“You, Nellie—you—do you want Ben Fisher? If you go to him—if you have any truck with him—I ‘ll kill you, Nell.”
She closed her eyes and drooped her head on to his shoulder.
“Jes’ so,” she said, “you can.”
“Nell, Nell,” called her grandmother’s voice from above. “Nell, you come up this minute. Drat the girl, where’s she got to? You come along, miss, and help to get supper. There’s the bread to set, for Macartney’s mob ‘ll be here early to-morrow.”
James Newton held the girl for a moment with a merciless hand.
“Nell, I ‘ll kill you.”
She smiled at him through her tears, then stooped and kissed the hand that held her, and as he loosened his grasp, flew up the embankment and joined her grandmother.
Next day the Durham lads and Gentleman Jim had disappeared. It seemed a wonder in that flat open plain where they could disappear to, but the creek had many windings, and its bed was so wide and so far beneath the surface of the plain, there was ample room for men and horses to hide there.
About three in the afternoon, a lowing of cattle and cracking of stockwhips announced the arrival of Macartney’s mob, and the beasts, wild with thirst, for the way had been long and hot, and the waters were dried up for miles back, rushed tumultously down into the waterhole, trampling one another in their eagerness to get to the water. The men could no nothing but look on helplessly, and finally Fisher, a tall young fellow with that sad look on his bearded face, which sometimes comes of much living alone, left the mob to his men, and flinging his reins on his horse’s neck went towards the hut.
Nellie stood in the doorway, but when she saw who it was, mindful of her lover’s fierce warning of the night before, she drew back into the hut, and the sadness on the man’s face deepened, for Nellie Durham, the cattle-duffer’s granddaughter, was the desire of his heart, and the light of his eyes, and Murwidgee Waterhole, when he had charge of the cattle, was on the main road to everywhere.
He dismounted and entered, and Mrs. Durham bustled up to him—eager to make amends for Nellie’s want of cordiality.
“It’s pleased I am to see ye, pleased, pleased,” she said, “for ’tis lonesome hereabouts, now the boys is away down Port Philip way.”
“Are the boys away?” he asked, watching Nellie, as in obedience to an imperious command from her grandmother, she began to set out a rough meal.
“Oh, ay—there ‘s on’y Nell an’ grandfather, an’ me, an’ we’re gettin’ old. Oh, ‘t is lonesome for the girl whiles.”
If it were, she did not seem to feel it, and she steadfastly refused all Fisher’s timid advances. Farther away than ever he felt her to-day, and yet she had never looked so fair in his eyes.
He ate his meal slowly, answering the old woman in monosyllables, when she questioned him as to his camp for the night and his movements on the following day. Possibly he may have thought it unwise to take old Durham’s wife into his confidence, but if so the men under him were not so reticent, and when they came in a few moments later, chatted freely on their preparations for the night, and half in jest roughly warned the old woman that the cattle must be let alone.
“None o’ your larks now, old girl,” said Fisher’s principal aid. “We mounts guard turn an’ turn about, an’ the first livin’ critter as comes anigh them beasts—the watch he shoots on sight.”
“What’s comin’ anigh ’em?” asked the old woman scornfully. “There’s me an’ th’ old man an’ the girl here, an’ nary a livin’ thing else for miles. They do say,” she added, dropping her voice, “the place is haunted. Jackson of Noogabbin was along here a month back, and he told me how the cattle broke camp all along o’ the ghost. He seed ‘un wi’ his own eyes, a great white thing on a trottin’ cob it was. Clean through the camp it rode moanin’, moanin’, an’ the cattle just broke like mad.”
“Oh, yes—I dessay,” said the man, “and when them cattle were mustered, there was a matter o’ fifty head missin’, I ‘ll bet. Now if that ghost comes along my way I shall just put a bullet in him sure as my name’s Ned Kirton. So there, old lady, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Come along, Nell, my girl—don’t be so stingy with that liquor, the old woman ‘ll make us pay for it, you bet. Why, Nell, I ain’t seen such a pretty pair o’ eyes this many a long day. Give us just one—”
He had caught her roughly by the shoulder, and bent down to kiss her, but the girl drew back with a low cry that brought Fisher to her aid.
“Let her alone, Ned,” he said with a muttered oath.
“Right you are, boss,” laughed the other. “There ‘s a darned sight too much milk and water there for my taste; I like ’em with a spice o’ the devil in ’em, I do. But if that ‘s your taste—well, fair’s fair an’ hands off, says I.”
“It ain’t much good, boss,” said another man. “She’s Gentleman Jim’s gal, she is, and I shouldn’t sleep easy if I so much as looked at her.”
“Gentleman Jim,” he repeated, and the bitterness in his heart none of his comrades guessed. “Gentleman Jim I heard of yesterday, somewhere about the head waters of the Murray—no danger from him.”
Bill, being a cattle man, cleared his throat and his brain by a good string of oaths—resonant oaths worthy of a man from the back blocks—and then gave it as his opinion that Gentleman Jim’s being seen among the ranges yesterday, was no guarantee that he would not be lifting cattle far on the plains to-day.
“Not our cattle,” said Fisher grimly. “We set a watch, and the first thing—man or beast, or ghost—that comes down among the cattle, we shoot on sight. D’ye hear that, mother?” and he turned to the old woman, who merely shook her head and groaned.
“It’s old I am—old—old—old. It isn’t the likes o’ us as ‘ll touch yer beasts.”
And Nellie slipped outside the door, and looked wistfully and anxiously across the plain, at the cattle now peacefully grazing on the salt-bush, and at the mocking mirage in the far distance. Never before, it seemed to her, had so much fuss been made about the cattle. The ghost trick had stood them in good stead for some time, and now apparently these men saw through it.
Two ideas she had firmly grasped. Ben Fisher was a man of his word, and Ben Fisher was a good shot.
Her brothers and her lover were down in the creek bed. One of the four would ride through the sleeping cattle to-night and that man would pay for his temerity with his life. The casual mention of her own name with that of the outlaw had sealed his fate. She was as sure of that as she was sure that the sun would set to-night in the west and would rise again to-morrow in the east. It did not occur to her simple soul to inquire the reason why; only she felt that it was so, and her heart was full of one passionate prayer, that the man who rode forth on that perilous errand should not be her lover. Her brothers were dear to her naturally, but her nearest and her dearest were as nothing when weighed in the scale with the love she bore this stranger. He must be saved at any cost—he must, he must. She walked slowly along with down-bent head, till she stood on the top of the bank overlooking the waterhole, and then, hearing footsteps behind her, looked up quickly to see Ben Fisher standing beside her.
“Nellie,” he said awkwardly, “Nellie, I—I—mean did that brute hurt you?”
“What? Oh, Ned Kirton. Oh, it’s no matter.”
“It’s dull here for you, Nell, out on the plains, isn’t it?” he asked still more awkwardly.
If her heart was full of another man, his was full of a strong man’s longing