"I'll show you who's the fool in a brace of shakes," said Tom Chester, following Gilroy with a swelling chest. "I never thought you had much pluck, but, by G.o.d, I don't believe you've got the pluck of a louse!"

Gilroy led on his horse without answering.

"Have you got the pluck of a louse?" the overseer sang into his ear.

Gilroy was trembling, but he turned as they reached the stable.

"Take off your coat, then," said he, doggedly; "I'll leave mine inside."

Gilroy led his horse into the stable. Instead of taking off his coat, however, Tom Chester stood waiting with his arms akimbo and his eyes upon the open stable-door.

"Aren't you going to take it off?" said an eager yet nervous voice at his side. "Don't you mean to fight him after all?"

It was the piano-tuner, whose desire to see the manager soundly thrashed was at war with his innate dread of anything approaching a violent scene. He could be violent himself when his blood was up, but in his normal state the mere sound of high words made him miserable.

"Hulloa! I didn't see that you were there," remarked Chester, with a glance at the queer little figure beside him. "Lord, yes; I'll fight him if he's game, but I won't believe that till I see it, so we'll let him strip first. The fellow hasn't got the pluck of---- I knew he hadn't!

That's just what I should have expected of him!"

Before Engelhardt could realize what was happening, a horse had emerged from the shadow of the stable-door, a man's head and wide-awake had risen behind its ears as they cleared the lintel, and Gilroy, with a smack of his whip on the horse's flank and a cut and a curse at Tom Chester, was disappearing in the dusk at a gallop. Chester had sprung forward, but he was not quick enough. When the cut had fallen short of him, he gathered himself together for one moment, as though to give chase on foot; then stood at ease and watched the rider out of sight.

"Next time, my friend," said he, "you won't get the option of standing up to me. No; by the Lord, I'll take him by the scruff of his dirty neck, and I'll take the very whip he's got in his hand now, and I'll hide him within an inch of his miserable life. That's the way we treat curs in these parts, d'ye see? Come on, Engelhardt. No, we'll stop and see which road he takes when he gets to the gate. I can just see him opening it now. I might have caught him up there if I'd thought. Ah!

he's shaking his fist at us; he shall smell mine before he's a day older! And he's taken the township track; he'll come back to the shed as drunk as a fool, and if the men don't dip him in the dam I shall be very much surprised."

"And Miss Pryse is going to marry a creature like that," cried Engelhardt, as they walked back to the house.

"Not she," said Chester, confidently.

"Yet there's a sort of engagement."

"There is; but it would be broken off to-morrow if I were to tell Miss Pryse to-night of the mess he's making of everything out at the shed.

The men do what they like with him, and he goes dropping upon the harmless inoffensive ones, and fining them and running their sheep; whereas he daren't have said a word to that fellow Simons, not to save his life. I tell you there'd have been a strike last night if it hadn't been for me. The men appealed to me, and I said what I thought. So his nibs sends me mustering again, about as far off as he can, while he comes in to get Miss Pryse to give me the sack. Of course that's what he's been after. That's the kind of man he is. But here's Miss Pryse herself in the veranda, and we'll drop the subject, d'ye see?"

Naomi herself never mentioned it. Possibly from the veranda she had seen and heard enough to enable her to guess the rest pretty accurately.

However that may be, the name of Monty Gilroy never pa.s.sed her lips, either now in the interval before dinner, or at that meal, during which she conversed very merrily with the two young men who faced one another on either side of her. She insisted on carving for them both, despite the protests of the more talkative of the two. She rattled on to them incessantly--if anything, to Engelhardt more than to the overseer. But there could be no question as to which of these two talked most to her.

Engelhardt was even more shy and awkward than at his first meal at Taroomba, when Naomi had not been present. He disappeared immediately after dinner, and Naomi had to content herself with Tom Chester's company for the rest of the evening.

That, however, was very good company at all times, while on the present occasion Miss Pryse had matters for discussion with her overseer which rendered a private interview quite necessary. So Engelhardt was not wanted for at least an hour; but he did not come back at all. When Chester went whistling to the barracks at eleven o'clock he found the piano-tuner lying upon his bed in all his clothes.

