LITMIR.BIZ

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Pretty filthy, isn’t it? How is she now?”

      “Very bad, I hear. She was taken home this morning. Not only was she half-strangled, she was knocked about, too. Every one, of course, has the wind up.”

      “Naturally. That new man—Fisher, he said his name is—seems to think that the girl regained consciousness on the road and then, dazed, walked away and tripped over a surface root at the place where she was found. Her head injuries, according to Fisher, were caused by that tree-root and not by the Strangler.”

      “Is that so?” Borradale sighed, then fell to staring at the fence-rider.

      “A strange fellow, Joe Fisher,” Dreyton said with conviction. “Is he a half-caste?”

      “Yes. As you say, he is a remarkable fellow. He was camped at Catfish Hole the night Mabel Storrie was attacked, and he happened to be here when Lee called the next afternoon. Lee and I had him in. He argued like a lawyer and proved that he could not possibly have committed the crime.”

      Dreyton smiled.

      “He should have been a detective,” he said. “He’s wasting his time as a station rouseabout. Seems quite well educated. Are all half-castes like him?”

      “Hardly,” dryly replied Martin. “The fellow evidently has had a good schooling. What about your coming back into the office?”

      The fence-rider’s eyelids drooped before he glanced at the book-keeper. Martin went on:

      “Allen wants to leave as soon as possible, because his mother is ill in Adelaide. I thought of you at once. You must be getting sick of the fence by now.”

      “That I am not, Mr. Borradale,” Dreyton admitted smilingly. “Still, if Mr. Allen wishes to leave immediately, I will take over.”

      “You will? Good man!”

      Again the fence-rider flashed his quiet smile. “On one condition,” he stipulated.

      “And that is?”

      “That you really will try to get another book-keeper without delay. Honestly, I am far happier on the fence than I was when anchored to this office.”

      The quick gratification in Martin’s face subsided.

      “Very well,” he agreed. “I’ll do my best. You’re a strange fellow yourself to prefer that hard life on the fence.”

      “It is not so hard. You try it.”

      “Not I.” Martin swung round to face the book-keeper. “When do you want to go, Allen? By tomorrow’s coach?”

      “Yes … if possible, Mr. Borradale. My mother’s condition is worrying me.”

      “Then that settles it, Donald. Officially you begin here in the morning. Agreed?”

      “Yes. And you will not fail to write to the agency for a new man?”

      “Very well,” assented Martin ruefully.

      He might have said more had not light footsteps been betrayed by the veranda beyond the open door. Into the office came Stella Borradale, dressed in tennis-rig and carrying two rackets. A swift smile broke on her face at sight of the fence-rider.

      “Hullo, Donald!” she exclaimed coolly. “Are you really still alive? I wonder you did not choke to death in those two days of wind and sand.”

      Dreyton’s face registered an answering smile, but no longer was his body relaxed in the easy stance of the bushman, and no longer were his eyes unguarded. When he addressed her, he spoke as easily as he had done to her brother.

      “I wanted to be a rabbit, Miss Borradale, so that I could burrow deep,” he told her. “It was no use wishing to be an eagle. Those I managed to see were perched in dead trees and looked extremely miserable.”

      “They could not have looked or felt more miserable than I,” Stella said lightly, taking the others into her confidence. “In addition to the physical discomforts I was obsessed by the dread that something would happen. It spoiled the dance, and I was thankful to get home. Haven’t the detectives arrived yet, Martin?”

      Her brother shook his head, and both he and Dreyton noted the look of horror deep in her eyes.

      “I hope they send someone better than Sergeant Simone,” she said quickly. “He is an obnoxious person.”

      “I think that half-caste fellow, Joe Fisher, would do better,” offered Dreyton.

      “I have not seen him,” the girl said indifferently, staring at the fence-rider.

      She possessed the trick of steady scrutiny without being rude, and Dreyton knew that he was being examined and approved much as his mother used once to do when he returned home at the end of a term at school. Her friendliness, he was well aware, was due to the absence of snobbery in her mental make-up. Her present attitude to him she adopted with all the men. It was never taken as ground for familiarity. It has ever been the general rule for those who live in “Government House” to address the men by their Christian names, and the rule has been in force for so many generations that were a man addressed by his surname he would accept it as an insult.

      “Donald is going to take Mr. Allen’s place pro tem.,” remarked Martin, breaking a silence. “Mr. Allen is leaving us tomorrow.”

      “Indeed!” Again Stella examined the smoothly shaven, not unhandsome face, its keen cut features and the grey-blue eyes now regarding her. Then again she took them all into her confidence. “I am sorry you are leaving, Mr. Allen, and I hope you will find your mother much improved in health. We shall miss your tennis and bridge.”

      “But we shall have Donald back,” her brother cut in, and he could not prevent satisfaction expressing itself in his voice.

      “But I have not played tennis for more than a year,” Dreyton protested.

      “That’s your fault,” Stella pointed out a little severely. “You would go fence-riding.”

      The men’s cook was pounding his triangle.

      “Better dine with us,” invited Martin.

      “It’s kind of you to ask me, Mr. Borradale.” Dreyton made haste to reply, “but I am not yet your book-keeper. I must go to Carie this evening to refit. It would be possible for a book-keeper to dress like a fence-rider, but quite impossible for a fence-rider to appear as a book-keeper in his fence toggery. With your permission, Miss Borradale! Hang-dog Jack is so easily upset if delayed in serving dinner.”

      She bent her head and smiled, and he turned and strode from the office, where brother and sister stared at each other for quite ten seconds.

      Dreyton found Hang-dog Jack awaiting him in the long building devoted to the men’s kitchen dining-room. Five men were seated on the forms flanking the table. Bony being of their number. Standing at a bench on which stood a large iron pot of soup, and dishes of roast meat and vegetables, was the cook. Hang-dog Jack was an extraordinary person, both in his ability to cook and in his appearance.

      He was of cubic proportions. His legs were short and his enormous arms abnormally long. His ugly face was square and crowned with a mop of black hair. A flattened nose, a wide and characterless mouth and a shapeless chin, were redeemed by a broad forehead and steady brown eyes. How he came by his “nom-de-track” no one knew. Some said it was due to his hang-dog facial expression; others that once he actually had hanged an unfortunate dog.

      “Soup?” he snarled at Dreyton.

      The fence-rider feinted and the cook ducked.

      “Lookin’ fer fight, eh?” snarled Hang-dog Jack. “You come outside and I’ll wrastle you. In two ups I’ll dump you six times and give you the aeroplane spin.”

      “I don’t believe in ‘wrastling’ with you,” mocked Dreyton. “Give me soup and a pleasant smile.”

      The

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