So Tony left them, and returned to the creek in full expectation of finding Gleeson there before him. But as he approached the slope which extended down from the level track to the creek, he was astonished to see his own horse and Gleeson's quietly feeding, with their bridles, broken, trailing from their heads. To catch and mount his own was soon accomplished, and he rode on to the creek.

His approach was entirely ignored by the men along the banks, and he sat still on the bare back of his horse for a time looking with amazement before him.

Up the creek and down the creek men were stooping over the water, and many of them standing in it, as they washed, in every description of utensil, from a billy-lid to a soft felt hat, the gravel they obtained from immediately beneath the scanty turf on the banks. There was no talking, no shouting, no quarrelling. Behind each man there was a small patch where the turf had been turned back so as to enable the gravel to be scooped up, and the energies of every one seemed to be wholly devoted to the washing of the gravel, handful by handful, while the eyes were strained to catch a sight of the smallest particle of gold in the muddy swirl the gravel and water made in the article used for a dish. The intentness with which the work was done; the feverish movements of the men; the quick gestures and the grasping care exercised by them over the gravel,—all suggested that their anticipations had been realized, and they were really obtaining gold from the dirt.

Tony rode nearer the line of men. One had a small square of flannel open on the ground beside him, with a stone at each corner to prevent its being blown away, and in the centre Tony saw a small but steadily growing pile of yellow metal. Another man was using the lid of his billy as a dish to wash the gravel, while into the billy itself he was putting what he picked out of the slush. Yet another, as low down on his luck, perhaps, as it was possible even for a Boulder Creeker to be, was washing the gravel in his old felt hat, and had stripped the shirt from his back to lay on the ground as a receptacle for the gold he found; and the pile on the shirt showed he had struck a promising patch.

Everywhere it was the same; everywhere the men were silent and busy, and everywhere they were finding gold. The discovery drove all idea of Gleeson out of Tony's head, and he turned his horse back towards the rise, and rode rapidly up it and across to the scrub where he had left Peters and Palmer Billy.

"They're on gold; there's gold all along the creek," he shouted out, as he galloped up to where the two were standing.

For answer Peters held out the lid of the billy-can, and Tony saw in it four large nuggets and a quantity of coarse gold dust.

"That came out of the first two dishes," he said.

"We've struck it rich since you've been away, lad, struck it rich, which is all through killing that damned shark," Palmer Billy cried, capering up to him. "But—what price?" he exclaimed, as he stopped and stared at the horse. "Where did you raise this?"

"Down by the creek. Gleeson's was there as well," Tony answered.

"It's your own horse?" Peters said. "The one that was stolen?"

"That's so," Tony replied. "But there were only the two, and I left Gleeson's where it was."

"It's right into our hands," Peters went on. "We were just yarning about it as soon as we saw there was gold in the creek."

"Tucker, lad, tucker," Palmer Billy interrupted. "We're going to work along the creek while the stores last, but there's only enough for a few days, and we were wondering. Now it's all straight. You can ride off for enough to keep us going for a month if needs be."

While the stores lasted they worked in the creek; when the stock became so low as to threaten a famine, Tony, with the gold already won in his possession, started off, riding bare-backed for the spot where the saddles had been "planted," and carefully avoiding the men along the other creek. Finding the saddles where they had been left, he took his own and rode away towards Birralong, anticipating the entertainment he would have at the expense of the wise men who had prophesied so freely about the results of following up a wild-cat scheme.

The sun was nearing the horizon when he came out on the Birralong road, after a short cut across country, a little above the township. He made direct for Marmot's store, on the verandah of which he saw that several men were gathered. As he rode up, they looked round at him with apparent indifference, not even replying to the wave of the hand he gave when they turned their heads towards him. It did not occur to him that, as he was coming from the direction of Taylor's Flat, each of the men believed that he had returned to the selection after discovering that the gold-field yarn was all a wild-cat scheme, as they had prophesied, and had been lying low at the selection ever since, keeping out of the way until something else should have transpired so as to prevent them dwelling on the folly he had shown. The coolness the men displayed nettled him, and he rode up to the store in a free, careless fashion, while Marmot and his companions sat still looking at him, resenting the fact that he should not have come in at once and given them the opportunity of reminding him, constantly and plainly, that they had "told him so" before he set out on the trip with gully-raking dead-beats.

"How are you?" he called out to them, as he reined in his horse by the row of posts, but made no move to alight. "I'll be round in the morning with a pack-horse for some stores and tools we want," he added, addressing Marmot, who had not moved from the tobacco-box by the door. The indifference displayed towards him was irritating.

"Well, aren't you coming in?" Marmot said after a moment's silence.

"No; I'm just riding over first to see—to see how Godson's been all the time," Tony replied, as he pulled his horse's head round towards the road.

"Godson? Why, here—Tony, hold on," Marmot called out, as he jumped up and, stepping off the verandah, caught hold of a stirrup-leather just as Tony was moving his horse forward.

All the other men had also risen, and were standing staring at Tony in a manner that was as unintelligible to him as their previous indifference.

"Get off and come in," Marmot was saying. "We ain't quite clear on things, it seems to me. Where have you come from?"

Tony jerked his head towards the west.

"Away down the creek—I can't say nearer," he answered.

"Not from the Flat?"

"No; I'm going on there later. I——"

"Here, you come inside," Marmot said quickly. "You come inside, and hold yourself together."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Come up here, lad; there's news for you to hear," some one called from the verandah; and Tony, undecided and uneasy, got out of the saddle and walked on to the verandah where the men were still standing.

Marmot waved him to the tobacco-box.

"Godson's dead," he said.

"And buried," Smart added, with pardonable pride, for he was the local undertaker as well as saw-miller.

Tony, sitting on the tobacco-box, gazed at them open-mouthed.

"It was sudden—it's curled Cold-blood Slaughter clean up," Cullen put in as further explanation.

"And Yaller-head—she's gone to Barellan," another man, wishing to have some share in the proceedings, put in.

It was the last remark which brought Tony to his feet.

"Sit down, lad; sit down," Marmot explained. "We had to break it gently lest it scared you. Sit down and have a smoke. We're all with you."



CHAPTER IX.

CHORDS AND DISCORDS.

On the verandah of Barellan Mrs. Dickson was sitting, with the eyes that saw not staring away into the blue distance, with the soft, warm breeze blowing gently on to her face, and with a smile playing round her mouth. She was contented, more contented than she had been for many years; for since Ailleen had come to the station to live, there had not been a day when Willy had been entirely absent from the house, and so long as he was somewhere near her Mrs. Dickson was contented. The love, the unreasoning, unrequited love, she lavished on the boy was the one mainspring of her existence, the one gleam of happiness left to her since the terrible day when she had chanced upon the wreck of the stuck-up coach, and had returned to the station with the alarm, only to fall, when no one was near to help her, and lie with the fierce sunlight burning her eyes into blindness, and the weight of a knowledge upon her mind which would have killed her had not the needs of another life, dependent upon hers, maintained her.

There was a grim story behind it all—a grim story such as hovers over the life of a woman who plays with Fate, and is overtaken in the game. Vanity; love of admiration; thirst for notoriety; the love of men, easily won and lightly held, till the fascination of one came after gratified ambition had raised a barrier to its acceptance; the recoil of jealousy until the barrier was swept away; flight with the one whose influence had changed the current of life; discovery, and then disaster—it was a whirl of emotion, a flood of passion, an unkempt stream of mischief, till the compensating balance swung, and through the long, black years of blindness the chief character in the drama marked time while the outlying skeins of the tangle were unravelled, and Fate resumed control.

In the long, dark, lonely years it grew upon her how terrible a thing it would be if the one link which connected the happiness of the past with the present should snap; if the boy, who was the one gleam of light shining through the gloom of her life, should fail her. As the years rolled on, and the boy—always a boy to her—had passed from childhood into youth, his bearing towards her had been constantly in keeping with the opinion he usually expressed to any of his companions about her: "She's dotty half the time, and when she ain't, she's scotty." She was "dotty" when she tried to induce him to talk to her and tell her all he was doing out in the world of sunlight and sight, the world she could no longer know; she was "scotty" when she upbraided him, gently and lovingly, for needing so much questioning and inducing to talk. He gave her no love: she felt that, though she would never have admitted it by word of mouth; for even if he turned away from her, with brusqueness and hard words, she could not but love the boy her eyes had never seen. The memories he brought back to her, the associations of the years which had preceded the time of affliction, and the play of emotions and passions which she had known before the side-wash of life's stream caught her and drifted her, a dismantled derelict, on to the dreary salt-marsh of blind solitude, were enough to shed a glamour over him, however selfish and shallow-minded he might be.

And yet all the memories he brought back to her were not peaceful. There were some which broke the sunlight of the past by broad black bands of shadow, some which of late had been forcing themselves into her mind with an assertiveness that made her long for the companionship of some one with sympathy; such a one, indeed, as she realized Ailleen to be the moment the warm, big-hearted girl clasped her hand when she thought a stray word had given pain.

Shut out from the world by her blindness, she was still further isolated by the circumstances under which she was situated at Barellan. An up-country station has not a very large visiting list at the best of times; in the early days of a district there are the gum-trees and the 'possums, the scenery and the stock, and that is about all wherewith a woman can interest herself beyond those with whom she is immediately associated. With all these eliminated, the world of a white woman on a station is not likely to be particularly large nor especially attractive; and so the advent of Ailleen at Barellan put a fresh interest, and a kindly interest, into the blind woman's life. It was sorrow which had driven Ailleen away from Birralong—a sorrow and grief which the girl had bravely striven to keep in subjection by care and attention to the woman whose hospitality she was enjoying. But there was little heed of that in the mind of the Lady of Barellan. She was contented, and the cause of her content, or the price, so long as another paid it, was nothing to her now, any more than it had been in the far-off days before the curtain came down upon her vision.

