\ C^ -n ,' -n <-' " ■ O ^ , _< t--5 ^. ■ tr ■itiiktrn/'i. TO ■'-OflJAIi'.ll iU^ A^^"' ^% \{}^UHJi<^ A^^ ^^ % %0JI1VDJ0>' >- < ^.OFCAIIFO%^ ^A.OF-CAIIFOM^ C~l ;:i ir-> >- cc < CO OF-CAUFO??,^/ YQ^ >t. ^,v.Of-CA!!FO% "^cAavaaiH^^ ,^W^DMIVER% cc CO r-^s, o - ^lOSANCElfj> ijO-'i 3:3 o ^•lOSANGFlfx^ ^ ^^*V.,„„^ rm CP %a3A!N(]mV >) i? o K m .:lOSA^GElfj> T3 CP t^' '^aMINrt-3\^ ^ ^HIBRARY{?A, ^ 1 IfT i ^lUBRARYQ^ CD SP" <: AWEUNtV < ' — :3 oc vi.rvAMr.Flfr^ ^% --" ^^ ^OF-CMIFO% ^OFCALiFO/?;)^ C3 C-5 CC 11 en ,^\^EIJMV < CO 1, ]WV .^ %/. :^ ^ ^(JAbvaanx^ P7 .avT HRRARY^C <^ ^^WE•l)NIVER% ^lOSANCElfj> .yf -/ :■ V V // / / A..--'t- " A girl lay on her side across the roots of the tree." [See page 20. Rocky Section AN AUSTRALIAN ROMANCE. BY Sydney Partrige. 36iisbanc ; STEELE RUDD & CO. LIMITED. MCMVII. Copyright for Steele Rudd & Co. Limited by Edward Powell. TK ( /.--/^j [ DEDICATE MY FIRST BOOK WHICH, BUT FOR HER STEADY ENCOURAGEMENT, WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN. inQil^QP ILLUSTRATIONS. By E. H. MURRAY. " A girl lay on her side across the roots of the tree " . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece " I continued to carve . . . and said .... Miss Cordova — Mr. Creswell ' " . . facing p. 59 " Instantly she screamed, and smothered the scream " . . . . . . . . 80 "After this I lay c^uiet " .. .. ,. ,, 152 NOTE. *'1Rochv? Section" originally appeared in Serial Form in '■ Steele Rudd's Magazine." CONTENTS, PAGE. ClIAPTI'K I I Ctiaptrr II Q Chaptkk [II 14 Chapter IV 19 Chapter V 24 Chapter VI 30 Chapter VII 36 Chapter VIII . . ' • • 43 Chapter IX 48 Chapter X 58 Chapter XI 65 Chapter XII 73 Chapter XIII 83 Chapter XIV 00 Chapter XV QQ Chapter XVI 113 Chapter XVII 123 Chapter XVIII 130 Chapter XIX 136 Chapter XX 146 Chapter XXI 158 Chapter XXII . . 167 Chapter XXIII 172 Chai>ii-:r XXIV . , 181 Rocky Section Chapter I. I WAS a ruined man, and almost before I knew what it was to be a man. My father — a mismanager all his life — had left me Brinkwater, the dear old station on which I had been born, so heavily involved that, struggle as I might, two years saw it pass out of my hands. The bank which had it in its claws foreclosed, and I left the run with very little more than the horse I rode and the clothes I stood up in. Yet I could scarcely be called unhappy. My vitality — my intense sympathy with life^would not let me despair. I was so young and strong, things must right themselves presently, and one day Brinkwater would belong to the Templers again. Besides, how could a fellow be unhappy so long as Marie Barrington trusted him ? It was this thought which brought such a thrill of joy into my high, clear whistle, making it rival the magpie's carolling, as I swung out of the saddle at Charles Cresswell's stables the day after the sale of Brinkwater, and. leaving •4*t 2 ROCKY SECTION. Speedwell in the yards, took my way to my friend's house. They were at dinner — Cresswell and his partner (Browning), and Willard, of Appletree Creek, and Russell, who had been a "colonial experiencer" five years ago. There was a silence when I entered, and they all looked guilty, I thought — a fact I put down to their kind feeling concerning my pecuniary misfortunes. And then Cresswell said, with elaborate naturalness — " Hullo, old fellow !" " Hullo !" I said, as I took the place Charles Cresswell had reserved for me on his right hand since my mother's death six years previously. And they all said, " Hullo " very cordially. Browning, who was big and bearded, added — " We're glad to see you, boy." And then we fell to talking station subjects — cattle and horses and sheep, the price of wool, and the chance of rain. But none of them touched on the tender topic. At last I looked up suddenly at Charles, and said — " Brinkwater's gone." " Yes." His dear old eyes met mine. He looked as if he wanted to say he was sorry, but did not know how. " For the time being," I added. " What do you mean ?" Every eye was on me. " Why, you don't imagine I'll ever rest till I get the old place back again, do you ?" I asked reproachfully. " That's right, boy," said Browning, who sat next me, laying his big hand on my shoulder. " 1 like to hear you say that. We'll help, won't we, fellows ?" They all vowed they would, with such a ring of truth ROCKY SECTION. 3 • and goodwill in their tones, that my heart went soft within me, and I thanked them a little brokenly, " And," I went on, looking round from face to face, with bright eyes, " you all know how fond Marie is of Brink water." They looked silently at one another. " O," I added hastily, " perhaps you think I'm a brute want to to keep her tied to a ruined man, but you don't know her. She's as true as steel, and the loss of the run won't make the slightest difference to her." " No," said Cresswell, nearly choking over a draught of tea. " Will it. Browning ?" " Not the slightest," he said hurriedly. " No," I said, triumphantly. " Marie will only encourage me to set to work, and keep at it till my task is accomplished. I know her " and I murmured some fond term of •endearment. " And when it is accomplished, and Brink- water is mine again, and Marie and I drive up in a four-in- hand and take possession, and all you fellows come over to the house-warming, the place will seem twenty times ours, ^because we have had to wait and work for it. Won't it, Bill ?"— to Willard. " Won't it, Don ?"— to Russell. But no one said a word till Browning, half under his iDreath, moaned — " For God's sake, Charles !" I looked at Cresswell, and suddenly my heart stopped ^beating. " She's dead !" I gasped, lying back in my chair. " No, no, no," said Cresswell, vehemently, " not that ; 43nly " " Hurt— ill ?" 4 ROCKY SECTION. " No, no, nothing is the matter with her. She is perfectly well." " Then why did you want to half kill me with fright ?" I said petulantly, taking up my knife and fork again. He did not reply, but Browning said, crossly — " Cress well !" "Do it yourself, Mortie," retorted Cresswell savagel}-. He got up and walked round the room. I put down the knife and fork, and watched him suspiciously. As he- approached me I looked up appealingly into his face. " Charles, she is ill ?" " No, I swear it." " Then nothing can matter," I said to comfort myself.. Cresswell put an arm across my shoulders. " Old boy," he said, and stopped. " Upon my word," said Willard, with intense indignation in his tones, " you want scalping, Cresswell." " Hold your tongue, damn you." and Cresswell glared at him ; then walked away. I half rose, but he came back, and pressed me down, putting his arm round me again. " O, Charles, what is it ?" I besought him. " What is- it ? You are lying to me." " I wish I was," said Cresswell, with deep feeling. " Charles ! " " And that's true, so help me. Ray, don't ever think of her again. She's worse than dead — she's false." " I don't believe it," I said calmly. " I knew you'd say that, and I like you the better for it, but it doesn't alter facts. You've been away this last fortnight, and you haven't seen the last papers — we knew that directly you came in." ROCKY SECTION. 5 " There's nothing in them to concern mc," I said, ■obstinately, but my mouth was getting dry. " There is. Raymond, I warned you once, not long after you met Miss Harrington, that it was not likely a Sydney beauty would marry a man whose property everyone knew was slowly slipping from him. Besides, she always ■considered you a boy, and, oh Ray, we all could see it was only a flirtation on her part." I struggled under his pressure, but he did not relax it. " It's a lie- — let me go," I said in suffocating tones." Russell, opposite me, was cutting his meat with hands that trembled, and Willard's face bore an expression half- ferocious, half-sarcastic. Suddenly I laughed — the last time for many a day. " Charles, I knoiv it's a put-up job. You're pulling my leg. Don't be silly, but get back to your dinner. Did you chaps think I'd believe such arrant rot ?" Cresswell groaned, and looked at Browning, " Mortie, fetch the last Town and Country. Ray, you said she would encourage and cheer you on — she won't. You said she'd be with you when you took possession of Brinkwater again — she never will. You said she was as true as steel — she isn't. Though I warned you long ago, yet I always hoped that in spite of herself that girl would foUow her better nature, and take you. I believe now that she cares more for you than the fine English gentleman she's sold herself to. No, it wasn't all flirtation. My lady will be sorry yet. But what chance had you, working away up here, and the other fellow on the spot all the time down in Sydney f " 6 ROCKY SECTION. I put my hands over my ears in desperation. What treason was this he was pouring into them ? " For heaven's sake, Cresswell, leave me alone. Marie loves me — I knol^> she does." " I don't doubt it. May it be bitter as gall in her mouth. Look at this." He pushed away some cups and plates, and spread an open Town and Country Jotirnal which Browning had brought on the space. Then pointed to a paragraph amongst the marriages, setting forth the marriage of Marie Eleanor Harrington, daughter of Harold Barrington, M.P.. tO' Sir Richard Hedley. " A singular coincidence of names," I said. " Very singular. Raymond, old boy, there aren't two' Harold Barringtons, MM. P., in Sydney, each with a daughter of that name. Here " — he turned to another page, and indicated several columns, headed " Barrington — Hedley" — " all this is about the wedding. 'It came as a great surprise to fashion-folks, as the betrothal, believed to be of very short duration, was kept a secret.' I think we know why," added Creswell. I stared dumbly at the paper. My brain was turning. Marie, my Marie ! Married ! I did not yet believe it. The slanderous page was hidden by a vision which came subtly across my brain — a small slight figure all in white muslin and lace, standing by a climbing rose on the verandah of Kingston run — yellow rose touched the sunny brown hair, and a green leaf lay across the white column of her throat ; there were slight, sweet shadows under the deep-blue eyes, and the marvellous ROCKY SECTION. 7 complexion was delicate and fine as a baby's. My heart went out to her in a moment, and for the rest of her visit to New England those blue eyes had told me intoxicating Ah, what ? They were not lies — they were not. They were true as — perhaps truer than — the soft lips which had known the pressure of mine. I clenched my fingers, and set my teeth. I would fight for her to the last. " Look !" said Cress well, pitifully. He had turned to a third page. Sir Richard and Lady Hedley, the latter in bridal costume. My eyes followed stupidly the outline of the lovely face, a facsimile of which was in a locket at one end of my watch chain. I took in the veil and wreath, the graceful contour of her figure and the wonderful train. Lady Hedlej' ! Lady Hedley ! " Marie Barrington !" I said aloud, and the sounds of the words seemed to relax something in my brain. Suddenly it came home to me, and I dropped my head on the table, my cheek pressing the pictured presentment of that which had so often responded with warmth and life to my touch, but now was dead and cold and hard. The dinner was at an end. No one made more pretence of eating. Cresswell walked nervously up and down behind me. I suffered in a chaos of misery. Presently he stopped, and put a hand on my hair. " Ray !" he said. There were love and yearning sym- pathy in his voice that fell like salt on a new wound. I sprang to my feet. " Don't !" I panted, and rushed out through a French window into the night. 8 ROCKY SECTION. " The river !" exclaimed Willard, and in a causeless terror they all followed me. But the river had no place in my thoughts. I must run, must get away from that intolerable torment of pain, that invisible horror which had gripped my heart in the old station dining-room. I was choking — choking. Through shrubs in the garden, and under-brush beyond, I dashed, and only stopped when my foot caught in something, and I fell face downward. Cress well, close behind, stood for a moment looking down at the convulsive heaving of my shoulders, and listening to my sobbing breath. Then he turned and went slowly away. " Leave him alone," he said to the others. And there were tears in his voice. ROCKY SECTION. 9 Chapter II. MOTHER !" Always, throughout my Hfe, in the moments of my bitterest sorrows, I have turned to that true spirit which gave me being- — to the inflexible soul that never wavered in its allegiance to me, never once failed me in all the seventeen years I had known it on earth. When Marie Barrington failed me, and in her failure bore away my poor paltry faith in a God, I rushed instinctively to the spirit of my mother — the little thin mother, whose worn cheek, pressed to mine, I remembered as the incarna- tion of softness — not even Marie's had rivalled it — whose eyes were faded only to the superficial observer, but to her son had been wells of love and sweetness ; whose ways strangers might term undemonstrative and reserved, but to me had overflowed with grace and wisdom and unswerv- ing, unselfish love. In her life I went unthinkingly to her for comfoi-t and assistance, and now, after her death, my whole being went out to her in a wild cry for hope and comfort. And once again my grief for her loss s\vallowed up the misery another had caused. Through the long, dark night I lay there, and the God- given memory of my mother helped me to endure it. In the morning I got up stiff and cold in body, stiffer and colder in soul, and stumbled back to the house and to the little 10 ROCKY SECTION. room which had been as much my own as the one at Brinkwater. Here I washed, and presently went into breakfast. The four men were sitting round the table. They had been talking, but ceased awkwardly when I entered. Cresswell silently pulled out my chair, and Browning served me with a plate, on which he had piled sausages and bacon with lavish hand, in token of sympathy. They pretended not to notice my sullen abstraction, my eyes heavy and red with a long night's vigil, my face hard and white and cold. Good fellows ! they would give " the kid " time to get over it. He was young, and would not feel the blow so keenly as would an older man. Sorrow runs off the mind of the young like water off a greased skin. By degrees the conversation warmed up again. Browning, it seemed, was going round some of the out-paddocks of Yuralie on a tour of inspection ; Cresswell was taking one of his men, and was going for a mob of cattle which his overseer had bought for him at the Brinkwater sale, which he himself had not attended, I suspected, from a motive of delicacy. The others were off to their respective homes. Browning was hinting for me to accompany him, but his hints fell on hard rock. I said not a word except in monosyllabic replies made to a direct question to myself. I ate little, but drank two cups of strong coffee. Presently I said abruptly — " Charles !" " Yes ?" " You know that big section back of the scrub that Dawson dummied for you ? Well, you were saying a week ago 3^ou intended putting sheep out there, and wanted a ROCKY SECTION. 11 shepherd for them. You said it was a trouble to get one^ because no one cared to go out to such a lonely place. Give me the billet. I'll take the sheep out to-day if you like." " You ? Shepherd for me ? Tommyrot !" " I'm a beggar. You know it. I must do something. I don't care what. That place would suit me. Give it to me."