He mounted his own horse and rode slowly back to the station, striving to form some plan in his mind by which he could explain matters to Ailleen, or at least prevent her from telling his mother of what had transpired. When he arrived at the house, he found Ailleen sitting alone on the verandah.

"Funny how Nellie rode over to-day, just as you were talking about her, wasn't it?" he asked, as he came up beside her.

Ailleen looked at him without answering, and, with his glance averted, he went on—

"I think she's a bit gone, don't you? Fancy her talking like she did. I thought you——"

"Look here," Ailleen exclaimed quickly, "Nellie and I have been friends since we were children, and I'm not going to hear you run her down. The less you say the better."

He was taken aback at her words and manner, and stood, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other and with his eyes moving restlessly from side to side. He had made up his mind on his ride home that Ailleen had ridden away in anger, and that the first thing she would wish for would be an opportunity to abuse Nellie. It was quite inexplicable to him that she should defend instead of attack her.

Ailleen looked at him steadily for a while, watching his confusion and discomfiture, and feeling more and more angry with herself for having, earlier in the day, allowed his words to have even a passing effect upon her.

"Look here," she repeated, yielding to a sudden impulse which came upon her to talk seriously to him, "I heard quite enough from Nellie to understand. Are you going to tell your mother what you have done?"

She waited until he answered, in an indistinct mumble, that he did not know.

"Very well, then, I do," she retorted. "If you don't, I shall."

"But I say——" he began, and hesitated. He had always had a certain amount of fear for her when he was near her—a fear which changed into a covetous admiration when he was away from her; but the present attitude she adopted towards him accentuated that fear until he knew no other sentiment.

"Well?" she said, as he stopped.

"It'll be all right," he said in a cringing tone. "You'll only make things worse by interfering. It's not your business. If Nellie and I like to have a quarrel, we can make it up our own way. We don't——"

"If you think you can make me believe a story like that, you are very much mistaken," she interrupted quickly. "I heard quite enough——"

"You didn't hear everything," he interposed quickly; for an idea came to him—if Mrs. Dickson had to hear the tale she should hear it from him, with certain little embellishments and figurative allusions, which would effectually destroy any chance Ailleen might have of making capital out of the episode.

"I heard quite enough," she answered.

"No, you didn't," he retorted, growing desperate lest his mother, hearing their voices, should suddenly come out on to the verandah and learn what they were talking about before he had time to put his side of the story to her. "If you had you would have known I tried and tried to get Nellie to come in so that I could tell the old woman about it, only she wouldn't, and that's why we quarrelled. Now I don't care, so I'll tell the old woman all about it. There'll be a bigger row with Nellie when she comes to know, but I don't care. It'll be your doing, not mine."

He didn't give her time to answer, but turned away and left her, proceeding at once to Mrs. Dickson and telling her—his story.

When, some time afterwards, the blind woman came out to the verandah, Ailleen began to carry out her intention.

"Mrs. Dickson, I'm going to tell you something," she began. "I hope it won't seem——"

"Is it about Nellie Murray?" the blind woman asked, with a smile on her face.

"Yes," Ailleen answered. "About Nellie Murray and——"

"I know. Willy has told me already. Don't worry about that, my dear. I understand, and I'll just tell you this, and then we'll say no more about it for the present—I am very pleased to hear it."

Ailleen looked at her in surprise.

"Pleased, Mrs. Dickson?" she asked.

"Yes, my dear, very, very pleased, and I quite understand how you look at it; and now let us say no more about it, till—well, till the proper time comes."

The girl sat still, looking at the staring, sightless eyes and the smiling, happy face of her companion, unable to understand; while round a convenient corner, Dickson stood with the crafty grin on his face as he overheard the conversation.



CHAPTER XIII.

TONY VISITS THE FLAT.

Palmer Billy, never very averse to free comment on passing events, was the personification of eloquence on the day that the robbery of the digger's gold was discovered. Restrained by Tony and Peters from joining in the senseless hue and cry after the robbers, he had, as he expressed it, been sitting on dynamite up to the time when there was a chance of letting off superfluous energy in the form of speech on the verandah of Marmot's store. Tony had wanted him and Peters to ride out to the Flat and stay there until the New Year, but they (and especially Palmer Billy) would have none of it. A holiday spoiled was no holiday at all, Palmer Billy averred. He had urged that to work right through Christmas was a tempting of Providence, but, as he explained, that was before Providence played it low down on them in permitting them to be robbed of their gold. As it was, there was only one course to pursue. They would get as much stores as their credit would permit, and they would be off again to the creek they had worked out, to test a little theory he had formed about a possible lode which, if found, would make a millionaire of each of them. The next day, at the latest, they were to start, and Tony rode away by himself to the Flat to explain the situation to Taylor and his wife.

With the characteristic freedom of bush-life, which gives to every unit the right to come and go as he pleases, and the typical independence of the Australian spirit, home-ties, as understood in more closely populated or more conventional countries, are not conspicuous. As soon as the fledgling finds his wings, the parent-nest ceases to be the centre of his universe; the forbears are no longer the dictators of his actions. He is an individual, free and self-reliant; a member of the race which has subdued the vast territories of the island continent—territories which in Europe would hold a dozen states and kingdoms—and as he has the birthright of freedom to empower him, so has he also the birthright of territory to enable him to live his own life, expanding as his instincts dictate, broadening as experience teaches, deepening as his sympathies are touched. He may lose somewhat of the softer sensibilities which gather round the home memories of older generations; the clinging affection which lingers through life for the places where the earliest years of childhood and youth were passed, can scarcely have existence amongst a people to whom the word "home" only suggests the motherland, the parent country, or, as often as not, the country of the parents. But instead he becomes the possessor of an open, self-reliant independence; quick to see and understand; cringing to no man; satisfied with the right and the chance to work for his wants; and with the part of his nature which would otherwise be absorbed in the gentle bonds of home-ties, free to act in accordance with the dictates of humanity, with the world for his home and all mankind for his relatives. Hence Tony, in returning for a visit to the Flat, was merely paying a visit, and by no means yielding to the demands of home or family affection.

His point of view in that respect was the point of view of the remainder of the Taylor offspring, but it was the only trait which they had in common with him. As had been said on Marmot's verandah, Tony was alone among them; not one of them had the black hair and dark eyes nor the quick, alert spirit which characterized Tony. They rather followed the example of Taylor, and were stolid, hard-working fellows, content with enough of eating, working, and sleeping, and neither needing nor heeding aught else. The only one at the Flat with whom he had any close sympathy was Mrs. Taylor, and even with her he felt a restraint occasionally which perplexed him, for she gave him of her matronly love to a greater degree than she gave to the others. She had never lost the influence of her old-country up-bringing, and to Tony, her own and yet not her own, she was bound by more than the ties of maternity.

His return at the present juncture was fraught with keen interest to her, for she, in her remnant of old-world romance, had watched with kindly sympathy the growing companionship of Tony and Ailleen from the time when they were school-children together; and in between the busy but withal prosaic hours of her life, she had stolen enough time to weave daydreams round the union, some day, of her handsome, dark-eyed, daring boy, and the fair-haired Saxon Ailleen. She had watched the companionship ripen into something more—into something which the two did not even realize themselves, but which was only too evident to her jealously sharpened eyes; for she was jealous of the boy, although far from spitefully.

Most of his daring escapades had been performed under the influence, unrecognized by him, of Ailleen's passing disregard, and the elder woman had often inveighed in her mind against the waywardness of the younger, who, having such a treasure within her grasp, ignored it, and ran the risk, however slight, of losing it. Unfortunately, both Tony and Ailleen possessed the free-born Australian spirit to a degree which made it more than difficult to guide or counsel them—only could one stand idly by and, apparently without noticing anything, chafe and worry lest the break away should come.

And the break away had come. The starting away with the gold-diggers was an unmistakable token of Tony's revolt; the moving out to Barellan immediately after her father's death was the unquestionable reply of Ailleen. But it did not necessarily follow that the result was foregone, and Mrs. Taylor, in her efforts to grasp the movements of the modern development of youth, had argued with herself that perhaps, after all, this double split might only be the later form of the old-fashioned lover's quarrel. The return of Tony, on the first occasion, was an evidence that she was right, and she watched him as he hastened away to Barellan. But he came back and never mentioned Ailleen's name, and set out again for the gold-fields still without mentioning her name; and then, while he was away, there came to her brief shreds and echoes of gossip, all circling round Ailleen, and all tending to prove that she was striving to wed young Dickson—and Barellan, as Mrs. Taylor added with scorn—and to forget the comrade of her childhood.

Tony had now come back again, and Mrs. Taylor wondered, as she saw him, whether he had heard any of the stories she had heard about Ailleen's change. He told her all about the rich patch of gold-bearing gravel they had struck in the creek, and the way they had worked it out so as to be able to get to Birralong for Christmas, but only to find themselves stranded almost before their holidays began, and with all the work to do over again, to say nothing of the finding of a new claim.

"And you are starting out again to-morrow?" she said.

