The Moving Finger | Page 5

up to him--eager to make amends for Nellie's want of cordiality.
"It's pleased I am to see ye, pleased, pleased," she said, "for 'tis lonesome hereabouts, now the boys is away down Port Philip way."
"Are the boys away?" he asked, watching Nellie, as in obedience to an imperious command from her grandmother, she began to set out a rough meal.
"Oh, ay--there 's on'y Nell an' grandfather, an' me, an' we're gettin' old. Oh, 't is lonesome for the girl whiles."
If it were, she did not seem to feel it, and she steadfastly refused all Fisher's timid advances. Farther away than ever he felt her to-day, and yet she had never looked so fair in his eyes.
He ate his meal slowly, answering the old woman in monosyllables, when she questioned him as to his camp for the night and his movements on the following day. Possibly he may have thought it unwise to take old Durham's wife into his confidence, but if so the men under him were not so reticent, and when they came in a few moments later, chatted freely on their preparations for the night, and half in jest roughly warned the old woman that the cattle must be let alone.
"None o' your larks now, old girl," said Fisher's principal aid. "We mounts guard turn an' turn about, an' the first livin' critter as comes anigh them beasts--the watch he shoots on sight."
"What's comin' anigh 'em?" asked the old woman scornfully. "There's me an' th' old man an' the girl here, an' nary a livin' thing else for miles. They do say," she added, dropping her voice, "the place is haunted. Jackson of Noogabbin was along here a month back, and he told me how the cattle broke camp all along o' the ghost. He seed 'un wi' his own eyes, a great white thing on a trottin' cob it was. Clean through the camp it rode moanin', moanin', an' the cattle just broke like mad."
"Oh, yes--I dessay," said the man, "and when them cattle were mustered, there was a matter o' fifty head missin', I 'll bet. Now if that ghost comes along my way I shall just put a bullet in him sure as my name's Ned Kirton. So there, old lady, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Come along, Nell, my girl--don't be so stingy with that liquor, the old woman 'll make us pay for it, you bet. Why, Nell, I ain't seen such a pretty pair o' eyes this many a long day. Give us just one--"
He had caught her roughly by the shoulder, and bent down to kiss her, but the girl drew back with a low cry that brought Fisher to her aid.
"Let her alone, Ned," he said with a muttered oath.
"Right you are, boss," laughed the other. "There 's a darned sight too much milk and water there for my taste; I like 'em with a spice o' the devil in 'em, I do. But if that 's your taste--well, fair's fair an' hands off, says I."
"It ain't much good, boss," said another man. "She's Gentleman Jim's gal, she is, and I shouldn't sleep easy if I so much as looked at her."
"Gentleman Jim," he repeated, and the bitterness in his heart none of his comrades guessed. "Gentleman Jim I heard of yesterday, somewhere about the head waters of the Murray--no danger from him."
Bill, being a cattle man, cleared his throat and his brain by a good string of oaths--resonant oaths worthy of a man from the back blocks--and then gave it as his opinion that Gentleman Jim's being seen among the ranges yesterday, was no guarantee that he would not be lifting cattle far on the plains to-day.
"Not our cattle," said Fisher grimly. "We set a watch, and the first thing--man or beast, or ghost--that comes down among the cattle, we shoot on sight. D'ye hear that, mother?" and he turned to the old woman, who merely shook her head and groaned.
"It's old I am--old--old--old. It isn't the likes o' us as 'll touch yer beasts."
And Nellie slipped outside the door, and looked wistfully and anxiously across the plain, at the cattle now peacefully grazing on the salt-bush, and at the mocking mirage in the far distance. Never before, it seemed to her, had so much fuss been made about the cattle. The ghost trick had stood them in good stead for some time, and now apparently these men saw through it.
Two ideas she had firmly grasped. Ben Fisher was a man of his word, and Ben Fisher was a good shot.
Her brothers and her lover were down in the creek bed. One of the four would ride through the sleeping cattle to-night and that man would pay for his temerity with his life. The casual mention of