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

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

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

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

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

"w.i.l.l.y d.i.c.kson, that's a lie!" she exclaimed. "It's not the first you've told me, though you're mistaken if you think I have believed them. Was that Nellie Murray or was it not?"

He blinked uneasily, but neither answered nor moved.

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

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

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

"Nellie!" the other girl exclaimed.

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

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

"Nellie!"

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

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

"w.i.l.l.y d.i.c.kson, what other lies have you been telling?" she cried.

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

The look Ailleen turned upon her silenced her.

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

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

As she went out of sight round the bend in the track, d.i.c.kson turned savagely on his companion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He had no answer ready, and she went on.

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

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

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

"You remember what I told you," she said, as she looked at him quickly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

d.i.c.kson said.

"Yes; and if Bobby was here now----"

"But, look here, they'll be wondering where you are," d.i.c.kson interrupted. "You'll have to ride right round by the boundary now----"

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

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

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

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

He laughed uneasily, and looked away for a moment from the fascination of the gleaming eyes, and as though it was he who had broken the spell, the girl's face changed. With the exception of the eyes all her features had been pa.s.sive up to that moment, but then it was as though a reservoir of pa.s.sion had suddenly broken out and flooded over her face.

He gave one scared look at it and stepped back from her.

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

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