The thoughts in her mind were pleasant, for she was thinking how the present attraction for Willy at the station might be made a permanent attraction, and then there would never be a risk of his being taken away from her. The chance idea for a moment troubled her—it suggested the black line of shadow which had marred the sunshine in the olden days.

"It is ten years since," she said to herself, as the smile died from her lips. "Ten years without a sign or a sound. Surely it will not come again now; surely I may have some peace, some rest. Twenty years in darkness, twenty years in lonely sorrow—surely that should pay the penalty of one mistake."

As she thought she sat upright in her chair, with her hands clasped suddenly together, her cheeks growing pale and her head leaning forward as she listened intently.

From the distance, in the direction of the clump of trees which marked the coaching disaster of years before, there came through the still, hot air the sound of a dingo's howl. The woman shuddered as she heard it—shuddered and lay back in her chair with tightly closed lips, and breath that was short and hard. Again the howl sounded across the paddock, and again she shuddered. Then, sitting upright, she twisted a light shawl she had with her over her head, and rising to her feet, slowly felt her way along the verandah, down the steps, and on until her hand touched the rail which ran from the verandah to the trees across the paddock.

She was following it, and was nearly halfway across, when Ailleen, coming on to the verandah, saw her, and at once ran after her. She turned as she heard the girl's voice calling, and waited where she stood.

"Why, where are you going? And alone, too," Ailleen exclaimed, as she came up; "and with only that rag on your head, and the sun scorching. Why——"

The elder woman turned a pale, careworn face towards her, and held up her hand.

"I ought to have told you—I forgot—but this—I always come alone. A long time ago something happened, and—I come to think and—and pray—here. You go back to the house. This rail is—to guide me, as I always go—alone."

There was something in the words, something in the voice, something in the face, which appealed to the girl.

"Just as you wish," she answered quietly. "Only let me get you a hat."

"I always come—like this," the other said. "I will wait till you go back."

She stood still with her face towards the house as Ailleen returned, and then, as she heard the girl's footsteps on the verandah, she turned and walked to the clump of trees, disappearing under their shade through the little gate in the fence. Closing the gate after her, she stepped forward, holding out a hand slightly in front of her.

"Well?"

At the sound of the word she stood rigid, the pallor deepening on her face. She knew where he was standing though she could not see; she knew that barely a yard away the man who spoke was standing, his heavy black brows forming a band across his forehead, drawn down in a scowl over eyes that glared at her in all the cruelty of unredeemed hate.

"How's the boy?"

"He is well," she answered, "very well. He is——"

"I've come for him."

The woman gasped and caught her breath.

"No, no," she said in a strained tone. "I cannot part with him. It would kill me."

"It's ten years and more since I was here, and now I've come back to see you, perhaps at the risk of my neck, you—you shrink from me," the man said, with cruelty in every line of his face and malice in his voice.

The woman stood still and silent. The last time, and every time, he had come he had said such things, but only when he threatened to take from her the one thing she cherished did she wince.

"Who was the girl?" he asked, watching her colourless face and staring eyes from under his black, heavy brows.

"She is a friend staying with me."

He laughed, not unmusically.

"Staying with you? A plaything for the boy, eh?"

"No," she said quickly. "No; he is not like that."

Again the man laughed.

"There are different tales in the district," he said. "I've been back long enough to learn that. If he were different, I'd have him out of this soon enough to learn him what to do—only he don't want teaching."

She shrank back a step, and the man noticed it and understood.

"Do you think I have forgotten?" he said, with a return of the vindictive cruelty in his voice. "Do you think I'd leave him here if it weren't to make things square? I've been away ten years—where, it's nothing to you; but it hasn't made me softer. I thought I'd come and see how the old place looked, and see whether you still were enjoying the affection of your son and keeping my hiding-place free."

"No one has touched it," she answered quietly.

"No; because you hadn't the pluck to destroy it. Don't tell me you kept it because you promised. I know how much your promises are worth. I've not forgotten."

She did not answer as he paused, and he went on:

"The boy's got to come here; I've got something for him to do. Then he and I——"

"No," she said quickly; "he shall not come."

He took a step forward, and seized her arms between the shoulder and the elbow in his strong, powerful grip, grasping them until his muscular fingers seemed to sink into the flesh. Then, in a sudden access of rage, he shook her to and fro, her slight form being as a lath in his hands.

"You tell me so?" he said. "You attempt to disobey me?"

He let go of her, and she sank to the ground.

"I'd kill you if I didn't hate you too much," he went on. "Get up and go back to the house. When I am ready, I shall come again; and when I come, I take him with me."

She heard his footsteps retreating through the clump of trees, and waited as she was, half kneeling, half sitting, on the ground, where he had left her. She felt her arms throbbing as the bruises formed where his hands had gripped; her head was swimming and giddy from the shaking he had given her; her heart was palpitating with fear and emotion; and as she crouched to the ground, there came back to her the words she had said to Ailleen. She had come to the place to think—and to pray!

The irony of it came to her in her helplessness and misery. Only a short while before she had been flattering herself that, after an absence of ten years, she might believe that the dark shadow which had so marred her life had passed away for ever; that, after a period of ten years' silence, she was never to hear again the voice of the man which held her helpless and unresisting to do his bidding, to suffer whatever his merciless hatred might dictate, to submit, silently and bitterly, to anything that he should command. And even as the shattering of all those hopes went on, leaving her trembling and unnerved, there came to her the knowledge that with one effort she could snap the influence that he had over her, could end for ever her thraldom to him. It looked so easy, so simple, from her present position, and so awful. To speak, to tell the world the great secret of her life, the maintenance of which had lain between her and the chasm she, in her timidity, dare not look towards, was to end this hold of terror, and, so it seemed to her, to shatter at the same moment that to which she clung with all the instinct of her very existence—the affection of her son.

That always appeared to her to be the price of her emancipation. Through all the dark years of her blindness the solace had been in the love she gave to him, and in the ideal sympathy with which she persuaded herself he regarded her. Sometimes she thought what the effect would be if he ever learned the truth, and was half inclined to speak and end her misery, trusting to his generous instincts, which were so manifest to her when he was absent; but when he came to her and spoke, there was something in his voice and manner which she would not own, even to herself, as being a contradiction to her faith, and yet which chilled her and made her seek a refuge in the haven of the cowardly—procrastination.

Now another element had come into her life—her liking for Ailleen. The simple courage the girl had displayed in the trial which had fallen upon her, the unselfish putting aside of her own grief to soothe and make happier the life of her blind friend, all weighed against the uttering of the story which would destroy the overpowering demon of terror to which she was subjected; for the uttering of the story would shatter, at one word, she thought, the confidence, the affection, and the kindliness of Ailleen.

Of the threat the man had made she thought nothing; he had made similar threats too often before, until she felt he only used them to goad her into deeper misery. He was merciless and, to all save himself, treacherous—how much she dared not think—but she would not believe that his threat to take her boy from her was genuine. All she could think of, as she sat huddled up on the ground, was to cling to the belief that her boy would not be taken away, and that somehow the mental torture the man's existence caused her, and the physical pain he never hesitated to inflict, might some day cease.

While she was under the protecting shade of the trees another little drama was being enacted on the verandah of the station-house.

Scarcely had Ailleen, obedient to the elder woman's wish, reached it, when she saw a horseman come through the gate from beside which she had first seen Barellan. He rode rapidly towards the house, and as he approached her heart gave a leap, for she recognized first the grey horse, and then its rider. He saw her as she came up, and waved his hand. Springing from the saddle a few moments later, he fastened the bridle round the hand-rail which served as the blind woman's guide to and from the house and the trees, and hastened to where Ailleen was standing at the top of the steps.

"I only heard last night, Ailleen," he said simply, as he came and took both her hands in his. "I—I don't know what to say; but you know, don't you?"

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak to the only one whose sympathy she really wanted, but whom she did not want to know it.

"I hardly knew what to do when they told me," he went on, looking at her with eyes that she glanced into once and then avoided—sympathy, love, and tenderness were too manifest in them for her to look again without revealing what she, in the perversity of her feminine way, still wanted to hide. "I didn't know what to make of it when they told me you were here, till Nellie Murray said I should ride over to see."

It came to her, with a jealous little twinge, that after all the haste he had shown in riding had been prompted by another girl; and in the midst of her battle with feelings realized and feelings unrealized, the struggle between the important and the unimportant, Ailleen, as a woman, naturally jumped at the unimportant, and clung to it.

"That was very good of her. I'm glad you had her advice. Won't you sit down?"

The words were as foreign as they well could be to what was in her heart, but they relieved the situation for the moment, and saved her from showing what she really meant.

"Why didn't you go to the Flat?" he asked, not heeding her words; "mother would do anything for you, and father too—or to the Murrays, or anywhere but here? Won't you come now? Mother wants you to come to the Flat, and every one in Birralong——"

"I promised before——" and her lip quivered for a moment—"to come to Mrs. Dickson. She asked me. I don't want to—offend any one, but—she is so kind to me, and she's blind too, poor creature, and all alone."

