The leader thought for a moment.

"No; it ain't worth it," he replied. "We'll carry this through first as we are. Bring the swags along."

He walked off, and Tap followed. Moving cautiously and noiselessly, they crept from bush to bush, until they stood directly behind the gum which caught some of the gleam of the fire, and peering over a low-growing shrub, they looked across the level patch where the men had made their camp.

The fire had burned down to a heap of glowing ashes, with a small tongue of flame flickering and dancing here and there over the red mass, from the edges of which, where some half-burned sticks lay, thin wisps of light blue smoke floated lazily upwards. Round the fire the men lay in slumber. Four had inverted saddles as pillows, and one or two had a rolled-up coat for the same purpose; but the majority lay flat on the ground, wrapped loosely in their blankets, some face downwards with their heads on their folded arms, some on their backs with their hats pulled over the face, and others on their sides facing the red glow of the fire which lit up their features. Scattered around lay the impedimenta of their swags, their billy-cans and mining tools, in the unconcerned confusion that showed how little each one suspected his neighbour's honesty. On a sapling near the creek hung the bridles which Gleeson and his companions had taken from their horses, and Barber pointed to them.

"Come on," he whispered, and led the way through the bush, skirting the range of the glow, till they came to the open track, on the other side of which was the sapling and the bridles.

Telling his companion to wait where he was, Barber crept over to the sapling and removed the bridles noiselessly, returning with them to Tap.

"The tracks of the horses lead up the creek," he said. "There are four bridles. Hurry along with the swags after me."

He turned away in the direction he had indicated, and walked quickly into the shadow of the bush, while Tap, hampered by his double load, moved more slowly along the course of the creek. In about a quarter of an hour he came upon Barber standing with the four horses, bridled and without hobbles. The swags were swung over the back of one, which Barber, mounted on another, led, while Tap took charge of the other two. They then made their way slowly through the bush until the grey dawn appeared, when they turned in the direction of the track along which the miners of Boulder Creek were marching to the newly found El Dorado. They came upon it at a point where no one was in sight, but had not ridden half a mile before they saw a straggling mob of men, with swags and mining tools, toiling along. As the parties met, the miners crowded round the two with questions as to whether they had come from the field, whether many men were there, and what the prospects were. For answer Barber slapped the canvas belt he wore round his waist.

"Nuggets, none less than four ounces," he cried. "There's men in hundreds along the track, but the field will hold 'em all and hundreds more. We're riding down for stores. Shove along, lads; we'll see you when we get back, and good luck to you."

It was quite enough to spur on the energies of the hungry gully-rakers, and with brief good wishes they went on their way, hastening as much as their burdens and the steepness of the track would allow.

Other mobs, some small, some large, were encountered as the two rode on, and always Barber gave the same answer to the questions, and with the same result. The men were too anxious to overtake those who were ahead, and get their claims pegged out, to think of anything else.

They were in sight of Boulder Creek, and could see Cudlip's Rest showing out on the slope the other side of the creek, when they met the last two of the army, one of whom was Cudlip himself, who, having weighed the chances, had decided to leave the hotel to run itself while he went and had a look round the field. He and a brother, who had a small selection near the Rest, had discussed it, and, deciding to start in the morning, had gone to get their horses from the paddock, only to find that some one else had secured them in advance. The appearance of Barber and Tap and two spare horses altered the complexion of affairs considerably to the brothers, for they had money with them, and the sooner they were on the field the better the chance of their recovering their own stolen mounts. They opened negotiations at once, and Barber, rousing their enthusiasm by the nuggets he displayed, and working on their naturally ruffled feelings (after hearing of the missing horses) by describing just where the borrowers of them would be, managed to secure all the money they had and an order from Cudlip for more on the manager of Barellan Downs. Then they resumed their way, and while the two brothers hastened up the track after fortune and their stolen horses, Barber and his companion rode on to the deserted hotel, where they took possession of a couple of saddles and such other articles as they fancied they required.

In the camp by the creek there was turmoil when Gleeson and his three companions awakened to find they had been robbed of both horses and bridles, but left with the now useless saddles. Two of the men—the two who had been the first of the pedestrians to arrive the evening before, and who had enjoyed the hospitality of the four—had also disappeared, and in no man's mind was there a question by whom the horses had been taken. Samuel Walker, sitting disconsolately by his saddle, expressed himself volubly to Gleeson upon the follies of generosity.

"First you gave the whole show away, then you gave half the tucker, and now, here, you've given the horses and bridles. Why didn't you chuck in the saddles? What's the good of them now? Why didn't you ask them if they wouldn't be tired riding bare-backed all the way?" he grumbled to Gleeson.

"It was all that smoke you gave them when they came up," Peters said, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Well, what if they do get ahead of us? Tap is on the claim, and——" Gleeson began.

"Tap? Yes. Will he collar my horse?" Walker snarled.

"He'll keep your claim, and that's better. Anyhow, they can't find the field till we're there; so hurry along with breakfast. There's the last of the mob on the move."

While they had been bemoaning the robbery, of which they were satisfied as soon as they saw the bridles were gone, Tony had wandered up the creek watching the tracks the horses had made the night before. They were still some miles from the field, and he had all the native objection to walking while there was a chance of having a horse to ride. He followed the track until he found the hobbles lying on the bank of the creek, and the hoof-marks, with the footprints of a man beside them, going from the stream and from the direction of the field. He saw where another man's footprints joined them, and then only the marks of the horses, going down the hill, were visible.

Hastening back to the camp, he reached there just as the last of the fossickers, moving away from the fire, gave rise to Gleeson's remark.

"Some one's lifted the horses in the night and ridden them down the hill," he explained, as he came up. "Here's the hobbles, and the tracks are quite plain. There were two men, and they led two of the horses. I followed their track a quarter of a mile down the slope, and it was still showing clear."

Gleeson looked up quickly.

"They're old tracks you saw," he said.

"They're fresh tracks; the ground is still moist where it's turned up," Tony retorted.

"What did they want to go down the hill for? That ain't the way to the field, and we told every one where it was," Walker put in.

"Anyway, that's where they're gone," Tony replied. "If you don't believe it, go and look for yourself. I'm ready for breakfast."

Further news came to them as they were finishing the meal, for the advance guard of the detachment Barber and Tap had met on the road arrived at the camp. The pace at which they had been travelling for the last few miles made a brief rest welcome, and they trooped up to the fire.

"It's good enough, lads; it's good enough. There's whips of it there for all of us. Two mates passed down the road this morning for stores with a couple of horses loaded with gold," one of the new arrivals cried.

"How many?" Peters asked.

"Two, mate—two, with four horses."

"Saddled?" Tony asked.

"No, mate, save for the swags of nuggets."

"Were the horses three bays and a grey?" Gleeson asked quickly.

"That's so. Thanks; I'll set her here," the man went on, as Tony moved on one side for him to put his billy by the fire.

"We'll shove along," Walker said, as he and Gleeson exchanged looks.

The saddles having already been "planted" under a hollow log, the four swung their swags over their shoulders and set off through the bush, Gleeson and Walker keeping together in front, and Peters and Tony a few yards behind.

They had not gone half a mile when ahead they saw two of the men who had hastened on earlier in the day coming towards them.

"Them two chaps ain't got your horses," one of them called out as he came near. "We found them having their breakfast sitting by a fire, the ashes of which they said was hot when they got there, and alongside of which they picked up a nugget, a good half-ounce. The boys are waiting anxious like for you to come up and show where the dirt lies, so as to have a go at it right off the reel, and to see if more half-ouncers are to be picked up. Half an ounce! Why, it's more than a man could make in a month in the holes on Boulder Creek."

Again Gleeson and Walker exchanged looks.

"Oh, there's heaps of half-ounce lumps about," Gleeson answered. "We'll soon show you where."

They pushed on till they came to a fire, burning where it had burned when, the night before, Barber and Tap had heard the sound of the Palmer chorus steal through the quiet, dark bush. Round about the men were resting, waiting for those to come up who knew the country; and as Gleeson and his companions arrived, every one rose and picked up swags and tools ready to march.

"Who was it found the nugget?" Gleeson asked; and one of the men stepped forward, holding it out in his hand.

"Here it is—half an ouncer—good enough for stores for a month as we did it on Boulder Creek, salt horse once a day and flap-jack on Sundays," he said, with a laugh.

Gleeson and Walker looked at it critically and gave it back. Without a word they resumed the march through the bush. The ground sloped down in front of them, sparsely timbered and well grassed, and in the distance they could see where it rose into a long rolling ridge. They were close at the foot of the rise before they noticed a small creek running over a gravelly bed and, beyond it, the framework of a tent and a lean-to covered with boughs.