^ " See here, Ray, when your mother died I promised I would have an eye to you. I meant it. You're going tO' stay here just as long as I want you, and can find something for you to do, which I reckon will be every day, as we're pretty busy just now, eh, Mort ?" But I interrupted Browning's warm assurance to say,, in a tone of finality — " I will not have a place made for me. Do you think I am blind ? I want to go away out of this. Charles,, give me what I ask." There was something imploring now in my tones, and Cresswell wavered, but after a moment answered, doggedly — " I won't. I'm hanged if I will." I looked down sullenly. " Don't then. There are other things of the kind to be had if a fellow chooses to go far enough for them." " You won't go away," said Cresswell angrily. I looked at him. "Would you have me stay here?" I don't know what he saw in my eyes — terror, misery,, loathing, perhaps. I know' they were in my heart, but he said — " Will you promise to leave the Rocky Section the moment you feel that — that you are done with it ?" 12 ROCKY SECTION. " Yes — that moment." " Will you promise to try to forward tha time ?" I was silent, then said slowly — " I won't try to keep it back." " Will you promise to come into the station onct a month ?" " No, I won't promise that." He cogitated. " You know rations will only go out once in two months ? " " I know." " It is terribly lonely — right out of all the travelling ■tracks. No one goes there except the ration man." " I know." " We will go sometimes, of course." I said nothing. " You are still determined ? " " Yes." Creswell sighed. " There are 400 wethers in the Ironbark Paddock," he said, " which I reserved for the Rocky Section. I hardly know if it's capable of carrying 'em after this dry spell, but you must find that out. You and Hardy can start out with them as soon as you like — Dawson will direct you to the spring in the gully — the humpy's near it. You have Speedwell and your own dogs, but take old Vagabond and Tun him on the section, and you'll always have a second Tianto if anything happens to the other." I thanked him. Soon after he rose, and we all scattered to our various tasks. I got out my swag of personal belongings, and ROCKY SECTION. 13 strapped it up in a bluey procured from the station store^ and fastened it and a pint-pot on my saddle. As Hardy and I rode out of the yards at Yuralie, Cresswell came up to me, and held out his hand. " Good-bye, Ray," he said, taking mine in a lion's grip. " Good-bye, and take care of yourself, old son." " Good-bye," I said, with, I am afraid, shameless indifference. And then I turned Speedwell's head, and sent him cantering down the track, my two dogs at his heels. In a short time the home station was lost to view. Many weary months elapsed before I saw it again. I went out into a life of almost unbroken solitude. The partners had wished to send a hut-keeper with me, but his intrusion I resisted so strenuously that at length they ceased to urge the question. 14 ROCKY SECTION. Chapter III. THE Rocky Section humpy was a four-roomed dwelling of rough slabs and stringy-bark roof, the whole of one end being taken up in the formation of a gigantic fireplace. It stood in a small clearing, and looked "what it was — an entirely graceless construction erected merely for temporary purposes. The Dawsons had not considered it worth while to attempt a garden, except a small annual one of vegetables. Suckers were springing up in profusion from the stumps of those trees which had been felled as being in dangerous proximity to the house, and dark-toned leaves of the wild lilac mingled with the tender gum trees, while pink and blue violets — termed "" hearts-ease " locally — yams and everlastings, abounded, adding the last touch of wild isolation to the spot which was to be my home for the next year or two. The site had been chosen for convenience sake, the hut being built within a few yards of a gully, in which was located a permanent spring. As might be conjectured, the section took its name from the rocks, which was its staple produce. One portion of it in particular, was completely covered with boulders of all sizes, and was useless for purposes of pasturage or cultiva- tion. It was slow and painful work traversing it on horseback or afoot, and it was only very occasionally I was compelled to do so after a stray sheep, or from other causes. ROCKY SECTION. 15 But the remainder of the selection — some 450 acres — made good pasturage after the careful system of ring- barking which had been in force during Dawson's period of dummying. The man had gladly given up his charge at the end of five years of enforced occupation. The place was intolerably lonely — sixteen miles from the nearest neighbour, a selector who dwelt on the outskirts of the great scrub which bordered the Rocky Section, and stretched away league on league behind it. Even had the man wished to dishonestly retain it, his wife would not have given her consent to a further residence in a place she disliked so cordially. She was thankful, so she said, to get back to civilization, where she sometimes had the chance of a gossip, and could send her children to school without the everlasting fear which haunted her that they might stray away into the scrub and be lost. . The ver}' solitude which others dreaded was the bait which lured me into the wilderness. I was in that state of mind when a man shrinks from his fellow man, and turns with sick brain to the simplicity and absolute honesty of naked nature. That one night had transformed me from a happy boy to a grim and grey-souled man. Cresswell did not realise this, he had not had time to gauge the depth of my wretchedness, and he fancied that three months would see me back at the homestead healed, and clamoring for something better than a dog's occupation. But the blow had been too sudden, too brutal. It had crushed all the manliness and humanity out of me. I would be a beast, and live among the beasts — this species of treachery was not known among them — their feelings 16 ROCKY SECTION. were on the surface — they loved, and hated, and ate, and drank, and slept in strict accordance with natural law,, and with sublime indifference of " convenance " or pretence of any kind. Their yea was yea, and their nay nay. Many people, who thought as I thought, could not have acted as I did. In spite of themselves a week, or at most a month, of my solitude would have overcome their fancied objections to society, and they would seek it with flying feet. But the bush was my birthplace, and I loved it and communion with its subtle spirit. Even as a small boy I had not been afraid to spend days and nights alone with the rustling gums, and their bird and beast population. This much I had inherited from a dreamy and unpractical father. Nor would the months of loneliness have harmed me had I added the company of other people, and sought the simple good which close companionship with natural things must give. Instead, I stalked alone, my eyes far oftener turned inwards, to feast on gloom and chaos, than looking on the outward glory of the burnished gum-leaves, the sunlight, and myriad graces of the place. My dogs forgot their tricks, and learned to play only with each other. By slow degrees a decaying lethargy crept over my soul. Day after day I followed the sheep dumbly, with hanging head and distraught mind ; or la}' in the grass, my eyes blank- to the beauty of the glorious sky above, the dancing green against the blue. Or sat on a log staring, staring into a world which did not exist. Even the wind in a fury, or the same sky pouring angry floods from its reservoirs, made little difference to me. 1 hurried not one step the faster to- escape them. ROCKY SECTION. 17 When the man came with the rations, I hid, and let him go unspoken. Besides flour and tea, he brought a heavy package of books, papers, and magazines. I threw them into a corner of an inner room, and the dust lay thick on them when they were at last opened. I had been on the section two months when Charles Cresswell and Browning rode out one Sunday. They found me with the sheep, eating my lunch. The barking of the dogs announced their approach, but I had not time to conceal myself had I wished to avoid them. They were both bluff and genial, full of the district gossip, and deter- mined to interest me in it, and the outside world in general. I could see that the change in my appearance affected them both — the uncared-for look of my working clothes, my dull absorbed expression. But their pain did not grieve me. My feelings were dead for ever. Cresswell insisted on the sheep being brought close up to the humpy, and the dogs left to mind them, while I got dinner for my guests. He said, trying to joke, though his heart was heavy, that I was a nice kind of host, and that they were ravenous. So between us we got together a dinner of some sort — cold meat and damper and tea, and they worked hard to force the fun while we ate it. Some sort of tired compunction visited me at length, and I made an effort to take part in the conversation, but it was a poor effort, and once I thought I saw the glint of moisture in Cress well's eyes as he looked at me. When the meal was over, he said : " Bring me a scissors and a comb. Ray." Which I did in silence, and he ordered me to sit down. B 18 ROCKY SECTION. The next moment my overlong locks were falling beneath the insidious blade. Like many bushmen, the owner of Yuralie was a capital barber. " Even if you do live among beasts, there is no reason why your wool should resemble theirs," he said, with severity. " By the way, how will you get over the difficulty of the hair business ? " asked Browning, who sat on my bunk, smoking. " Rub grease on it, and set fire to it, as Dirty Bogan used to do ? " " Jackson (the ration-man) can cut hair first rate," said Cresswell. " You'd better secure his services." " But I say, you know, I thought you were coming back with us," said Browning. " No," said I. " Rot," said Cresswell. " You'd better come." " No." " What about Brinkwater ? This isn't the way to get it back." " Brinkwater is nothing to me." They were silent. Not long afterwards they -went away, saddened and disturbed in spirit. I was glad to see them go, and resolved that the interview should not be repeated. There was sap still at the roots of the tree, though the branches were withered. ROCKY SECTION. 19 Chapter IV. ONE day, when I was out with the sheep as usual, a mob of about twenty kangaroos, evidently suffering from a severe fright, came bounding at top speed through the scattered ranks of my charges, sending them rushing in all directions. I yelled at the dogs, but for once duty succumbed to temptation, and they pursued the flying battalion with •clamorous vociferation. When they returned, with lolling tongues and guilty demeanour, I partially succeeded in collecting the sheep, but on examination found that about a hundred had broken away, and disappeared in the scrub. Leaving one dog with the sheep, I took the other, and returned to the humpy for a bridle, determining to ride in search of the missing animals. Fortunately, both horses were drinking at the pool below the spring in the gully, and I quickly had the bridle and saddle on Speedwell, and turned off into the great scrub. After an hour's search we came on the sheep, and turned them towards home. It was slow travelling through the close underwood, and one less of a bushman than I, and not so well acquainted with these outer precincts of the monotonous scrub, would infallibly have lost himself. 20 ROCKY SECTION. Gradually we drew towards the selection, where the trees were larger and less frequent in occurrence. It was a day in early autumn, with nothing to choose between it and spring. The air was clean and cool, and sweet with, innumerable faint bush scents, and there was a trill of insect choirs and sudden rich bird-notes vibrating on the breeze, I remember it so distinctively, because of the great change this day brought into my life. The dog Marco, which had made up for his recent de- fection by closest attention to business, in skirting round the outside of the flock, suddenly came to a pause under a big stringybark. The sheep ran on, but Marco began walking gingerly round some dark object lying in the shade of the tree. I called to him, but his attention was too- much distracted for him to obey. He would stop with one foot uplifted, and sniff at the object of his suspicions ; then walk round, always at a respectful distance, and again stop and sniff. I got the sheep well past the tree, then went back to it,, and dismounted. Marco looked up at me with a little whine. He was sure there was something terribly wrong^ about the affair. I did not wonder at his behaviour when I saw what I was bending over. A girl, of perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age, lay on her side across the roots of the tree. One arm was under her cheek, as if put out to shield it in a fall. She wore a faded pink sun-bonnet, which had fallen back on her shoulders, and a quantity of long hair, which on first sight I hastily called black, escaped from beneath it, and partially concealed her face. Her dress was a clean, good ROCKY SECTION. 21 print, pink-sprigged, and a black leather belt bound a slender waist. She was so still, so peaceful, that I could only look at her with a kind of calm wonder. She was probably dead, but so quiet a death was suggestive of neither horror nor fear. I was loth to touch her — not because of what she was, but because of what she had been — a living, breathing woman. Let her lie ! She would never more have chance to work mischief, to be the curse of some man's life, as Marie Barrington had been the curse of mine. I turned to my horse, and got into the saddle. Unwillingly Marco left the girl's side, but I ordered him gruffly to heel, and at length we got the stray sheep back to the main mob in Rex's care. As it w^as then late in the afternoon, we took them all on to the humpy, and yarded them in an enclosure close by. Then I raked out the coals from the ashes in the big fireplace, made up the fire, and swung the billy into the blaze. But sitting dow^n to a meal of damper and mutton, Avhere I could see through the open door the last rays of the sun yellowing distant tree-tops, a vivid vision came before my mind's eye of a silent form l^dng at the base •of a big stringybark — under the stars in the cold night — wet with the dew, warmed by the morning sun, drenched b}' rains, buffeted by the wind — helpless and forsaken to become- My imagination refused further thought. A sudden vision of my mother in a like position caused me to rise to my feet with an exclamation of horror. A few minutes later Speedwell and I were on our way 22 ROCKY SECTION. to the scrub once more. We arrived at the tree as dusk fell. She was there in exactly the same posture. I threw a bluey over her, wondering, as I lifted the slight form, at its extreme lightness. Speedwell, who had little exercise, and had grown flash in consequence, was much exercised concerning his double burden. However, we arrived home in safety, and I deposited the foundling in my bunk. I conjectured she had come from some selector's hut, lost her way in the scrub, and was now either dead, or in the last stage of exhaustion. I loosened her clothes, and laved her hands and face with whisky. She was evidently half-starved, as the hollow cheeks, with skin tight-drawn over the bones, witnessed. It was with reluctance that I ministered to her. I should much have preferred to leave her to her fate under the cold white stars. But she gave no sign of life, beyond that of a limpness in her limbs, which did not savour of death, and when I forced a little diluted spirit between her teeth, it was fol- lowed by a faint slow motion of swallowing. She was alive then. I sat back on my heels and examined her features minutely. The small, white face stared out from a surrounding mass of dark hair. It was regular in outline, the chin full of character, and the brows dark and straight. In her present attitude I could see no more, and could only guess at her appearance in health. Should I let the feeble flicker of life go out like a match in a draught ? There was no one to know — no one ta judge between us — no one of whom I could demand, " Am I my brother's keeper ? " Or should I foster it carefully. ROCKY SECTION. 