"But, Ailleen——" he began, and stopped, looking hard at her face, turned half away from him in her anxiety to avoid meeting his glance. "We've found gold," he went on presently, after a few moments' silence. "Not much, but still enough to—enough for us. When I've got enough—when I come back—after this trip—if—I——"

He was floundering along, struggling vainly to put just one simple little sentiment into a simple little sentence, and drifting more and more into confusion and away from what he wanted to say. What that was she was quite well aware, and also was aware what reply she would make to it when once it was said; but for the present, with eternal feminine perversity, she did not want it said, so she saw an imagined rider across the paddock, and exclaimed—

"Is that Willy Dickson over there?"

Tony looked, half angrily.

"It isn't anybody," he said.

"Oh, I thought—yes, it's a shadow," she said, as she walked to the end of the verandah and, leaning her hands on the rail, looked away into the distance.

He turned and followed her, and had one of his hands over hers and his arm ready to put round her.

"Ailleen, you're all alone now. Let me be your——"

"You are always my friend," she answered softly, but without raising her eyes, and with a barely perceptible movement away from him.

The arm that was ready was around and restrained her, and her hand he was clasping was pressed to his breast.

"More than that, Ailleen."

She turned her head quickly, and looked at him with a flash in her eyes as she disengaged her hand and stepped away.

"It will be less than that," she retorted quickly; and he, shamefaced and repulsed, stood hesitating what to do—and so failed. "I am perfectly comfortable here," she went on rapidly, lest he should recover his wits and renew an attack she knew she could not withstand. "Mrs. Dickson is very kind, and I've got my horse and all that I want; and besides, I can do a lot for her, and I'm not like I should be if I stayed with any one at Birralong."

He stood awkwardly, looking at her now that her eyes were no longer turned upon him, and wondering, in a dim, uncertain way, whether she was angered at the overtures he had made, or annoyed because he stopped when he did. She, half regretting her brusqueness, feared she had offended him, as he made no apparent effort to speak.

"And you have found gold," she went on, anxious that silence should not come between them at that moment. "Tell me all about it. Was it in the creek where they said it was—Boulder Creek, wasn't it?"

"Boulder Creek's down the gully beyond the Flat," he answered mechanically; for the mistake in locality was one she ought not to have made, and a young bushman is jealous of the landmarks that he knows.

"Oh, of course. How silly of me! It was Boulder Creek where——"

She stopped in time to avoid a reference to a bygone episode which would not be too pleasant at that moment.

"Where Dickson threw my stirrup-irons and I made him go in after them," he said, finishing the sentence for her, and in a tone of voice which showed that resentment was slowly taking the place of the uneasiness at his discomfiture.

"Poor Willy! You always were quarrelling, you two. Why can't you be friends? I'm sure he is good-natured enough."

Resentment was quickly re-inforced by another sentiment as he heard her speaking of Dickson in a manner which suggested that in her eyes he was the least offender of the two. The words which rose to his lips were angry words, and he checked them because, for a moment, she looked up and met his glance. The angry words died down, but no others took their place, and he was once more awkward and ill at ease.

"What else did Nellie Murray say?" she asked, still anxious to avoid the embarrassment of silence, and unfortunately striking again a line of thought in his mind which did not make for peace.

Nellie Murray, as a matter of fact, had thrown out hints, not by any means too obscure, to the effect that if he hastened to Barellan he might find Ailleen enjoying the society of Dickson to the exclusion of all else. That had been the reason of his haste; that had been the reason of his precipitate action when he found she was alone—fearing that at any moment Dickson might appear. In the confusion of his mind subsequent on her repelling his advances, he had lost sight, temporarily, of the suspicions Nellie's words had roused in his mind. Ailleen's reference brought them again to his memory. What else did Nellie say? It was not so much what she said as what she implied. Before he had gone away from Birralong—before the commencement of the tiff which had come between Ailleen and himself, and which was so steadily increasing in influence and importance, though its origin was impossible to indicate—Nellie's opinion of Ailleen was the same as Ailleen's opinion of Nellie, the opinion of one girl friend for her bosom companion—enthusiastic, unmeasured, and, above all things, loyal. There had certainly not been an excess of loyalty in Nellie's manner, or in her words, when she urged him to go to Barellan; and he, remembering it, was about to say something to that effect, when Ailleen cut him short by exclaiming—

"Oh, look! There's Mrs. Dickson coming over to the house."

He looked where she pointed and saw the form of a woman walking slowly along by the hand-rail. The sound of a horse galloping made him turn round, when he saw Willy Dickson going straight for the hand-rail near the house, and near where his grey was hitched. As Dickson came up he tried to make his horse jump; instead, it baulked, and blundered into the rail, carrying away some distance of it and liberating Tony's horse.

In the confusion of recovering the startled grey neither of the three observed how Mrs. Dickson had walked to where the rail was broken, and stood just beyond it, feeling from side to side, unable to realize where it had gone. Ailleen noticed her, and ran to her assistance.

"Tony, look!" she exclaimed; and he, seeing what was the matter, also hastened to her side.

Dickson, resenting Tony's appearance at the station, as well as the way Ailleen behaved towards him, also hurried over.

"A horse has knocked the rail over," Ailleen exclaimed, as she took Mrs. Dickson's arm.

"Let me help you," Tony said, as he took the other.

The blind woman stood motionless, with closely compressed lips and eyes that stared in their sightless fixity.

"Here, I'll take her back," Dickson said abruptly, as he pushed Ailleen aside. "Come on. What do you want mooning out here for?" he added roughly to Mrs. Dickson, as he caught hold of her arm.

She half shuddered as he spoke and touched her, but moved forward, leaning the more on Tony. At the steps her foot caught against the lowest.

"Why aren't you careful?" Dickson exclaimed.

She freed her arm from his.

"Show me," she said to Tony, holding his arm tightly; and he gently led her on to the verandah and up to the chair Ailleen moved forward for her.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "Thank you;" and then, speaking as though with an effort, she asked, "Who are you?"

"This is Tony Taylor—my—my friend," Ailleen said quickly.

The blind woman nodded slowly in answer, clasping her hands together in her lap and closing her lips tightly.

"You should not have gone out in the sun with only that thin rag over your head," Ailleen said gently to her. "You look knocked up. Shall I——"

"No," Mrs. Dickson interrupted quickly and abruptly. "Where's Willy?"

"He's looking at that rail that is broken," Ailleen answered; and Tony, standing by the steps, caught her eye, and forgot the anger he had felt.

"Shall I call him?" he said softly.

The blind woman's hands clutched one another convulsively, and she sat up in her chair, rigid, with compressed lips and pale cheeks, the staring eyes fixed in the direction whence she had heard Tony's voice.

"Tell him to go away. Tell him to go away," she said hurriedly to Ailleen. "I want Willy. I want my boy. Where is my boy?"

Ailleen, meaning only to sign to Tony not to speak again, waved her hand towards him as she bent over Mrs. Dickson. He, hearing the blind woman's words, accepted the sign as a request to go, and, with anger again rising in his breast, he turned away, caught and mounted his horse, and, without a word or a glance, galloped from the station.



CHAPTER X.

THE RACE FOR GOLD.

A land may be bare and barren, uninhabitable and desolate; the cold winds of the snow-borne North may blow across it, and freeze it into ice-bound sterility; or the blazing fury of the tropic sun may pour down upon it, and scorch it into a dreary waste of glaring, burning sand; but if there is gold in it, and if man comes to know that the gold is in it, desolation, frozen sterility, or scorching waste, are alike doomed for conquest. The gold may lie in the sand; the gold may be held under the ice, or be hidden away in massive tiers of rock hard enough and big enough to defy the wear and tear of time through countless ages; but when man comes—man who knows and understands the needs and uses of humanity—the gold will be wrested from whatever holds it, and carried away in pride and glory to the greatest centres of population to grace still further the triumphs of mankind over the grim tyrannies of Nature.

A good many men may suffer in the process. The cold, or the heat, or the lurking fever germ, will own many a victim before they own defeat, and even amongst the men themselves—the men who should be united as in the face of a common enemy—there will be the wherewithal and the impulse to swell the price paid for the hard-won fruits of victory. And so it was at Birralong.

The find of gold on Ripple Creek (as the stream was named where Gleeson unconsciously led the Boulder Creekers to wealth) brought many a change among the men who found it.

For the first few weeks after the discovery each man was too busy winning as much as he could in the least possible time to notice very much what was going on around him. The banks of the creek were pretty well lined with men, and all the men were working wherever the layer of sandy gravel was found under the scanty topping of turf. Higher up the stream the turf lay upon rock, and lower down the stream there was no gravel at all to be found. Only was there the one area, fortunately large enough to give all the men from Boulder Creek working room, over which the sandy gravel occurred, as though at some time in the remote, bygone days a small lake had been formed in the course of the stream, into which the water from higher up had carried down and spread out the gold-bearing drift, until the basin was filled up, and the lake disappeared, as the stream flowed on its way uninterrupted and undetained. As it was, the drift was very evenly enriched by the gold, and each man, as he worked, was happy in his own surroundings, and so did not bother about those of his neighbours. Only when each one began to reach the limits of his claim, and away down the creek the water was re-depositing the rejected sand and gravel from which the gold had been washed, did any one have time to look around him. Then it was seen that the population along the creek was the population of the dirt-holes of Boulder Creek—the teeming thousands whom each one expected had arrived long since, as foretold by Gleeson, were not to be seen. It was curious, for every one had gold enough to keep them for a year with care, and they had no doubt that the drift they had been working in, and had worked out, was to be found anywhere for the looking. But they did not look. Each man had his own fancy to follow, and with money, or its equivalent, the following was easy.

