The O’Dwyer Wager –

The O’Dwyer Boys

By A. G. HALES (“Smiler”) and JACK DRAYTON.

About a quarter of a mile from the Hill End mine in one of the deepest gullies amongst the ranges thirteen men were grouped around a roaring fire. These men were the O’Dwyer Brothers, and you haven’t travelled much on Coolgardie gold fields if you have not heard of the O’Dwyers of Broad Arrow. They all wore cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows of their muscular arms, soft felt hats sat on the head of every man of them and their lower works were covered by moleskin pants and heavy blucher boots. A rough, hardy, manly, handsome crowd were the O’Dwyers, ready to drink whisky or fight on sight and always willing for a day’s hard work and a night’s sport. This occasion saw them celebrating the birthday of Michael ‘Mick’ O’Dwyer, a big bronzed bearded fellow with a fist like a slug of granite, and a smile like the break of dawn.

Over the fire, suspended by a piece of fencing wire, hung a four-gallon kerosene tin that had been converted into a bucket, and this was full of whisky and water, which bubbled and boiled, making a sound like the laughter of a hundred little devils. Every O’Dwyer had armed himself with a tin pannikin, and they smoked their pipes placidly whilst waiting for the signal of Tim the brewer to commence operations. Tim, however, did not seem in any hurry to give the signal. He added a little more nutmeg, then took a sip at the generous mixture, screwed his eye up critically, and shook his head in response to an enquiring grunt from Curly Barney, and then sliced another lemon and dropped it into the pot. He stirred it for a few seconds, and then tasted it again, but was not satisfied, for he dropped in a cupful of sugar, and then putting a two-foot drill into the fluid he worked it lovingly but it had not caught the flavour he wanted, and lifting a keg of spirits from the ground he poured in another liberal draught and once more tasted the compound.

A sly laugh broke from the chest of big Mick, and he said with a rich roll of Erin’s brogue: ‘ Ay ye little divil, Tim, ye’ll be drunk before we get a start on the potheen. Begad oi nivver see such a hard mahan ter plaflfe win it cums to tasthin’ grog.’ ‘Whist, Micky,’ said Tim, ‘hould they big mouth ay to be sure there’s lasshins of grog—an by the mother av God, bohys, its ready fer drinking. ‘There was no unseemly rush made for the cauldron—the O’Dwyers never rushed into anything barring a fight—slowly and sedately they dipped their pannikins into the kerosene tin and then poured the steaming liquor down their tanned necks, and then paradise opened its gates to them and bliss spread its white wings round the group. Two hours later thirteen O’Dwyers, with flushed faces, came trooping into Broad Arrow

looking for joy or trouble, just as it might please the Lord to arrange matters.

On that same afternoon Professor Seguy, the French athlete, had pitched his tent next to Charley Brown’s pub and had opened his show to the public. The Professor and his pretty little wife gave a graceful exhibition of the art of fencing, then the Frenchman swung clubs and lifted weights which caused the O’Dwyers to grin in real earnest, and Tim O’Dyer was heard to offer sundry extravagant wagers which embodied the statement that he’d back Mickey O’Dwyer, the Irish-Australian Hercules, ter pick up all them weights and clubs an tings in one hand, or he (Tim) would eat the lot an’ a barrer full uv dirt besides.’ ‘Iv that little strip of a cove can lift them about that away,’ said Tim, ‘ Mickey ‘I’ll lift them ‘n him too.’ ‘ Vat ees it you say?’ asked Seguy. ‘ You lift ze weight? Who will lift ze weight wis me?’ ‘ I lift all them weights,’ replied Mickey; ‘all av em, me bold little man, an put a trifle of money on it jush to make it interestin’  ‘You lift ze weight—you play ze stick—ze sword. You wrestle and you box wiz ze glove—I bet you fifty pound I beat you’, said the excited Frenchman.

‘O’ll lift the weights an’ I don’t mind trying a cross of the sticks wid y’a” answered Mick, ‘bud I’m none too good wid the sword. Oi’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said Tim. ‘O’ll bet ya fifty pounds Micky ill wrestle anything in the place or lift anything you can lift.’ ‘ He is good enuff,’ retorted the professor briskly. ‘Ve make ze agreement—in ze writing—and you sign him.’ Which was done. An agreement was prepared—very short but very binding—under which Micky undertook to forfeit fifty pounds if he failed to outpoint the professor or to beat in a wrestling match or anything in the show. The first event was the weightlifting, and Micky, true to his undertaking, slung the fifty sixes about in good shape. ‘ You win on zat,’ said Seguy, ‘ now we have ze wrestle. I bring my mate.’ And stepping behind the curtain he returned in a couple of minutes

leading his enormous bear!

He is my mate,’ he said, ‘ he do ze wrestle, I play ze stick and ze sword’. ‘ What th’ hell is dat at all ?’ asked Micky. ‘ ‘Tis a b*@%* lion or an hailligahor,’ replied Tim, as he drew back. ‘Hould on me bold little Frenchy iv y’ tink y’r goin’ to try any tricks like that wid the O’Dwyer’s by y’ll foind out its a heap ‘av repairin’ y’ll be wantin done to yourself.’

‘Micky’s not goin’ to git in cahoots wid a brute that’ll ate him up.’ ‘ He no bite,’ said the professor, ‘he have ze muzzl see.’ ‘ Oh, ‘av course, he have ze muzzle, but look at the fingernails on the toes him hav. We’ll wrastle no lines nor tigers or boxin’ kangaroos’ ‘But you sign on ze paper, all ze people hear you say,’ and the professor appealed to the audience. Yes; that’s right. Mick,’ said several in the crowd. ‘ You signed to wrestle anything in the show. Have a go at him.’ ‘ ‘Tis true, Mick,’ commented Larry Casey, ‘an worse luck, av y’ don’t wrastle him and beat him I’ll haveto give it him, ‘I’ll try him,’ said Mick, desperately, ‘but oi wisht oi had a knife in my fist this minnit.