23 and build it up into a divine flame ? Divine ? The human soul divine ! I had once thought Marie Barrington's soul divine. I do not recollect making any direct decision. I only know that I went on methodically, using every means of restoration in my power, and that by degrees a very fair measure of whisky trickled down the lean throat. Once or twice I thought an eyelash quivered, and there was a slight movement of the head, but beyond this my efforts received no encouragement. At length I left her rolled up snugly in the blankets, and wrapping myself in a rug, I lay down before the fire, and was soon fast asleep. Some time in the night I awoke, and turned over. The great fire of gum logs still burnt on the hearth, filling the room with red light on the slab walls, losing itself among^ the shadowy rafters of the roof, and shining on the pale face of my guest. And from the face I saw two wide-open eyes staring at me. 24 ROCKY SECTION. Chapter V. I GOT up, and went to her side. ' ' How do you feel now ? Hungry ? " She made no reply, but her e^'es wandered round Ihe room, and then fixed themselves on me again. I procured some damper, and broke it into a pannikin of weak whisky and water. Then held it to her lips. It was not choice diet for an invalid, but the best I could offer. She took it eagerly, but made a wry face after tasting it, and on pressure would only swallow three or four pieces, after which she turned aside her head, and resolutely declined another morsel. Suddenly I recollected some tins of preserved milk which Cresswell had sent me with other stores, but which I had never made use of. I opened one now — the girl's eyes following my every movement — and put some of the con- tents into a basin with hot water. When dissolved, I broke more bread into it, and fed her with a spoon. She accepted this with avidity, keeping her eyes fixed unwaver- ingly on my face. At last she spoke. " What is it ? What does it mean ? " she queried in a faint whisper. " Nothing. Go to sleep," I said, shortly. Her eyes looked at me a little pitifully, but I turned away, and present^, when I looked again, she was sleeping ROCKY SECTION. 25 the deep sleep of exhaustion. I troubled my head no more about her that night, and next morning, when I left after an early breakfast, she was still sleeping. I placed a basin of bread and milk beside her on a chair, and cover- ing it up, went away with the dogs and sheep. It annoyed me that all through the morning thoughts of my unwelcome guest intruded themselves upon me. What was to become of her ? I could not well leave my charge to conduct her to the station^I shrank horribly from the mere thought of the excursion into society. I could guess the manner in which my disappearance had been commented upon, and I was not tempted to give fresh food for gossip. Curse the girl ! Why had I ever found her ? It was impossible to let her die. She must simply remain where she was for the present, as she could hardly find her way home herself. Usually I took my lunch out w-ith me, but to-day I returned to the humpy for it. The girl still slept, but the basin was empty. She lay with one hand doubled up under her cheek, the other thrown out carelessly above the blanket — it was small, and the delicate wrist reminded me of another. I left her with a curse in my heart, yet I did not forget to refill the bowl. When I got home that evening events had moved for- ward. My lady was not in the bunk, over which she had carefully smoothed the blankets, but sat in the only easy chair by the fire. She had evidently made this up, and the billy was already singing. Her hair still hung over her shoulders, but looked as if it had been subjected to a thorough combing. I saw, for the first time, that I had 26 ROCKY SECTION. been mistaken in the colour. It was a ripe, rich brown, with amber lights in it. She rose when I entered, and stood trembling — partly with weakness — her wide eyes on my face. I stared in: return, then hung up my whip, and after a wash outside the door, proceeded to put plates, meat, and bread on the table, without a second glance at the slim figure by the fire. " Where am I ? How did I get here ? " she broke out at last, with something like anguish in her tones. The voice did not offend, but it was the very opposite of Marie's sweet bird-like treble. " You're on Rocky Section. As to how you came here you should know better than I." " Rocky Section ? " She put her hand to her head. " I don't know — I walked a long way — I was very tired — I can remember falling, and I think I hit my head against something. My mind is confused." " Doubtless, but it will clear again." I took the lid off the billy, and threw some tea into the boiling water. " Will you — will you take me home ? " The voice trembled. " I don't know where your home is." " It is— it is I forget." Two heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. It annoyed me to see her standing there shaking, with white face, wet eyes, and mournful voice. " Sit down," I said, gruffly. But she began fumbling about for her pocket hand- kerchief — unsuccessfully, however. ROCKY SECTION. 27 Silently I went into the inner room, and brought one back, clean and folded. " Take this, and, for heaven's sake, sit down." She sank into the seat, dropped her face in the folds of the handkerchief, and burst into tears. " You're cr — cross with me," she sobbed in muffled tones. There was no denying I was extremely cross with her. She was doing all in her power to destroy my peace and the settled ways into which I had fallen. But I made an endeavour to soften my hard voice as I said — " Don't cry. I suppose you can't help your misfortunes."" She wept on, however, being probably too weak to control herself, but by the time I had set the table and poured out two cups of tea, she had become fairly tranquil again, " Sit here," I indicated a chair opposite mine, and she took it in silence. For myself I was content with my usual fare. For her I had opened a tin of salmon and another of apricots, Cresswell kept me royally supplied with tinned dainties of all kinds, but I rarely touched them, and now found them useful for the first time. She ate sparingly of both, and, the meal over, attempted to help me put the things away, and wash up. I ordered her to the easy chair in such a tone that she obeyed without protest, although her eyes followed me wistfully, as I observed with resentment. Neither of us broke the silence until Rex and Marco walked in. The latter stretched himself before the fire, and blinked a suspicious eye at the stranger. Rex, on the contrary, went straight up 28 ROCKY SECTION. to her, laid his nose in her lap, and smiled up into her face. She put her arms round his neck, and her cheek down on liis head, and, I believe, she wept. I filled my pipe, and then cogitated on the propriety •of questioning the girl as to her taste regarding tobacco smoke. Eventually I decided to continue my own master absolutely, and flinging myself into a chimney seat opposite her, abandoned myself to the delights of the " Indian weed." The surroundings, the girl, the dogs, faded from my mind, and I sank into the deep lethargic dream which came more and more often to me, holding me in a close embrace from which I frequently found it difficult to escape. It was perhaps an hour — perhaps two hours — later that I became aware of the pair of soft amber eyes steadily regarding me from the other side of the fireplace, and though they were averted immediately-, I experienced a disagreeable shock at discovering that my solitude was no longer sacred to myself. With a muttered ejaculation I got up, and went outside, and for half an hour perambulated the track in the cold, clear air. I half hoped she would have retired to the bunk before my return, but realised when I found her still before the fire, that she would not take the initiative in the process •of retirement. Half-dazed, weak, and ill as she was, some instinct of hers would form, I knew, an insurmountable bar to the former arrangement being again adopted. Her face looked small and pinched and w-hite, her mouth drooped piteously, and the shadows under her eyes were like sooty thumb-marks. In the inner room were two or three bunks ranged along ROCKY SECTION. 29 the walls. These I had used for holding all manner of articles — bridles, boots, clothes, tins. Now I cleared one of the impedimenta, and being fortunately well supplied with bedding, rapidly made it up for present use. Then I went to the door. " Your bed is ready," I said. " You must be tired." She took the hint at once, and the candle 1 offered her^ looking up with mute appeal at me as she passed. " Good-night," I said, then — reluctantly — " pleasant dreams," and immediately went outside again. 30 ROCKY SECTION. Chapter VI. THE period that followed might be termed one of upheaval, coming after the former period of quiet, and before the subsequent subsidence. I cannot say that I was at this time afflicted with any ieelings of remorse for the grievous wrong I was doing the helpless girl who had been suddenly thrown upon my bounty. All my feelings, mentally and morally, had become blunted and warped, my mind was rotting with a disease of egotism, and I cared nothing what became of her so that I should be allowed to pursue the downward path without interruption. Her presence angered me, but I endured it rather than make the effort involved in transport- ing her from the place, it being, besides, of peculiar inconvenience for me to leave the flock. I did my utmost to keep the girl out of my thoughts while absent through the day, often with such success that on my return at night to the humpy her presence ;gave me a fresh shock. For the first few days after her arrival siie was languid and weak, and her eyes had a puzzled questioning look. She frequently put her hand to her head, and would knit her brows as if trying to force the recollection which would not come. Presently she began to revive. The ghastly white of her cheeks merged into a clear, creamy hue, tinged ROCKY SECTION. 31 sometimes with a slow blush, the pinched look went, the outline became rounder, her eyes grew bright, her hair glossy, and her step light. One evening, about three weeks after her appearance on Rocky Section — I had long lost all count of days and dates — she was sitting on a big block outside the door staring away to the distant sunset, when, with a curious suddenness, the air became permeated with the odour of musk, as it will occasionally in the bush, apparently without cause. The girl held up her head, and breathed it in. " Musk ! " she said, aloud, " Musk ! " She slipped from the block, and stood rigid with her hands by her sides. " Where was it before ? O, the hill by the creek — it came up from the plains." She put her hands over her eyes. " I know — I know — the horses got away, and I went after them into the scrub. I thought I knew the way, but it was all so much alike. 0, the days and nights — horrible — and I fell ; and — and Aunt Jane — and " She rushed past me where I stood in the doorway, and into her room, and there I heard stifled sobbing. It dis- turbed me, and I went out into the bush to get away from the sound. So she remembered at last how she came to lose herself, and where she came from. Too late — too late ! The secent of the musk was everlastingly connected in her mind with a certain hill by a creek, and this one between the present and the past being supplied, all the circumstances of her previous existence returned to her. Too late ! 32 ROCKY SECTION. We did not meet again till next morning, and when I came out from the small back room whither I had removed my bed, she already had the porridge made and the billy boiling ; the table was neatly laid, and the floor swept up. She had taken up these duties of her own accord, and per- formed them with ten times my ability. I swept the floor and cleaned the ashes from the fireplace about once a week. She did it every day and dusted into the bargain ; tidied the rooms, and put sweet wild flowers and gum boughs about on shelves in tins. Insensibly the change had affected me, and it was undeniably a relief to find dinner ready when I came home tired at night. This morning the girl was subtly changed, and I realised it as she met my eyes for a moment at the breakfast table. Hers wore the tired sunburnt look that a night of weeping brings. Her face was very pale, but the piteous expression was gone from her mouth, which had acquired a new strength — and almost hardness. The meal was conducted in absolute silence. As I stepped across the threshold into the fresh bright morning I said over my shoulder, " Good-bye," then, half-sneeringly. " Marie." For the first time she took exception to my cynical use of the name. " Why do you call me that ? " she asked quickly, as she stood on the other side of the table, leaning one hand upon it. " Why not ? " " It is not mine." " Then what is ? " I had asked her before, and received- only a bewildered look for answer. ROCKY SECTION. 33 " Reina Cordova." " Spanish ? " " Yes, it is Spanish." This was singular enough, but it was totally unfamiliar to me. " Mr. Templer." She regarded me steadily, a hard glitter in her eyes. I stared. Where had she learnt my name ? " How long have I been here ? " " I don't know." " Tell me, how long ? " There was imperious impatience in her voice. " I tell you I don't know. About three weeks. What does it matter ? " brutally. She put her hand to her face, turned and went quickly to the fireplace, keeping her back to me. I waited a moment, then whistling up the dogs, unyarded the sheep, and fed them slowly over the selection. At least four times that day the name of Reina Cordova occurred to me. I did not wish to think of it — it possessed no pleasant connection for me ; instead, it troubled me, perhaps with a presage of further trouble to come. It stirred the sluggish waters of my brain, and disturbed the blank apathy which bid fair in time to become my normal condition. As I sat in my usual seat in the chimney that night I stealthily watched her moving about the room, putting^ things away after the evening meal. Rex followed her about, accepting scraps from her hand and responding in his own affectionate way to her silent caresses. Marco, more morose and reserved, lay at my feet. The sight of the lissom figure revived bitter memories in my mind. I c 34 ROCKY SECTION. fancied I had learnt to forget, but this girl, unlike as she was to Marie, taught me I still had capacity for pain. I clenched my teeth at the swish of her skirts ; the accidental touch of her hand made me start, then shrink away ; her light step painfully renewed the thrill I had been wont to feel when Marie's unexpected step fell on my ears. I hated this girl who had brought me nothing but pain. The mill of the gods does not grind slowly. When her self-appointed task was done she came over, and stood near me. There was a fire in her eyes, a suppressed excitement about her. She spoke abruptly — " Why did you not take me home ? " " I did not know where your home was — and do not know now." I was stating a fact, not excusing myself. " You might at least have taken me to the nearest neighbours'." " And leave the sheep I am paid to watch ? " " Yes. I am of more importance than the sheep." I looked into the fire, and made no reply. A slight exclamation from her made me turn my head again. She was trembling, and her fingers were interlaced nervously. " You will be sorry — you will be sorry." Her deep voice dropped to a whisper. " I am sorry now," I said, cynically. There was a long pause. Then she said — " Are you a man or a beast ? " I might have asked how she dared so address me, but let that pass. Her query struck home, and awakened a train of dormant recollections, biting to the taste. I had been a man once. ROCKY SECTION. 