Gleeson and Walker both uttered exclamations as they saw the bare forks and ridge-pole of the tent-frame, but the men behind did not pay any heed. They wanted no telling the creek was where the gold was to be found, and they scattered right and left as they rushed as fast as they could to the banks of the stream, each man, directly he came to the water, driving his pick into the ground and sitting on it. Two of them had met just by the ruins of the tent, and while one stuck his pick into the ground on one side of the stream, the other splashed through the water and performed the same operation on the other side, so close to where a hole had been dug that when he sat on his pick-handle, he dangled his legs over the edge of the hole.

"Here, that's our claim. You'll have to clear out of that," Gleeson shouted as he rushed up.

"That's our shaft," Walker yelled as he rushed up to the man sitting over the hole.

A shout of derision came from the two men, and was echoed up and down the creek as each fossicker turned round to enjoy the spectacle of a "jump" at the outset of the field. Most of the men having stuck their picks in their claims, sat on them, and adorned them with various bits of rag to serve as banners of occupation. Being all neighbours from Boulder Creek, they could trust one another, and were satisfied to leave their patches under the protection of their "pegs," more especially as things were becoming decidedly lively round what was already referred to as the "reward" claim.

From shouting at one another, one side threatening and the other defying, Walker had made a feint at the man by the hole. He, having lived for many a year in the hope of one day pegging out his own patch of alluvial on a new rush, would have defied dynamite to move him now that he had his pick in the ground, now that he had performed all that the unwritten but eternal laws of the mining fraternity needed to give him sole and absolute rights over the few square yards of earth and all the precious mineral he could win from it. He took the feint seriously, and, being at a disadvantage in his sitting position, he threw up one leg to guard himself and equalize matters. The heavy boot he was wearing carried his foot farther than he intended, or Walker was nearer than he intended, for the boot came into violent contact with the pit of his stomach, and he rolled over on the other man's ground, gurgling and gasping.

Gleeson, only seeing him fall, thought an attack was imminent, and flashed out a revolver from his pocket. In a moment the attack was imminent, and in full swing. The Boulder Creekers had had many a quarrel and many a row amongst themselves, but never had a man drawn a revolver or a knife. Gleeson's action decided his chances.

"A darned dirty I-talyan," Palmer Billy shouted; "and on a white man's claim. Roll in, diggers."

A dozen outraged and indignant diggers responded. The revolver was knocked up and out of Gleeson's hand, and went spinning high into the air through a well-aimed blow from a spare pick-handle. It went off as it struck the ground, and the bullet whizzed over the heads of the men in the melee; but they were too busy to notice it. A couple of fists hit one another in their haste to reach Gleeson's eyes; several more went home on different parts of his body at the same moment; and thereafter, for the space of a few minutes, the first arrivals on the new field, with the exception of Walker, who was knocked out, were a perspiring, swearing, struggling pile of humanity.

When they managed to extricate themselves, Palmer Billy was the last to rise from the ground. He had suffered somewhat in the scrimmage, and his nose was bleeding freely, but he looked round without malice upon his panting comrades as he said, slowly and savagely—

"A darned dirty I-talyan; and on a white man's claim."

Then it was that they had time to observe what had escaped their notice in the rough-and-tumble of the melee. As the men crowded round Gleeson, like bees round a sugar-bag, thirsting to wreak their vengeance upon him for introducing into the community weapons which were not possessed by all, they forgot the prostrate Walker, as well as Peters and Tony. That there were neither revolvers nor knives among the Creekers was more due to lack of means to purchase them than to moral superiority, or any religious qualms as to the shedding of another man's blood. Revolvers were useless without ammunition, and ammunition cost money; knives which were useful in a fight, were also eligible for trading purposes as a medium of exchange for flour and tobacco: consequently both were absent from the movable property of the average fossicker of Boulder Creek. That they were in the possession of the men who had stumbled on payable gold within a day's march of the creek was a further incentive to envy on the part of the Creekers; hence the haste of each man to vent his anger on Gleeson.

It was their very haste which defeated their object. Peters and Tony, standing back from the others, saw how it was going with Gleeson the moment he showed his revolver. As the mob closed in on him and bore him down by sheer force of numbers, Peters darted for the revolver when it struck the earth, and Tony, rushing to the rescue of Gleeson, saw how the crowd, in their hurry to reach their victim, were hitting and pushing one another, while he was struggling to escape between their legs. There were more on one side than the other, and to the weakest side Tony ran, succeeding, with Peters's help, in extricating the struggling Gleeson while yet the mob meted out severe punishment on one another. By the time that they had separated and Palmer Billy had picked himself up, the four were grouped round the ruins of the deserted camp, each with a revolver in his hand. The picks that had been driven in the ground were lying on the other side of the creek.

The Creekers, convinced individually that they had effectually disposed of Gleeson, stood for a few moments, forgetful of the blows and bruises they had received in the scuffle, as they saw their victim standing unharmed before them. Palmer Billy moved a few steps towards the four, and the others, formed into an irregular line behind him, advanced at the same time.

"Stop where you are, or——" Gleeson cried, as he raised the revolver and covered Palmer Billy.

There was silence amongst the Creekers, for the situation had changed since the moment when they yelled for revenge in unison with Palmer Billy. "The darned dirty I-talyan" was alone and practically unprepared then—he was back with his mates now; and while they were armed, the Creekers were not. Palmer Billy sized up the situation quickly and shrewdly. He turned slowly to his comrades, with one arm extended and pointing to the four.

"What sort!" he exclaimed hilariously. "They've jumped the jumpers! We're bluffed at our own game, boys; bluffed at our own game. They've chucked the pegs out, and there was no one there to stop 'em. It's their claim."

A murmur, half-assenting, passed through the crowd, till it was checked by the man who had stuck his pick in the ground by the deserted hole.

"My pegs was in," he exclaimed, "and if any one's took them out——"

"When you wasn't there," Palmer Billy interrupted, "why, them as shifted the pegs jumps the claim."

He looked round for applause and support, and, receiving it, was satisfied, until laughter mingled with the sounds of approval. The man had profited by the judgment pronounced, and had dashed away to the claim which Palmer Billy had pegged out for himself. He was in the act of flinging away the pick which had been planted there when Palmer Billy looked towards him. It was out of his hands and another one stuck in its place by the time the indignant jurist and vocalist had reached the spot. The remainder of the fossickers, also profiting by the judgment and also by the example, scurried right and left to their respective claims, and from the safety of their own ground proffered advice, picturesque and soothing, to Palmer Billy, who was arguing and gesticulating violently to the man who had jumped his claim.

Walker, still suffering from the kick he had received, took advantage of the lull to sit down and abuse Gleeson.

"Call yourself a leader!" he grumbled. "Here's a pretty state of things! If we ain't all killed in half an hour it won't be your fault. I'm full of your tricks, first losing our horses, then our——"

"If you don't like it, clear," Gleeson exclaimed, wheeling round sharply. The treatment he had received at the hands of the fossickers had not improved his temper, and there was trouble enough ahead from the others without having it in his own camp.

"Clear?" Walker retorted. "Do you think I'm a jackeroo, or what? I'm on my own claim. You and your mates can get off it as soon as you like."

"It's our claim; it belongs to the four of us," Gleeson answered angrily.

"I pegged it out, and I was on it before you, and I'm not going any more shares with you and your mates," Walker shouted; and the men on the claims nearest caught the words, and withdrew their attention from the wrangle between Palmer Billy and the jumper of his ground, in favour of the squabble between the four discoverers of the field.

A wealth of suggestions came from every side, first to one set of disputants, and then to the other, until the arrival of another party added to the confusion.

Gathering the nature of the babel, the new-comers quietly passed up and down the creek, pegging out their claims on either side of those already occupied before they turned their attention to the disputes, yelling out their views and opinions until the noise of the shouting reached other approaching parties and hastened their advance.

"It seems to me it's no use fooling round like this," Peters exclaimed, when for a moment there was silence between Gleeson and Walker. "If he wants the claim, let him have it, and we'll shove along up the creek. Come on, Tony, my lad; there's no points in this game."

He slung his swag over his shoulder, and Tony did the same. Their action was greeted with derisive cheers from the men scattered along the banks of the creek. Palmer Billy, beaten in the matter of words, came to meet them as they started up the rise beyond the creek.