"Yes; and we shall stay out till we find another patch. Palmer Billy swears he can trace out the mother-reef of the alluvial, and that it will be rich enough to make us all station-owners and able to run horses for the Melbourne Cup."

"And if you don't find it?" she asked.

"Then—well, I reckon we'll try the northern fields. Palmer Billy and Peters have both been up there, and they say there are tons of gold to be had if one only has the capital to go on. But I don't fancy we shall go there. Palmer Billy is too fly to talk about a reef if there is none. We'll strike it, you see, and come home with a team-load of nuggets."

"You'll be rich then, Tony," she said.

"Yes," he answered, with a laugh.

"Richer than young Dickson of Barellan," she added, watching him closely.

"I dare say," he answered, half impatiently.

"And then—I suppose you'll get married?" she said softly, but with her eyes still fixed on his face.

"Oh, my troubles," he exclaimed.

"I suppose it will be Ailleen?" she went on.

He got up from where he was sitting.

"Reckon I'll have a smoke," he said. "I brought the old man a plug of new stuff Marmot was cracking up. I'll just try it and see how it goes."

He walked away to get the tobacco, and Mrs. Taylor sat where she was, under the verandah just in sight of the corner of the paddock where a small patch was railed off from the rest, with a white-flowering passion-vine growing luxuriantly over the slim fence which surrounded it. She looked across at it with eyes that were dim and moist; but it was not the memory it recalled that made her emotion come welling up. The look that had been in Tony's eyes as he turned away, the change that had come over his face as she asked her purposely pointed questions, and the recollection of the fair face of Ailleen and the crafty meanness of Dickson's, all combined to stir her feelings.

"The wretched selfish creature!" she muttered to herself. "The—the—beast!"

But she carefully refrained from making any further comment on the matter to Tony during the remainder of the time he was at the Flat; and when he rode away the following morning, full of enthusiasm for the discovery he and his digger companions were going to make, and promising general happiness to everybody as soon as he returned with his team-load of nuggets, as he expressed it, he had no idea that she attributed his gaiety and light-heartedness to a spirit of bravado which sought to hide the real state of his feelings. But her intuitions had struck the truth. When the thought of it forced his attention, or when a reference such as she had made to Ailleen revealed it to him in spite of himself, Tony winced under the sting of the girl's bearing towards him. Ordinarily he flung himself into his work with the more ardour; he had gone into the reckless gamble with Gleeson because as he neared Birralong it came to him that the gold he had found was useless to him in the face of Ailleen's coldness—useless, that is, for the purpose he had at first desired it, for the purchase of a home to offer to her.

The question Mrs. Taylor had asked him, and the introduction of Dickson's name before the mention of Ailleen, re-awakened not only the smart he was suffering from, but also a suspicion which had come into his mind—a suspicion that Dickson and his wealth were not entirely dissociated from Ailleen's change of manner. As he rode away from the Flat, setting out on a journey which might lead him to riches greater than those of his rival, Tony for the first time in his life wished for closer sympathy between some of his brothers and himself, so that he might have made a confidant of one, and enlisted his help in ascertaining whether matters between Ailleen and Dickson really were as he feared. But there was neither bond nor sympathy between him and the home-staying members of the Taylor family. He was vainly trying to recall any one of whom he could make use in that respect when there rode out upon the track in front of him young Bobby Murray. Here was the one person in the district he would care to use, for he had ample assurance of Bobby's admiration for him, and had, on his part, done many a good turn for the youngster one way and another. He coo-eed and waved his hand, and Bobby, looking round, turned his horse and rode to meet him.

"I was just riding in to have a yarn with you," he called out as he came near. "I was hurrying to catch you before you started, for they said you were off to the diggings before midday. I want to join your party, if you'll have me."

"Want to join us, do you? Why, what's in the wind now?" Tony asked in surprise.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm full of the selection, and they all say you're going to strike it rich again, so I thought it was a good business to join in with you, if you want another in the party."

"Well, we don't," Tony replied. "You see, we're broke as it is, and we have to get even our stores on credit, and if we don't strike anything, it will be enough for us to do to clear our own score. But if we have another to help to eat the stores, they won't last us any longer, and there'll be a bigger tally to settle."

"I'll pay my own share, and a bit over if need be," Bobby said quietly.

"You will?"

"Certainly. Why not? I don't want you to take me on as a loafer. I'll do my share at the graft and bring in my share of the tucker and tools. That's fair, isn't it?"

"It's fair enough for me," Tony answered. "And if the others don't object, why, I suppose you can join the camp."

"They won't object," Bobby said quickly. "I told them last night, and they said if I was a mate of yours, and you said so, I could join, tucker or no tucker."

It put an end to the chance of having a friend in the enemy's camp to report progress when he returned, and tell him whether his suspicions were well or ill founded; for even if he did not agree to Bobby's joining the camp, that would not prevent his leaving the district and following them, while it would certainly put an end to any claims on Bobby's kindly services. On the other hand, if Bobby came with them, he might learn a lot about what was said around Birralong on the subject of Ailleen and Dickson, and with that in his mind Tony gave his consent. When they reached the township, they found that the others had everything ready for a start, Bobby's share in the tools and the tucker being made up with the others, as though his joining had been settled long before he met Tony.

When they had all set out and had disappeared over the hill, riding away to the west, Marmot stood at the door of his store with Smart, watching the dust that floated where their horses moved.

"I would have told him, only I couldn't get him by himself; for it seems a bit queer to me, what with Yaller-head going out to Barellan and young Dickson going bail for Bob Murray's stores," the storekeeper said. "It ain't no business of ours, Smart—it ain't no business of ours; but I'd as lief have seen him and Yaller-head in double harness as any."

"And why not?" Smart asked.

"Well, there's a cause in it all—a fust cause, maybe. Tony ain't the chap to put off so easy, and what gets me is why does she go out there while he goes off here, and never a word to either, and both of them thick as twins since they were kids? And now here's Dickson puts up the dibs for young Murray to get away; Dickson—a chap that wouldn't give away the bones of a dead sheep. It may be best for Tony in the end, mind you. Never was a married man myself, but I've seen those as was, and—well, you're an experienced hand yourself," Marmot said, waving his hand to Smart, whose domestic differences contributed many an item of discussion to the habitues of the verandah.

The reference was not pleasing to Smart, and he did not reply.

"We've got to watch it," Marmot went on, failing to notice that Smart had not replied—"we've got to watch it. There's a drama in all this, if we only knew it, a panorama of human play-acting. Maybe it's as well I held my tongue, but all the same, young Dickson ain't running straight if he's getting open-handed, that I will swear."



CHAPTER XIV.

THE FINDING OF PETERS'S REEF.

For a couple of weeks the four who had set out from Birralong full of enthusiasm for the proving of the theory Palmer Billy had formed, wandered along the course of the creek where they had previously found gold. Palmer Billy insisted that as the gold must have come from a reef before it became embedded in the loose gravel of the stream, the proper way to seek for the reef was to follow up the stream, prospecting wherever there was a sign of sand or gravel in the bed, and keeping a sharp look-out for any outcrop of rock which might contain quartz. The mother-reef whence the gold had been washed must be higher up the stream, he argued, and if once they found that, they would be in possession of more wealth than any of them had ever dreamed of possessing. In the mean time, as they ascended the creek, and consequently approached the site of the reef, it was only reasonable to suppose that more pockets and patches of gold-bearing sand would be discovered. Some might be as rich as that upon which they had chanced at first; and then, even if they did not locate the mysterious mother-reef, they would be able to make good wages, and be able to return to the township and clear off their score with Marmot before setting out to more recognized auriferous areas.

For two weeks they followed up the creek, tracing its course even when it looped back upon itself so as to leave a tongue of land barely twenty yards across between the bends. The bed, as they progressed, was rocky, but free from quartz, and very little sand was found in the crevices of the rock, while only a few specks of gold now and again rewarded their perseverance and their toil.

As soon as the sun was up they were at work, and, except when they stopped for meals, they worked incessantly till sundown, the fascination of chance, the prospect of striking at any moment a patch of alluvial which would, by its richness, wipe away all memory of earlier disappointment, keeping them steadily going. At sunset they made their camp for the night, and slept, rolled in their blankets, lulled to sleep by the rippling stream flowing only a few yards away. As the first sign of dawn was heralded by the melodious twitters of the bush birds they were astir; the ashes of the fire, still smouldering, were raked together, and the billy set to boil, while they spread their blankets out to catch the first rays of the sun, and performed their simple toilets in the running stream. Day after day they worked along the creek, never finding anything more than specks of gold, and never seeing any token of the reef Palmer Billy was so sure must be somewhere near the higher reaches.

The stream had led them into more hilly and rugged country, sometimes flowing between high and steep banks, but more frequently through open country gradually ascending to higher levels. The size of the stream was steadily maintained, and no tributary rills were found to run into it, the long season of drought having apparently dried them all up. The fact that the volume of water did not diminish suggested that the stream had its origin in a series of springs higher up. Instead of this, however, they emerged one day on to a small patch of level land, from one side of which a steep, thickly wooded hill rose, and towards the centre of which a shallow, reed-grown pool formed the commencement of the stream. It was entirely different to what any one had expected, and as they traversed the area of land, covered with rank vegetation, they saw how in a rainy season it would be a peaty swamp formed by the drainage from the hills around.

