CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
The time, the close of a lurid sultry February day, towards the end of along, dry summer succeeding a rainless winter, in the arid region ofWest Logan. A blood-red sun sinking all too slowly, yet angrily, into acrimson ocean; suddenly disappearing, as if in despotic defiance of allfuture rainfall. A fiery portent receding into the inferno of a vastconflagration, was the image chiefly presented to the dwellers in thatpastoral desert, long heartsick with hope deferred.
The scene, a limitless stretch of plain—its wearisome monotony feeblybroken by belts of timber or an infrequent pine-ridge. The earth adust.A hopeless, steel-blue sky. The atmosphere stagnated, breezeless. Theforest tribes all dumb. The Wannonbah mail-coach toiling over thefurrows of a sandhill, walled in by a pine thicket.
'Thank God! the sun is down at last; we must sight Hyland's within thehour,' exclaimed the passenger on the box-seat, a tall, handsome man,with 'formerly in the army' legibly impressed on form and feature. 'Howglad I shall be to see the river; and what a luxury a swim will be!'
'Been as hot a day as ever I know'd, Captain,' affirmed the sun-bronzeddriver, with slow decision; 'but'—and here he double-thonged theoff-wheeler, as if in accentuation of his statement—'heat, and flies,and muskeeters, dust and sand and bad water, ain't the wust of thisroad—not by a long chalk!'
'What the deuce can be worse?' demanded the ex-militaire, withpardonable acerbity. 'Surely no ruffians have taken to the bush latelyin this part of the world?'
'Well, I did hear accidental-like as "The Doctor" and two other crosschaps, whose names I won't say, had laid it out to stick us up to-day.They'd heard that Mr. Tracknell was going up to Orange, and they have itin for him along o' the last Bandamah cattle racket.'
'Stop the coach, the infernal scoundrels! What do they expect to donext? The country won't be fit for decent people to live in if this sortof thing is not put a stop to.'
'Well, Captain Devereux,' replied the driver, a tall, sinewy,slow-speaking son of the soil, 'if I was you I wouldn't trouble my headabout them no more than I could help. It ain't your business, as onemight say, if they've a down on Tracknell. He nearly got the Doctorshopped over them Bandamah cattle, an' he wasn't in it at all, only themClarkson boys. My notion is that Tracknell got wind of it yesterday, andforgot to come a purpose.'
'So, if a gang of rascally cattle-stealers choose to stop the coach thatI travel in, I am to sit still because I'm not the man they want, whodid his duty in hunting them down.'
'Now hear re