A few, whose faith in the possibilities of the alleged reefs on Boulder Creek was not to be shaken by mere alluvial success, went back with their winnings, and used them to keep the mill going, while they drove and tunnelled and sank in search of the phantom reefs. A few—a very few—thought again of bygone dreams they had had about selections of their own, and set out, bursting with good intentions of taking up land somewhere. But the majority had no such thoughts and no such cares. They had struck a patch; they had money in hand, the result of their toil on the patch; and now they were free to spend it, without a thought or care—spend it as freely as they had made it, spend it in the search of a similarly engrossing delight to that which they had experienced in the finding of it; and when it was gone—if any gave a moment's consideration to the question, it was answered by mentally jerking the head towards the creek—when it was gone, they would come back and get some more. What comes easy, goes easy; and who cares for the morrow when to-day overflows with content?

In search of the delights they needed, their energies were quickened by the fact that Christmas and the New Year were approaching. A twelvemonth before there had been a dearth of entertainment, more than usually pronounced, in the neighbourhood of Boulder Creek, and not even the combined persuasiveness of the inhabitants could induce the landlord of Cudlip's Rest to "set 'em up" for luck in an all-round shout. Just to stimulate the spirit of good fellowship, one man had dexterously annexed a couple of bottles of Pain-killer from a hawker's waggon he stumbled across, and those who were in his vicinity toasted one another and the general run of the diggings in nobblers of it; but it was not a success, and the festive season was even less exhilarating to the revellers than it was to those who had not participated in the "find."

Now the situation was different. There was money in the land, and with the memory still acute how, the year before, the landlord of Cudlip's Rest had been deaf to their blandishments, and proof against their numbers (for he had abstained even from replenishing his stock lest a wave of communistic instinct might sweep up Boulder Creek), they turned with one accord towards the town of Birralong. As they toiled and slaved along Boulder Creek, when they thought of Birralong at all it was to heap upon it and its inhabitants the scorn they considered was justly earned by a settlement which looked at a miner askance, and from whence stores, for years past, had been unobtainable save on a cash basis. The name of Marmot did not rank high with the fossickers when funds were low, and the joys of the Carrier's Rest were only known to the man who had "struck it" from time to time in the creek; but the aloofness of Cudlip's Rest the previous Christmas still rankled, and, not for any special admiration or respect for it, Birralong was chosen as the scene of the coming festivities.

Marmot, having completed on the day before the last order he was expecting for the season, was taking it easy on the verandah, sitting, as was his wont, in his shirt-sleeves and with a pipe in his mouth, on the tobacco-box in front of the open doorway, just where he received the full benefit of any draught which might be set up by the heated iron roof over his head and the cool of the shade in the store. There was not much danger of taking cold; rather would a chill have been enjoyable as a change from the sweltering heat of the summer's day. The steady swing of the grasshopper's song—like the wavering hum of a telegraph pole pitched in a high, shrill key—came through the hot air on all sides, until it seemed to spring from the ground in answer to the heat-rays that beat upon it—a response from the great dusty parched crust to the ceaseless throb of the heat-waves pulsing and splashing upon it, like the ripple and rattle of shingle stones at the rush of retreating tides. There was no wind, not even a breeze; and yet the heat came in wafts and currents, as it comes from an open furnace-door as the up-draught ebbs and flows. The tough, tanned skin of old Marmot glistened with a faint moisture one moment as an extra hot wave rolled by, drying hard and rough a second later as the parched air sucked up the moisture like a greedy flame licks oil.

The life of the bush was silent, save for the grasshoppers and an occasional stridulation from an energetic cicada (locust, as the bush-term has it, and which, like many another bush-name, seems to have been given because it was inappropriate, for the cicada is anything but a locust, while the "grasshopper" is nothing else). The leaves of the gums hung motionless, with their sharp edge turned to the sun-glare, so as to let the fierce heat strike on the stems and curl the shed-bark into long festoons—and puzzle the minds of the new chums why broad leaves cast no shade. Under the folds of the shed-bark the lizards cuddled asleep, and occasionally a tree-snake shared their shelter; while far down, squeezing into the farthest corner, away from the heat and glare, and away from their unwelcome neighbours, the green tree-frogs spread their ball-pointed toes and turned their golden eyes up to the light to watch the coiled mystery as they slept.

The iron of the store-roof popped and crackled now and then as a sheet of "galvanized," expanding, strained on a nail and buckled. And yet from further down the township road there came the whirr and shriek of Smart's buzz-saw rending its way through hard-wood logs; the clang and jangle of Cullen's hammers as they fell on iron and anvil; and more sleepily, more drowsily, more in keeping with the hot languor of the day, the hum of the children's voices as they chanted their task in unison on the open verandah of the school-house. Marmot, listening and heeding, thought, and the thoughts grew in importance in his mind and in impressiveness, until, forgetful that the court was not sitting and that he was alone, he took the pipe from his lips, and, pointing the stem down the dusty, sun-scorched track, exclaimed—

"The cause—the fust cause—the great cause—the cause of our being a nation—the nation; yes, bust me, the nation—is—what?"

He waited for an answer from the silence of the verandah, and, receiving none, save the crackle of the sheets of iron in the roof, pointed with his pipe-stem in the direction of the sounds from the township.

"That!" he exclaimed. "There it is—energy—go—good Anglo-Saxon go. That's what makes us what we are. Here's the bush asleep. If there's any niggers in it, they're asleep. Even the lizards are asleep. The trees stop growing, and won't even make a shade; but us—do we stop? No! There ain't nothin' that'll stop us. We didn't make the world altogether maybe, but, by smoke, we're making it fit for our needs. Who'd work this hot spell except us? Who'd run this country except us? Here's Australia; there's Africa; there's America; there's India; and there's "home;" and who runs the lot if it ain't us? And what's the world outside of that lot? A few paddocks full of dargoes and black-fellows ready to cut each other's throats if it wasn't for us."

He put his pipe once more between his lips, and sat thinking in silence. The buzz-saw whirred and jarred; the hammers clanged and jangled; the school-children droned and hummed; and beyond Marmot saw in his fancy the selections whence they came to school. Always the same picture, inasmuch that in each there was work. Here a man was working with his hoe in his pumpkin patch; there another cared for his maize; a third was splitting shingles for the roof of a shed he was building; a fourth was splitting logs with a heavy maul and wedge for fencing rails; a fifth was fixing water-tanks to be ready when the rain came; while a sixth was digging a waterhole in the hard, baked earth also to be ready for the rain. On every selection, as it came into Marmot's mind, there was work going on—work that made the tanned skins of the workers glisten with the beads of sweat; work that made moving pictures against a background of nature at rest. Inside the selection houses the women did their share, and sometimes outside as well. Beyond the houses and the selections, in the gullies of the ranges, men worked as they sought for mineral wealth when the sun was high, as well as when it was low; on the big paddocks of the station the bush slept, and the flocks and herds huddled wherever shelter could be found, but the men were never still, not even in the station homesteads. Everywhere that the mind of Marmot wandered, every scene that came to him as he sat and mused, showed white men, the men of the Anglo-Saxon blood, tireless, restless, working. Only when men of other races, dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, passed his mental vision, was there the stillness of lazy rest; and Marmot was pleased, for he loved to prate of the Anglo-Saxon and the work they had done, and would do, for the world that gave them birth.

His meditations were interrupted by the sound of many voices, and he rose from his seat and went to the edge of the verandah, so as to command a better view up the road. A wide column of dust, or a cloud made up of columns, moved down the centre, the sunlight gleaming on the dust-cloud, making it nearly opaque, and rendering the figures of the men within it almost invisible. It approached rapidly, and part of it rolled along as an advance guard, filling the air that Marmot breathed till he coughed and swore. When the main body arrived, he felt it in his eyes and nostrils, and the men who tramped on to the verandah and into the store were covered with it, so that, as they moved, it came in small puffs from their clothes and boots.

The men trooped past him and into the store, talking and chaffing, their clothes toil-stained and ragged, their faces tanned nearly black by the sun.

"Now, then, old brusher, where's your reach-me-downers?" one asked.

"Sling out a pound of twist as a start," another demanded.

"Two revolvers and a bag of shot," a third wanted; while others clamoured for tent-calico, blankets, sheath-knives, and such like necessaries, and, growing impatient at not being attended to at once, tramped out on to the verandah, where they sat on their swags as they filled their pipes.

"There's no rum in the show, boys," a man exclaimed, as he appeared in the doorway. "It's all up at the pub."

"Come on, then," the last man to arrive, and who had just slung his swag to the ground by the horse-posts, cried, as he swung his swag on to his shoulder again.

Like a body of ants swarming on to a victim they had come from the road to the store. Now they streamed out again and gathered in the roadway, calling to one another, chaffing one another, and worrying those who still lingered inside to hasten along and bring the storekeeper with them.

Then, with Marmot in the lead, they passed slowly down the township road, and as they passed the various centres of industry which had so roused Marmot's admiration earlier in the day, a hush fell upon the machinery and the workers ceased their labours, while the procession in the direction of the Rest grew larger. It was just such an occasion as justified the expansion of bush hospitality, and Birralong, recognizing the fact, went out as a man to meet it. The school-children, as they trooped away home, carried the message with them to their fathers and their brothers that the prospectors had come in from the ranges with a team-load of nuggets, and that there was a pile of them on the bar table at the Rest being melted. The news travelled, as such news will, and many a man on a neighbouring selection was moved to thought. Half the farming implements in the district were damaged or out of order, and flooring-boards were at a premium, to judge by the numbers of clients who, during the early evening—school only broke up at four—rode or drove up to the smithy and the saw-mill, and had perforce to seek the proprietors farther afield.