"There's no luck where there ain't no 'armony," he said, with aggressive earnestness in his voice. "If me and my accordion gets the shove-along, we takes it; and as for them hungry gully-scrapers—darned dirty I-talyans, I call them—why, let 'em rake the creek by theirselves; there's water in it, and some of that won't hurt some of them, either outside or in. Misters, if you likes 'armony, I'm with you; if you don't——"

Gleeson, seeing the other two set out up the rise, hurried after them, his departure also being greeted with a burst of derisive cheers. He came up with them in time to interrupt Palmer Billy's sentence. Recognizing the leader of the recent attack on himself, Gleeson looked at him angrily.

"Darned dirty I-talyans, I call 'em," Palmer Billy said, as his eyes met those of Gleeson. "It's no white man's field, no place for us to stay—only fit for I-talyans and such-like coloured labour."

Gleeson turned away to Peters.

"Which route are you taking?" he asked.

"Over the rise," Peters answered.

"It's good enough," Gleeson replied.

"Oh, good enough? You bet, mister; this is a miner or I'm a rouse-about," Palmer Billy put in, with a nod towards Peters. "A white man, mister, if I make no error, and, as such, a mate of mine."

"See here," Gleeson exclaimed angrily, facing him.

"That's all right, mister," Palmer Billy interrupted quickly. "I understand how it was. You never meant to lose me my claim, seeing you're a white man and me another, and these here, too. But you didn't know them darned dirty I-talyans as I did, mister; so, as the song has it, 'kick at troubles when they come, boys,' and we'll set up a four-handed camp of our own, and take the shine out of everywhere. You've got the tucker and I've got the 'armony, and we've all got the savee of white men and the grit of miners. Come along, boys; there's no malice on my side."

He set off as he spoke, and Peters looked round at Gleeson.

"It's an improvement on Walker," he said. "What do you say, Tony?"

"I'm on," Tony answered.

"Then it's good enough," Gleeson replied; and the three followed after Palmer Billy up the rise.



CHAPTER VI.

THE LADY OF BARELLAN.

It was a ride of ten miles from Birralong township to Barellan, and from the Murray's selection another two miles had to be added. So it was arranged that Ailleen should ride out to a certain point and wait there for the Murrays to come (if she did not find them waiting for her), and then the three could ride on until they met Dickson, who was to come out to meet them.

Ailleen had her horse saddled, and was away immediately after the early breakfast, and the schoolmaster, being in the enjoyment of the holidays, watched her as she rode down the road and away into the bush. It was quite possible that Nellie Murray and her brother might be already at the trysting-place, and Ailleen rode at a full canter so as not to waste time on the way. She had covered more than half the distance when she heard a shout behind her, and, reining in her horse, there came to her the sounds of another horse galloping and a man's voice calling her name. She faced round and saw Dickson approaching her.

"Why, how did you get as far as this?" she asked as he rode up. "The Murrays were to be by Price's Waterhole, or I was to wait for them there, and we were to meet you later."

He looked at her with an uneasy grin on his face and a shifty look in his watery eyes.

"I didn't think Nellie would care to come. I don't think she will, so I rode on for you. We can go right on together," he answered.

"You didn't think?" she asked. "What did Nellie say? It was her suggestion that——"

"Yes, I know; but—we don't want her. You come on alone. I'd rather you did. Mother won't want to have a crowd about the place. It's only you she wants to see," he said, interrupting her, and speaking quickly.

"And let them wait all day for me when I said I would meet them? What next?" Ailleen exclaimed; and as there was a suspicion of ruffled temper at his proposal, she sought her usual cure by moving her horse forwards, as she could not move about herself.

As the horse started, Dickson brought his round in front of it.

"Here, I say," he said, "it's no good playing the fool like that. We don't want the others. You come by yourself."

For answer Ailleen turned her horse round from him, and he strove to keep his in front of it, but failing, he leaned forward and caught hold of the bridle.

"I'm not going to be——" he began.

"Leave go," Ailleen exclaimed sharply, looking him full in the face with eyes that were dangerously angry.

"I don't want, and I won't have, the others," he retorted, retaining his hold of the bridle.

The thin switch Ailleen carried fell across the back of his hand sufficiently hard to induce him to let go.

"If I tell Nellie what you said?" she remarked.

"I was only in fun," he answered, the uneasy grin still on his face and his eyes shifting. "I only wanted to see if you would let them wait."

The girl looked at him steadily.

"Willy Dickson, don't tell me lies," she said severely; and he evaded her look. "If I had not promised to meet Nellie, I'd go straight back again."

She set her horse at a canter without waiting for him to reply, and rode steadily on, he after her, till Price's Waterhole was reached. It was a small lagoon surrounded by sturdy ti-trees, and with its surface almost covered by the blooms and leaves of pink water-lilies, over which a myriad of blue dragon-flies and other winged insects were skimming. Under the shade of the trees two horses were standing, and on the bank of the lagoon, watching the dragon-flies as they flashed to and fro, Nellie and her brother were sitting.

Fashions do not change with the month in bush communities, and Nellie's hat was one of a pair with Ailleen's—they both came out of the same lot from Marmot's store. Mushroom was the appropriate name given to them, for they were wide of brim and small of crown, and the brims had the extra recommendation of being bendable, up or down, forming an excellent frame for the long, thin veil the dust and mosquitoes sometimes made a necessity. They might not be especially beautiful of themselves, but many a manly Australian heart has beaten more quickly at the sight of one, with the fresh face of a bush maiden under it. As the two girls' hats were alike, so were their costumes. Marmot kept more brands of tobacco than varieties of dress material, and beyond the resources of Marmot's, the Birralong maidens knew not. But a plain grey dress has many a charm when the wearer has a figure of native worth and a carriage as free and graceful as that of a bush-bred girl. The likeness between the two, however, did not extend beyond the clothes they wore, and beyond the fact that both were attractive. Where Ailleen was fair as a Saxon, Nellie was dark brown of hair and eyes, slight in build, and quick in temper.

There was more than a suspicion of the latter in her eyes as she turned her head at the sound of the approaching horses and saw who was Ailleen's companion. Her greeting was brief, and she at once mounted her horse, saying that there was no time to lose now that the others had managed to arrive. As the four rode off towards Barellan, Ailleen, with more loyalty than her friend gave her credit for, tried to keep behind with Bobby; but Dickson was in no way anxious to fall in with the arrangement, and instead of following Nellie as she cantered ahead, hung back till the others caught him up.

"Go on with Nellie; what are you dawdling for?" Ailleen called out as they came up.

"Why can't we all keep together? What's the good of splitting up?" Dickson answered, as he came alongside Ailleen on the opposite side to young Murray.

The latter looked over at him with an expression that showed he at least had a considerable objection to keeping all together. He was only a youngster of sixteen, but he was one among the many of Ailleen's admirers, and the price of his accompanying his sister was that he should have the enjoyment of Ailleen's company all the way to Barellan and back. There was little sympathy between him and Dickson; but the absent Tony was his ideal of all that a man should be, so that if there was any truth in the rumour that Tony and Dickson were rivals, he would not miss an opportunity of praising the one at the expense of the other, being satisfied that with Tony already a claimant, he could have no hope of ever enjoying Ailleen's undivided affections.

"It was the arrangement, anyway. If you don't like it, why did you hurry out? We didn't ask you," he said.

Nellie, finding herself alone, had turned back and rejoined the others.

"Heavens! are you all going to camp, or what?" she exclaimed. "Don't you want us to go to the station, Willy? Or perhaps Bobby and I can go back home—is that it? We don't mind."

"Don't we? Well, we do," Bobby retorted. "It's Dickson who keeps loafing round. Here, go on," he added, as, turning his horse round, he hit Dickson's with a switch across the flank.

The horse plunged forward, and by the time its rider had it checked he was well ahead, with Nellie close at his heels.

"I'm not going to stand much of this, I can tell you," she exclaimed, as she came beside him. "If you think you're going to play with me as you like, you're mistaken. You treat me properly or I'll tell your mother all about——"

"You're always grumbling. I never saw such a girl," he interrupted.

"I'm not grumbling. I suppose you thought you'd trick me, and let Ailleen think I'd never been on the station before. Well, you see, you made a mistake. I shall tell her all about it. You know what you said and promised. If I tell Bobby he'll kill you, see if he won't."

The watery eyes were shifting rapidly from one side to the other, for there were many things which had occurred between him and Nellie about which he was by no means anxious Ailleen, least of any one, should know. But Nellie had a temper, and was somewhat prone to spiteful retaliations, and, without counting the cost to herself, might say enough to make the immediate future rather unsettled, if not actually painful, to him.