A more complete overthrow of Palmer Billy's theory could not have occurred. The miles of country they had patiently journeyed over at the slow pace necessitated by the constant fossicking and prospecting, had been practically barren of gold, and the head of the stream, which the leader had always maintained would be found in a series of springs bubbling up in stony country, and surrounded by rocks, streaked and veined by quartz, had been found to be a small pool in the middle of a partially dried-up swamp.

Palmer Billy for once was silent as the camp was made.

"It's no good," he grumbled, when, with pipes alight, they lounged round the fire after the evening meal. "It's no good. We've struck a duffer. It's the old yarn. When we had a pile we didn't know how to keep it from the sharks, and now—well, we've struck a duffer."

"We're not through yet," Peters remarked, after a moment's silence.

"Not through?" Palmer Billy exclaimed, his raucous voice taking to itself a touch of scorn. "What do you call this? Are you going to take this up as a selection and grow pumpkins? Do you think there's any gold in this mud-pan? Did you ever see nuggets in a swamp of reeds? There's not an ounce of sand or gravel to the acre. How are you going to work it? Mine? Sink a shaft and drive tunnels? Not through, you call it, and never more than a colour to the dish after fourteen days and more of graft. I'm full of it. There was more of a show on Boulder Creek."

"'Kick at troubles when they come, boys,'" Tony chanted from the other side of the fire.

"Wot price that?" Palmer Billy interrupted. "Singing a digger's song on a darned dirty mud-heap. It's a blasphemy."

"Why?" Peters asked quietly.

"Why? Because there's no gold in it, that's why," Palmer Billy retorted.

"No; but there may be under it," Peters answered.

Palmer Billy rose to his feet, and stood with the firelight playing on his rugged face and figure as he turned towards Peters.

"Oh, there may be some under it! Oh! Very good. Then I suppose you're going to mine, and sink a shaft and tunnel, and——" the humour of it was too much for him, and he broke off in a loud laugh, which ended in a set of expressions not quite relevant, but calculated to relieve his feelings.

"I'm going to prospect in the morning all the same," Peters said, as quietly as before.

"Yes; why not? Let's try the hill," Tony exclaimed.

"Young fellow, you're a boy in most things, not forgetting age," Palmer Billy began; "but in mining you are a baby in a cradle; you——"

"I'm not so sure," Peters interrupted. "It's up the hill I'm going to prospect in the morning."

"All right," Palmer Billy answered, with a fierce energy. "Then I'll mind camp and go fishing in the lagoon. Maybe I'll catch a dinner, anyhow."

But in the morning he had recovered somewhat from the bitterness of the disappointment he felt at having his theory, elaborated in many a yarn around the camp-fire on the way up the creek, shattered by the discovery of the swamp.

"What's the move?" he asked Peters, as soon as breakfast was over.

"You're the boss of the show," Peters answered.

"No, my lad. I'm through. I'm an old hand, but when it comes to striking a swamp where I said there'd be a reef, it's time to shift. You're the boss now. I'll be cook and bring along the accordion. A bit of a stave may change the luck."

"Then we'll go for the hill," Peters said. "We'll prospect any likely looking stone, and if there are no signs of payable quartz, then maybe the country will change on the other side of the rise."

"And so will the tucker," Tony added. "There's more than half the stores gone now, and we're a good three days' journey from Birralong, the nearest township I know to this range."

"There's time enough for tucker," Peters replied. "When we've got to the top of the hill we can talk about that; we may have struck the reef by then, and be able to buy up the township if we want to."

They left the waterhole to face the steep, thickly timbered slope of the hill. The climbing was awkward and trying work for the horses, and the men had to lead them the greater part of the day, ever striving to get through the thick undergrowth nearer the summit of the ridge. Whenever any rock was seen to crop out, either Palmer Billy or Peters examined it for any sign of quartz or pyrites, but nothing rewarded their efforts.

For three days they clambered and toiled before they reached the summit. Wherever the dry bed of a stream was found the four spread along it, minutely examining the sand which had lodged in the crevices; but still with the same want of success, until, towards the evening of the third day from leaving the flat, they reached the top. The timber was slight and scraggy and the undergrowth ceased there, leaving an open space, rock-strewn and rugged, but from whence a view could be obtained over a wide expanse of country. They had had a particularly rough day's journey from the previous night's camp. A small pool of water, stagnant and stained with soil and dead leaves, had been discovered on a scrub-covered ledge, and there the camp had been made. On starting in the morning the water-bags had been filled and the horses had been allowed to drink all they cared for; now that they had reached the top the water in the bags was all they had, for there was none to be seen on the rough, uneven surface. Neither was there any vegetation for the horses to eat. There was evidently only one thing to be done. It was too late to think of attempting to descend the hill that night, so a fire was lit, a camp was made, and the horses secured. Wearied by the heavy climb, the four men had few words for one another, and as soon as each had had his meal, he rolled himself in his blanket and was asleep without even waiting for a smoke.

At dawn they awakened to find themselves chill and damp. During the night rain-clouds had gathered, and a steady, fine shower had fallen, making them wet through. The fatigue from the previous day had caused them to sleep too soundly to be awakened by anything until daylight, but now that they were roused it was to discomfort. The fire was out, and only after a prolonged search did they obtain enough dry wood to light another and boil their billy.

As they were discussing their breakfast the rain increased, coming down steadily and heavily.

"Two hours of this and the swamp below will be flooded," Peters said.

"And the track will be in a fine state too," Tony added.

"This comes of new chums prospecting and looking for a reef here, when the whole countryside hadn't a trace of quartz," Palmer Billy put in savagely.

He had discovered that the rain had somehow got to his accordion, and as the instrument was not made to stand the wet, it had suffered seriously, much to the disgust and indignation of its owner.

"And now we are here, nobody's even chipped a boulder," Murray said. "If this is what you call mining, I'm full of it."

"It's no use grumbling, anyway," Peters said quietly. "We haven't seen what's on the other side of the slope. There's no saying. If the creek starts running we may yet strike Palmer Billy's reef."

"Call it after yourself; I ain't boss now. I've had my shot and failed; but it seems to me I might as well have had another, seeing the result's the same."

"Well, anyhow, let's move along out of this and see if we can strike something. I've not done yet," Peters, still unruffled, replied.

The way up from the previous day's camp had been difficult; the way down was doubly so. The parched, dry soil absorbed the rain as quickly as it fell, with the result that the steep surface became loose and slippery, and the horses could scarcely keep their feet. They slipped and staggered along in a zigzag fashion, the men leading them, and as the rain continued to fall, there were shreds and patches of mist sweeping round the hill, which made it more awkward to pick a safe road and at the same time keep the direction they desired. With their attention mostly given to their horses—for if one fell it would be almost impossible to save it from serious if not fatal injury—and with their tempers still ruffled by the combined discomfort of the wet, the fatigue, and disappointment, no one noticed particularly which way they were going, save that each followed the other, the first man being Peters. Sometimes they had to ascend and sometimes to descend, as the lay of the land demanded; and so they struggled along, until suddenly a sharp cry from the leader roused the others to look up. Then they also uttered exclamations, for they found that instead of descending they had only succeeded in travelling round the top of the hill, to emerge again on to the bare, rugged summit.

The rain was driving in their faces; they were cold and uncomfortable, and their horses as well as themselves were tired by the useless scramble they had just accomplished. Peters, with a short-headed miner's pick-axe, which he had used to steady himself, in his hand, was standing beside a small boulder, which loomed as a dark, purple shade under the cold, grey rain-clouds. It was the first sign of anger or irritation he had displayed, but the expressions of opinion of the other three were not soothing on top of his own feelings, and, with vindictive malice, he struck at the boulder with the blunt head of the pick-axe. A sentiment accompanied the blow, but it was incomplete when Peters dropped the pick-axe and went down on his knees on the wet ground to gather up the fragments he had broken off the boulder. Then, with a yell, he leaped to his feet.

"We've struck it, boys; we've struck it!" he shouted. "It's gold!"

Rain, fatigue, the horses, hunger, bad temper, and disappointment alike vanished from the minds of the three as they heard the words. They crowded over to where Peters, laughing in his delight, was hugging the broken fragments of rock to his breast and capering round the boulder. Palmer Billy, silent as yet, bent down and examined the spot where Peters had struck. The fresh-broken face, already moistened by the rain, showed small heads and points of orange-coloured metal.

"Darned new-chum fool!" he muttered, as he stood up. "Here, you moonstruck jackeroo, stop that damned corroboree!" he shouted to the capering Peters. "If you want to know, it's native copper. I've seen tons of it. On the Cloncurry you can get it by the square mile."

"It's gold," Peters yelled in answer—"gold, you old wind-bag! There's a fortune in that boulder. Come on, boys. Out with the tools, and let us dolly a lump and test it."