Since the arrival of the trio who led Tony away the Rest had not known such an entertainment. There was drought in the land, and water was so scarce on many a selection that washing was a luxury which stood adjourned till the rain came, and so the Rest had been allowed to slumber. But a good store of necessaries, as so regarded at a bush hotel, was in the house, for a drought is usually followed, sooner or later, by a flood; and in a country where rain is rare and sunshine frequent, that which in more humid countries is regarded with displeasure, is hailed in droughty lands as an occasion for festivity and mirth; hence the Rest was well stocked, so as to be ready for the rain.

The accommodation for housing an unlimited number of visitors, however, was not quite so apparent, but when those visitors were men who had for years past known no other roof than a tent, and often none other than the sky, sleeping quarters were not difficult to obtain, especially as each man had his blankets—or what passed for such—with him. There were paddocks round the Rest and calico enough for a hundred tents in Marmot's store, and with gold in their pockets, the fossickers of Boulder Creek asked for nothing more—in the way of shelter.

The diggers shared their good fortune royally with their comrades and friends, and song and jest circulated, as well as the encourager of both, and the atmosphere in the big, lumbering room which served the purpose of a bar, was filled with laughter and tobacco-smoke on the first night of the arrival.

Subsequently other elements supervened—elements which had their origin in the influence of potent libations acting on natures by no means warped by conventional thought, but which, under that influence, were stripped of the scanty robes they wore, and stood before the world naked in all the simplicity and crudity of first principles.

There was a guest already staying at the Rest when the crowd of diggers arrived—a guest whose suave manner and smooth tongue had been used to ingratiate himself with the proprietor of the Rest, but which had only tended to induce a lurking suspicion against him. Men used to the blunt methods of unadulterated human nature are prone to be sceptical of the motives which underlie what they tersely define as "chin-oil."

He, a slim, long-limbed man, with a sharp-featured face and shifty eyes, who said his name was Tap, lingered round the bar as the diggers trooped in, and smiled and cringed as he heard the order given to "Fill 'em up, fill 'em all up." When his glass was charged, he sidled up to a group, and asked, in his smooth voice, whether any one had found a nugget.

The man nearest, a burly, sunburned specimen, with a voice like a bull's and a vocabulary limited in everything save profanity, turned and looked at him.

"Nuggets?" he said, with a large embellishment of adjective, as he produced a canvas bag from inside his shirt and opened the mouth of it, revealing a store of gold. "We've all got 'em—enough to buy"—and he indicated Birralong.

"Oh, I am glad," the smooth-tongued Tap rejoined. "You must have worked hard; and in the hot weather too."

The man swallowed the contents of his glass, and set it down with a bang on the table as he fixed his eyes on Tap's face, and from the succeeding observations Tap realized that his sympathy and would-be friendly overture had been as gall in the mouth of his companion, who, unused to anything save the rugged bluntness of a wild, free life, took the mealy-mouthed sentence as a slight on his intelligence. The storm was averted by Tap inviting him to "have another," and, with delicate humility, taking the burly man's glass up to the bar in order to have it replenished—and also charged against the score of the burly man. Then he discreetly moved away, and mingled with other groups, always reaching one as the order was being given, and moving on to another before the time came for the "shout" to get round to his turn, until he had learned conclusively that every one of the men had a fair-sized bag of gold somewhere in his possession, and felt satisfied that he had imbibed as much as he could conveniently carry at their expense.

Slipping out of the room quietly and unostentatiously, he went round to the paddock where his horse was, saddled it, and rode away. The sounds of uproarious mirth came to him from the direction of the Rest, and he smiled furtively.

"It's right into our hands," he said to himself, as he rode along in the direction of the Three-mile.

He followed the track, dimly defined in the evening gloom, with the certainty of one who traverses a well-known route. The red flicker of firelight showed through the simple window as he approached the hut, and he went up to the door, after turning his horse loose in the paddock, and pushed it open. Inside, the firelight showed two men sitting on rough-made stools in front of the fireplace, while a third lay on a stretcher at the far end of the room.

One of the two men turned round quickly.

"Hullo, Barber, I didn't know you were back," Tap said in a subdued voice. "But I'm so glad, because——"

"Shut the door," the man interrupted abruptly.

"All right," Tap answered, as he turned and did the man's bidding. "Walker hasn't turned up, but there's a lot of them come in, and they've all got gold," he went on, as he came over to the fire.

The man lying on the stretcher half raised himself, and the firelight fell on his face.

"Oh, you're there," Tap said, as he saw and recognized Gleeson. "I was going to say——"

Barber turned round again and fixed his eyes on Tap's face.

"What about Gleeson's men?" he asked.

"I didn't hear if they were there or not, but Gleeson can go in himself to-morrow. They won't know him now, after the night they're having."

"If Walker's not there he's waiting for them somewhere," Gleeson said.

"Then it's good enough for you to get in and start the game before they come," Barber said; adding, "And maybe you'll have sense enough to hold your tongue after the last experience you had. And you too, Tap, d'ye hear? I'm boss of this show, and don't you forget it."

The two men addressed did not answer; and Slaughter, sitting in front of the fire and looking into the red mass with eyes that were dazed and lustreless, wondered what all the comings and goings and muttered conversation, which had so inexplicably supplanted the still solitude of the Three-mile, had to do with him and his selection.



CHAPTER XI.

BILLIARDS MADE EASY.

There was a lurid atmosphere at Birralong during the days that the diggers held high revel at the Rest. The sun blazed down pitilessly on the land, stricken sore by the drought; for it was the season of the year when the rain should have come in copious downfalls to moisten the parched soil, and when thunderstorms, accompanied by the vivid gleam of tropical lightning, should have come to cool and clear the air. But no rain came; not even a cloud obscured the blue of the sky for a moment, and not a suspicion of dew fell during the hours of darkness. Only the lightning came, as soon as the sun was down, blazing, flaring, and flashing round the horizon and high overhead; disturbing the darkness as the patter of a tattoo disturbs silence; punctuating the night into periods of sombre, awful blackness by moments of dazzling, blinding white fury, that made the eyes tingle through the succeeding moments of dark, and the ears shrink and tremble, anticipating the rending thunder-crash which never came. And always was the air hot and dry, and the wind, when it blew, was as a breath from the mouth of a volcano. The grass, withered and brown, fell away into dust; the leaves hung limp and flaccid on the trees; the cultivation areas of the selections were parched and dismal; and to add to the tribulation of the selectors, swarms of grasshoppers were abroad, swooping down in clouds, made up of myriads, upon everything that was green or bore the semblance of green, and never moving on until only the bare earth and the stripped tree branches were left.

It was such a season when some excuse was to be made for congregating at the Rest, and the advent of the diggers, with money to spend and a desire to entertain everybody who came within coo-ee of them, gave any excuse needed, not only to the selectors, but also to the men of Birralong.

Great things were going to be done as soon as the period of festivity was over, and the miners returned to the field and settled down steadily once more to toil and industry. Many a hard-working selector, who remembered his parched paddocks and bony stock, thought of throwing in his lot with the men he had formerly referred to as gully-rakers, when he saw the lavish expenditure, not only at the Rest, but at Marmot's, made possible by the gold they had won. Nor were the establishments at either end of the township alone in profiting. There would be a great demand for tools when the claims were started again, and Cullen had orders for picks by the ton; while the possibility of reefs being discovered, and tunnels and shafts being necessary to work them, filled Smart with enthusiasm at the amount of sawn timber which would be required in the early months of the coming year. It was evidently a period of boom in the history of the town, and to pass the time until the festive season was over, many a form of entertainment was suggested. A race meeting was absolutely necessary, everybody urged, the diggers for the fun of the thing, the selectors with an eye to business, for the diggers had no horses, and as they might like to run their own, sales were not improbable.

In the mean time some one suggested a euchre tournament and a billiard handicap, and, in a day, what attention every one of the miners could spare from the other attractions of the Rest, was absorbed in the double struggle. In a couple of days, as far as they were able to understand clearly, the majority of the men had lost a considerable portion of the gold they had brought in; but no one seemed to have won it. Tap, who had returned to the Rest, usually had a hand in the games that were going; and Gleeson, who mingled with the crowd as a stranger to the other, also joined in the fun, though mostly on the billiard-table. They were the only two who never lost.

There was a certain element of mystery about the billiard-table at the Rest, such as might reasonably be expected from cushions which had been subjected to ten years of the Birralong climate, and from balls which had been played with by such visitors as came to the Rest. A kerosene lamp with a tin reflector, standing over each corner pocket, is not the best light a billiard-table can have, more especially in a country where flies and other winged insects are numerous, and possessed of a habit of assembling largely round the lamps, and falling, more or less singed, on the cloth of the table. To these drawbacks Gleeson earnestly attributed the bad luck which usually attended the play of his opponents, and the extraordinary strokes with which he was able to win the hardest fought games; but not even these extenuating circumstances could quite reconcile the miners to the constant loss they suffered at his hands, and so it came about that he was the first one at whom they shied.

In this he was personally responsible to a very large extent, for being a man of exalted opinions as to his own importance, he could not long maintain the attitude of reserve and self-effacement which Barber had imposed as a condition of service under the scheme he had formulated. As soon as the miners began to fight shy of him as an opponent at the billiard-table, he forgot the necessity for caution, and ignored the gentle persuasive influence of an occasional defeat. Instead of the tact which animated the smooth-tongued Tap, he developed swagger and "side," and talked largely of his powers as a billiardist, and patronizingly to the men who made matches between themselves and declined even his bets. When the table was disengaged and there were onlookers in the room, he performed what they termed "flash" strokes, and challenged promiscuously any one and every one to play for large and larger stakes, until the souls of the miners were wroth within them, and the men of Birralong yearned in silence for the return of Tony, who alone of all the township had succeeded in mastering the intricacies of the table to anything like the degree Gleeson had.