"You are jealous," he mumbled. "I never saw such a girl. You think every other girl can cut you out by looking at me. You don't seem to think I've got eyes. I couldn't help it if I met her when I hurried to meet you. Why didn't you say you were going straight to the lagoon? You always came by the township road before. I didn't know."

It was a tone and a line of argument that had served him well on previous occasions when Nellie's temper had become ruffled; and if one dose were not enough, he was prepared to administer a second, and even a third, so long as his latest chance were not jeopardized by a disclosure which he knew would be fatal to him.

"I don't believe you," she replied, with an upward glance at him.

He met her glance and smiled, just as he did when Ailleen's switch fell across his hand. Nellie only looked up at him when she was mollified, and he was satisfied that the storm was over for the time being. But he did not attempt to fall back or wait for the others till the slip-rails leading into the home paddock were reached.

The station homestead was in view from the slip-rails, a long building, all on a floor, with a roof stretching from the ridge-pole down to the rones of the verandah, bungalow fashion. It stood some feet above the ground on a number of tarred and tin-capped piles, a necessary precaution in the land of the white ant. Some distance away from the station-house the outbuildings stood—the store, the men's quarters, and the like—for Barellan was worth having when fully stocked and properly worked. But now it was languishing for want of an energetic head.

Rumours floated about among the drifting comers and goers who formed the working staff from time to time; rumours which told of the thriving condition in which once it had been—when the lady who now reigned over it in sad and sightless solitude had been in the heyday of her youth and beauty. But that was nearly thirty years ago, and thirty years back reaches into the dark mists of the prehistoric age in many parts of Australia. The tales of that period were necessarily so vague, or hopelessly contradictory, as various travelling swagsmen tried to embellish them for the benefit of the listeners in the men's hut, that scant courtesy was paid to them. More recent stories were evasive enough as far as substantiation was concerned; all save one, and that was a gruesome tale—a tale of a fallen tree stretching out long, jagged branches, sharp at the ends and pointing up a by-track used by the station hands, years ago, as a short cut to the branding yards. A high wind had brought that tree down one night, and a new bend had been made in the track so as to avoid it where it lay with its jagged branches reaching out like the hungry prongs of a bundle of gigantic toasting-forks. Years afterwards a stranger, making for the men's hut at sunset, had passed that way, and, with a ghastly face and quaking limbs, had dashed into the hut as the men sat at supper, and had told a tale which was scoffed at, till later, one by one, the men learned to ride five miles round rather than pass that by-track alone at night.

Another tale there was of a coach stuck up on the old main road beyond the boundary fence, when the mail was burned, and one of the passengers, being shot, fell with his head in the fire, and lay there till the Lady of Barellan, riding down the road in the morning, found him, and the remainder of the company bound to the trees and gagged. She had ridden back for help, and had fallen on the verandah of the station-house as she gave her news, and the men had ridden off to help those of whom she told, and left her unnoticed, lying where the sun poured down on her in the full force of summer, scorching the sight out of her eyes. From that day she had been sightless, and soon after she was alone, save for the boy she idolized, for her husband had gone to the north to buy store cattle, and had disappeared from the ken of man, till a skeleton, with two broken spears through the ribs, and the remains of a swag and clothes, identified by some friends as Dickson's, were found in the neighbourhood whither he had intended to journey.

So the station had languished for the want of a guiding hand and head, while the owner passed her days sitting on the verandah, with her sightless eyes fixed where a clump of trees grew thickly on the spot where the coach had been stuck up so many years before. A slim hand-rail ran from a corner of the verandah to the clump three hundred yards away, and round the trees a high three-rail fence was built, with a gate where the hand-rail met it, and no one of the station ever went there save the Lady of Barellan; for it was a strange fancy, born of the fever that had followed the loss of her sight, some said, that she had of going there, feeling her way by the hand-rail, and staying there alone and silent, musing.

She was sitting on the verandah as the four rode up, with her eyes, which, save for a fixity of gaze, showed nothing of their affliction, staring away into the distance where the clump of trees stood out, purple-blue in their shade above the buff of the sun-dried grass and against the pure, transparent azure of the sky overhead.

Dickson mounted the steps leading on to the verandah, with Nellie close upon him and Ailleen further behind; while Bobby, not having outgrown the uneasiness of youth, remained in the saddle holding the bridles of the other three horses as well as his own.

"Here's Nellie," Dickson said abruptly, as he reached the chair where the sightless woman sat.

"How do you do, Nellie?" she said simply, as she held out her hand.

"And this is the other—Ailleen," he added, before Nellie could answer.

Ailleen, looking into the clear, open eyes which looked so steadily into hers, and were so different from what she had pictured to herself, took the extended hand.

"I am so glad to be able to see you. Oh, I forgot—I'm so sorry," she added quickly.

"Dearie, dearie," the blind woman said, in a gentle, caressing tone, placing her other hand over Ailleen's, "it's very kind of you to say that, very kind of you. There's many a one said far worse and never given a thought whether it hurt me or not. Come, sit ye down, dearie, and tell me all about yourself. Willy, bring a chair."

But Willy, convoyed by Nellie, had passed out of sight and hearing.

"I will sit here," Ailleen exclaimed, as she sat on the top of the steps leading to the ground from the verandah.

"Ay, ay," the other woman said. "He's no sooner here than he's away. Tell me, dearie, all about yourself. Never mind him; maybe he's gone to get some tea or some fruit for you—he's an unselfish boy, a good, unselfish boy."

Ailleen looked into the open eyes, sightless and expressionless, and felt a twinge of pity for the lonely heart who spoke so fondly of her boy—the boy who had spoken of her to Ailleen, and said that she was ill-tempered, fretful, and worrying. She, guileless herself, had sympathized with him, never doubting that some truth existed in his words. Now she had seen the two together, had heard the abrupt manner of the son to the mother and the almost pleading gentleness of the mother to the son, and in a trice there had come a dual sense—attraction to the mother; repulsion from the son.

As she sat talking to her, looking out across the level, sun-scorched paddocks to the fringe of standing bush, with the purple loom of the distant ranges showing over the irregular tops of the gums as a bank of purplish cloud against the blue of the sky, and with the chromatic whistle of the magpies coming faint but clear through the still air—just a glimpse of the Australian scenery that grows so dear in its simplicity and colour—she was more and more attracted to the woman who had known so much of human suffering, and waited so long and so patiently in darkness which was more than solitude. The simple story of her life Ailleen told—saving any reference to the absent Tony—and the blind woman caught with swift sympathy at the fact that she was motherless, and might at any moment be fatherless also.

"And you have no relatives—no friends?" she asked gently.

"Oh, heaps of friends, but no relatives," the girl answered.

"And if—supposing you were left alone——"

"Well, I can work," Ailleen added, as the other paused.

"Ay, dearie; but you'd be lonely, and it's bad to be lonely when you're young."

"Then I'll come and take care of you," the girl answered, as she laughed lightly.

The woman turned her head quickly and held out her hand, as a smile, soft and gentle, rippled over her face, and almost overcame the fixed stare in the sightless eyes.

"You will, dearie? Ay, and you shall. Come to me, dearie, when you are alone. Make Barellan your home whenever you need one."

As she spoke Dickson and Nellie came round the corner of the verandah. The shifty eyes of the one twinkled for a moment with a glee which was not beautiful to see; the dark eyes of the other glittered.

"She never said that to me," Nellie said under her breath. "You'll have to tell her—or I shall."

"She's only cranky," Dickson answered in the same tone. "She's dotty half her time and scotty the other."



CHAPTER VII.

THE EVOLUTION OF SLAUGHTER.

The Three-mile, where Slaughter lived—Cold-blood Slaughter, as they termed him, from his pessimistic, cynical manner of thought and speech—was an out-of-the-way spot even for the district of Birralong. A track, which was little more than what would result were a dray driven off the road at right angles, branched off the main road, and meandered for a couple of miles, always indistinct and never straight, until a small patch of cultivation, a few acres square, showed green and picturesque amid the prevailing sombre hues of the untamed bush. On the far side of it, as one approached from the direction of the main road, was a small hut, built of roughly split slabs of timber, and roofed with sheets of bark, standing in almost aggressive solitude away from the trees which, farther behind it, formed an unbroken background of subdued colour. There was a waterhole some thirty yards from the hut, and a fork-and-sapling fence cut it into two portions, one of which, the smaller, was included in the small paddock where Slaughter kept his horse, the only living creature besides himself which resided at the Three-mile.