It might be only native copper, but for the moment neither Tony nor Murray doubted the opinion of Peters. There was a scurry and a confused bungle as each tried to get what was wanted, while Palmer Billy stood by, trying to light his pipe, and muttering uncomplimentary sentences against all of them.

Peters had with him a rough-and-ready apparatus for testing any mineral encountered. A blowpipe, a bit of candle, a small bottle of powdered borax, another of mercury, and a bent platinum wire, packed away in an empty jam-tin, formed his assayer's kit—a paraphernalia which induced as much mirth and scoffing contempt from Palmer Billy as it would have done from a skilled and cultured scientist, who, without hair-balances, acids, retorts, and a dozen other appliances, would have scorned the idea of an analysis or anything approaching it. But in the annals of mining discovery, how often has the resources of a great mine been made known and available to human enterprise by the crude, simple apparatus of a travelling prospector, and how many hopeless and worthless "properties" have swallowed the contributions of a gullable public through the ornamental reports of the skilled and cultured proprietor of an elaborate laboratory!

By the time the jam-tin and its contents had been obtained from the confusion of Peters's swag, he had crushed on the blade of a shovel, with the blunt head of the miner's pick, a fragment of the mineral-bearing stone. Tony lit the stump of candle, taking the hat from his head and holding it over the flame to protect it from the rain, while Murray held the jam-tin of implements. With a pinch of the powdered stone in the palm of his hand, Peters took the blowpipe, and blew the candle-flame on to the end of the bent platinum wire until it became red-hot. Then he plunged it into the borax, and again placed it in the flame, until the borax hung at the end of the wire in a white, transparent bead. Touching it on the powdered stone, he again placed it in the flame, and watched it until he saw creep into it the rich, ripe colour which denoted gold.

"Native copper!" he cried in scorn, as he held out the ruddy bead to Palmer Billy. "Did you ever see copper go that colour? It's gold, boys—gold!"

Palmer Billy came nearer, and looked at the bead with a fine scepticism.

"Is it?" he said. "Well, dolly a lump of the stone, and let's see you wash the gold out."

"I'll do it with mercury," Peters exclaimed, as he seized the small bottle from the tin and shook it triumphantly towards the three.

"We don't want no fakes," Palmer Billy retorted. "If it's gold it'll wash out when the stone's crushed. You crush a bit of the rock; I'll look after the water."

He took up a dish from the disorder of Peters's kit, and started off to collect water in it from the little pools formed by the rain; while the others, forgetful of the rain and of everything save the prospect of proving the find, set to work to crush pieces of the boulder into a fine powder. By the time Palmer Billy returned with the dish half-full of water, they had a handful of the powdered stone ready, and he, with much solemnity, as became a sceptic, emptied it into the water, and slowly swished it to and fro, gradually spilling the water, and with it the finer dust of the stone, until only a little wet sand remained in the bottom of the dish. With his head on one side he lifted the dish, tilted over until the sand caught the light at the proper angle; then he slowly revolved the dish in his hands, the three others closely watching the expression of his face.

Without a word he put the dish on the ground, and, walking over to Peters, slapped him vigorously on the back.

"I'm an old hand," he exclaimed—"old enough in years and mining to be grandfather to the lot of you, and I don't give a shearer's curse for your fakes and your fiddlements; and I struck a swamp where I said there'd be a reef—but, as I'm a singer, it's gold."



The conversion of the sceptic completed the triumph of Peters, and, giving way once more to the enthusiasm of the moment, he capered round the boulder, yelling and shouting, the others joining in, despite their weariness and their saturated clothes. What were a few temporary inconveniences compared with the significance of Palmer Billy's admission? A night's sound sleep, a few hours' sunshine, a couple of good meals, and their discomforts were at an end; while there in the boulder they had tapped, and probably in others that they saw around them, and perchance in the hill up which they had clambered so tediously, there was gold, and gold which was theirs by right of discovery, by the right of the mining laws, written and unwritten, and the right of their future toil. The tucker might be getting scarce; but what of that? A few hours' work and one of them could ride away back to Birralong to clear off the score they had left and bring more stores, more horses, more anything they wanted—whatever it was, in a week it would be paid for. The gold was at their feet; the strength to win it in their muscles; the craving for possession in their minds. What wonder, then, that they knew nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing, as they yelled and danced, but the delight that was upon them—the wild, untrammelled, ravenous delight which only comes to those who know success in the midst of desolation and despair.

When they had relieved somewhat the fury of delight, they bethought themselves of their creature comforts and the needs of their horses. The latter, profiting by their freedom, had found a way for themselves down the hillside to a spot where there was something they could eat; and when the men found them, they found also that the spot was very much more suitable for a camping-ground than the summit of the hill. A shelter of branches was constructed, under which they placed their stores, and a fire, after some difficulty, was lit. Then, primeval instincts being strong, they removed the wet clothes they wore, and hung them in the shelter where the heat of the fire could reach and dry them, the while they busied themselves with the preparation of the meal of which they were in so much need. A break in the clouds, as they partook of it, added to the contentment they felt, for by the cessation of the rain an undisturbed night's rest seemed assured to them, and they needed that to fit them for their attack on the morrow upon the treasures they had found.

They were in calmer mind on the following morning, which was fortunately fine, and set out to systematically examine the extent of the gold-bearing stone they had stumbled across. It was all on the side of the hill which was farthest from the swamp, and it seemed as though the whole side of the hill was composed of it.

"What's to be done now?" Palmer Billy asked, when they met at the midday meal.

"We'll get as much of the gold as we can in a couple of days, and then send Murray back with two horses for stores enough to last another two months. By that time we'll know how much the reef is good for, and maybe have enough on hand to carry off and bank."

"Ah, that's the talk," Palmer Billy said admiringly. "No more flying round for the sharks to bite at you. Plank the stuff in the bank, and sit smiling at them. That's the talk."

"There is no bank at Birralong," Murray said.

"Isn't Marmot's good enough?" Palmer Billy asked. "Didn't he put up stores on a tally, and don't we owe him a turn now we're in luck? Marmot's good enough for me till the Government wants to build a railway and comes to me for a loan."

"That's a bit premature, isn't it?" Peters asked.

"Marmot's as good as a bank, and better; he stood us a shout and stores when we were stony. Where's the bank that'll do that?" Palmer Billy retorted. "You tell him, when you ride in for fresh stores, to shift some of them pumpkins out into the back-yard, because we're coming in soon with a dray-load of nuggets," he added to Murray.



CHAPTER XV.

BLACK AND WHITE.

In an isolated part of barren country, where the grass was sparse and coarse, the soil poor and stony, and the timber stunted and scraggy; where, in fact, everything for which the white man had neither use nor need was to be found, and where nothing existed that he or his stock could utilize—a black-fellow's camp was situated.

It was a primitive affair, as black-fellow's camps always are. A few long, thin sticks, looped and stuck in the ground, and with a miscellaneous collection of bark and branches laid over them, formed the huts, or gunyahs, which gave a temporary shelter against wind or rain, and could be left standing, or thrown down, when the tribe moved, without loss. Small fires smouldered near each, and, round about, half a dozen chocolate-coloured piccaninnies, innocent of clothes, ran and played, laughing and chattering to one another. In the shade the men were lounging, indolent and indifferent, wearing such cast-off clothes as they had been able to beg or steal from station hands, and smoking tobacco obtained by a similar process. In the heat and sunshine the women worked at such tasks which need demanded—the search for edible roots and grubs and the gathering of wood for the fires—or lounged, as their lords and masters did, indolent and indifferent. An old man, whose hair and beard were grizzled, and whose flesh was shrunk and withered, sat in the shade of his gunyah, gazing dreamily and wearily at the glowing ends of the sticks and the thin column of blue smoke which rose so steadily in the still air from them.

He was the last of his generation; the last of the tribe who remembered the days when first the white man came; the last to feel and sorrow for the days when tribal law and tribal rite ruled the destinies of the race. Very far back, when he was little more than a piccaninny, and long before he was ripe for the ceremony which made him a "young man," he recalled how his tribe had been perplexed by a story which had come to them, by a tale of strange happenings brought from other tribes somewhere away in the far distance. Later, when he was grown and had been made a young man and a warrior, he learned the story in full, and wonderful it seemed to him, as wonderful as it seemed to all his tribe, old men and young men alike. For it meant the coming of that which would explain and render clear all the mysteries treasured up by the wise men and the old men, and shown, still in mystery and only in part, to the young men as they passed through the stages of their initiation. In short, it meant to him, and to his, the fulfilment of their religion, the vindication of their faith, the perfecting of their creed.

In the matters of creeds and abstract faiths many men make many methods. Some are fitted for the daily use of men counting into millions; some touch only a minute few, and shrink from the common gaze; some, again, serve the needs and lives of men having simple ways, and some sustain a despot's power and hold the race as slaves: but in every case they are false and wrong save the one that a man may hold. The religious faith of the tribe to which the old black-fellow belonged formed a pitiful mass of crudities, oddities, and absurdities to the white men when they came, or to such white men as stopped for a moment to think on the matter at all. But it was very real to the old black-fellow, as it was to his comrades and tribesmen, when it came to be unfolded to them in all the impressive solemnity of fast, vigil, and ceremony. How could it be otherwise when the ordeal of bodily pain accompanied every step in the knowledge of the mysteries?