But Tony had not yet returned from the diggings. He and his two companions, working more scientifically along the creek in the scrub than the others had done on Ripple Creek, had located the extent over which gold was to be found in the wash-dirt, and had then carefully and systematically worked through it, the division of labour enabling them to get over the ground quickly and effectively. As none of the men from the other creek visited them as they worked, they judged that their find was purely their personal concern and that no one else knew of its existence. Under the spell of excitement engendered by the find, Gleeson passed entirely out of memory, and the winning of all the gold in the creek before any one else could come and share the spoil was the one idea in their minds.

But if Gleeson was forgotten, he had not forgot. When he sneaked away after the thrashing that Palmer Billy had administered, he had no idea in his mind beyond getting out of reach of the vengeance of the men he believed he had fooled. He did not know exactly in what direction he journeyed, save that it was away from the scene of his humiliation, the thoroughness of which made him ache in every bone, joint, and muscle of his body. He kept moving, as fast as he could, away from the point of danger; and in accordance with that unexplained law which induces two bubbles on a tea-cup to run together, or two ships on the face of the boundless ocean to collide, or two buggies on a plain to run into one another, or a single horseman to get into difficulties through the one rabbit burrow in an area of twenty square miles of country, Gleeson, following his nose in the single-hearted desire to escape from honest associations, ran upon the temporary camp of Barber, and so became re-united with Tap. A rogue admires the rogue who can cheat him, and Gleeson fraternized with his old comrade and Barber at once.

Subsequent investigation revealed the fact that there really was gold in Ripple Creek, and with that resource which, more than necessity, is the mother of invention, communications were opened up with Walker, and the plan laid for the relieving of the successful miners of their stores of gold during the season of holiday and festivity. Learning the way Peters and his companions had gone, Barber had tracked them over the creek to the scrub, and had watched them, from a safe cover, as they worked the payable dirt. In order to include their winnings in the general haul it was intended to make, Walker was deputed to proceed to their camp, after the men had left Ripple Creek, and stay with them until, by fair means or foul, he had either induced them to proceed to Birralong and into the trap, or had succeeded in carrying off their gold single-handed. The latter was more than he could accomplish, so he had to stay with them and induce them to join in the festivities at the Rest, a proceeding which gave Gleeson time to use his skill in transferring a good deal of the gold from the miners to himself before the arrival of Palmer Billy and his mates—an incident he had neither the desire nor the intention to witness.

With that perversity which sometimes afflicts the issues of deep-laid schemes, the end of the drift on the creek by the scrub was reached several days sooner than was expected, and when the labour of an entire morning resulted in nothing, Palmer Billy grew impatient, and said it was a visitation upon them for working in the holiday season. He told the others they could stay, if they liked, but he was off to give the festivities at Birralong the benefit of his vocal art. Peters and Tony fell in with the proposal, and started off without giving Walker time to get ahead of them and warn Gleeson to keep out of sight.

They happened to come out about sunset upon the Birralong road near Marmot's store at a moment when some of the residents were mutually encouraging one another to lose their tempers over Gleeson's swagger in the billiard-room. The appearance of Tony was hailed as a god-send. The story of how the "flashy," as they termed Gleeson, was swelling his chest up at the expense of the township, was poured into the ears of the new-comers, and Tony was adjured, by all the ties of patriotism and loyalty, to "sail in and knock him cold," as one of the crowd expressed it.

It came to some one that a surprise party would be an excellent idea—a surprise party which would enter the billiard-room at a moment when the "flashy," flushed with victory, would be uttering his loud-mouthed challenge; a surprise party which would quietly "take him on and paralyze him stony," as another of the crowd explained.

Walker demurred. He thought the trick would be unfair and mean, and lacking the sporting instinct which is the hall-mark of Australians; but the others were rather taken with it, and Palmer Billy, with more force than wit—and more good luck than either—insisted that Walker, as he had conscientious scruples, should come into the room behind them, an arrangement which effectually prevented a warning word being sent to Gleeson.

A game was just over when the new-comers reached the Rest, and as no one seemed to be in a hurry to take the table, and the room was exceptionally full, Gleeson knocked the balls about with a good deal of swagger as he offered swamping odds to any one, and every one, for a game. Tony was in the lead, with Palmer Billy and Peters close after him, as they entered the room by a door to which Gleeson's back at the moment was turned.

"Now, then, what's wrong with you all? Haven't you the cash or the pluck, or what's in the wind? I'll give any one seventy-five in a hundred and play him for twenty notes. Now, then, who's on?"

"Well, I am," Tony exclaimed; and Gleeson turned at the voice.

He saw Tony; he saw Peters; he saw Palmer Billy; and behind them he saw Walker; and for the minute he stood, still and staring, as a quick suspicion flashed through his mind whether he had been sold by the man.

"Oh, we're sports all square, you bet yer bloochers," Palmer Billy's raucous voice said, as his eyes, sparkling with a curious gleam, met Gleeson's.

A hubbub, meant for a cheer, broke out among the men round the room; and Gleeson, guessing there was no fighting for the time being, made an effort to pull himself together.

"I'll play you level," he jerked out, facing Tony.

A roar of dissent came from the audience. Only Palmer Billy's voice penetrated it as he yelled—

"On yer own terms. We ain't no sharks."

The sentiment struck a responsive note among the onlookers, and the roar of dissent changed to a cheer of approval, so loud that it brought every man within earshot to the room to see what was going.

Recovering his composure and his swagger as quickly as he could, Gleeson offered to back himself—and had his answer from the roomful. Tap, discriminating and crafty, had exchanged glances with Walker, and guessed what was in the air.

"I think I'll take those that you don't," he said smoothly; and Gleeson, glad of the hint that his friends were sticking to him, accepted the partnership.

"Perhaps some of these gentlemen——" Tap began, looking at the group by the doorway.

"Our money's on him," Palmer Billy shouted, slapping Tony on the back.

"And mine's on the other man," Walker said quickly; and a moment later a babel of confusion reigned as each man sought to make the other one put up the stakes.

Marmot, bursting with importance as the patron-in-chief to Tony, hammered on the wall in his efforts to make his voice heard in a proposition. Palmer Billy, looking round the room with a smile on his face as he thought how well the chorus of his great song would sound sung by such a mob, caught sight of the local constable, somewhat overcome by profuse hospitality, sitting in a far corner.

"What sort," he yelled, and his voice went through the babel of sound like the shriek of a syren through mist. "What sort," he repeated, as men paused in their clamour, startled by the voice. "Let the trap hold the dibs."

Any proposal was bound to be greeted with favour at the moment, for the men were in the highest elation at the prospective defeat of "flashy." The constable, with official dignity, undertook the responsibility of stakeholder. Gleeson, Walker, and Tap laid down all the wealth they had, and from all parts of the room contributions came to cover it, until the money on Tony was heavily over-subscribed; and men were crying out that they could get no bet. The excitement brought back some of Gleeson's swagger.

"If our word's good enough, we'll take every wager," he shouted; and the audacity pleased the crowd.

The constable, the proprietor of the Rest, and Marmot, mounted guard over the stakes, placed for convenience in two empty gin cases—one for the solid gold of the miners, and the other for the gold, notes, and paper of the trio.

Then the game began, and the men crowded round the walls of the room, silent, stern, and scowling, as they saw Gleeson run away from their champion like a racehorse from a bullock-team. He went out the points he had boastingly offered ahead of the Birralong champion, and a gleam and a flash went round the room as the men realized what it meant—the combined wealth of the crowd belonged to the three.

"Double or quits," Gleeson cried, as he faced round on Tony.

"Done," he answered; and Gleeson glanced round the room.

"Are you on?" he asked.

A growl of assent was the answer, and the second game began.

Tony, unsteadied in the first game by the day's travelling, set his teeth hard, and nerved himself to avoid a repetition of the defeat. The bumps in the cushions favoured him, and he held his own from the start, and came in just ahead of his opponent amidst howls of approval from the diggers.

As the noise lulled before the growing desire to toast success, long life, and various other pleasant prospects to the winner of the second game, an artistic piece of by-play was introduced by a violent altercation between Walker, Tap, and Gleeson, the first two savagely attacking the latter for having thrown away their money by playing double or quits. Walker repudiated the matter, and claimed that as he had not agreed to the stake on the second game, he was entitled to payment for the wagers he had made on the first.

Palmer Billy advanced to the table.

"If a man ain't satisfied with the whackin' we give him," he said, in a tone that penetrated to every corner of the room, and with his eyes fixed on Gleeson in what, to the latter, was a peculiarly disconcerting glance, "why, we're on to whack him again—or his mates."

"Good iron, Billy," some one yelled. "Set 'em up again."

"When we've irrigated, if you please," Palmer Billy retorted; adding, to the host, "Rum—straight."

In order that there might be no misunderstanding about the third game, it was decided in advance that the stakes were to be the same as before, and that in the morning another game would be played, by daylight, for double or quits, whoever the loser might be, the stakes remaining where they were, in the gin cases, in charge of the constable and the proprietor of the Rest. The interval between the second and third games being somewhat prolonged, the interest taken in the game by the audience was less discriminating than in the earlier ones, while the applause was more promiscuous, due to the fact that many of the onlookers had not quite such a clear grasp of passing events as usual. Only at the finish, when Tony was beaten by a single point, did the audience realize that the situation was serious; and then, lest the danger should cause them anxiety and the result of the return match leave them stranded, they made the most of the opportunity and the resources of the Rest.