Viewed from the point on the track where first it came into sight, there was a certain pictorial attractiveness about the place which roused curiosity and interest—the contrast of the green of the cultivation patch with the prevailing neutral greys and yellowy-browns of the gum-tree forest; the simple form of the hut standing distinct and clear against the darker line of shade caused by the solid growth of bush beyond; and the quiet and apparently peaceful solitude of the whole scene appealing to the imagination. Nearer inspection left the solitude untouched, but robbed the picture of all else. Once, tradition averred, a hardy, daring denizen of Birralong had ventured out to the Three-mile for a yarn and a smoke with Slaughter. It was in the days when he had lately taken up the land, and when the glamours of proprietorship should have been still thick upon him, and when the neighbourly act of a brother settler ought to have been greeted with a friendly warmth. But the adventurer rode back to Birralong distressed and distrait, refusing, or failing, to put into words for the benefit of others his experience at the lonely Three-mile. All that he could express was conveyed by the pursing up of his lips, the nodding of his head in the direction of Slaughter's residence, and the exclaiming, solemnly and sadly, "Him? A melancholy bandicoot ain't in it." That, and the influence of Slaughter's bearing and conversation, when he was in the township, had upon the community effectually prevented any one else making the attempt to penetrate into the solitude of the Three-mile; and Slaughter lived his own life, in his own way, and no one knew more of it than had been learned in the first year of his residence in the district.

He was a customer of Marmot's, and that gave him the right to sit and smoke and yarn on the verandah of the store when he was in the township. He never passed his tobacco round, and rarely took an active part in the yarning, save to put in a few curt, cutting sentences that at first roused a sense of anger in his hearers, till they fell back under the protection of the phrase that "it was only Cold-blood Slaughter," and ignored the words that grated. He ran a "tally" at the store for the few necessaries of his life, and every six months cleared it with money which came in a letter for him from a city in a southern colony. It was the one link which existed between Slaughter and the outside world, that half-yearly letter, and its contents the one unsolved riddle in the annals of Birralong. With the regularity of the date itself the letter appeared, bearing the Sydney postmark on the cover, and as regularly Slaughter allowed it to rest a few days at the store, as though he knew both the mental anxiety it caused the habitues of the verandah as they tried to worry out some feasible explanation of its appearance, and the moral struggle its presence caused Marmot, who, as postmaster, felt bound by every tie of duty to hold it inviolate for the addressee, while, as the centre of Birralong gossip, he yearned to fathom the secret of its source, even at the cost of opening it. During all the years which had elapsed since Slaughter first came upon the scene the struggle had gone on, and still the mystery was unsolved and the riddle unread. Never had an occasion offered itself when anything could be learned from an outside source, and Slaughter himself was too cold and isolated an individual to be melted into confidence.

To those who gave any thought to the matter it was evident that, save for the unexpected appearance of outside information, the mystery of Slaughter's existence prior to his arrival at the Three-mile would remain unsolved, just as the chilling demeanour with which he surrounded himself would remain unpenetrated. But in Birralong, as in other parts of the world, it was the unexpected that happened.

The township one day was profoundly moved by the information, which passed with the rapidity which is only possible for gossip in a small community, that the schoolmaster had been struck down and lay dying. No one was especially surprised at that, for every one knew that he was suffering from a lung complaint which had not yielded to the influence of the pure, dry air of the district, and so was bound to carry him off sooner or later; for, as a travelling medical man had once observed, the consumptive who did not get well in the eucalyptus-scented air of inland Australia deserved to die, if only for the perversity of refusing Nature's kindliest aid! A ruptured blood-vessel certainly assisted in the collapse of Godson, but it was not even that which so astounded Birralong.

The sick man, knowing himself to be at death's door, had called for one thing, pleaded for one thing, prayed for one thing, and that the presence of Cold-blood Slaughter.

For some time the combined population of Birralong wondered, until, indeed, Ailleen rushed down from the cottage, where her father lay, to the roadway in front of the school, where the inhabitants of the township stood, and taunted them with being heartless cowards and listless fools to ignore the pleadings of a dying man.

"If you're not man enough to do what he asks," she said fiercely to Marmot, "you're postmaster, so do your duty and deliver that;" and she flung at the abashed storekeeper a letter addressed to Slaughter.

Without waiting for his answer, she swung round and ran back to the cottage, and the men of Birralong, looking sheepishly at one another, fidgeted uneasily as Marmot took up the letter.

A selector's boy, riding into sight at the moment, was hailed.

"Take that out to Cold-blood Slaughter at the Three-mile, and I'll give you a shilling when you come back," Marmot said; and the boy rode off.

Then they sat, wherever there was shade, and waited, uneasy lest the quick-tongued Ailleen should again swoop down upon them with anger which they knew was just, and yet unable to do otherwise than wait, if only to see whether Slaughter would come, and what he would do when he did come.

A cloud of dust rapidly advancing along the road was the first intimation of his approach, and as it came nearer they caught the sound of the galloping horse. He rode right up to the school-house gate and jumped out of the saddle. Marmot and his companions gathered round the gate as though to intercept him, till they saw his face. Then they fell back, and made way for him as he strode up the path towards the cottage, following him with their eyes, silent before the fascination of the terrible expression on his face. They were men whose minds worked slowly and in stolid grooves; men who pondered heavily over the prosaic occurrences which made up the monotonous routine of their lives; men who had no grasp of more subtle phenomena than those which formed the ordinary sequence of events in the restricted limits of their commonplace experiences. How, then, could they grasp in a moment, let alone comprehend, the sudden transformation of Slaughter from a soured and indifferent man to one of keen, quick, resolute character, whose tightly closed lips and lowering brow only emphasized the flash and glitter of his eyes?

They watched him as he passed up the pathway, with a stride and a swing so different from his ordinary listless dawdle. They heard the sound of his heavy tread on the boards of the cottage verandah. Then there was a silence, and the heavy wits of each of the waiting men strove to grasp sufficient of the spectacle to put his thoughts into words and ask for his comrades' help to understand. But before that could be done Slaughter again appeared coming down the pathway. He walked towards them, the frown gone from his face, and his eyes wide open and staring. A yard from them he stopped.

"He's dead," he exclaimed, in a hard, strained voice. "Dead—and I was too late."

The first words roused their interest, the last touched such sensibilities as they had. The figure of the man before them, strangely altered and moved, with the scornful bitterness they had learned to regard as his characteristic gone from his face, struck into their dull minds as something akin to a rebuke for their indifference to Ailleen's repeated requests for them to carry out a dying man's wish. The man was dead now, and Slaughter's words "too late" made them wince.

"It's a bad business," some one mumbled. "It's a bad business—for Yaller-head," he added, by way of diverting the suspicion of personal shortcomings.

"We'll see her through," Marmot said. "We'll——"

He stopped abruptly as he met Slaughter's glance; and the others looked from one to the other—from Marmot, disconcerted and uneasy, to Slaughter, whose face was set and hard in an expression that conveyed even to the men of Birralong the fact that they were in the presence of something which over-ruled them and subjugated them into a state of mental inferiority. The verbose Marmot, wordless; the listless Slaughter, dominant. It was a psychological crisis that humbled and abashed them.

They could only stand silent and expectant for the new development. The return of Slaughter to the cottage, this time with slow steps and bowed head, did not appeal to them as a development, and with that obtuse folly which is the birthright of the stolid, they straggled up the path after him. They were able to see into the room without going on to the verandah, and as each one glanced into it, he saw enough to rebuke him and make him turn back and walk sedately and quietly to the roadway.

When Slaughter reached the cottage the second time and looked into the room, Ailleen was on her knees crouched down beside the low bed on which lay the still form of her dead father. She held in both her hands one of his, and her head was resting on them, the wealth of golden hair, broken loose from its restraint, welling round and over them. Slaughter, as he came to the doorway, took the old felt hat from his head, and tried to walk on tip-toe lest his heavy boots should make too much noise.

With bowed head and averted glance he slowly walked from the door across the room, and round to the side of the bed where the girl was kneeling. She, hearing his footsteps, looked up for a moment, and then hid her face again. But he did not notice it. He walked on, with his eyes cast down, till he was beside her, when he sank on to his knees also, and gently touched her arm with his hard, rough hand.

"I ain't no stranger, miss—I ain't no stranger," he began, in a voice which was a curious blend of his ordinary harsh tones with a soft and quivering sympathy. "We're none of us strangers to you, miss, leastways me."

He paused uneasily, half hoping she would move or speak; but only the sound of a choked sob came to him, and he shivered. It was the moment when the curious crowd outside glanced into the silent room.