Overhead, by the Southern Cross, a black patch shows in the sky. The white man calls it the coal-sack, and explains how it comes about. The black-fellow looked at it in wonder, and worked his brains for the reason of its existence and the use that it might serve, and gradually, unconsciously, inexplicably, there crept into the lore of the nomad tribes the story of its origin and the use it had to serve.

The stars of night were camp-fires, alight on a mighty plain; the Milky-way was a she-oak grove; and the gentle winds that blew at night waved the trees and shook the boughs, and so made the fires gleam from beneath their shadow, fitful and subdued. By every fire a black-fellow camped on his journey over the plain—the journey that every man must take when the days of his life were done; for in the long ago a man had strained till he found what the black patch was. It was an opening through to the mighty plain; but when he had reached it, he longed for his brother to join him and wander over it with him. Looking down he saw his brother, and called to him, and, to help him up, threw down a rope, up which the brother climbed. But when he also reached the plain, he wanted to turn back and go down again, and lowered the rope to do so; but before he could start, he saw that another black-fellow had caught hold of the rope and was climbing up. And when he came up, he also threw down the rope again to one of his tribe; and the two brothers, becoming impatient, set out to march across the plain to where it touched the earth, where they could get down without the help of the rope.

A falling star, the white men said, was the rope the black-fellows saw; and they laughed as the blacks crouched down in fear by the camp-fire when they caught the flash of a shooting star. But that was afterwards—after the time when the things had happened which made the old black-fellow sad and weary.

The journey was long over the mighty plain—so long that as a black-fellow wandered he wore out the colour of his skin and became white. Somewhere in the dim, unknown past, a legend told how some of the black-fellows had really come back from the plain, reaching the earth where the end of the plain touched it; but when they rejoined their tribes they had not been recognized, and so had gone away again in anger. None had come since then, but the tribes treasured up the hope that some day the mistake their ancestors had made would be forgotten, and those who found their way across the plain would come back and tell them of the land above. The hope, fostered on legend and ceremony, grew at length into a creed, and from a creed into a faith, and the time was looked forward to when the wandering black-fellows, grown white in the journey, should come back; for then it would be no longer necessary to climb through the black patch, nor to fear the falling rope. Then would drought or flood cease to trouble, for plenty of food and plenty of water would be every man's share when the people of the great plain came back.

When the old man was a piccaninny the story travelled from the south that the white men had reached the earth again, and had come in tribes and in tribes of tribes, more than the black-fellow could count, more than the black-fellow could understand. When he was made a "young man," he was told of it, and told how men of his own tribe, who had gone up through the coal-sack by the blazing rope, were coming back; and how, when they came back, the black-fellow's life would be never-ending, with food enough every day to satisfy his appetite, and no flood, no drought, no sickness, nothing but life—free, happy, and enjoyable.

And the old man had seen the white men come.

He had seen them come with their flocks and herds—the food the black-fellow knew was coming. He had seen them come with shouts and rage when the black-fellow ate the food they brought him. He had seen them swoop on a tribe at peace, without a sign that they sought for war, till the warriors lay on the red earth, dead, slain by the power the white men had. He had seen them ride where the children played; he had seen them charge where the women stood; he had seen the gunyahs set on fire, the war-spears burned, the tokens scorned, till his race had fled from their tribal lands to the barren ridges and sandy plains, where they starved and died off one by one, till he was alone—and his faith was gone.

The creed and the faith he had learned and loved; the tribal lore and the ordered rite; the lesson, the trial, and the test of strength—they had all been wrong when the white man came. And now he was old and worn and sad, there was one idea, one hope, he had—that before he died he might wet his hands with the blood of the men who had spoiled his life.

As he sat blinking at the glow of his fire, just as he had sat for days past, he heard a sudden commotion amongst the men who were lounging in the shade, and, looking up, he saw four horsemen approaching through the bush. The men had also seen them, and were going towards them to beg tobacco. Some young gins stood by a gunyah, and he saw one of the horsemen point to them, and turn and say something to his companions. The sound of their voices came to him—and then he saw two of them ride at the men till they scattered and fled, while the other two rode at the gins.

The old man sat without a move or a sound through all the turmoil and confusion; but when the men wandered back, hours afterwards, when the sounds of the horses' hoofs were growing faint in the distance and the sky was ruddy with the setting sun, they found him sitting by his fire, with the clothes of the white race flung away, his old withered body daubed with splodges of white clay, and with a mass of white clay plastered on his head. He was slowly rocking himself to and fro, and chanting, in a quavering voice, a weird and mournful song. Everywhere else there was silence; no fires glowed by the gunyahs or anywhere, save near where the old man sat, and neither woman nor child could be seen.

The ways of their fathers were little to the men, for the time that should have been spent in teaching them the customs and the creed had been spent in fleeing from the bullets of the white men and seeking out-of-the-way barren spots where neither white men nor the white men's stock were likely to penetrate; but they knew enough to understand the signs of deep mourning the old man had assumed, and to recognize the dirge as the wail for those who had fallen while defending their women.

As the men came nearer they came slower, till they crept up to the fire where it smouldered, and sat round it, silent and uneasy, as the sun sank out of sight and the moon came up, while the old man crooned his dirge. The white light of the moon showed over the trees, throwing into profound shade all else, save where the glow of the fire showed red. The air grew chill now the sun had gone, and it was long since the men had fed; but they still sat silent round the smouldering fire.

Suddenly one arose with a gesture of impatience, and, stepping back behind the old man, flung off the ragged shirt and trousers that he wore, and shook out the tangled mass of his hair free from the compression the slouch hat he had been wearing left on it. A lump of white clay lay on either side of the old man, and the younger, yielding to some impulse which was upon him, stooped and daubed himself over with it in streaks and splashes, and then went back to the fire and sat down again.

The old man sang neither louder nor faster, nor gave any sign that he saw or understood; but another of the men got up and flung away the clothes he was wearing, and daubed the white clay on his naked skin, and came back to the fire again. Then another did the same; then another, and another, until all were naked, and all were daubed with clay, and all were sitting round the fire, silent, as the old man crooned.

As the last one came back he looked up. Presently he ceased his dirge and spoke, telling in an apparently unimpassioned way of the doings of the warriors when he was a young man. He spoke of the pride the tribe felt when one of their men faced and fought, single-handed, the band of another tribe; and told how once one man had followed the enemy day and night, while the moon grew old and died, and grew again before he caught them—caught and slew them. Tales of daring, tales of vengeance, of wrongs redressed, of vows redeemed; tales of the tribal might in the days when their fathers ruled, he told them; and as they heard, something of the old spirit came again to them as the inherited instincts of countless generations stirred their blood and warmed their hearts. The sloth they put on with the cast-off clothes of the white invader fell away from their natures as the voice of the old man droned in their ears. Half-forgotten memories of the war corroborees, danced in the far-off days when the tribe was ever moving and ever fighting against the white men; recollections of blood-stained figures of warriors, left on the camping-ground when the rest of the tribe fled before the storm of the white men's bullets, flitted through their brains; stray shreds of tribal wails and dirges, melancholy and depressing, which had terrified them in their childhood, seemed to blend with the voice of the old man, and the eyes which had been dull and heavy began to grow bright and to glitter. Soon the breasts began to heave as the men breathed faster; the white of a man's teeth gleamed as he opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again in anger as he realized that the words which came to his lips were words in the white man's tongue. Quickly a man sprang to his feet, and stood with the red glow of the embers playing over his swarthy skin and the spots and streaks of the wet white clay. Another sprang up and leaped away into the darkness, but returned a moment later with a bundle of long, thin, pointed sticks, which he flung to the ground by the fire. They were the spears the men had made, rough, crude implements compared with the balanced and decorated weapons their fathers had known, but such as would serve to satisfy the hereditary impulse of a decadent race for the weapons of their sires. With one accord the men reached out and seized them, springing to their feet, and standing, with quivering muscles and tremulous hands, as the struggle between inherited instinct and acquired fear went on for the mastery of their beings.

The man who had brought the spears, and in whom the old spirit lingered more powerfully than in the others, took a spear in either hand, and pranced round the fire, stooping down over the points of the weapons, and chanting, in a subdued voice, a fragment of a war-song. The old man caught the rhythm and the words and took them up, beating time with his withered hands; and as he did so, the others joined in the dance, the instincts of the black-fellow only in their beings—the instincts which brought back to them the impulses which moved their forbears, the instincts which made them fling aside the methods and the fear of the white man, as they had flung away the clothes of which they had learned the need from him.