35 " Get to your room, girl, and leave me in peace," I said, fiercely. She stepped back as though expecting a blow to follow, then obeyed, but as she closed her door she repeated vehemently — " You will be sorry." 36 ROCKY SECTION. Chapter VII. REINA CORDOVA stood on her dignity for a week, Not a word to me — no games with Rex in rriy presence, instant retirement to her room or the outside bush after dinner, and through all her manner was offensively haughty. She volunteered no informa- tion concerning her people and home, and when I once asked her if she could find her way thither, she answered merely, " No." She was often restless, and sometimes- miserable, judging by her melancholy eyes and mouth. It is . perhaps merciful that we can grow accustomed to almost anything, and so it was that by degrees the girl became cheerful. I heard her singing one night as she- came up with a bucket of water from the brackish spring in the gully, though she ceased when she caught sight of the sheep shuffling into the yards. It was a pleasant sound,, rich and sweet, more like the notes of some bush birds than anything else. She called Rex " dear old fellow " when he jumped up- on her at the door, and only laughed when he caused her to spill some of the water on the earthen floor. I made a point of leaving the bucket full before I went away in the morning, but frequently this was not enough for her use during the day, and her feet had begun to help mine to- keep the path worn which led to the spring. ROCKY SECTION. 37 This night she only retired to her room for a moment, bringing with her on her return a magazine, with which she sat content on her side of the fire all through the evening, while I, on mine, was wrapped in gloomy thought or sunk in paralysing blankness — " awake in a half -dream." Night after night, as the weather grew colder, Reina Cordova made merry or mourned over her books and magazines — those which Cresswell had so thoughtfully put up for me. Occasionally a gay laugh would startle me from my abstraction, shaking my nerves to the centre. Once, as I looked across at her, she lifted her head, and her eyes met mine. A curious expression crossed her face before it was speedily averted. Was it compassion ? I grew restless, and finally went outside, where I groaned in very weariness of spirit as I paced the bush track. There were moments when my soul rose up in railing against a terrible destiny which I could not escape — when my utter helplessness against Fate and a final dissolution filled me with terror. This was one of them. It was the next day that I forgot to take my lunch with me — nothing rare, but it was very seldom I went home for it when this occurred. About one o'clock I was resting on a log under a great red-gum. A cool wind was blowing, but the sky was unclouded, and at this time of day the sun made its heat most apparent. The sheep had camped for a spell, and the dogs were nosing about in hollow logs, snorting as they poked into decaying leaves and rotting wood. The scent and sounds were very soothing, and I leant my head against the smooth tree-trunk, regardless of the tiny ants which made it their highway, and closed my eyes. 38 ROCKY SECTION. A twig cracked in the distance, leaves rustled — silence again, then a disturbed branch ground against a stone, as from being trodden on ; there was a clashing in a belt of shrubs, and a sound of a light, firm footfall on a bed of leaves. Rex barked, and rushed past me. I opened unwilling eyes, and came back from an entranced country to see Reina Cordova standing in front of me with a bill}^ in one hand and a bottle in the other. Her tall and willowy figure stood out against a background of silver and grey- green trunks. She was looking beyond me, and there was a colour in her face. If it had not been for the very practical details of her outfit, she would have made a fine impersonation of the reigning deity of the place. As it was she looked an Australian bush nymph up-to-date. " I have brought your lunch," she said, placing the billy and bottle beside me on the ground. " Thank you. You need not have troubled," was the reply somewhat ungraciously delivered. " It was a pleasure — coming through the bush, I mean. I love it." She looked up towards the high bush rafters, and the tenderest expression came to her parted lips. My stupid eyes watched her, half-fascinated, she was so redundant of health and spirit and elasticity of form. " If you will leave the empty vessels under this log, I'll come back for them later on," she said, and without further leave-taking was off. Rex bounding with her. But she sent him back to his duty. My eyes followed her sadly enough. When had I been as young as that ? But she vanished — the sound of her footsteps died away. ROCKY SECTION. 39 and I turned to the billy. She had packed it daintily with very welcome sandwiches, and the bottle contained tea fairly hot. It was a much more appetising lunch than I ever troubled to put up for myself, and I enjoyed it, and felt the better for it. That was the beginning of her taking in hand my mid-day meal, and she either prepared it for me to take myself, or else brought it out to me — it depended on the weather or the whim. Reina Cordova had her whims, and was not afraid to display them — going her own way with as complete a candour and disregard for others as I myself could evince. It was only when her will clashed with mine that I exerted any authority over her — otherwise she was as free as the air itself. It was a strange household — that of the morose, prematurely old man, and the young girl, full of the vivacity of healthful life, strong in character and imperious in will, flung together by circumstance, each living his and her own separate life. Lives far apart, much farther even than was apparent, lonely lives both, yet of different tendency — the man's trending to des- truction : the girl's healthy, at least, and innocent. As the nights grew longer and colder our fires grew bigger. I dragged up logs and piled them close to the house with branches I chopped into short lengths. Reina Cordova gathered kindling of dry leaves and stringybark, and brought small twigs in out of the wet. Between us we made glorious fires. But hot as they were, they were not capable of keeping my guest warm throughout the coming winter without further extraneous aid, as she signified to me one evening. 40 ROCKY SECTION. " Look," she said, coming up to me straight from her room as I lounged by the fire, and she twisted round the sleeves of her faded pink cotton blouse, first one and then the other, and pointed out the neat patches which adorned the elbows. " Well ? " " Well ? " she mimicked. " It is ill, I think." She threw up her head with a very characteristic gesture, and looked down at me under long lashes. " How much longer do you think one dress is going to last me ? I have washed and ironed this so often that the poor thing can't hang together much longer. Besides which, a thin print can't be expected to do serviceable work in keeping out cold." I had not once thought of the girl's habiliments, which proves the strength of my dreary egotism. Dimly I realised that she was always clean and fresh-looking, and I came to connect pink-sprigged print inalienably with her, but otherwise her clothing held no interest for me. I had discovered, though, that mj^ own was now never in holes, but that many incomprehensible darns and patches ap- peared on various garments. Yet I never saw Reina Cordova with a needle in her hand. I returned her gaze helplessly, and at last said — " If you are cold, put on one of my coats." She laughed scornfully. " Would that be sufficient ? " " You are welcome to anything else you can find," I retorted dryly. " That won't do," she said, flushing angrily. " When does your ration-man come again ? " ROCKY SECTION. 41 " He came last just before you did. He will be here soon. Give an order to him for what you want," and I turned from her. A little sound of anger escaped her, and she stamped her foot. " Indeed ! I will do nothing of the sort. But you shall — you w^ho have put it out of my pow'er — O ! how I hate you ! " She drew in her breath with a long quivering sigh. But there was more than hatred in her tones. Verily, this girl was suffering for Marie Barrington's sin. For the first time I felt somewhat akin to her — even as though she was not ■altogether one from an alien planet. I eyed her steadily, as she went on — " I said you would be sorry, and so you shall. You found me, and findings are keepings, you know. You shall be my slave." She looked queenly as she said it. I was both interested and amused. " Go on," I said. Her eyes blazed with an amber light. " And — I'll make you feel as you have never felt in your life before. You poor creature — you half a man — you, to pretend that you have suffered for " I rose up suddenly before her, and caught her by both •slender wrists. " Hold your tongue, you virago ! Don't dare to presume too far on my forbearance ! " And I think my black •eyes burned as fiercely as hers. She was frightened, but she neither struggled nor re- inoved her gaze from mine. 42 ROCKY SECTION. " O," she cried, " so you've not forgotten ? Good r I know my way now. While the name of Miss Barr — I beg her pardon — Lady Hedley " I caught her by the throat with one hand, taking both wrists in the other, and swayed her back and forth. " I could choke you as soon as look at you," I whispered harshly, " and, by heaven, I will, too, if you ever mention that name again. Whatever you know of my private affairs keep to yourself. Don't dare to intrude on them.'' I daresay my fingers pressed the rounded throat cruelly ,^ for she gave a little choking cry, and struggled to extricate herself. I let her go with such suddenness that she staggered back and only saved herself from a fall by clutching at the table. I strode furiously out into the bush, where a high wind was raging that just suited my mood. ROCKY SECTION. 45 Chapter VIII. THERE were black marks on the white throat next morning. I saw them, and proved my shame by- being more than usually sullen at the breakfast table. Reina Cordova, however, held her head higher than ever, and when her glance fell on me it was as the essence of scorn. No more was said by either of us on the subject of clothes, but I have no doubt a good deal was thought on both sides. The result of my thinking was a short note tO' Charles Cresswell requesting him to send out to Rocky Section on the lirst opportunity one or two articles of clothing for myself, and several yards of serge and calico, two pairs of light boots, size four, and some pairs of stockings. I knew he kept such things in the station store. This letter I left for Jackson where once or twice before I had placed communications for him to deliver to CresswelL They had always reached their destination, so I knew it would be safe if Jackson came out and went during my absence, as he generally did. I believe Reina Cordova lived in apprehension during the next few days of being caught by the ration-man, and constantly kept a look out for him. It was his custom to arrive about lunch hour, forage out a dinner for himself,, give his horse a feed, and then depart to spend the night 44 ROCKY SECTION. at the nearest neighbour's — the Fields. He had once made the experiment of staying the night with me, but my grimness and silence did not tempt him to renew it. One evening I looked for my letter, and it was gone, "Jackson been?" I said across the table to Reina. " Yes. He brought more books and papers." " Did he see you ? " " Do you deign to ask ? Really, we are getting on." A month ago I would not have even answered her, but now I replied, though without acrimony — " You are an impertinent child." " Very. Very much of a child, too. You are only twenty-five yourself." " And you are only eighteen." " I am twenty-two." " I suppose you are, or you would not acknowledge to it, but you don't look your age — nor act it." " And you don't look yours. You look forty, and act fifty." She laughed, not gaily, but mockingly, tilting her chair back on one leg. Clearly I was not her match in repartee, and therefore kept silence. Her words stayed with me. and I brooded over them. Did I look forty ? There were lines on my face, I knew, and a hardness of expression not belonging to youth, and there were grey hairs amongst the black. If I felt and looked nearly a score of years my elder, what would it be like when I had in reahty attained that age ? Good God ! I might live three score years yet. I started up, and paced the room in one of those fits of unrest from which ROCKY SECTION. 45 I sometimes suffered. Suddenly I caught the girl's furtive glance from where she sat reading in her ingle nook^ and wheeling on my heel, I went into my own room, and threw myself on my bunk. Then there followed hours- of mental torture such as I had hoped would never recur again. I had fancied that solitude and calm would kill all power of feeling, all passion, and until Reina Cordova's appearance my object seemed almost attained. Was she to demolish the painful work of months ? Were a few words from her to have the power of re-establishing bitter memories and sensations ? Truly she had said I should be sorry. After some time I fell into an uneasy sleep, from which I was gradually awakened by a confused sense of hearing^ my name being called in a plaintive voice. At first I thought it was my mother's, and started up to listen with strained ears. Then again it came at the door. " Mr. Templer ! Mr. Templer ! " Reina Cordova. I sank back. " What ? " " Are you ill ? " " No. Why ? " " You were moaning so. I thought^I thought " Her voice, unusually plaintive, broke. Poor thing ! she, too, was lonely, and — might not Fate have been hard on her also ? " In my sleep, then. Go to bed, child. It is only the good and happy who get ill and die young." For once my voice was gentle in addressing her. She did not speak again, and presently I heard her moving^ away. 46 ROCKY SECTION. I was aware next day of a change in her manner to me — so shght as to be indefinable — but it seemed not so hard, and I could not but meet it with a softening of my own, .and an effort towards more sociability. She took possession of the books and magazines I had scorned, and in the evening startled me by reading aloud a paragraph which had made her laugh. I did not laugh, but this did not discourage her at all, and later on she repeated the act of temerity — this time with a poem, which she read with an appreciative fire against which I endeavoured to close my ears in vain. I received it in ■cold silence, but the deep rich voice rang on in my thoroughly awakened brain, rising and falling — fiery, sympathetic, sorrowful. The poem taught me that Reina Cordova had a voice which was a kind of music. I looked to see what sort of mouth had breathed it forth. Firm and thin-lipped — not large or small — and red, as if it had stolen the colour from her cheeks, leavipg them a creamy pallor. My eyes moved up, over the somewhat short upper lip to the delicate-nostrilled nose with the little aristocratic bump in the middle, which always lent weight and vigor to her eloquence and defiance. With such a nose in close juxtaposition, the eyes must glow and flash when passion fed them. Upward still little tendrils of amber- brown hair, darkening at the roots, wandered carelessly ■over a wide forehead, toning down its height. She was not beautiful, but she defied criticism. She was imperial. I could not see her as I now realised her without thinking how Fate had wasted those points here in the backwoods. Why had the}- not been accorded the ROCKY SECTION. 