"Cold-blood Slaughter they calls me, miss," he went on presently, "for they say I ain't a feeling man; but it's only a name, miss. I've come here now, miss—here—to tell you, first from all of us, second from—me. We ain't no strangers, miss. We're all your friends, and—we—we'll see you through."

Again he paused, looking up timidly at the mass of golden hair which was gently trembling as the girl's emotions chased one another through her heart and being; he saw that, and beyond it, just over it, the still, white features of the dead man's face—and he lowered his glance again.

"Maybe my story'll help you, miss, for no one's ever heard it yet. I could only tell it—to you, and—here—now. They didn't call me Cold-blood Slaughter once; I was a soft chap then, and I loved a woman who loved me, till another came and lied, and I—I was Cold-blood Slaughter then. It was all a lie—God forgive the teller, for I can't—but the woman I loved believed it, and I went away—came here and took up the Three-mile, and kept it to myself, till—till she came here—she—the woman I loved—and she came as another man's wife."

His voice was growing hard in spite of the quiver that was in it; but the quiver was due to another emotion than that which had caused it at first, and he, realizing it, checked his utterance till the growing anger was subdued.

"She saw me once, miss, and turned from me, and I—I never saw her again. I kept away. Then she died, miss, and left a daughter behind, her daughter, just like her, more like her the more she grew, and then—then—the father died. I thought he never knew till he—told me—told me she'd told him she knew it was a lie, and asked me to be good to her daughter, for her sake, and—and—I've come."

He ceased, but did not dare to look up, lest he should meet her eyes as she raised her head to answer him. He was kneeling, stiffly, sitting back on his heels with his back straight, his arms hanging down at his sides, and his hands clasping the old grey felt hat. His head was leaning forward, and two tears ran down his sunburned cheeks to the tangled thickness of his grizzled beard. In the room no sound broke the stillness.

"I never knew till to-day she'd found it was a lie—I never knew she'd turned away because she was—she'd found out it wasn't true; and I've been a hard man all the time because I didn't know. Now, I'd like to put things straight, just tidy up a bit. I'm no sort of a hand at making things smooth, but maybe you won't feel us strangers now, and we'll do the best we can."

It was all he had to tell, all he could say; but it seemed so small and useless to him when the girl neither spoke nor moved. He waited in silence for her to give some sign that she heard and understood, and receiving none, looked up. She was kneeling as she had been when first he came into the room, as still as the other figure on the bed. He reached out his hand and touched her arm.

"Miss," he said, as he touched her; but there was neither sound nor movement in response. "Miss," he repeated, as he put his hand round her arm lest his touch had not been apparent to her, "we're none of us strangers, leastways——"

The grip on her arm might have been firmer than he meant; he might unconsciously have pushed her; but as he began to repeat again the formula of his sympathy, the only phrase which came to him through the mists of his sorrow and perplexity, Ailleen moved from her kneeling position as she slipped, pale and insensible, to the floor.

For a moment Slaughter looked at her. Then he sprang to his feet, and rushed, wild-eyed and panic-stricken, out of the room, across the verandah, and down the pathway to the road. The news of Godson's death having spread through the township, almost the entire population, men and women, were gathered round the gate. Marmot, anxious in some way to relieve the uncomfortable feeling he experienced since Slaughter had, as he thought, complained of being sent for too late, had kept them all back from going up to the cottage to proffer their help—a restraint the women members of the community especially resented.

As Slaughter appeared, running bareheaded down the pathway, they turned towards him; but he only pointed back to the cottage, and mumbled something they could not understand. The women hastened up, and, finding Ailleen lying in a dead faint on the floor, carried her between them into her own room. While they revived her, others of the community undertook the remaining responsibilities, for tropical heat leaves brief time for mourning ceremonies.

Slaughter, left to himself, loosened his horse from where some one had hitched him to the fence, and led him, walking slowly, down the township road and away in the direction of the Three-mile. He walked on, with the reins loosely looped over his shoulder, the horse, as though it knew his mood, measuring its steps to his, and keeping its head just level with him. The warm, dry air, scarcely more than a breath of wind, caught the dust as it rose from their footsteps, and drifted it, in a filmy, moving cloud, all around and over them. The horse snorted now and again as it felt the irritation in its nostrils, and blinked its eyes, until they were almost closed, to escape it; but Slaughter walked on oblivious to the dust, to the heat, to the time, to everything, save the growing consciousness of a dull mental pain that was beginning to gnaw and goad him into a state of mind very different to that which had held him while he was offering his sympathy to Ailleen. The years of bitter solitude, the years of cynical brooding over the wrongs that had come into his life, had built up an influence over him that was not to be dissipated by a momentary wave of sympathetic impulse. More than that, the sympathetic impulse had not been allowed to expend itself; as it developed it had been checked by the apparent unresponsiveness of its object, until, at the moment of its greatest vitality, it was abruptly arrested by the shock of Ailleen's collapse. And in that it was in keeping with all the other experiences Slaughter had known whenever the softer side of his nature, the love impulses of his being, were called into activity; always there had been a check put upon him which made the exercise restrained and restricted up to the time when a final shock had effectually arrested it, and turned his love and kindliness back, turned them away from their natural outlet to force them in upon themselves, until, in the succeeding turmoil and confusion, only bitterness and lonely brooding resulted.

Over the whole distance between the school-house and the solitary Three-mile he walked on, brooding and bitter. The action of the woman who turned from him when she first saw him after her arrival at Birralong, came to be viewed in a less charitable light than it was when he spoke of it to Ailleen. Then he said she turned away because she had learned she had wronged him; now in his thoughts he galled himself by attributing her action to fear and shame, and aggravated his sense of injury by recalling, again and again, that the man who had married her had kept for years the message she had sent on her deathbed. Disjointedly and incoherently, but always bitterly, he brooded and piled item on item, until there came to him the memory of the other, the memory of the woman who had first set his life awry.

A few kind sentences; a touch of human sympathy; a token of kindly impulse and generous open-heartedness at that moment when his better nature was stirred, and Slaughter might have forgotten in the warmth of the present the chill gloom of the past. But there was no one near him to give the necessary trend to the direction of his thoughts and emotions; nothing came to him save the recollection of the one whose jealous fancy had let loose all the hard cruelty of his nature; and Slaughter finished his walk with his mind seething in revengeful malice against the memory of the woman who had wrought his ruin.

He turned his horse into the paddock, force of habit impelling him to remove the saddle and bridle, the storm of his memory preventing him from even realizing that he did so. With the bridle on his arm, and the saddle under it, he walked to the hut and kicked the door open. On the threshold he stopped. Two men sat at the rough table in the middle of the room, and, as the door opened, the man with his back to the doorway turned in his seat and rose to his feet.

The saddle fell from Slaughter's arm, unnoticed; the presence of the second man was unrealized; for only could Slaughter stand and stare at the man who faced him—a man with a brutal head and black, heavy brows.

"You don't seem too pleased to see an old mate," he said, with something of a snarl in his voice.

"You!" Slaughter exclaimed.

"Yes, me; and why not?" replied the other, quickly and hotly.

"There's nothing between you and me—nothing," Slaughter said slowly.

"Is that so?" the man replied. "Well, I fancy I'm wrong, then, for I thought that the work Kate Blair had done was enough to make both of us learn——"

Slaughter started at the name, started forward, and then checked himself, though his face went hard and his hands clenched, and his eyes gleamed brighter than they did when he faced Marmot a few hours earlier. The man saw—and stopped.

"Go on," Slaughter cried, with a savage energy.

"I only talk to a mate I can trust," the man answered. "I didn't come here because it's your hut. We struck it on the road, and called in for a boil of the billy, and finding no one in, borrowed what we wanted. Seeing it's yours, and we ain't welcome, we'll move along. If the taint of Kate Blair in both our lives don't make us mates, why, it's so long to you and——"

He saw the lips press closer together and the frown grow deeper as Slaughter heard the name again, and he went on—

"But maybe you're friends with her now, friends with the"—he laughed, not too musically—"the woman who well-nigh hanged you."

The taunt let loose the rage and fury that had been gradually growing in Slaughter's mind; let loose from his restraint all the passionate emotions stirred and re-stirred by the events of the day; and before the storm of fierce denunciation to which he gave vent, one of the two men quailed, and strove to edge nearer the door. The black-browed man stood still, watching Slaughter as he raved, with an evil smile lurking round the corners of his thin lips.

When, from sheer exhaustion, the enraged Slaughter paused for a moment, he had his words ready.

