice of anyone except Jimmy. He was a real one-man dog. I generally carried small bellows with me and often on Sundays I would point a few picks. One morning Jimmy brought me a dish that had a hole in the side. It had been roughly patched, but the patch had come loose, and Jimmy wanted me to put a new one on. While I was doing it he told me how it got damaged.

It happened in the Kimberley. Jimmy had been prospecting away from the main patch and had carried a bagful of wash to a pool in a steeply banked creek to pan off. He had almost finished panning the first dish full, when he thought he saw a piece of gold. “Sure it was as big as the top of my thumb” and stooped over to have a closer look, when a spear came over his shoulder, and went through the side of the dish, knocking it out of his hand into the water. “I pulled my revolver and fired at the wild native standing on the bank. He didn’t move, but another poor heathen fell into the water at me feet, from the other side of the creek. When he lifted his head out of the water, he was bleeding like a stuck pig. The bullet had hit him in the neck.”

“Did you have a shot at the other fellow?”

“I did not. I just grabbed me dish and me bag, and I got out of that gorge quicker than I went in, and I have never been back there since. But I believe there’s a bit of gold in the gully where I got the wash, and someday I intend to go back and have another try.”

The next time I saw Jimmy was on Bayley’s Island, Nannine. ‘How’s the gold, Jimmy?” “Just colours, boy, just colours, but if you set in below there alongside the lake you might get a few ounces,” and I did, too.

When I asked if he still had the dog, he didn’t say anything. But walking back to the main camp that evening he told me that after he left the Shaw he went back to Egina. Egina is red slate country and noted for its scorpions and death adders. Jimmy had been working and had returned to his camp, and was just going into the tent, when the dog rushed in ahead, and grabbed an adder that was coiled up on his blankets. He had hold of the adder just behind the head and soon killed it.

Jimmy said he saw it all quite plainly and was certain the adder did not bite the dog. but as he shook it. it stung him with its tail several times. The dog only lived a few minutes.

Jimmy died at Kanowna about the time of the Sacred Nugget hoax, from cancer of the tongue.

No doubt the little dudeen that had comforted him for years was the cause. RIP., Jimmy Whalin; I hope you have met up with your faithful little Tyke, wherever you are!