47 poor little Isabel II. of Spain, with whose queenly carriage they would have formed a royal combination ? What was this Reina Cordova, with her foreign name and appearance, doing on Rocky Section ? For the first time my curiosity was aroused. mm W 48 ROCKY SECTION. Chapter IX. EVENING on Rocky Section. Overhead the leaves tossing in an impetuous wind — red, angry clouds in the west against the sunset — the soldier-birds and green leeks going to bed — the native cats and 'possums getting up, while across the gully sounded the fretful wails of a baby bear and the wrathful grunting of its parent. Down below, a weary man and two dogs rounding up some hundreds of sheep into their brush-fenced yard, and a glimpse of a pink gown descending to the spring in the gully. I went slowly up the track from the yards to the back of the house, where I found the tin basin of water which Reina Cordova always left on a block there, together with soap and a towel. I plunged my head into it, and felt refreshed as the day's grime melted away. I generally contrived to get an early morning dip in a pool below the spring in the gully where the horses watered. The evening ablution over, I went through the house to while away the time on the block beside the front threshold, till Reina's deep voice should announce that supper was read\-. The dogs rushed by me like a whirlwind, barking vociferousl}-, and as I stepped over the threshold I stopped and stared. A horse was hitched to the nearest sapling, and on the stump sat Charles Cress well, filling his pipe. I was startled. He had not been out for several months. ROCKY SECTION. 49 " Charles ! " He turned, and got up. " Ray, old chap ! " But he did not shake hands, and there was not even a forced smile on his lips. " Sit down," I said, and folding my arms, leant a shoulder against the door. " Supper will be ready pres " I stopped abruptly as the word brought the girl to my mind. This was awkward. What the devil had brought Cresswell out ? I had begun to imagine he had given up his fruitless visits to Rocky Section. However, it did not matter to me. " How's things ? " he asked absently, ramming the tobacco down into his pipe— his eyes roving beyond me into the living-room. " Oh, all right. Sheep doing very well — only a couple dead in the last six months — place easy carries 'em." " Tired of it yet ? " " No ! " " Want anything ? " His eyes came back with startling abruptness to mine. His manner was brusque and a trifle stern. " No. You send more than I want." I tried hard to infuse some amount of grateful warmth into my tones. Cresswell suddenly put a hand on my shoulder. " Ray, when is this to end ? " " Don't ! " " You remember what you promised me — that you would not retard the time of leaving it ? " "It is further off than ever." " This is downright folly. Be a man. Rouse yourself. D 50 ROCKY SECTION. I had thought better of you — to let a worthless girl ruin your life. Come away with me, and make a fresh start." I shook my head dumbly. Under present circumstances I would never return to the old life. It possessed no attractions for me, and the longer I avoided it the more difficult it became to take it up again. Besides a dim idea shot through my mind that in leaving Rocky Section I should abandon Reina Cordova to What ? Well, I had not invited her to lose herself close to my residence, nor did I desire her presence. Confound the girl ! " A misogynist and misanthrope at twenty-six," said Cresswell, and in a moment his voice grew stern again. " Raymond, is there nothing else holds you here — no new tie ? " " How could there be ? You will never understand " " Then what the devil do you want with serge and calico and women's boots and stockings ? " I started. Then wondered at my stupidity in never having contemplated the probable result of such a request as I had sent Cresswell by the ration-carrier. Before I could speak, the answer to his question came round the corner of the house, walking with her hands on her hips, and a bucket of water on her head — an accomplishment she had been practising of late. I fancied the trick had descended to her with her Spanish blood. Cresswell wheeled and saw her, as she also saw him — too late for concealment. She stopped short, and for a moment evidently hesitated as to whether she .should not flee even now. Then she compressed her lips, and came on steadily, walking with long even steps. Her ROCKY SECTION. 51 lace was hard, as if set in an iron mould, but a slow flush, which no power of her will could avert, grew from uplifted chin to forehead, till a steady flame burnt there. She passed between us, Cresswell watching her as if his eyes would pierce her through. And suddenly her eyes flashed on me with a living scorn that made me slink out of her way as she stepped into the house, put the bucket down, and deliberately shut the door. " You blackguard ! " Like a flash a long-forgotten scene rose before me. Cresswell berating a station boy who had acted a cowardly and cruel part — by his side young Raymond Templer, a lad of fourteen, who listened with awe and a little fear to the wrath and contempt of the not-easily-roused man. He had been very silent after the scene, vowing never to do anything which could merit such scorn — sincerely believing with all his soul that he never would. And now it was on me — paralysing in its keenness. As the vistas of excuse opened out before me, I saw they all ended in blind alleys. I was helpless. After a ghastly silence he turned away, his face white and set. I watched him stupidly as he stalked towards his horse. Suddenly the door behind me opened, and a hand gripped my shoulder. " Explain — explain ! Tell him everything — you cur ! You owe me that." And the hand, small and fine, sent me onward with a fierce push that proved a wrist of steel. Then the door was shut again. Yes, I owed that to her — to myself also. " Charles ! " 52 ROCKY SECTION. He paid no heed, but. unstrapping a swag that was attached to his saddle, flung it violently on the ground,, and prepared to mount. " Charles, listen to me. You shall listen." I put a hand on his arm. He threw it off, and turned on me. " What can you say ? What can you say ? " Yet there was hope in his face — an imperative demand for it in his voice. " Put up your horse. There is a great deal to tell. If you believe me you will exonerate me." And I told him simply and directly the whole story of the appearance and life of Reina Cordova on Rocky Section, At the end he said slowly — " Exonerate you ? I blame you more than ever. Yes, a thousand times more. You, without any natural excuse whatever, from a beastly, devilish, selfishness, con- demned a young, innocent, helpless girl to a life of perpetual fear. You, in the eyes of the world, have ruined her good name and blasted her reputation. And you call yourself a man." My months of ostracism had been in vain — there was- no such thing as killing feeling^they had only resulted in deadening my spirit, so that I took Cress well's bitter words in a dull, pained silence. Reina had not been a lying prophet. " Do you see that ? " Yes, I see it — now. Before God. Charles, I had no thought of wronging her. She is as free as the wind." ROCKY SECTION. 53 " Which bloweth where it listeth— under an inexor- able law. Ay, very free." He laughed drily. There was another leaden silence. Then he said — " Is she content to stay here leading the life of an out- cast ? " " She has not spoken of going away .since she recovered her memory." " H'mph ! Do you know where she came from ? " " No." " Nor to whom she belongs ? " " No ! " " Never cared to ask her ? Poor girl ! " " Why should I ? " My tone was a little sullen. " Ah, why indeed ! I forgot I was dealing with the essence of egotism. I could tell you everything, but won't force on you what is evidently of no interest to you." " You're wrong," I said, slowly. " I don't like Reina Cordova, I have never wished to have her here, but it would be useless to say she is uninteresting." " I should think so," said Cresswell. emphatically, " she is most striking-looking, and I can quite imagine she would appear ' queer ' to the station people. That was her character among them. And you — you — have no pity — no mercy — no honour ? Great powers ! " He began to stride up and down, his hands thrust deep in his pockets as though to ensure them against imprudent excursions. " To hurt that poor thing. O, boy, where is your honour ? " " I didn't mean to harm her," I muttered, childishly. 54 ROCKY SECTION. O o O ci3 01 c3 c o o ROCKY SECTION. . 69 " I must say," he observed, glancing round the room, " that a woman can make a vast improvement in a place. This room rather resembled a dog's kennel the last time I was here. My word ! that girl " At this point the door of that girl's room opened, and she came in. I continued to carve, and without looking up, said briefly and in the most matter-of-fact tone — " Miss Cordova — Mr. Cresswell." Would she accept the cue or follow a line of her own ? Apparently she merely bowed. Cresswell was the more embarrassed of the two. He crossed over to where she stood, silent, behind my chair, and held out his hand. " How do you do i> " he said. " Cold, isn't it ? " He was painfully natural. " Mr. Cresswell, has Mr. Templer told you " " Everything — yes." Cresswell was tremendously relieved to find that there was to be no skeleton in the cupboard — no topic to be ignored. He was a bad actor at the best of times. " I was with the search party that looked for you. I am awfully glad to see you alive and well." " Are you ? Her voice dropped to a queer whisper. " Would to God you had found me." My scowling face drooped lower over the joint I was carving. I was ashamed, and the pain of it made me impatient. " I wish I had," said Cresswell, " I wish I had. But " " There isn't any ' but.' Mr. Cresswell. Won't you sit down ? " 60 ROCKY SECTION. She moved to her place at the end of the table opposite me, and he took the chair between us in silence, unable to sa}^ one word of comfort. I could not talk. There was an intolerable weight on my spirits. I ate on moodily, removing at length to the fireside. The others kept up a brisk conversation, chiefly about books and art, I gathered from the fragments which penetrated my understanding. Dulness crept over my brain, and I stared fixedly into the fire, till the rising smoke and the waxing and waning of the glow in the coals twined themselves amongst my wandering thoughts, and visions — half-real, half-monstrous inventions of a disordered fancy — passed in erratic procession before my eyes, vanishing upward on the smoke trail. Now and then a word or phrase from my companions dropped like a rocket into the chaos of my brain, scattering the ideas in fresh directions. One of these came from Cresswell. "Is he often like this ? " " He ! " Who was " he ? " Achilles, perhaps. God- like Achilles, sitting apart and sulking for Briseis, on the sands — the huge green waves curled up horribly — the wind roared in the chimney — there would be a storm — sand, sand — Speedwell and I struggUng in a quicksand near the mouth of a river ... I leaned forward and patted the sweating neck — a last terrible effort, and he was free ... I groaned ... a gull swooped at Speedwell's head ... a vast plain, abnormally vast, ■covered with dead and dying carcasses of sheep, black clouds of crows rising and falling, settling on the beasts, picking out their eyes — eyes, eyes, everywhere, the air ROCKY SECTION. 61 was full of them . . . ghastly, dead, grey — like the smoke, lurid, burning like the flames . . . gay eyes, sad eyes, wrathful, melancholy, scornful . . . scornful amber eyes, filled with the light of a thousand golden sunsets. At half-past ten Reina prepared a supper of tea, plain cake, and biscuits. As a rule I went to bed early — nine o'clock being the usual hour — in consideration of the early hour at which I was obliged to rise on account of the sheep. Frequently, however, I would, when in one of these moods, sit over the fire far into the night. "Ray!" Cress well had come over to me. and placed a hand on my shoulder. " Raymond, Miss Cordova has supper ready. Come and help us eat it." For a minute or two I could not bring myself back to my surroundings, and when at last I rose to go to the table, I walked like a man in a dream. The practical details of eating and drinking, and the astounding hot tea, did more than anything to restore me to a normal condition. " Miss Cordova and I," said Cresswell, smiling across at her, " have been discussing literature, going through the whole range of it — poetry, history, ethics, philosophy — and even condescended to notice fiction." " A big order," I said, and looked at Reina Cordova. She, too, was smihng. Her face was flushed, and repressed excitement — the excitement of pleasure and mental satisfaction — shone in her eyes. All hardness had vanished. 62 ROCKY SECTION. " It was the magazines you sent out that started it," she said to Cresswell. " I must send more books," he replied. " Magazines cloy after an unlimited run of them." " Yes, and they aggravate by just giving the preface, as it were, of some book you are longing to read." " Tell me the names, and you shall have the books," said Cresswell, taking out a note-book in a business-like way. Reina laughed. " You are very kind," she said. But she did not accept his offer. Instead, she leaned her elbows on the table and looked across at him earnestly, soberly. " You are awfully kind," she said, in the direct child-like way which was a characteristic of hers. Then she glanced at me. AVe understood. Before Cresswell could speak I interposed — " Meaning that I am not ? " " You ? You ? " She lifted her head, and glared at me. Hostility breathed in every action, in every lineament of her features. She looked not unlike a tiger snake with uplifted crest. Sud- denly a transformation took place, and her expression -changed to one of pity — contemptuous pity. She turned silently away. The hot blood stung my face. How dared she ? I could have wrung her neck with pleasure at that moment. I said nothing, but the look was added to the sum total of incidents tending to transform my indifference to the girl into a lively hate. ROCKY SECTION. 