The township "hung-up" the following morning to watch the great match, for with the morning came the realization of the fact that Tony had already lost two out of three games with Gleeson, and that on the result of the fourth the prosperity of Birralong, and of the visitors within its gates, speaking figuratively, for at least a twelvemonth actually depended. The men gathered round the Rest, the shaky indistinctness inevitable from the previous evening's hilarity adding to the expression of gravity which was upon every face. What conversation there was they carried on in subdued tones, and, except in the case of a few, the anxiety they felt even kept them away from the bar.

The room in which was the billiard-table was densely packed by the time the game began, the men standing three deep round the walls, grim, silent, sombre. The morning was intensely hot, and every door, window, and fanlight was as wide open as it could be. The men were too engrossed to notice that Gleeson turned up without his two mates, while the recollections of the condition of the constable when he was conveyed to his own cottage the night before prevented any one from wondering why he did not attend.

From the moment the game began there was dead silence in the room—a silence so oppressive that the click of the balls sounded sharp and clear, and the whizzing hum of the grasshoppers, moving in swarms, came in rolling crescendoes and quavering diminuendoes from the parched and barren paddocks all around, as distinctly as if the table had been set out in the open bush. From the start it was evident both players were doing their best to win, and while the local confidence was not shaken in Tony, it was noticed with more than anxiety that he never got far ahead, and often dropped behind. As the finish drew near, the men composing the audience scarcely breathed as Tony played his strokes, until their nerves were strained and their muscles quivered as he stood with an unfinished break at two points from home, and his opponent ten behind.

It was an easy shot, so easy that Birralong almost cheered, but caught its breath in a gasp, lest it should put the champion off his stroke. He, feeling something of the excitement, miscalculated a bump, or forgot a hard patch on the cushion, and broke down, just two from home.

Gleeson, cool, collected, and unmoved, said "Pity" under his breath, and a shiver passed through the audience. Then he played his strokes, carefully and quietly, and the room, save for the click of the balls as they cannoned, the rustle of the player as he moved, and the ceaseless buzz from the starving grasshoppers outside, was silent. But it had no effect on Gleeson. He was quite unmoved and unconcerned as he made his strokes, steadily and well, till he was level with Tony, and only needed two to win.

A hum, half curse, half gasp, travelled round the crowded room and out of the open doors to the swarms buzzing and chirping in the paddocks and the trees, and Gleeson, with obtrusive calm, paused to chalk his cue.

Leisurely and tantalizingly he put back the chalk and studied the easy shot which was all that stood between him and victory, between Birralong and bankruptcy; and another hum, half curse, half gasp, travelled round the room and out of the open doors and windows, out to where the countless myriads of hungry, stridulating insects sung and chirped and buzzed, careless of the human anguish pent up so near them, careless of everything, as they strained their senses in search of something green.

Gleeson took his aim, and gently touched his ball, playing to pot the red. The red, rolling slowly, was halfway to the pocket, when there came into the silent room a sound of rushing, rustling, throbbing wings, as through the open doors and windows and fanlights a cloud of grasshoppers swarmed down upon the something green their eyes had seen when attracted by the weird, inhuman hum. The red ball ran against three and stopped, an inch from the drop of the pocket, and the mighty shout that came from the throats of the Birralong men shook even the foundations of the Rest, and put to flight, out on to the dusty paddocks again, most of the grasshopper swarm.

Those that remained were stamped to death, as, a moment later, Tony put the red ball down, and the audience, mad with the glee of victory, danced, shouting, everywhere, even on the billiard-table.

In the turmoil of rejoicing that ensued, even the shadows cast by the glow of happiness on the previous evening were forgotten, though it was, after all, only their own money which Tony had won back for them. Everybody wished to toast everybody, and in their anxiety to carry out the wish, they failed to notice that Gleeson quietly withdrew. Only when other facts were forced upon their attention, and they learned that the game won had been really lost, did they notice his departure, and then it was too late.

In the midst of their rejoicing some one called for the stakeholders to share in the festivity. The proprietor of the Rest was present, but he misunderstood the suggestion, and thought the men wanted the stakes handed over.

"Leary has them," he exclaimed. "He took them away last night, quiet like."

Some of the men remembered accompanying Leary, the constable, to his cottage late on the previous night. He certainly did not have the stakes with him then; but they did not stop to argue the matter, for others, jealous that so important a personage as the local constable, who was also the stakeholder in the great match, should be absent from the rejoicing over the Birralong victory, had already started for the constable's cottage.

They found him lying on the floor with his hands tied behind him, his legs securely bound together, and a rough but effective gag in his mouth. Suspicious at first only of a practical joke on the part of some of their number, they liberated him to the running accompaniment of jest and chaff. As soon as he was free, he struggled to his feet and, facing them, shouted—

"I arrest the lot of you for assault and robbery."

It appealed to them as an excellent example of spontaneous humour, and they burst into loud laughter.

"I know the man who took it. I'd swear to him in a thousand. If it means hanging them, I'll——"

One of the men, clear enough to miss the point of the joke at which his companions were laughing so heartily, interrupted to ask—

"Took what?"

"Took what? Why, the gold," Leary answered fiercely.

The words killed the laughter as water kills fire, and where a moment before the faces of the men were wrinkled with their amusement, the lines disappeared as the mouths went stern, and the flush of gaiety gave way to the pallor of fear.

"The gold?" they gasped.

"Yes, the gold," Leary shouted. "We brought it here for safety while the last game was on, and it was here they came for it, tying me up the same as you found me, and——"

"Who were they?" a man called out.

"The three who took the bets and another I've never seen."

With a shout of rage and a storm of words the men rushed from the cottage, back to the Rest, spreading the story as they went, that there had been thieves in the camp—thieves who had tried to fleece them, and, having failed in that, had robbed them instead.

One or two remained with the constable.

"When was it done?" one asked Leary.

"How should I know?" he answered. "I reckon I was sleeping when I wakened here all tied up, and there were the four of them parcelling out the gold and talking among themselves quiet and easy. I let out a yell, and one of them—the stranger—came over and jammed something into my mouth—and there I was till you chaps came."

At the Rest the men were raging and storming, for they had now discovered that Gleeson was gone; while round the proprietor of the Rest, Marmot, Smart, and Cullen were gathered—the disappearance of the gold entirely altered the character of the miners in their eyes. Palmer Billy, his face working with passion, strode up and down.

"The sharks! And we didn't kill one of them when we had him," he was yelling in a voice that sounded even above the babel.

Marmot, shrewdly scenting trouble if the miners were refused supplies at the present juncture—and they would be refused if they asked now that their money was gone—began to urge the men to start in chase of the thieves. Fortunately his words caught Palmer Billy's ears, and at once the stentorian voice shouted—

"Come on, boys, we'll run 'em down and hang 'em. They can't be far away."

Most of the men saw red in the fury of the moment. With their winnings gone, their festivity cut short, their credit exhausted, and their self-control, never very strong, further weakened by the frolic of the night before, there would have been a short shrift for any of the four men had they been captured. But four mounted men, with their wits about them, and with several hours' start, were more than a match for a mob of men without organization, or even a knowledge as to the direction in which the others had gone. A few moments' thought would have shown that to them, only they had neither the time nor the inclination for thought. They were off, anywhere and everywhere, as soon as they could get their swags together; and Marmot's fellow-townsmen lavished praise upon him for his astuteness, as they saw the last of the angry crowd depart.

Some few stayed. Tony stopped Peters, and Palmer Billy stayed too, arguing vigorously against their tardiness in starting, till he calmed down and understood.

"This makes six times I've been bluffed by sharks, and I've only half killed one," he said savagely. "We'll strike it again before we've done, boys, and if a shark gets at me then—well, he can have it, that's all."



CHAPTER XII.

RIVAL ISSUES.

A mile from Barellan homestead, and running through a patch of scrub, there was a long, level stretch of land, so smooth of surface and so free from timber that it was almost as if it had been purposely cleared and levelled to afford a track for a gallop. The scrub was dense on either side, the undergrowth of shrubs and bushes reaching up to the lower branches of the big trees, and forming a thick wall of vegetation, which made the track a closed-in avenue, silent, save for the scream of cockatoos and parrots as they flew from side to side, and shady. Ailleen had chanced upon it during the first few weeks of her residence at Barellan, and since she had discovered it she had gone there daily for a ride through the quiet, still coolness of the bush. At first it had been an outlet for the grief she felt, and which did not diminish by being kept to herself. Her horse, the companion of many an hour while she lived at the school cottage, was doubly a companion on such an occasion; and, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, he carried her through the bush till the rush of the wind past her ears, the scent of the eucalypt in her nostrils, and the bright gleam of the sunshine all around, drove from her mind the gloomy memories which weighed upon it. Always had she gone alone, persistently declining Dickson's offers to accompany her until he had ceased to make them, and always riding to that one long stretch of level land, a gallop over which was as a tonic to her mind and body. It was there she sought consolation for the hurt which had come to her by the continued absence of Tony. Without suspecting that he had taken offence at her action when she had waved him to keep quiet, she was surprised to see him ride off, but expected that he would come out to the station again the next day. As the days went by and there was no sign of him, she began to wonder. Then Dickson told her that he had heard Tony had gone back to the diggings, and she attributed his not returning to the station to that cause.