"Hulloa, my son, are you sick?" said Tom, entering the room. The risen moon was shining in on all sides of the looking-gla.s.s.

"No, I'm well enough, thanks. I felt rather sleepy."

"You don't sound sleepy! Miss Pryse was wondering what could be the matter. She told me to tell you that you might at least have said good-night to her."

"I'll go and say it now," cried Engelhardt, bounding from the bed.

"Ah, now you're too late, you see," said Chester, laughing a little unkindly as he barred the doorway. "You didn't suppose I'd come away before I was obliged, did you? Come into my room, and I'll tell you a bit of news."

The two rooms were close together; they were divided by the narrow pa.s.sage that led without step or outer door into the station-yard. It was a lined, set face that the candle lighted up when Tom Chester put a match to it; but that was only the piano-tuner's face, and Tom stood looking at his own, and the smile in the gla.s.s was peculiar and characteristic. It was not conceited; it was merely confident. The overseer of Taroomba was one of the smartest, most resolute, and confident young men in the back-blocks of New South Wales.

"The news," he said, turning away from the gla.s.s and undoing his necktie, "may surprise you, but I've expected it all along. Didn't I tell you before dinner that Miss Pryse would be breaking off her rotten engagement one of these days! Well, then, she's been and done it this very afternoon."

"Thank G.o.d!" cried Engelhardt.

"Amen," echoed Chester, with a laugh. He had paid no attention to the piano-tuner's tone and look. He was winding a keyless watch.

"And is he going on here as manager?" Engelhardt asked, presently.

"No, that's the point. Naomi seems to have told him pretty straight that she could get along without him, and on second thoughts he's taken her at her word. She got a note an hour ago to say she would never see him again. He'd sent a chap with it all the way from the township."

"Do you mean to say he isn't coming back?"

"That's the idea. You bet he had it when he shook his fist at us as he opened that gate. He was shaking his fist at the station and all hands on the place, particularly including the boss. She's to send his things and his check after him to the township, where they'll find him drunk, you mark my words. Good riddance to the cur! Of course he was going to marry her for her money; but she's tumbled to him in time, and a miss is as good as a mile any day in the week."

He finished speaking and winding his watch at the same moment. It was a gold watch, and he set it down carelessly on the dressing-table, where the candle shone upon the monogram on its back.

"He has nothing of his own?" queried Engelhardt, with jealous eyes upon the watch.

"Not a red cent," said Tom Chester, contemptuously. "He lived upon the old boss, and of course he meant to live upon his daughter after him. He was as poor as a church-mouse."

So indeed was the piano-tuner. He did not say as much, however, though the words had risen to his lips. He said no more until the overseer was actually in bed. Then a flash of inspiration caused him to ask, abruptly,

"Are you anything to do with Chester, Wilkinson, & Killick, the big wool-people down in Melbourne?"

"To do with 'em?" repeated Tom, with a smile. "Well, yes; at least, I'm Chester's son."

"I've heard that you own more Riverina stations than any other firm or company?"

"Yes; this is about the only one around here that we haven't got a finger in. That's why I came here, by the way, for a bit of experience."

"Then _you_ don't want to marry her for her money. You'll have more than she ever will! Isn't that so?"

"What the blue blazes do you mean, Engelhardt?"

Chester had sat bolt upright in his bed. The piano-tuner was still on the foot of it, and all the fire in his being had gone into his eyes.

"Mean?" he cried. "Who cares what _I_ mean! I tell you that she thinks more of you than ever she thought of Gilroy. She has said so to me in as many words. I tell you to go in and win!"

He was holding out his left hand.

"I intend to," said Tom Chester, taking it good-naturedly enough.

"That's exactly my game, and everybody must know it, for I've been playing it fair and square in the light of day. I may lose; but I hope to win. Good-night, Engelhardt. Shall I look you up in the morning? We make a very early start, mind."

"Then you needn't trouble. But I do wish you luck!"

"Thanks, my boy. I wish myself luck, too."