63 Cresswell made an artless remark about the cake, and Reina's face was all sunshine again. His manner to her was the perfection of kindly respect, and seemed at once to draw the bitterness and suspicion out of her, leaving in their place a child-like simplicity. Presently she said good-night, and retired to her room, .where we heard her shoot the wooden bolt on the door into its place. Cresswell turned to me as we sat smoking by the fire. " That's a clever girl," he said. " Terribly wasted here." " Perhaps you'd like to take her back with you," I said, disagreeably. " I'm sure I don't want her to waste her sweetness on this desert air." Cresswell regarded me steadily before he said between his puffs — " There is no necessity to be brutal. Besides, who put the Old Man of the Sea on Sinbad's shoulders ? " I winced. My abominable folly was being daily driven home to me. " You know, Raymond," he pursued, after meditation, " this state of things cannot continue. They must be put an end to one way or another." ' " What must ? What things ? " I queried, aggravat- ingly- " You know jolly well, you young beast. That girl can't go on living here- " " She is free to go at any moment she chooses." " Free — free," he roared. " Call it free, do you ? Where can she go ? What can she do ? What explanation 64 ROCKY SECTION. could she make to the Fields — to any of her people, if she went back now ? " " Then she must stay here if she can't go home." He was silent out of sheer inability to invent a way out of the difficulty. At last he said, decisively — "Nevertheless, this can't continue." " You are very anxious concerning her welfare," I sneered. " Perhaps — her beaux yeaux." " I don't think you can taunt me with falling victim, to that kind of thing," he retorted calmly. " I rather fancy you have had more experience of it." " Yes, I once made a damned fool of myself, and am therefore not likely to do it again. But you are different." I spoke with dry bitterness. Cresswell glanced at me, but made no reply. ROCKY SECTION. 65 Chapter XI. THROUGH the night the storm raged, and next morn- ing the land was covered with leaves and branches beaten from the trees by the wind and rain. The ground was sodden, but a light wind was chasing the clouds from the sky, and the sun shone out. I was up early, and out after the horses, while Cresswell still slept. The clanking of the hobbles betrayed their whereabouts in a sheltered hollow, and I quickly had the bridle on Cress- well's. As I led him up to the yard Cresswell came out. " You need not have done that," he said, in a vexed tone. " Why not ? I am your paid servant." " Who made you so ? " he asked, fiercely. I shrugged my shoulders. " I am not complaining," I said. " Come into break- fast." Reina had boiled coffee and preserved milk in Cresswell's honor, and these, in addition to jam, salt butter, bread, and cold meat, made a very tolerable meal. The rations delivered to me were much superior to those portioned out to other employes on the run, but I had never troubled to expostulate with Cresswell on that score, though until the girl's arrival many of the stores had not been touched. Her mood was different this morning. She was quiet 66 ROCKY SECTION. and depressed, never raising her eyes to our faces, nor speaking unless directly addressed. As we rose from the table Cresswell turned a little awkwardly to her. " Miss Cordova," he said, " if there is anything you want — anything, you know, which I can get — please tell me, and you shall have it." She lifted her head quickly. " Thank you very much," she said, with softened voice and face. " But " She hesitated. Her face paled, I thought, then her lips set in the firm way I was getting to know so well. She rose and stood leaning her hands on a chairback, looking from one to the other of us. " Everything I get," she said, " must come through Mr. Templer. You understand ? It is my due." " I do not see why we need," began Cresswell. " I have a claim on him. I have none on you," she interrupted, coldly. " Every woman has a certain claim on every man," replied Cresswell, doggedly, " and I " " That's all right, Charles," I suddenly interposed. " Leave her alone. I am quite ready to admit Miss Cor- dova's claim on this occasion," She threw up her head with a little gesture of triumph. " Good-bye, then," said Cresswell, holding out his hand. She put hers into it. " Will you come with me — on Vagabond ? " he added, suddenly. " You know I will not," she said, and averted her face. " Leaving everything else out of the question, I am not enough of a bushwoman to ride a man's saddle." ROCKY SECTION. 67 " You can practise that accomplishment, Reina," I said, pointing to my saddle on its rack above our heads, and .went out. With another good-bye Cresswell followed me. " Do you know of anything she wants ? " he asked, as Ave walked towards the yards. " Can't say I do, but there must be innumerable things a "] woman would naturally need. I give you carte blanche to send out everything you can imagine she can possibly make use of. I have drawn scarcely a penny of my wages, .and you must hold ample for all a girl can want." " O, hang all that. If it pleases Miss Reina to fancy " I stopped short. " No, you don't, Charles. As she said, everything must •come through me. I am as determined on that point as •she." " TomnU'rot ! " growled Cresswell, irritably. " Send her books and magazines, if you like," I went ■on, " but nothing else. I won't have it." " Dear me, what an air of proprietorship ! " And a perfectly unconscious one. I walked on in silence, angry with myself. " Well," said Cresswell, as he heaved himself into the .saddle, " I suppose you must have your way, you obstinate young devil." When the dinner things were cleared away that night, Reina Cordova brought out a partially-sewn garment of the navy serge which Cresswell had left, and sitting at the table began to sew by the light of a tallow candle. 68 ROCKY SECTION. My eyes followed her busy fingers, and I pondered idly on the calamity it would have been had not the descendant of the Great Captain learned to do her own dressmaking. The ever-quavering candle flame streamed upwards, trail- ing off in a thin dark smoke, and illuminating a little patcli of the bent head that looked black in the dim atmosphere — except where the light fell, and there it was amber brown. She moved the candle a little nearer, and suddenh'. before my fascinated eyes, there was a quick flare and fizzle, and with an exclamation the girl threw down her work, and rubbed her hands over her forehead and head. I jumped up in alarm, but stood still as the damage- appeared slight. " Burnt ? " I asked. She gave me a quick glance. " Nothing to matter — only my two most cherished curls- gone," she said, jauntily, and took up her sewing again, after moving the invading flame further away. I went silently across to the cupboard, where most of our stores were kept, and took out another candle, which I screwed into a home-made candlestick — i.e., a square- block of wood with an augur hole in the centre — and placed it lighted in front of the girl on the table. She lifted her startled eyes to my face, and pushed it quickly away. " I don't want it," she said, hurriedly, " thank you." " Yes, 3'ou do. You can hardly see to sew that dark stuff by that bad light." " My sight is very good. Positively I prefer not to use- so manv candles." ROCKY SECTION. 69 " If you say any more I shall light a third," and I -went back to my seat. She made no further protest, and when I glanced at Tier presently I saw she was regarding me with an inex- plicable expression which was instantly hidden from me. The following afternoon, when I returned from work, I perceived my house-keeper arrayed in a well-fitting and becoming costume of dark-blue, with broad turn-down white collar and cuffs. Seeing me eyeing the latter inquisitively, she smiled mockingly, but did not deign to inform me Avhence they had come. Later on, however, I learned that she had manufactured them from the calico, and stiffened them with flour strained through a piece of thin print. In whatever way arrived at, the result was ex- tremely pleasing, and I found my eyes wandering again and again to the tall lithe figure, dark-gowned. After the many days of fading print, the sight each time gave me a queer little shock, till I became habituated to it. But to this day nothing brings Reina Cordova, as I knew her then, more instantly to my mind than the sight of a pink blouse. * * * * There grew a mocking spirit in the house in these days. Reina Cordova had faced a stranger and forced respect and trust from him. It was rain in a thirsty land, and flowers sprang up in its wake like those which a shower brings out on the great llanos of South America. She flouted me to my face. She played with the dogs, and sang and laughed — more, she insisted upon talking to me and reading aloud from the endless pile of literature she kept 70 ROCKY SECTION. in her room. I seldom protested — it was undignified and vain ; and there was a strong desire in my heart above all things to insist upon my personal dignity being respected to this intruder of the sex I scorned. Had not the nights been so dark and wet, and winds so keen, I should many a time have left the fireside for the grateful solitude of the bush. I endeavoured to shut out the low but insistent voice, and not even it could rouse me when Mater Tene- brarum had her arms round me ; but frequently I found myself embroiled in an argument before I realised what was occurring. Then I would relapse into a dogged silence, which would be broken by a portion of an article or a story or poem that forced attention of some sort from me. I believe the girl took a malicious pleasure in thus stealing my company, as it were, even if only revealed by the blink of an eyelash, a glance or a movement of my head. But it was when she began to sing that I found it hardest to control myself. Her voice, a deep contralto, was not exceptionally beautiful, but true and rich ; there were no thin or faulty notes, but it wanted a refining influence. In harmony it would have been magnificent ; it was not sweet enough for melody. Yet in reading — poetry especially — her voice was music itself, and possessed a curious influence over me, in some measure like that afforded by the distant clamor of a running creek, the swish of wind through long grass, the It is impossible to describe it. It was not like these, but possessed their power ; it was a part of Nature, and entirely beautiful. When she sang my spirit ceaselessly importuned me to take up the tune with my tenor, and thrust her into the ROCKY SECTION. 71 second. Yet the thought of it made me wince — was a stab to my heart. How many times I had sung to another contralto — nothing hke Reina Cordova's volume of sound, but small, round, cultivated. She kept me in a fever of unrest, too, fearing every moment she would touch on some memory-laden song. And one night she did. It made me jump. I set my teeth, and endured it through one verse. It was not often she completed a song at a time, singing generally in care- less snatches. At the end of the verse she stopped to examine a picture in a magazine she was turning over. Then she deliberately began at the second verse. It meant nothing in particular to her. To me — it had been as the night I had held most sacred in my life, before the blow had fallen — the night she had sung it, and afterwards drifted out into the garden where the jonquils breathed incense into the soft spring air. Their scent was irrevocably bound up with Marie's eyes, and breath and touch and voice answering passionately to my passion, as she vowed to be my wife and to love me for ever, and " Ever since then, ever since then. The scent of the " I turned on her. " Don't ! " If ever pain and a fervid protest were expressed by a word it was then. Yet Reina's gaze was calm, and her tone cool as she asked, " Why ? " and after a short pause, recommenced the refrain. I sprang up, and strode towards her. 72 ROCKY SECTION. " Don't — how dare you ? " " Why these mock heroics ?" " Ever since — " I caught her wrists, and brought my fierce face close down to hers. " If ever I hear you sing that song again I'll kill you.' Her head, in a frame of tumbled hair, lay back against the chimney side — her eyes smiled up into my stormy ones — her lips quivered a little with laughter. " Why ? " she asked, softly, " Did she sing it ? " " Yes, she sang it — if you must know — if you will not spare me anything." I still held her hands. Our eyes did not waver, but slowly the smile died away out of her face, like a dream the expression in her eyes dissolved, and was replaced. A queer thing happened. A strange thrill seemed to pass from her hands into mine, and to communicate with my whole being. I threw down those warm hands in terror, and rushed out into the night. One moment more, and I would have been down on my knees, begging in a gust of self-pity for the sweet compassion those eyes and voice might show. The biting wind effectually cured my momentary madness, cooled the fever of my brain, and brought in its train a recoil of hatred towards my mocking Old Man of the Sea. When I returned to the humpy the dogs were alone by the fire, and I turned them out to keep their night watch. ROCKY SECTION. 73 Chapter XII. AND now began, almost unconsciously to each, a kind of silent struggle for supremacy. I had not ostracised myself from society, and gone out into the wilderness, to be governed and thwarted in my own house by this chance-comer. She, on the other hand, had, unfortunately, not been endowed by nature with ;a submissive mind and gentle disposition. I did not know if it were the accursed Spanish blood, which insists on general -equality, and recognises supreme individual rights, but I defy the Pope and all his cardinals to have ruled that girl. It was only when she pushed me beyond endurance, and I lost control of my temper, that I gained any ascend- ancy whatever over her, and even then, I feared, it was but tacit submission to my superior physical strength. Had her character been absolutely colourless, her disposition timid, with a nature attuned to domestic industry, I could have dwelt at peace with her. But Reina Cordova was never satisfied to be forgotten ; no corner was good •enough for her, she must occupy the centre of the floor. In default of any other I was to be her audience. And, but for a heroic resistance, I would have been her slave. Under these conditions I no longer vegetated. Into my most private and personal musings Reina Cordova thrust herself, either in reality or by proxy of my cursed 74 ROCKY SECTION. memory. Her face, her postures, her sayings, continually- recurred to me as I sauntered in the rear of the sheep or rested on a log. Her voice harried me perpetually. Often I could have sworn it sounded in my ear or coming up the distance. It spoke all manner of things to me. And recovering from a fit of deep abstraction I would know that through it all a voice of music had flowed on — des- cribing, narrating, reciting, the same voice, with infinite modulations — Reina Cordova's. I rarely looked at the situaiton from her point of view — considered her long days of loneliness, her only society myself. It would have conquered many another woman,, have brought them to misery. But in this girl there was aa indomitable spark which nothing could quench. It had endured through a life with an eccentric father on slight means — it outlived a period of degenerate society, un- refined, and illiterate — and it bade fair to survive a further period, in which there were many things hard to bear, and over which a haunting terror hung. I tried hard sometimes to realise what Rocky Section had been like before Reina Cordova came to it. I failed.. Surely there had been no portion of my life, from the cradle up, with which that strong personality had not in some way been associated. Yet one evening I almost succeeded in my endeavour. I had gone up from the yards, expecting to find, as usual,. a cheery, fire-lit room, an aroma of dinner and an abiding spirit of bright defiance. Instead, when I pushed the door open a grey bleakness met my view — a dying fire, grey- ashed, an unlaid table, the silence and chilliness of desertion. ROCKY SECTION. 