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, d.i.c.kson 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed round the a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sistance. 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. "d.i.c.kson came with a message for me. What's it to you if the boy has doings with me?"

Slaughter said nothing, and d.i.c.kson, 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," d.i.c.kson 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 d.i.c.kson.

"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.

d.i.c.kson, 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."