"Good," he said. "You've not forgotten. More have I. Now that I know you, I'll tell you. I'm going back to make things square. Will you join me?"

Slaughter looked at him, his rage still rankling and burning.

"Going back?" he said. "Back? What! back to Sydney?"

The man laughed.

"Sydney!" he exclaimed. "Why, you fool, she's not in Sydney. She left there nearly thirty years ago. She's here—or hereabouts."

Slaughter, quivering, staggering, trembling, clutched at his throat as he heard the words.

"Here!" he shouted. "Here, within reach of me, when I——"

"Hereabouts, I said," the other exclaimed roughly. "Keep your wits, and listen."

The interruption checked his words, but could not check the red fury that was surging through Slaughter's overstrung brain. The man who, in the presence of Ailleen's sorrow, had been gentle and soft-hearted, was now, in the presence of the full force of embittered memory, swayed only by one impulse, conscious only of one thing. Hate, an unreasoning madness of hate, was upon him, and to soothe that hate, to satisfy the craving it engendered, the object of it, sacrificed as a victim, was alone capable.

The power of the other man's voice checked his words; the power of the other man's eyes, staring steadily into his from beneath the black band of the heavy brows, checked his wandering glance. He essayed to speak; the words choked in his throat. He strove to leap forward and rush from the hut into the sunlight beyond; but the place seemed to spin round him. A red film spread before his eyes; a roaring crash of sound filled his ears; his lungs gasped for the air they could not breathe; and it seemed as though his brain burst his skull asunder as he reeled and fell like a log to the floor.

Looking down at him where he lay, the man with the brutal head said to his companion, in a tone of callous indifference—

"There was a streak of luck in it, Tap, my son, for we've struck a better man than your mate Walker, and a man who's with us to the end."



CHAPTER VIII.

SKINNING THE WILD CAT.

The hum of the men's voices and the clatter of their picks and shovels, as they worked along the banks of the creek with the vigour and energy of men who thirst for gold and believe it is in the ground under their feet only waiting to be taken out, were the last sounds that came to Tony and his companions as they passed over the crest of the rise. Beyond it the land was level for a distance, but between the trees they could see where it was densely wooded, as though a creek flowed in the vicinity.

"There's broken country ahead, if I'm not mistaken," Peters said. "It'll be as well to push on beyond the scrub, or up to it, before we camp."

Palmer Billy looked round at Peters.

"There's a creek through the scrub, or I ain't no singer," he remarked. "And if there's a creek through the scrub, there's gold in the creek, and it's good enough to have a look at it before going on."

"There's no gold in it," Gleeson exclaimed.

"You say you've been there?" Peters asked.

"No, I don't; but I say there's no gold in it. No more than there is in the creek way-back. There's no gold in the country. Let the others find it out for themselves; but now Walker's turned up no good, and we're all mates in the swim, I'll tell you straight. The whole game was a bit of bluff."

"Here, steady, young feller," Palmer Billy said, as he swung his swag to the ground and faced Gleeson. "Let's have a plain talk about this. What's your game, anyhow?"

"You told me——" Peters began, when Gleeson interrupted him.

"You want the yarn, and I'll tell you," he said.

"What's the good of waiting here?" Tony exclaimed. "It's nearly time for dinner, and you can yarn then. Let's push on to the creek, if there is one, and have a feed and yarn then."

"Young feller, my lad," Palmer Billy observed, turning towards Tony, "you've the head of a jayneus. In course. Who wants to yarn with a full tucker-bag outside and none under the waistbelt? Shove along."

He swung his swag on to his shoulder again and resumed the walk, the others following, Gleeson silent and morose.

The view of Palmer Billy was correct. A creek, full of clear water running over a sandy bed, flowed through the scrub; and while a fire was being lit to boil the billy, Peters went a short distance along the banks of the creek. When he came back he looked at Gleeson.

"You say you've been here?" he asked.

"No," Gleeson answered. "I say there's no gold in this creek or the other. It was all bluff—only the game's gone wrong."

"Don't be too sure," Peters said. "We had no chance of prospecting the other creek, with the mob jumping every one's claims, but I'm on to wager this is no bluff. There's gold in that creek; not in tons, maybe, but enough to give us wages, and good wages, for more than a week or two."

"You don't say!" exclaimed Palmer Billy, standing up beside the fire over which he had been stooping, as he watched for the water in the billy to come to the boil.

"You're wrong," Gleeson retorted. "I tell you the whole thing was bluff. The hole we dug was salted, and the creek was to be salted for a bit; and then, when the rush set in, the news was to have been published and our claim offered for sale, and bought, and offered again, just as the big find was made, the find that was planted in the hole. Only Walker's turned wrong, and Tap, the chap we left to do the salting, has cleared with the gold; and if you hadn't stood by me in the row, I should have cleared too, and left you to get out of the way of the mob as best you could. Only you stood by me and Walker shied, so he can face the mob and the music, and we'll clear. But there's no gold in this creek. There may be a bit in the other; Tap may have dropped some of the stuff we were fools enough to trust with him; but I'll swear he never came here, so how could any gold get here?"

The three stood looking at him, Palmer Billy open-mouthed and open-eyed.

"And you calls yourself a miner?" he said, with scornful emphasis.

"No, I don't," Gleeson retorted. "I'm a mining expert—that's my business. There's money in that; there's none in mining; and I'm after money, if you want to know."

The outspoken frankness of the man momentarily checked the feeling of anger or antagonism that was rising in the minds of the other three. Tony, with the memory of what he had heard in Birralong of the engineers of wild-cat schemes, winced at the discovery that his leader was only a specimen of the tribe after all.

"What's the use of talking? You're after the same lay yourselves," Gleeson went on. "It's money you want, only you haven't got the savee to see the quickest way to get it."

Palmer Billy, his hat at the back of his head and his face working, moved a couple of steps nearer Gleeson.

"See here, young feller," he began. "I'm more than fifty by a long chalk, and I've been mining since I was fifteen; mining, I say—earning every slab of damper and pannikin of tea I've swallerd, not to mention 'bacca and sometimes a bender on rum, by as tough a share of graft as a man wants whose muscles ain't flabby. Fifty times I've struck a duffer on one field or another; twenty times I've struck a good show that petered out in a week; three times I struck it rich—rich enough to set me up if I'd stuck to the find, but always I've been had—had by darned dirty I-talyans from the towns on the coast, who've come up with their glib tongues and doctored tangle-foot and bested me, me and my mates, and shunted us to yacker and graft while they fattened on our find. And for years I've waited for the chance of meeting one of those scabs, just to get a bit even on one of them. There's three of you here, and there's one of me, but——"

"Don't make no error," Peters exclaimed quickly. "I'm a miner myself. I joined this show as a fair deal, and so did the lad there."

"Good for you," Palmer Billy replied. "The lad maybe don't know, but you and I don't want telling what's the pay for mining sharks. Here, put up your dooks," he added, as he sparred up to Gleeson.

"We're mates, don't I tell you?" Gleeson said. "I'm on for a square deal. I'm full of the others. I'll stand in——"

Palmer Billy, sparring round him in the approved methods of Boulder Creek, came within reach and hit. Behind the blow there was a lifetime of outraged humanity, as well as the strength of a toil-trained, toughened frame, and Gleeson fell like an ox under the pole-axe. He lay where he fell, and Palmer Billy, far from satisfied at such a brief exercise of his pugilistic talents, stirred him with his foot.

"Here, no sleepy 'possum tricks, if you please," he said, with what he considered appropriate politeness demanded by the occasion. "There's two more waitin' after me, and I ain't through yet. I don't want to keep you waiting. Get up and have yer smile out."

But Gleeson made no response, and Peters came over and looked at him. Palmer Billy's bony fist had left an unmistakable mark on the bridge of his nose, and the closed eyelids were already thickened and discoloured.

"You've punished him for the three of us," Peters said.

"Punished him? Don't you believe it," Palmer Billy answered. "I've only begun. He's going to learn what mining means before I've done with him, and then you two can take him on, and after that the boys over the rise. He's going to enjoy himself, I tell you, now we know who he is."

"It's no good hammering a chap like that; he wouldn't stand up to a black-fellow," Tony, who had been watching the proceedings, observed. "If there's gold in the creek, why——"

"That's just it," Palmer Billy interrupted. "If there's gold in the creek, he'll get it out while we take charge of it. He's used to all pay and no work. This journey he'll have all work and no pay. Oh, you're waking up, are you?" he added, as Gleeson recovered his senses sufficiently to make an ineffectual effort to rise. "Let me give you a hand," he went on, as he grabbed Gleeson by the back of his collar and jerked him on to his feet, where he stood, swaying to and fro and holding his head with both hands. "Now, maybe, you'll go on with this little affair," Palmer Billy continued. "Not that I want to hurry yer. Take your own time, only just say when you're ready to go on."