75 I stood and looked round with that strange eerie feehng^ that all this had occurred, had looked just so, at some former infinitely remote period of my life. And suddenly it flashed upon me that it had been the Eozoic or Pre- Reinan period. Yes, that room typified my old solitary life. But where was she ? At the spring ? No, for there stood the bucket full of water beside the hearth. I lifted the lid of the pot. It contained a round of salt beef. The water was still, and liquid, yellow fat rested on the top. Potatoes stood ready to put on in another pot. Evidently she had gone awa}" some hours ago. I called, but received no answer. I went to her door, and knocked again and again. Was she lying in a faint within ? At length I opened the door cautiously, and looked in. Rex bolted past me, and sniffed round the room, whining. She was not there. The bed had been made by the same orderly fingers that made mine : the white calico curtain was looped back from the tiny window, innocent of glass ; the shutter stood open, and a cold wind fluttered in, and circled round the spotless apartments. My memory of it was vastly different. It bore an air of refinement and order, which said, " A lady hath dwelt here." And this^ in spite of the poverty of her appliances. Some of the best executed pictures from high-class magazines were on the walls, framed by yellow and white everlastings, or with sprays from bush shrubs artistically hung about them,^ a jar of flowers in the window, a small stump to sit on, 'possum and bearskin mats, some of her clothes hanging, orderly up. 76 ROCKY SECTION. I withdrew quietly, shutting the door as I would that of a sanctuary. Never again could I quite feel to Reina Cordova as I had done. There was something pitiful in it all— the little, rough, dainty room, the absent girl help- less to defend her sacred privacy from my guilty, masculine eyes. Rex jumped up on me, and licked my hand. Marco stood silent, watching my every movement fixedly — a reserved, somewhat gruff dog, slow to give his trust ; but had learnt to love the girl on whom his mate had so lightly l^estowed his affections. " Gone, boys," I said. The words re-echoed in my heart. Gone she must be, although all her belongings were still in the humpy with the exception of her little 'possum-skin cap. To myself I said she was gone forever, I had at length driven her away, lier endurance had broken through. But where had she gone, and to what ? Perhaps to Cresswell, if haply she might reach him. I was guilty of hoping that she might get lost, and die sooner than succeed. After all I could not credit that she had really fled. There had been nothing in her manner that morning to indicate such an intention on her part. She had laughed over a story at breakfast, and promised to give me the benefit of it in the evening, an offer ungraciously declined. Yes, and there was the very hook— Sea Urchins — with a" gum-leaf marker between the leaves, on the cupboard. I opened it at the gum-leaf, and saw it was the identical story, " The Cabin Passenger." No, she had not run away. I called it running away as the act of a slave making a bold bid for ROCKY SECTION. 77 freedom. To make sm-e, I searched amongst the food and vessels for holding water. Everything was there as far as I could make out. There was another explanation of her absence. It was possible she had gone out to read in the bush, the weather being mild, and become so engrossed in her occupation as to forget to come in. But I rejected this theory, too. It was now almost dark, and too cold to be pleasant. This, then, only remained. She had wandered away, seeking wild flowers, sapphires from the gully bed, and other bush treasures, and lost herself. Most feasible of alL I wondered how long she had been gone. And as I thought of the low state of the fire, which was formed of thick chunks of wood, which would take some time to burn down, a cold hand gripped at my heart. Time enough to wander miles. " Confound the girl ! " I said, with an effort at indigna- tion. Then I made up the fire under the kettle and pots,, and went out, buttoning my coat tightly round me. The dogs ran before. They knew we were going to look for a lost sheep, though not one of their flock. Like all bushmen born and bred, I am something of a tracker, but it was too dark now to make much use of my talents. All I could do was to go to the spring, and carefully examine the wet soil about it, and the loose ground up the banks of the gully. Here I certainly found a trail which could only be hers, but it was lost again in the hard ground above. However, we took the direction in which it led, and then followed a weary search, I coo-eeing, the dogs running hither and thither through 78 ROCKY SECTION. the dark, silent forest. Occasionally a soldier-bird rustled in a sapling, a bear grunted, or a magpie gurgled a note •or two. A tree moaned eerily as the wind swayed its trunk against another, ghostly candle-bark rattled and dropped, and a kangaroo-rat tap-tapped by at full speed. It was Marco who found her eventuall}'. I became suddenly aware that for several minutes I had lost sight and sound of him, and then I heard him set up a curious sort of barking and howling, and immediately I responded with a ringing coo-ee. Rex tore by at a gallop, and I followed at a run. I heard her voice, low, and trembling, before I came up. She was calling the dogs endearing names. And now, my anxiety over, resentment took its place. Why had she not responded to my shouts ? What did she mean by giving me all this trouble ? We were onl\- about a mile and a-half from the humpy, and still on the selection, every inch of which she knew. I was so dis- gusted, that for a moment it was in the balance whether I should not leave her without a word, and go straight home again. But the desire to vent my wrath was strong upon me, and I went up to her. By this time there was an uncertain watery moonlight, and I could see her stand- ing leaning against a stump, Marco pressed close up against her, she, with a hand on his head, and Rex jumping round them. " Well," I said, roughly, " I hope you are pleased with the success of your experiment. We've been an hour looking for you." " Do you think I did it on purpose " she asked, in ROCKY SECTION. 79 a faint and weary voice, " No, you have rescued me once too often for me to — to " The words died away. I saw the luminous eyes bhnk. " You are right. I am a fool." And I turned, and began to walk away. " Nevertheless, before you go " — she raised her voice, but still seemed to speak with difficulty — " I would ask you to help me out of this. I cannot move. You may be sure that if there were any other living being within reach I would not — would not " " What do you mean ? Why can't you move ? " suspiciously. " My foot is jammed in a split in this stump. I — I was breaking some mistletoe off a branch, and got on the stump to do it. When I jumped off my foot slipped, and I came down in this cleft." She paused. Her tone was weak and querulous, but she seemed to make an effort to control it. " I tried to get it out, and — and couldn't. It stuck fast, I came with such force. I couldn't get the boot off — I tried — my foot swelled " Her voice ceased suddenly. I approached her, and stooped to look down at her foot. It was as she had said. She stood in a painful and tiresome position, perhaps able to get a little relief by leaning on the stump. " How long have you been here ? " I asked. " Since about three o'clock. It was stupid " — she caught her breath — " of me. I'm afraid you were dis- appointed about — about the dinner." Again her voice failed her. " Ah, yes, certainly. It was all I thought of." 80 ROCKY SECTION. I touched her foot gently to see if I could in any way extricate it. She gasped, and put her hand suddenly on my shoulder, to immediately remove it. The long straia and the tight grip of the red gum had swelled her foot shockingly. She had partially unlaced the boot, but even then could not get free. " There is only one thing to be done," I said, straighten- ing myself. " I must get an axe, and cut away the stump from the outside. Luckily it is not thick. I won't be long. The dogs will stay with you. You will not faint ? " A painful smile contorted the pallid lips for a second. " The blood of the Great Captain, you know," she began, with an effort at a joke, and never completed it. I did the two miles to and from the humpy in record time. I was too much of a rider to be much of a runner, but my health and wind were perfect, and I do not think many would have beaten me on the track. " How quick you have been ! " She lied bravely, as I panted up. To her it had been aeon. " Now for it," I said, " don't be afraid. I won't hit you. I really am an excellent axeman." And with this I sent the blade sideways into the wood. Instantly she screamed, and smothered the scream. I dropped the axe. " Good God ! did I touch you ? " " No, no, but the jar. I wasn't prepared ! " She put her hand to her quivering face. " What shall I do ? " I asked, helplessly. " Go on. I won't do it again. Be quick." "But I shall hurt you." Instantly she screamed, and smothered the scream." [To face page m. ROCKY SECTION. 81 " It will hurt infinitely more to be left here. Ah — h ! do go on. I can stand anything to get out of this." So she clutched desperately at the edge of the stump, and I set my teeth and drove the blade in again. It was done as quickly as possible, but I could not spare her. There was a courageous result from the mixture of her Spanish-Irish-English blood, for she did not make another sound, though the operation was torture. But when I dropped the axe at last, and pulled down the piece of stump, she fell limply into my arms, and I thought she had fainted. Drops of pain bedewed her ghastly forehead. I lifted her up. " Poor child — poor thing ! " I said, thinking she was insensible, and then she suddenly rolled her head round, and pressed her face against my shoulder. Her breath came in a long quivering gasp, she made a heroic effort to control herself, but overstrained nature gave way under the last touch put upon it by the com- passion coming from a quarter which had ever been dis- tinctly hostile. She burst into weak, helpless sobbing, which seemed as if it would never cease. In silence I lifted her closer to me, and pressed home- ward. She wept on, sometimes with a little moan of pain. Her endurance was fairly wrecked, her spirit gone. Nor did I wonder when I thought of those long hours of pain and fear and hope deferred. She had been too worn-out even to answer my calls, or had done so too feebly for her voice to reach my ears. Her little cap fell off, and I stuffed it in my pocket. F 82 ROCKY SECTION. Soft spirals of her hair, stirred by the breeze, touched my neck and cheek. I felt the warmth of her body against mine. One arm half encircled me as she clutched nerv- ously at my coat. My head was high — my face hard and set — but my heart was as water within me. What Reina Cordova had begun Reina Cordova had finished. The wreck of my peace was complete. ROCKY SECTION. 83 Chapter XI II. AS we neared the humpy the sobs came less frequently, less convulsively. She gave a long, quivering sigh, and the crying stopped. Her head moved •on my shoulder, the unquenchable spark burnt up again. " You — had — better put me — put me down," an ■exhausted voice advised. " I can walk." " Walk ? On that foot ^ Very likely ! " " You will be— so tired." " Yes. I am a weak little fellow." She gave it up, and the remainder of the journey was taken in silence. Arrived at the door she put out a hand, and opened it, and I carried her in, and put her down in the easy chair before the fire, which had blazed up brightly. The light fell on her face as she lay back in the chair, and showed it to be the hue of death. About her mouth and forehead were lines of pain. But her glance went at once to the pots. " They're boiling," she said. " But do pull the potatoes farther off — they'll boil to mash." " Never mind the potatoes," I said, turning away with an uncontrollable smile she did not see. I went to our store of whisky, kept for sickness and snake-bite, and poured some into a cup, added sugar and hot water, and took it to her. But she turned a disgusted face awav. 84 ROCKY SECTION. " I don't want it, really. I am all right. Whisky isn't good for a swelled foot. It might give me swelled head, you know." By which it will be seen that the warmth and safety had already done their work in helping to restore Reina Cordova's spirits. " It is good for physical strain and exhaustion, though,, and as for the swelled head " " You think nature has been beforehand with it there ? "" " I don't think anything, except that this will do you. good. You must take it." " Must ? " " Must ! " For a moment our eyes met, mine determined, hers- defiant ; but she was too fatigued for further contention,, and when I put the cup to her lips, she drank the contents with angelic submissivencss. Next I got the tin basin^ and a towel, and filling the former with tolerably hot water,. took it over, and put it at the girl's feet. " What's this for ? " she demanded, her voice already strengthened by the potion. " To bathe your foot — best thing in the world." I knelt down, and unlaced the rest of the boot, which. I drew off with infinite care. " Now, if you please." I looked into her face. The- amber eyes sparkled at me — her mouth was firm. " If you please, I'll do the rest myself. You have the dinner to attend to." The faintest inflexion of mockery was apparent in her tones. ROCKY SECTION. 85 Thus sent about my business, I attended strictly to that. Tried to lay the table in her orderly fashion, putting the few flowers the winter gave us in the centre ; drained the potatoes, made the tea as I had seen her in the tea-pot instead of the billy, and proceeded to harpoon the beef with an iron fork, and land it on a plate, an operation requiring some skill. Much of the time I was sensitively conscious of critical eyes following my movements. I could imagine the amused smile, the superior glance, at my clumsy efforts, yet I was deft for a man. At last all was done, and I turned, somewhat difhdently, to the girl's corner. She was lying quietly back in her chair, her hands folded in her lap, the basin pushed on one side. " Will you come to the table, or would you prefer dinner where you are ? " She hesitated. I readily divined because either way implied help from me. She could not walk to the table, and the table could not walk to her. There was a way ■out of the difficulty, however. " I don't think I want any, thank you," she said. " I'm not hungry." She turned her head away, and closed her eyes. The lines of pain deepened on her forehead. I said no more, but prepared a plate as temptingly as I could of such viands as there were, and put it and a cup of tea on a chair beside her. " Oh, don't ; I wish you wouldn't trouble," she pro- tested. " I said I wasn't hungry." " But you must take something, otherwise you will be 86 ROCKY SECTION. ill, and then, indeed, there might be reason to talk about trouble." She made me say it. Certainly the brutality was effective, for she sat up at once, and drew the cup towards her. " For your sake, then," she said, and her face and voice were harder. " But you need not be afraid I am goingf to be ill. Nothing is further from my thoughts." We ate our dinner in silence, and then I washed up,, and put the things away. The girl lay inert, her hands quiet, the dark lashes down on her white cheeks. There would be no singing or reading to-night. Perhaps she would like to be read to. I passed half the evening re- volving the question, but shrank so unspeakably from offering to put the suggestion into practice that it was never done, and my opportunity passed. At about nine o'clock a sudden thought occurred to me, and I went out, and straight to a small grove of hickorys which grew about a quarter of a mile from the house. I selected and cut a good serviceable switch, strong enough to bear a heavy weight. This I took back to the house, and sitting in my chimney nook, trimmed it carefully with a jack-knife,, leaving a rounded knob on the top. Being finished, I put it on one side. I thought Reina slept, she was so still, but suddenly a slight sound caused me to lift my eyes, and there she was standing up, clutching the chair with one hand, and resting on one foot. Her face was full of terror, but determined, and her eyes were on her bedroom door. " Sit down at once," I ordered, getting to my feet. ROCKY SECTION. 