The self-constituted leader, alive with the spirit of revenge, moved, still chanting, away from the fire—away in the direction the white men took when they rode off from the raid. Upon his heels the others followed, stepping as he stepped, moving as he moved; and the old man, glancing after them as they crossed a patch of moonlight and disappeared into the shadow beyond, hugged his arms together and laughed within himself—the untrained, slothful decadents had gone out upon the war-path, naked, painted, armed, as their forbears used to be; moving as their forbears used; hating as their forbears used; and, in his ignorance of instincts, it was to him a miracle wrought by the spirits of his race illumined once more by the flicker of his dying creed.

The clear, nerveless moonlight lay over the bush like a flood of white transparency, revealing everything it touched with the distinctness of day, and hiding everything that escaped it in a veil of impenetrable shadow. From amid such a shadow there gleamed, red and angry, the smouldering embers of a big camp-fire—such a fire as white men make, with large logs piled up. All flame had long since fled from the fuel, now reduced to a heap of red embers, glowing the brighter now and again as a faint breeze fanned it. Without throwing enough light to illuminate the scene, the ruddy gleam extended far enough to reveal, dimly, the figures of four men lying round the fire, rolled in blankets, and sleeping the heavy slumber of weariness.

Beyond the reach of the fire-gleam, and moving well within the shadow away from the bright moonlight, a dozen figures moved stealthily towards the sleeping men. They approached in single file, stooping down till their chins touched their knees, and moving so warily that each one stepped in the footprints of the others, and so silently that, while the sounds of the sleepers' breathing came on the air, no sound followed the movements of the approaching figures. Steadily, stealthily, they crept onwards, until the leader was within a few feet of the nearest sleeper. With a gesture, visible only to those close behind him, he raised his arms, and the men following him divided into two lines, one passing to his right, the other to his left, until they had formed a complete circle round the four sleepers.

A faint whisper of a breeze seemed to pass through the air, and the men stood upright, each with the right arm thrown back to its full extent, and with a long, thin spear quivering in the hand. Again the breeze seemed to whisper, and the outstretched arms swung forward, and the quivering spears were thrown, and mingled with the loud, harsh shout which came from each warrior's throat, was the cry of pain to which each wakening victim gave vent as he recovered consciousness and agony at the same moment.

Three of the four struggled fiercely to wrest out the spears that pinned them down, and the watching warriors made ready to throw again. One of the four lay still, and the warriors paid no heed to him; but under the shelter of his blanket, ignoring the anguish of the two spear-wounds he had, he was feeling for his revolver.

A streak of flame, the echo of the shot, and the death-shriek of one of the black-fellows were almost simultaneous. To the wounded white men the sound of the shot was a signal of hope; to the unwounded blacks it was a terror and dismay, and without more than a glance at their comrade where he lay, they turned and fled into the shadows of the bush.

"My God! they're burning out my entrails," one of the white men groaned.

"Lie still, you fools; lie still. You're only doing harm by struggling," the man who had shot called out.

Another of the four had ceased to move, though three spears were stuck in him. The man nearest to him managed to wriggle over and up on to his hands and knees.

"Gleeson's dead," he cried.

"Hold on, Tap, you fool!" the first man said. "I've a spear through my thigh and another in my left arm, but I'll have them out in a moment, and then see what's wrong with you."

"Give me water—water," the man on the other side of the fire groaned.

Tap, least wounded of the four, took heart as he saw Barber wrest out the spears that were sticking in his leg and arm and bind up the wounds. But he shuddered when Barber came over to him and jerked out the spear which had passed through the muscle under his shoulder.

"You're not hurt. What are you howling about?" Barber said roughly, and passed over to Walker, who was just breathing. "Speared through the stomach," he said in a whisper to Tap; "he'll be finished in two minutes. What are you doing now, you fool?" he asked quickly, as Tap, having neither the nerve nor the courage of his companion, reeled and fell fainting to the ground.

Barber stood for a moment looking down at him, and then glanced at the others. Walker no longer breathed, Gleeson had not moved, and the black-fellow lay where he fell, on his back, with a red stain spreading from a spot on his chest over the smudges and smears of the wet white clay.

"It's saved me a lot of trouble," he remarked callously, as he went to the fire and threw more wood on to it.



CHAPTER XVI.

TWO SIDES OF A STORY.

A scandal had come to Birralong; a scandal that ate its way into the peace and contentment of the township; a scandal which introduced into the simple existence of the district a discordant, jarring note, common enough in more crowded centres of population, but absent up to that moment from the annals of the sober, clean-living inhabitants of the bush township. And the men who gathered on Marmot's verandah to settle all the problems and the squabbles of the locality, met to marvel and to wonder; for they who, in their wisdom, had anticipated all things; they who had solved all questions affecting the welfare of the district; they who had laid bare the skeleton of every secret for miles around—had met and heard, in painful and perplexed silence, the story of a greater secret than they had yet encountered, and a secret beside which, as it were, they had been living for months past without even dreaming of its existence.

When first it came to them through the medium of a floating shred of gossip that had filtered through to the Carrier's Rest, they were too much affected for words. Only could they sit and smoke in silence, each man turning the story over and over in his mind until his pipe went out, and under cover of the smokeless silence he slipped away into the darkness and went home, mournful and abashed; until at last Marmot awakened from the reverie into which he had fallen, and discovered that he was alone as well as silent.

By the next evening they had recovered somewhat, and discussed the story in all its detail, grown the richer and more comprehensive by the silence of the night before. Each one had some little touch, some poignant item, to add to the general outline; and when they separated that night, the shred of gossip had become the completed romance which lived ever afterwards in the traditions of the township.

The hero was Slaughter; the heroine Nellie Murray; and the theme, the shattering of idyllic bliss by the deceit of a faithless lover.

From the day of the schoolmaster's death Slaughter had been a greater conundrum than ever to the men of Birralong. His visits to the store had become less and less frequent, and his bearing, when he did come, more and more distant and reserved. Not even the story of the diggers' arrival and dispersing interested him; not even the audacity of the robbery of the miner's gold from the constable's cottage, and the fruitlessness of the subsequent chase after the robbers, moved him. He listened silently and listlessly to the account of Tony's departure with his mates to seek for a fresh fortune in the place of the one they had lost. Only twice had he manifested any attention to what was said on the verandah when he was present. He had become animated and attentive when the conversation turned on the fact that while Tony had ridden out to Barellan to see Ailleen on his first return from the diggings, he had neither gone out nor mentioned her name on his second return to the township—the occasion of the great billiard contest. It was recalled by some one how quickly he had come back from the one visit he had made, and how short his answers had been to all questions put to him, and the opinion which had been formed and was generally expressed was that the cause of it all was young Dickson and the precedence he had taken over Tony in the affections of Ailleen. When Slaughter heard that he had sniffed, as he usually did before delivering himself of a sweeping condemnation of all womankind, and looked round on his companions with eyes that were peculiarly bright—but he said nothing.

The other occasion when he showed any interest in the conversation was when it was said that Tony and his two mates on setting out for the second time to the gold-fields had taken young Murray with them as well, Dickson having paid for his share in the stores and tools of the party. That piece of information had apparently affected Slaughter almost more than the other, and although he had not spoken—as Smart put it, he seemed to have swallowed his tongue—there had been a light in his eye and an expression on his face that had escaped no one.

And yet none of them had had wit enough to understand the significance of it all—until the bald fact of the revealed secret came to them. Each one claimed then that he had seen, noted, and understood the peculiarity of Slaughter's behaviour on the two occasions, but he had held his peace lest he should be doing an injustice to a fellow-townsman. Never before had Birralong been so unanimous in forming an opinion nor so generous in respecting another's fair name. But lost time was made up in the fulness of opportunity that was now offered.

The beginning of the story was vague and uncertain, and, as no particular interest attached to it, it was practically left alone. The interest of Birralong commenced with the alarm Murray and Murray's wife experienced with regard to Nellie. With a big family and a small selection, there was neither time nor inclination on their part to mince matters, and Nellie had been questioned severely and pointedly. An obstinate silence was the only result, and her parents losing patience, she had been left in a room with a locked door in order to acquire the necessary sense to answer what she was asked. Instead, however, of learning the folly of obstruction, she found that the window was open; and when her parents returned, many hours afterwards, to renew their inquiries, they found that Nellie had vanished.

Disliking the idea of publicity—a mistake for which Birralong soundly condemned them—they had kept their own counsel for days—days when, as Marmot impressively pointed out, Slaughter had visited the store and displayed that taciturn manner which was so easily understood under the light of subsequent revelations.

As the days passed and no sign was given by the missing Nellie, and anxiety began to be manifest in the Murray household, a message was brought by a boy, who said he had received it from a man on the road, that Mrs. Murray would do well to hurry to Slaughter's at the Three-mile. Disbelieving, yet alarmed, Murray, his wife, and a neighbour who happened to be at the selection at the time, set off in a spring-cart to the Three-mile.

They found Nellie there and brought her back; and then the news leaked out, and Murray came to the township, with blazing hate in his eyes, asking to be shown where Slaughter was, and calling for his son to come home and help him exact retribution for the betrayal of his child.