‘Tis an ugly lookin’ he is. Luk ad his little winkin’ eyes. Give us a drop av whiskey, Barney.’ ‘ Ze bear he take one-pint of beer,’ said Seguy. ‘ I ad him, Mick, ’tis all right,’ whispered Tim. ‘ I know what it is. He has a man dressed up in a skin. Punch him in the jowl as y’ go at him, and he’ll swear like a Christian. But in case ya av trouble, Barney and the boys have got a few pick-handles outside the to make sure were goin home wid the money. I don’t tink the little Frenchman I’ll find him after the flight.

‘The ring was cleared, and Mick and the bear got together. Bearing Tim’s advice in mind, Maguire dealt the brute a terrific right-hand punch as he feinted for a hold, and Bruin, wild with rage, elevated himself to his full height of seven feet, and with a roar like muffled thunder, caught Mick in his arms, and with one stroke of his hind claws tore every stitch of clothing from his waist downwards from his limbs. Then closing its arms, the bear hugged Mick to its chest in a grip that forced his tongue out of his mouth and his eyes out of their sockets. ‘ By Jasus! He’s done,’ yelled Tim. ‘ Where’s the Frenchman?’ He had disappeared. ‘Come on. Barney,’ shrieked Tim. ‘ Come on y’ sons av divils. Belt hell out av the beast or he’ll eat Micky.’

And snatching a pick-handle, Tim sailed in. With his first sweep, he knocked the light down, and the tent was left in darkness. Above the yells of the O’Dwyers and the shrieks of the audience came the hoarse growl of the bear and the smothered grunts of Micky, whose ribs were cracking in the grip of the animal, maddened by the punishment he was receiving. The crowd burst through the side of the tent, and the bear, with Micky still in his arms, followed them, while inside the O’Dwyers, with their pick handles were belabouring each other and everyone within reach. When a light was at length obtained, and the fact that the bear was gone was discovered a panic set in and the boys mad with grief and rage, started on a scattered hunt for him. A brief search discovered Bruin seated on his haunches with Mick breathless but comparatively unhurt at his feet.

‘Are y dead, Micky?’ asked Tim anxiously.

‘O’im not,’ answered Mick, ‘ but o’im spacheless and insinsible. Don’t touch the beast. Git me a drop av whisky. O’im goin to win that money now. And then oi’ll have a word or two wid Friechy.’During the conversation, the whisky had been obtained and a four-foot drill brought along, and Micky, after swallowing the one, grabbed the other, and, approaching the bear, landed him a glancing blow, which shook Bruin up a bit and knocked his muzzle off. In one stride he was again on the Irishman. ‘Run Mick, run,’ shouted Tim, just in time. And it was nothing to his discredit that Mick turned his back and bolted, with Bruin shuffling along, sniffing at his heels. Behind him came the twelve O’Dwyers, and the air was full of pick handles and oaths. Mick’s strength, already severely taxed, was giving out, and every now and then Bruin reached for him and clawed off a few shreds of shirt and an occasional shred of Irishman. The growls of the bear, the yells of the boys, and the shouts of the Professor who had joined in the chase made up a scene unlike anything previously presented at the Arrow, and as the procession moved on, with Mick slightly in the lead, the Frenchman could be heard— ‘Do not kill ze bear—I give you ze stakes money—I take him off—Leave him to me, Do not keel him —He is my living—I pay £200 for him—I take him off!’ ‘ Take him aff”, then,’ shouted Tim.  ‘An iv Micky’s hurt I’ll fasten to you so’s y’ll never get me off till y’r dead.

Running alongside the animal, who evidently recognised his voice, the professor succeeded in stopping him, and Mick, swinging round with a last effort, got in a hit which stretched Bruin out on the ground. ‘ By Gard you have keel him, shrieked the professor. ‘ I am ruin. I no longer bear I am without tent I lose ze fifty pound. I am bust — ruin.’  And as he sat by the bear and wept the thirteen O’Dwyer’s went down to the pub with the object of making a day of it. Mick striding proudly in the lead holding Tim’s coat in front of him, but otherwise as innocent of clothing as he was the day he made his appearance on earth. By the time he was patched up and properly plastered, he looked like the notice board outside the telegraph office, while the wife of the professor was engaged during the best part of the day picking pieces of woollen goods and Irishman out of the claws and teeth of the bear, who was stunned buy not killed by Mick’s blow.

That night the professor again presented his entertainment and briefly addressed the audience as follows — ‘Ladies and zhentlemen, I have misfortune ze last night wis my bear. He wrastle wis ze Irishman, and my tent he is destroyed, my lamp is broke, my weights he is took away, my dog vat do ze trick he is stolen, my bear he is cracked in ze skull, my feefty pounds he is gone wis Mr O’Dwyer to ze back-blocks, and Mr. O’Dwyer he send me letter if I not leave ze place he come back to-morrow wis his brothers, he have thirteen more of zem, and make ze disturbance. So, lady and shentlemen, I leave tomorrow morning- I lose ze tent, I lose ze money, ze bear got crack skull, myself ze arm is dislocated vat he hit me wis ze handle of pick in accident. I got me only zis.’ And he held up Mick’s pants. ‘ He will not do to patch ze tent.’

So over went the show!