Later there came words of the gathering of the diggers at Birralong, and Dickson, who was often away, at the township, he said, brought word of Tony's return. Then Ailleen expected and hoped to see him again, but she only heard of him through Dickson, only heard of him under conditions which made her resentful. Not only had Tony apparently forgotten her, but Nellie Murray also had done so. She happened to remark to Dickson on one occasion how curious it was that Nellie had not been over to the station.

"Oh, I don't know," he answered, with what struck her as uneasiness in his voice and manner. "Why should she come?"

"Why?" she repeated. "Why, to see me, of course. I have not seen her since—since——"

"Oh, she's all right," he put in, as she hesitated. "At least, I suppose so. How should I know? Tony could tell you more about that than I can."

"Tony?" she asked quickly.

He stood looking at her with the uneasy grin which usually came to his face when he was uncertain.

"What do you mean? Tony could tell me more——"

"Oh, I don't know," he interrupted. "I thought you'd have known—it's all over the place, and the township's full of it—how Tony and Nellie have fixed things up. Whenever he comes in from the diggings he goes straight to the Murrays first."

It had been in his mind for some time that before he could prosecute his own suit with Ailleen he would have to do something to overthrow—and make certain that he had overthrown—the supremacy of Tony. Here was the chance to do so, and as she listened he was taking full advantage of the opportunity to say as much as he could which was likely to rankle in Ailleen's memory against Tony. It was his very anxiety to do as much as possible which defeated him. The uneasy grin, the gleam in the watery, shifty eyes, and the haste he made to blurt out what he had previously kept so secret, roused the anger of the girl against him instead of against his absent rival.

"That's a lie!" she exclaimed, as she looked at him with eyes that were dangerously bright.

"I only told you—you need not believe it. Go and ask in the township," he replied lamely, his eyes avoiding hers.

She turned away from him at the moment, full of resentment and anger. An hour later, when her indignation had had time to calm somewhat, she came back to where she had left him on the verandah, and found that he had ridden away towards the township road soon after she had left him. It occurred to her then that if she were also to ride into Birralong she would be able to hear what was said about Tony and Nellie, for now that the first flush of anger had passed away, Ailleen was beginning to feel something akin to jealousy. She had her horse saddled and bridled, and was away, with the intention of riding direct to the Murrays and learning the real state of affairs. Less than a quarter of a mile from the station she reined in her horse. Why should she bother about it? she asked herself angrily. Was she going to make herself the laughing-stock of the place? Was she going to show to all Birralong the truth of her feelings for Tony? Before she could even answer her own questions, she wheeled her horse round, and set him at a gallop for the long, open stretch of land between the belts of scrub.

The track turned suddenly as it came into the long, straight lane, and the horse gathered itself in its stride as its swung round the bend, leaping forward again into its full stride as it faced the clear run. And as it came round, Ailleen saw, half hidden by the scrub, Willy Dickson standing beside his horse, and the figure of a girl disappearing behind the bushes. She had ridden past the spot before she could pull in her horse, but as soon as she could check him, she rode back to where Dickson was standing. As she approached, he stepped out into the open and came to meet her.

"Where has Nellie gone?" Ailleen exclaimed, as she came up.

"Nellie?" he repeated, his watery eyes blinking and shifting. "Nellie who?"

She looked at him for a moment, and then sprang from the saddle. Leaving her horse with the bridle hanging loose on his neck, she stepped towards the belt of scrub behind which she had seen the figure of the girl disappearing. Dickson, his face changing colour and his eyes flickering and quivering, interposed before her.

"There are snakes in the scrub. You get back. They might hurt you," he said abruptly. "And besides——" he added, and paused.

Ailleen stood in front of him, straight and erect, and with a glance fixed upon him which made him keep his eyes looking anywhere rather than into hers.

"Willy Dickson, that's a lie!" she exclaimed. "It's not the first you've told me, though you're mistaken if you think I have believed them. Was that Nellie Murray or was it not?"

He blinked uneasily, but neither answered nor moved.

"Then I'll see for myself," she said, as she tried to push past him.

He put out his arm to stop her, and she brushed against it. With the other hand he caught hold of her arm. A slight switch was in her hand, and as she felt his clasp, she swung her arm round and cut at him. At the same moment from among the bushes behind him she saw Nellie Murray come out.

"We don't interfere with you, Ailleen, and I don't see what you want interfering with us," she said, as she came nearer, Dickson as rapidly slinking to one side.

"Nellie!" the other girl exclaimed.

"Oh yes, I know," Nellie retorted. "I know. It's me, I suppose, who is interfering with you, now I've found out where you're always coming for rides? But you just understand this. Willy Dickson is going to marry me, or I'll know why, and so will Bobby and father. The sooner you get out of Barellan and leave other girls' fellows alone the better."

Ailleen, staring in astonishment at Nellie's face, could only again exclaim—

"Nellie!"

"Don't 'Nellie' me," the other retorted. "I know all about it. I made him tell me what it all meant. You fancy you can do what you like with him, but I'm boss in this act. He's got to do as I tell him, or else I go and tell his mother something that'll make him sit up. If you fancy you're going to cut me out, you've got to learn something. I've had about enough of this, I can tell you. Don't stand staring at me like a bandicoot; he's told me the way you've been trying to make mischief, and I tell you this, if you think——"

Ailleen, losing her surprise at the girl's manner under the flash of anger which came to her when she understood Nellie's reference, swung round to where Dickson was standing.

"Willy Dickson, what other lies have you been telling?" she cried.

"Oh, don't think you're going to get out of it that way," Nellie exclaimed. "You'll——"

The look Ailleen turned upon her silenced her.

"I don't know what you mean, Nellie," she said quietly. "I wondered why you never came out to see me—I understand now. I don't think I need say any more."

She turned away and went to where her horse was standing, and, mounting it, rode away back to Barellan without looking again where Nellie and Dickson stood.

As she went out of sight round the bend in the track, Dickson turned savagely on his companion.

"You fool!" he said. "You've done a fine thing now."

"I don't care," the girl answered sullenly.

"Don't you? Well, I'll make you."

"No, you won't," she said. "I'd have told her everything if she'd waited another minute. Then——"

"Then you'll say good-bye to your chance," he interrupted.

"I don't care," she repeated, in the same sullen tone. "I can tell Bobby and father, and—and Bobby'll kill you. He hates you enough."

He had no answer ready, and she went on.

"I know it's lies you told. You always told me lies—always. Only when I saw her come here it made me mad, and I wanted to hurt her first and you afterwards. I didn't care for hurting you so much so long as I hurt her. Now I know it was all lies you told me. She isn't after you; she wouldn't look at you. But you're after her, wanting to tell her all the lies you told me, and make her believe all the lies you did me, and she won't—she won't—and that's why I hate her. I believed them, and she won't. I believed you, and now—now you think you'll throw me over to take her on—and she won't—and I hate her for it, for she'll never be like me."

The girl stood with her mouth drawn and hard and her gleaming eyes staring at the ground.

"Don't be a fool," he mumbled, and the sound of his voice roused her.

"You remember what I told you," she said, as she looked at him quickly. "You told me lies, and I believed them; but if she does the same, I'll kill you before she gets you. It would hurt her more to kill you then, and I'll do it."

"Don't be a fool," he repeated.

"I'm not a fool; I was one, but I'm not now," she went on. "I'm going to tell your mother, and Bobby, and father, and—and her; and then, if you don't do what you promised——"

"What's the use of talking like that?" he interrupted, in a half-whining voice. "Don't I tell you I will as soon as ever I get this other business off? It's bound to come right in six months or so—Barber said so before he went away—and then I can buy my own station, because the old woman's bound to get shirty if I won't have the other girl—she's been on it already, don't I tell you? You just wait. It'll only be six months more."

"That'll be too late," the girl answered, with all the sullenness in her voice again and her mouth growing hard once more.

"No, it won't; and besides, Barber may have it fixed up before then. He said not more than six months, and that it was a sure pile for me if no one knew anything about it. You heard him that night by Slaughter's."

"I don't believe him," Nellie replied. "He's fooling you just as he is the others."

"Well, Bobby was pleased enough to go when he suggested it, anyhow," Dickson said.

"Yes; and if Bobby was here now——"

"But, look here, they'll be wondering where you are," Dickson interrupted. "You'll have to ride right round by the boundary now——"

"I shan't come any more," the girl exclaimed. "Not till—till after. I know you told lies, and if you don't come to me before then, I'll know sure; and then"—she looked him straight in the face, with an ugly gleam and flash in her dark eyes that held his like a snake's holds a bird's—"then I'll come, and—and—then I'll come for you. I came here to tell you that. It's your last chance. You men don't know what women are. There are some things you can't understand."

"Don't be a fool," he said once more, as he held out his arms and touched her.

She stepped back with her mouth hardening and the gleam still in her eyes.

"No, that's finished," she said. "I know you now—I hate you now—and I'm going to hurt you just where I can—most."

He laughed uneasily, and looked away for a moment from the fascination of the gleaming eyes, and as though it was he who had broken the spell, the girl's face changed. With the exception of the eyes all her features had been passive up to that moment, but then it was as though a reservoir of passion had suddenly broken out and flooded over her face. He gave one scared look at it and stepped back from her.

"Where I can hurt you—most," she repeated in a voice that quivered.

He edged away towards his horse and heard her push through the bushes to hers. Then he heard the bushes crash as the horse charged through them, and, turning, he saw her riding at a full gallop away down the straight stretch of the open.