But no one knew where Slaughter was; no one had seen him in the township for days; and, as far as could be learned, there were no signs of his having been at the Three-mile for days; while Nellie held her peace, even when her baby came and died, and she almost followed it.

That was the story Birralong heard, and nightly was the gathering on Marmot's verandah entranced with the discussion of it, and the considering of all the pros and cons concerned in it. Aggravation was given to their interest by the arrival of the periodical letter for Slaughter; and, having discussed the matter for some evenings, it was at length determined to send out word to Murray, so that he should be ready to start whenever warning was sent that Slaughter had come in for his mail. There was a possibility that the meeting between the two would be picturesque, and Marmot and his friends had an eye to the picturesque in that respect. They were almost outraged when the messenger returned with Murray's reply, for it dispelled immediately any prospect of entertainment; Murray replied that they could mind their own business. And the next evening Slaughter came in.

They had only just gathered together when he rode up on his old scraggy horse. He threw the reins over one of the posts as he got down from the saddle, and walked on to the verandah with an air of unconcern that made every man look at him open-mouthed.

"Got any letters for me?" he said to Marmot, ignoring the rest.

"Post-office's shut," Marmot replied curtly, as he stood up. "You can come to-morrow."

He forgot for the moment the unfriendly answer Murray had sent in to his message, and the murmur of approbation that passed round the assembly at his words pleased him.

"It was never shut before," Slaughter said, looking him straight in the face.

"Well, it is now," Marmot retorted; and sat down again.

On a small rack above the counter, just in a line behind Marmot's head when he was standing, was displayed the letter Slaughter had come for, and as Marmot sat down he saw it. He pushed past into the store and took it from the rack. As he turned to the door, he faced the men standing round Marmot.

"Put that back, or——" Marmot began loudly.

"Get out of my way," Slaughter shouted, as he advanced towards them with angry eyes and closed fists.

They had seen such an expression on his face once before; and as they did then, so did they now, as they fell apart and allowed him to pass out. As he reached his horse, he faced them again.

"You mind your own affairs," he said, with a snarl in his voice; and before they could find an answer for him, he mounted his horse and rode away.

"Well!" Marmot exclaimed, when at length he found words. "What game's this, I'd ask?"

Smart, from the end of the verandah where he had been watching Slaughter ride through the township, laughed as he answered—

"Old Cold-blood's waking up. As the missus says, them freezers is always the worst when they thaws."

"Seems to me," Cullen observed solemnly—"seems to me the drought ain't the only trouble in the district; and old Cold-blood, coming here listening to all we've got to say, has got in ahead of us somehow, and is playing a lone hand for all he's worth. He's bluffed Murray."

"Wha-at?" Marmot exclaimed.

"For why not?" Cullen went on. "He came from over by Murray's;" and he pointed away in the direction whence Slaughter had come, and which was also the direction of the Murray selection. "Old Cold-blood's a man of eddication, and eddication, you take my tip, is the joker in a hand like this. The old man's right. This ain't our game. We've got our hands full watching how things go. There's a breeze coming up from somewhere, and we're best under shelter. Leave them as wants it to take up the running. Old Cold-blood and the Three-mile ain't our dart."

Ignorant of the commotion his reappearance had created at the store, Slaughter rode on his way to his selection, from which he had been absent for a couple of weeks. Barber, before leaving (for the West, as he told Slaughter at the time, but in reality to lead the raid on the miner's gold at the constable's cottage), had promised to send a message to Slaughter to a small township on the north of Birralong, giving him full particulars as to the whereabouts of the woman whose wrong-doing was the foundation of their mutual hate. Slaughter had set out for the northern township at the appointed time, and found a letter awaiting him from Barber; but instead of containing the information promised, it told how Barber and his three companions had been attacked at night by wild blacks, how two of the party were killed, and the others so badly wounded that they were returning by slow stages to the Three-mile for rest. The letter concluded by asking Slaughter to ride out to meet them, as should either break down, the other would not be able to render him any assistance. This Slaughter had done, meeting Barber and Tap on the road from the West. They were not travelling quite so slowly as the letter might have led Slaughter to believe, neither was the condition of their wounds so serious as the letter implied; but Slaughter neither expressed nor manifested surprise. It may have been that the presence of the black-browed Barber awakened memories of a bygone period before his life was scarred by transverse currents of bitterness; it may have been that his appearance roused the latent hatred he entertained for the woman who had crossed and marred his path after those happier years; it may have been some evil influence the man exhaled, and which affected his companions;—but immediately he was thrown in contact with Barber, there came to Slaughter's eyes a dull glow unpleasant to see and as forbidding as it was foreboding. Matters of everyday note escaped him or were unheeded; inaccuracies of fact, contradictions of statement, were alike ignored; only did Slaughter seem to realize and hope for the prospect of learning how he might attain to the summit of his ambition by settling that unhappy account of the bygone years.

There were not many words lost in the greeting. Barber said that he and Tap were coming back to the Three-mile for some more business they had heard of, and that they wanted to be as quiet and free from interruption as they had been before. Leave was neither asked nor given; but the three travelled on together until a day's ride from Birralong, when Tap and Barber branched off to the right and left, leaving Slaughter to go on through the township to the selection by himself.

When he arrived at the slip-rails across the end of the track leading from the road to the selection, he saw by the gleam of firelight from the open doorway that some one was in the hut. As he entered he saw in the dim light the figures of Barber and Tap, while nearer the door a third was standing.

"Well, I'm off," the latter said, as Slaughter went into the hut. "Hullo," he added, as he met Slaughter face to face. "You back again?"

"Well, what then?" Slaughter answered, with a surly tone and manner. "This is my own place, isn't it?"

"Oh yes, it's your own place, only I didn't see you here when I last came over, and they do say in the township——"

"Look here, young fellow," Slaughter exclaimed savagely, "if you come here as often as I come to Barellan, I'll be satisfied. The less I see——"

"Dry up," Barber called out. "Dickson came with a message for me. What's it to you if the boy has doings with me?"

Slaughter said nothing, and Dickson, with an uneasy laugh, looked round at Barber.

"Of course if the girl comes out, why, we're off," Tap observed.

"What girl?" Slaughter exclaimed quickly.

"Why, the girl Birralong's talking about—the girl—well, you ought to know," Dickson said.

"I suppose you think you're going to cut the youngster out as well with the other one, and play up with her," Barber added.

Slaughter, standing by the doorway, looked round from one to the other slowly.

"You'd best talk plain, I take it," he said. "You'll say straight what you've got to say, or some one will shift out of this camp. What's your yarn, anyhow?" he added, facing to Dickson.

"That's all right," he answered, grinning uneasily, and shifting his feet as he made as though to get nearer the door. "It's only borak. It's a yarn, that's all."

"A yarn put about while you were away—the boy's only chaffing you," Tap put in.

Slaughter stood by the doorway, looking from one to the other.

"I'll know more than that," he said. "If any man says aught of me combined with a woman's name, he's got me to deal with, and smart too."

"Well, go to the township, you fool, and ask what's said," Barber exclaimed.

Dickson, scenting trouble for himself if Slaughter did anything of the kind, tried to remedy the unexpected development of his remarks.

"It's only borak," he repeated. "I was chaffing. I didn't mean anything. I thought you liked a joke. It's all right."

Barber laughed at this sudden change of front, for prior to Slaughter's appearance Dickson had been telling, with great glee, how he had put on to Slaughter's shoulders the reputation of his own iniquity. He had told the story with the air of one who knew that he had done something which would earn the admiration of his listeners; with the air of one who, mean and cowardly himself, regarded his companions as being similarly constituted. It was the suggestion of implied meanness that rankled with Barber, and made him interpose upon Dickson's efforts to beat a hasty retreat.

"It's a girl at the station, you fool," he said. "The youngster said——"

"Silence!" Slaughter shouted, as he advanced a step into the hut and faced the black-browed man, with the gleam in his eyes which had held the men of Birralong back, and his fists clenched. "You bandy her name, and——"

"Well, what then?" Barber interrupted.

"You'll deal with me," Slaughter added, facing the other, and meeting his eyes in as steady and as hard a glance as was given.

The other two occupants of the hut stood silent, watching—Tap from under his eyebrows, askance; Dickson, with a face that was growing pale and eyes that were shifty and timid. Barber and Slaughter faced each other, the one with a heavy, sullen look, the other with a gleam of fierce anger in his eyes—just as he had looked at Marmot and his comrades when they essayed to follow him into the schoolmaster's cottage. Barber, through his growing rage, realized that he had a different man to deal with than the ordinary run; he remembered also that to quarrel with Slaughter at the moment would be dangerous to the scheme he was working. He allowed his eyes to go down before the steady stare that faced him.

"No one wants to harm her," he said sullenly; and both Tap and Dickson looked up at Slaughter with a momentary feeling akin to awe—it was the first time they had seen or heard of Barber wavering.

"No one shall harm her," Slaughter cried. "If any man harms her by word or deed, he'll have me to answer. Do you hear?" he shouted, flinging round on Dickson, who started and cowered.