Gleeson, still dazed, looked round at the three standing in front of him. His head was throbbing with the knock-down blow he had received, and he had not yet had time to gather the exact meaning of his sensations. The words Palmer Billy used suggested journeying, and somewhere in the muddled confusion of his mind there was a decided impulse to journey.

"I'm ready now," he said indistinctly, as he dropped his hands. "I'm only waiting for you."

Palmer Billy, watchful, suspicious, and wroth, heard the words and saw the movement. He cut both short by getting his blow in before the ruse he believed Gleeson was trying to use could develop. The second smashing blow in his face, for which he was totally unprepared, sent Gleeson again to the ground, and also brought home to him the fact that he was very much at a disadvantage, and to a man who was by no means loth to profit by it.

He was not a fighter, either by instinct or training. In the matter of words he might hold his own, and, to any one who believed him, appear a man of great strength and courage. But when, by any mischance, he stumbled across an opponent who knew enough to correctly estimate the value of his professions, and who was self-reliant and sturdy enough to face him and challenge a proof of his assertions, Gleeson retired, or, failing escape, subsided rapidly. Usually his tact, as he called it, was successful in extricating him from positions where an exercise of brute force was imminent against him; he had never before been called on to cope with such a situation as he now realized he was in.

The second blow, directed more at his mouth, had not had the stupefying effect of the first, though it brought him to the ground with what Palmer Billy regarded as expert thoroughness. As he lay there, he understood the turn matters had taken; he was in the middle of what he had always managed to avoid, a rough-and-tumble bout of fisticuffs, and with a man stronger and more expert than himself. He partly raised his head from the ground in order to ascertain the disposition of the other two members of the party. He saw them behind Palmer Billy, looking on with apparent indifference to what was transpiring, and realized that they were certainly not on his side.

Palmer Billy, as he saw Gleeson raise his head, stepped over to him.

"You'd like to get up, I take it," he said, and reached down to catch him by the collar.

"Don't hit me. I never did you any harm," Gleeson whined, shrinking from the extending hand which he expected was about to administer another blow, and hiding his face on his arms.

Palmer Billy, standing up, glanced round at the other two with a look of scorn on his face.

"What price that?" he asked, with a mixture of savagery and contempt in his voice. "Here, get up," he went on before they could answer him, as he stirred Gleeson roughly with his foot. "Get up on to yer bended knees, or I'll sink a shaft through you as you lay."

Gleeson, fearful and subdued, scrambled up as he was told.

"Now," said Palmer Billy, with a fine tone of indignant authority, "we'll go on to the second portion of this 'ere drama. Pass me over them straps, my lad," he added, turning to Tony, and pointing to the weather-worn thongs he had bound round his swag.

As soon as he had them, he placed one in a noose round Gleeson's neck, and drew it tight enough to be uncomfortable, but not enough to check breathing.

"You hold this, lad," he said to Tony, who took the loose end of the strap and, just to see that it was all secure, jerked it slightly.

"I haven't done you harm," Gleeson began to whine; "I haven't done you harm. I'll do anything——"

"Dry up," Palmer Billy snarled. "We'll tell you when to talk."

Taking up one of the picks, he stepped in front of Gleeson, and held the pick so that the point of it rested on the crown of his head. Peters, following a hint, took up another, and stood by the side, holding it over his shoulder as though ready to strike.

"Now then, you scab of a mining shark," Palmer Billy said, in the full force of his raucous voice, "you'll say what I bid you, or we'll sink a shaft through your skull and see where your brains lie. D'ye hear?"

Gleeson, muddled, dazed, and terrified, mumbled out that he had never done them any harm.

"We ain't talking about that, because there ain't no talk in it. We ain't sharks, but you are, and we're just going to teach you something of what work is like. First you'll tell us just what your game was and who were in it. Then we'll tell you what we'll do."

"You're choking me," Gleeson whined. "I can't breathe, and you're breaking my head. I never did——"

"What was your game?" Peters interrupted to ask.

"I told you. I never meant to harm you. It was a fair deal. The claim was to be sold between ourselves, and then the big find was to be made and the claim sold again, only to some one else, and then——well, that's all. There's nothing wrong in that. It's done every day in mining. It's the only thing that pays in mining. Grubbing for nuggets is no good. Not one in ten thousand makes anything out of that; any fool can make a pile out of the other, if he only does it properly. I know the ropes. I'll put you all into a good thing later on, you see; something with more money in it than you'll make in a lifetime at grubbing after nuggets. You trust me. I'm square. I don't want to harm you. We're all mates, and——"

"Who were standing in over this swindle with you?" Peters asked.

"It wasn't a swindle. It was a fair speculation—a good open deal, and it would have made the fortune of every one who had the savee to see through it. Where's the swindle to sell what others want to buy and at their own valuation? We don't ask them to buy. We don't put up the price. We only tell people what a good thing we've got, and let it get known that so much gold has been found on our claim. If they come in and offer us big sums for our chance, and we take the offer, where's the swindle?"

Palmer Billy, moved to intense indignation, dropped the pick he was holding, and walked away for ten yards, swinging round and coming back with an angry stride.

"Swear, you slippery-tongued shark, you; swear by all the bones in your body that if you——"

The oath, whatever it might have been, was never completed nor administered, for his emotions becoming too much for him to hold in check, Palmer Billy sprang upon Gleeson, and gave vent to his feelings in a manner which was more satisfying to him than a mere oratorical outburst. Had he been allowed to complete his intention, the future career of Gleeson would not have been connected with mining swindles. For a time Peters and Tony, neither being predisposed in favour of Gleeson, stood by watching the chastisement Palmer Billy meted out, undisturbed by the cries for mercy and the yells of pain which the resounding blows of the raging digger called forth from his victim. It was only when both cries and yells ceased, and Gleeson lay senseless and inert, that they interfered.

"You're only wasting it," Peters said quietly, as he took hold of Palmer Billy's arm. "He can't feel it now."

Tony caught the other arm in time to prevent it delivering a blow at the man who had interrupted Palmer Billy's pleasant entertainment of thrashing one of a tribe who had so often lured him to destruction.

"Darned dirty I-talyan," he gasped, as he struggled to break away and re-open the campaign on the prostrate Gleeson.

"Give him a chance," Peters said. "Let him get his wind. There'll be none left for us to go for if you don't ease up a bit."

"That's fair, boys; that's fair," Palmer Billy exclaimed. "It's your go next; I'll stand by while you have your go."

"But what have you left for us?" Tony asked, as he let go Palmer Billy's arm.

Gleeson, very much bruised and dishevelled, lay on the broad of his back, breathing heavily.

"Put him in the shade, with a bucket of water on his head. He'll understand what honest mining means when he wakes up," Palmer Billy remarked, as he looked down at the prostrate figure.

They carried him into the shadow of the scrub and poured some water from the creek over his head. Then they left him to recover, while they gave their attention to the meal which had been so unceremoniously postponed.

When they had finished, they turned their attention again to Gleeson. But they had not hurried over their meal, having little care or consideration for him; and he, recovering consciousness while yet they were engaged, felt no qualms about making his retreat as quickly and as quietly as possible. Aching in every bone, and with every muscle bruised, he crept away through the shelter of the scrub, not daring to look for the swag he had thrown down, or the hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct which drives the wounded rat back to its hole to die, the instinct of self-preservation working in its meanest range. His swagger and bluster had been hopelessly crushed out of him by the vigour of Palmer Billy's attack; and to have been, as he considered, twice deserted by his own comrades, rendered his subjugation even more complete.

By the time that his flight was discovered he had over half an hour's start. The opinion as to the direction he had taken was unanimous—he must have gone back to the other creek to join his mate Walker.

"You slip over and pass the word along the creek," Palmer Billy said to Tony. "Tell the boys we were keeping him for them to deal with when they found how they'd been sold. They'll be about fit to boil him when they find out they're all sold."

"If a few of them come along," Peters said, "we can run him down in a few hours, and then we can——"

"Roast him," Palmer Billy interrupted savagely.

"Better let him get bushed. It's a hundred chances to one if he'll travel far after the hammering you gave him," Tony said.

"No, that would be cruel," Palmer Billy exclaimed. "He's only a mining shark, but still, white men ain't cruel."