"The boy said nothing," Barber exclaimed. "Come, get out of it," he added to Dickson, as he went up to him and, taking him by the arm, roughly, pushed him out of the hut.

Slaughter stood where he was, and Tap slunk out after the others.

"You young fool," Barber said, as he pushed Dickson along towards the paddock where his horse was, gripping his arm so fiercely that the boy writhed with the pain of it, and yet was too frightened to cry out, "if our game goes wrong through your tricks, we'll flay you. You keep out of sight till I send for you; do you hear?"

Tap came up behind them as Barber was speaking.

"We had best meet somewhere else, and——"

Barber glanced round. If he had given way to Slaughter he was not going to allow any one else to override him.

"Are you boss of this game or am I?" he said quickly; and Tap held back. "You ride straight back to Barellan," he added to Dickson. "When I want you I'll send for you, so you'll be on hand any time; and if you play up any more tricks till my game's through, look out."

He pushed him away as he spoke, and Dickson hastily caught his horse and rode off without a word. As he disappeared, Tap said in a cringing voice—

"He's like his mother—only good for a sneak thief."

"He's the dead spit of his father, if you want to know," Barber answered savagely; and Tap again slunk back.



CHAPTER XVII.

A BUSHMAN'S BANKER.

When Bobby Murray rode from Birralong with a couple of months' supply of stores for the mining camp, he found that during his brief absence the others had made great progress in their work. The boulder which had first revealed the secrets of Peters's reef, had been entirely broken up and crushed, with such crude appliances as the three were able to construct, the result, a heap of coarse gold, testifying that, even if crude, the appliances were effective. Other boulders had also been disposed of and the free, coarse gold extracted; while the tailings, or residue from the crushings, were carefully piled up by Palmer Billy, the blowpipe of Peters, now almost a fetish with the former sceptic, having shown that gold in considerable quantity still remained to be extracted.

They had also sunk a shallow trial shaft near the site of the original boulder, and though the hole was only a few feet deep, it showed on all sides the same class of stone. Lower down the slope of the hill there were also outcrops of the stone, and, as Palmer Billy said, it seemed as though, now they had struck it, there was no getting away from the payable ore.

The two more experienced miners of the party debated as to the best methods of working their find, and had decided that they should all work as they had commenced, until they had won enough gold to set them on their feet, financially, whatever might occur. With it, three should journey to Birralong, and place it in the keeping of Marmot, while one—Palmer Billy bespoke the post—should remain on the ground, and "hold" it in case other prospectors came along. Then, when their first earnings were in the safe keeping of Marmot, Tony and Murray were to return, while Peters journeyed to the nearest mining official, declared the find, and had the reward claims of the four, as pegged out, proclaimed and secured.

"Peters's reef will run to a township then, boys, and my swamp will be a fortune in corner lots," Palmer Billy exclaimed with enthusiasm.

"Or a tank for the sharks when they come along," Tony said.

"Sharks? If a darned shark comes around now we'll roast him. It's the last chance I'll ever have of striking it rich, and this time I'm going to be fly," Palmer Billy retorted.

For nearly six weeks they worked on, always with success, until the gold they had won filled several canvas bags they made for it, and amounted to as heavy a load as the four horses could carry, in addition to the three men and their swags and stores.

Leaving Palmer Billy comfortable in camp, Peters, Tony, and Murray started for Birralong. By following the route Murray had taken when he returned with the stores, they managed to reach the scene of Gleeson's rush on the second evening; and while camping there, Murray pointed out that as no one was expecting them in the township for at least another month, it might be as well if one of them rode in and told the township they were coming. He volunteered to ride in as soon as it was daylight, and tell Marmot that the others were bringing a pack-horse laden with gold, which they wanted to leave in his charge. It was a good idea, Peters said; and with the morning Murray started, the other two following leisurely and some hours after.

When they arrived at Marmot's, early in the afternoon, they found him on the verandah with Murray, while the latter's horse, still sweating, was hitched up to one of the posts in front.

"My word! you've come along at a pace," Marmot exclaimed, as they rode up. "Murray here was saying——"

"Where's the use of wasting time when you've struck it?" Tony interrupted to ask; adding, as he looked at Murray's horse, "Been raising the district?"

"I just told one or two," Murray replied. "I reckoned there'd be a sing-song to-night at the Rest."

"But what's this about a team-load of nuggets coming in?" Marmot said, advancing to the top of the verandah steps and looking at Tony and Peters as they dismounted. "You'll want an escort. We'll have to send Leary back to the coast for a sergeant and a squad of troopers; and then the bank'll have to be told. It won't be safe to plank all that gold in a bank at once without telling them it's coming."

Peters laughed.

"There's no team-load," he said. "The boy has been pulling your leg. We've got it on the pack-horse here, and the bank where it's going, for the present, anyway, is in there;" and he nodded towards the store.

Marmot braced himself up, and then, fearing lest they should see how proud he was at the flattery of their trust, attempted to demur.

"But, boys, this is a big contract," he said seriously. "I'm on to run a tally for most things; but—how much do you make it?"

"Say about a couple of thousand ounces and you overshoot it," Peters answered.

"And good gold—four notes an ounce gold?"

"Ah, now you're getting into expert talk," Peters replied. "It looks all right, but it hasn't been assayed, and it hasn't been weighed yet. We've got it; that's our point."

He and Tony were loosening the bags from where they were fastened to the pack, and as he spoke, he removed one, and came up to the verandah with it in his hands.

"Where will you have it?" he asked.

"Put it in the post-office safe," Marmot replied, with dignity, as he led the way into the store and round behind one of the counters, where a yellow-japanned tin box, with a broken brass lock and a dented lid, rested in peaceful indifference to the title given to it since the half-crown's worth of postage stamps Marmot kept on hand were placed in it with other post-office valuables.

He stood by the box as five bags, all similar to the one Peters first produced, were placed in it. Then he closed the lid carefully, passed a piece of string round it, and sealed it with the Birralong date-stamp.

"That's as safe as the Queensland National," he exclaimed, as he stood up with pride on his face and faced the three lucky diggers.

"It ought to be, unless Birralong has changed," Tony answered, with a short laugh. "Now, suppose we give the Rest a chance?"

Marmot looked round and smiled. Then he went to the back door, closed and bolted it, and came on to the verandah where they were, closing and locking the door after him, and suspending on a nail a notice-board, always ready, and bearing the legend, "Gone to Rest."

"Looks well," Peters said, eyeing the notice.

"Ah, that's his work," Marmot answered, looking at Tony. "He cut the 'the' out, and I've never had time to write another."

He came down from the verandah, mounted the pack-horse, sitting far back behind the pack like an Arab on a donkey, and once more headed the procession from the store to the Rest—a procession which grew in size as it passed down the township road, and collected the units of the male population from their various habitations.

"How's old Slaughter getting on?" Tony asked Marmot, after greeting Smart and Cullen.

"Oh, him?" Marmot answered evasively, as he glanced over at Murray, who, however, did not manifest any interest in the matter.

"I didn't see him last time I was in," Tony went on. "How is the old chap keeping? Still a whale on——"

"It's risky," Marmot whispered excitedly, interrupting him. "Ain't you heard? Ain't young Murray heard? Don't you know?"

"Know what?" Tony asked.

"Why, about—about Slaughter and the girl."

"Slaughter and the girl? What girl? You don't mean——" Tony, filled with admiration for Ailleen, the greater because it was suppressed, immediately became alert and suspicious.

"His sister," Marmot answered under his breath, jerking his head towards Murray.

Tony looked at him for a moment too surprised to speak. Then he burst out laughing.

"You have found out something this time," he said, in a bantering tone. "Who made up that fairy tale?"

"It's no fairy tale. It's true," Marmot answered. "There's Tommy Nuggan coming. Ask him about it, if you won't believe me."

Tony, as soon as the reasons for the procession and the direction of its route had been duly explained to and accepted by Nuggan, reined in his horse beside him, and, dismounting, walked with him.

"Marmot said you'd tell me all about the latest yarn from the verandah—about Slaughter," Tony said.

"Ah," Nuggan exclaimed, "you were a bit surprised to hear it, I take it? Any one would be who didn't know the man as I did. It didn't surprise me. No; not much. I've seen it coming for years, bless you. I didn't talk about it up yonder," he went on, nodding towards Marmot's store, "because a word up there is as good as fifty next day, and spread all over the district at that. No; that ain't my style. I saw it, and I said, 'Nuggan, my boy,' I said, 'this ain't your game. If the girl goes to the old man, it's his and her game, not yours.'"

"Only she didn't go," Tony said.

"Didn't she? Then perhaps you know more than I do, and can tell me——"

"I can tell you if you put that yarn about you've started as good a fairy tale as was ever told," Tony interrupted. "Why, Nellie Murray and Dickson have been thick for——"

"Have they?" Nuggan, in his turn, interrupted. "And you think Dickson has time for any one now since Yaller-head went out to Barellan? I know, I do. I don't tell no fairy tales. No more than when I said it was strange you being the only one at the Flat who wasn't sandy or mousey in the hair. I don't make no error. I've got eyes, and I uses them."