87 " I can walk — it must be better now," she instantly answered, with her old obstinacy. And before I could get to her she had put down the in- jured foot, and pressed on it. In spite of her resolution there followed a cry of pain, and she would have sunk to the ground had I not already got her in my arms. " See what comes of disobedience," I said, sternly, looking down into the face against my coat. " When will you learn to do what I tell you ? " She was blinking back tears, but retorted impudently— " When I like you well enough to do so — which will be in the Greek Kalends." " I shall remind you — in the Greek Kalends." " Do." I carried her into the little sanctuary, and laid her gently on the bed. In moving her from my shoulder — I will not say whether by irresistible temptation or accident — my cheek barely grazed hers with the lightest butterfly touch. When her head pressed the pillow it was instantly turned as far as might be from mine, but not before I had seen in the half-light the first glow gathering of the indig- nant blood in her face. I lit her candle, and placed it near her, and went out compressing my lips with — what ? No, it could not be pain — at the thought of her intense hatred for me. That were a circumstance to rejoice at. I brought the hickory stick, and put it by her with the remark — " You'll find that useful. But you had better not leave your room to-morrow. Your foot seems severely strained, and will want a lot of rest." 88 ROCKY SECTION. She made no answer, and I left her, to fall into gloomy meditation by the fire. I rose early the following morning to light the fire, and get breakfast ready, half expecting to find Reina Cordova hobbling about on the same business. But the flesh was weak, and, for once, conquered. The grey dawn shadows were undisturbed, a chilly silence reigned where a rich contralto was wont to dwell in subdued cadences, ashes lay like snow on the yellow- box log in the fireplace. I scraped these away, and exposed a foundation of glowing coals, and in a few moments had a blazing fire. Breakfast ready, I went to the closed door, and knocked. " Yes ? " came in a wakeful voice. " Breakfast's ready. How is your foot ? " " All right, thanks," was the mendacious reply. " I'll come presently." However, she did not appear before I went. I left a pot of coffee before the fire, and Marco to bear her companj^^ brought in wood and water, and departed. At mid-day I left Rex to watch the sheep, and hurried home for the lunch I had not taken with me. When I walked in Reina Cordova was sitting before the fire with a piece of needlework. A cup of tea and a piece of bread and jam were on a chair beside her, and Marco gnawed a bone in a corner. As my step sounded on the floor, the girl gave a startled glance over her shoulder, and hastily stuffed the work behind her. " What's the matter ? " she asked, with heightened colour and suspicious looks. " Forgot my lunch," I lied, and went to the safe — a ROCKY SECTION. 89 piece of hessian with wires which extended it in the form •of a crinoline. It hung in the little back room which •adorned mine, and was now used as a general storeroom. A board had been fixed across near the bottom of the safe to hold a dish or plate, and underneath this the hessian was confined by a piece of string. I took out some meat, -and put it on the table with bread. Then looked across it at Reina. " Is that all you usually have for lunch ? " I asked. " All ? I always have enough." " Of what ? Dry bread ? " " Well, not all the delicacies of the season, perhaps, but what contents me. I am not a man, you know." By which I conceived Reina Cordova was better — -much better. Lunch over, I put everything away, and went to the door, and there stood. " How is your foot ? " I queried in the manner of an after thought. Her back was to me, and suddenly my eyes fell on the work she had put behind her. It was sticking out with the needle still in it, and, behold, it was a sock of mine. " O, all right, thanks — just a little sore," nonchalantly. " Can I do anything for you ? " " Nothing, thank you." I stood a moment silently regarding the back of her !head. Then I went away. 90 ROCKY SECTION. Chapter XIV. WHEN are you going to get mutton again ? This salt beef is getting too much of a good thing," said Reina, at breakfast time. " I'll kill to-night," I said, briefly. Reina looked wistfully out of the window. " I would like to grow some vegetables," she said. " If you weren't so lazy you could easily build up the remains of that old stringy-bark sapling fence near the creek,, where the Dawsons used to have a garden, and I would dig and plant it — if you get the seeds." " Two ' ifs ' to contend against," I observed. " No, not ' ifs,' but an indolent man," sharply, " or boy,"" with a sneer. " Do you think you can hurt me with that ? " I smiled. "I am too old." " Who made you so ? " " One of your delighftul sex." " Your manliness in throwing the blame on her for what, after all, was a commendable act — boys of that age being proverbially fools in affaires des coeurs — is most " "I do not blame her," I interrupted. " You mis- understand me. Rather I thank her. She taught me experience." " H'm ! Times or sentiments are changing. This gratitude is late in putting in an appearance." ROCKY SECTION. 91 " Better than never, isn't it ? I owe her for two items/ " What is the second ? " I rose from the table, and went towards the door. " She gave me an opportunity of studying another of her sex." " I am sorry I cannot find it in my heart to match your sense of obligation," and a sneering laugh followed me out of the humpy, and rang in my ears all day. There might be many a true word spoken in bitter jest, but to Reina Cordova the savage humor only would be apparent, the truth never. Several weeks had passed since the day on which she injured her ankle, and time and care had by this time completely cured it. She brought my lunch to me that day. It was idle ta conjecture on my part whether my ruse of forgetting it would have succeeded had she suspected that my memory was not at fault. We were well into the winter now, but the day was clear and bright, if somewhat nipping. The walk had com- municated a faint dark red to the girl's face, ripples of amber hair edged the grey 'possum fur of her cap, she turned her head in a bird-like way to take in her surround- ings, with that pleased air of obsorption in and of them which invariably accompanied her transport to a fresh portion of the bush-land. " I like this," she said. We stood on the edge of a thick stringy-bark scrub, on the slope of a hill. The sheep fed below us on a flat with the dogs in charge. " It makes me 92 ROCKY SECTION. think of the forest in ' Walden,' though I don't suppose it is a bit similar." " There must be certain similarities in all forests." " Well, both are composed of trees, but trees are as different as people." She gazed about her again, and I, Avatching stealthily, saw a film come over her eyes. " I love trees — and grass," she broke out, in a low tone •of passion, not at all addressing me, and turned away. " And flowers ? " I suggested, guilty of a regret that my superior muscles might have no part in detaining her. " If I had to lose either, I would choose the flowers to ^o," she answered, going. " Do you ? I love flowers," I said, hastily. She wheeled round, and her upper lip expressed scorn. " Really ? I didn't think you placed anything in the same category with yourself." I felt suddenly ashamed and weary. My face went hot, but my heart was like a stone. If I could only throw off the mask of acquired indifference and inertia. It weighed me down, though never before had I felt an undue pressure. "Was my youth all gone ? ^^'as I no more to be young ? And what would re-action and revolt do for me ? I alone had not suffered — and there was the rub. A puzzled look came into Reina Cordova's face, and .after a moment, even a little fear. " You are selfish, you know — abominably selfish," she said, dogmatically. " And a coward, too," she added in rising tones. One who understands women may know to what to rightly ascribe this sudden attack on a man inoffensive ROCKY SECTION. 93 enough at the moment. As if the wince that resulted encouraged her, she went on — " Entirely without feeling. Cruel." She paused. I dared not look at her again, lest the sight of the flashing eyes and quivering curved lips, the queenly posture, should overcome my self-control. " And — and too much of a cur to defend yourself, even." Still I refused to rise to the bait. She made an inarticu- late sound of supreme scorn, and marched off, leaving me something besides my dinner to digest, I took the sheep home nearly an hour earlier, and left them in the yards some distance in the rear of the house,, while I went up to procure the butcher's knife from the lumber-room at the back. The dogs had remained behind at the yards, so that I was in no way advised of the presence of a stranger on Rocky Section until the sound of voices smote on my ear when I stepped inside. It came from the living-room, and the door of communication between the two being open, the words of the speakers came through. Reina Cordova and Charles Cresswell ! I stood in silence, a cloud gathered slowly on my face and in my heart. What did that fellow want here ? Confound him. I had never professed exuberant delight at his visits, and then so short an interval had elapsed since the last was paid. What had he to say to Senora Reina Cordova ? His tones were impressive, urgent, anxious. " I implore you to let me help you. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to do so. You believe that ? "" " Mr. Cresswell, I can believe nothing else. You have 94 ROCKY SECTION. been so uniformly kind and considerate. But 1 am beyond help." There was a fixed despair in the voice which turned me cold. " No, no. That is where you mistake. Life is not so cruel. If you would only trust yourself to me. Look here ; I know I could manage so that no one in this district would know a word about it. As I told you I could get you down to Sydney to my cousin " He stopped because Reina had laughed. Not pleasantly. " Mr. Cresswell, what could I do in Sydney ? You are too good — too kind " she choked a little — " but " " My cousin, Mrs. Norman, would help you. She is great. One of the best and cleverest girls in the world — everyone goes to her to get pulled out of a hole." " But what am I to her ? How could I expect her to be troubled with my affairs ? " Reina expostulated as with a rather stupid child. " Ah ! You don't know Ida. It is because she wants to help everyone that they go to her. Listen, I will bring a horse for you, and we can ride over to Brixton, and get on the south train there. It is a chance in a million if anyone you know sees you. Once with Ida, you will be all right." " Are you so sure of that ? How much have you told Mrs. Norman of me and my affairs ? " asked the girl, with sudden suspicion. " Not a word. Do you think I would, without your permission ? " reproachfully. " But I shall go down and see her, and bring you back a letter from her. I think it would be better than writing." ROCKY SECTION. 95 There was a short silence. Then Reina said — "But what do you propose is to be done with me eventually ? I can't exactly billet myself on the Normans for ever." I knew Reina Cordova well enough to detect the still unconvinced state of her mind, and I drew an easier breath. " I think we can safely leave that to Ida. There is no limit to her resources, and then Jim— her husband — is a doctor, with a very good practice and a good deal of influence, and he's an all right sort, too, you know — do anything to back up Ida. O, you needn't worry about what you're going to do when you get there. All you have to do is to promise to come if I fix up the prelimin- aries." " And you think I would be welcome ? " " Think ? I'm sure of it." " You think I would be welcome," went on Reina, steadily, " with my story ? " " I have not the slightest doubt of it," Cresswell instantly rejoined. Again there was a pause. " I wish I could be so sure," said Reina softly, with a little catch in her voice. One of them made a movement, and I guessed it was the man — going a little closer. My fingers curled into my palms. It never occurred to me not to listen. Reina Cordova and all her sayings and doings belonged incontestably to me. I had rescued her from the great maw of the bush and a horrid death. She was mine. And Cresswell, who had called himself my friend — he was old enough to be 96 ROCKY SECTION. my father, almost — what was he trying to do, damn him ?■ To what would he persuade the girl ? Fudge about his cousin ! Even his honest simplicity could not extend the length of believing that any woman would take in. another woman with such a story as Reina Cordova's. " Then be sure of it, and be comforted," said Charles,, in strongly moved tones. He had taken her hand — her small firm brown hand ia his — I was sure of it — would press it caressingly, perhaps even under the influence of a pathetic glance from the amber eyes — I had knowledge of their power of pathos as directed to me in the very early stages of our acquaintance — perhaps Cresswell would forget the peculiar courtes}'- and respect due to a girl in Reina Cordova's position. " And you promise that when I bring Ida's letter to you, asking you to go down to her, you will be ready to come with me ? " There was no occasion for Cresswell's voice to take on that tender inflexion. It only made the fellow ridiculous. " I can safely promise that," said Reina, and methought her tones a trifle dry. " But oh," they changed rapidly, " I wish you had asked her first." " Why ? " he was honestly puzzled. " Because I know this will only mean — a — disappoint- ment " She stopped abruptly. " You don't know Ida. It shall not be a disappoint- ment. Listen ! Will you promise that whether I bring the letter or not " Good God ! What was he going to say next ? A cold sweat broke out on me, and involuntarilv I started forward ROCKY SECTION. 97 into the next room. They were standing by the window. Cresswell's hand dropped from its place on the girl's where it lay on the sill, as he turned and faced me. But I did not look at him. " Go to your room," I said to Reina Cordova. She was silent. Her head was thrown back, and she looked at me superciliously from under lowered lashes. " Do you hear ? Obey me." Cresswell straightened himself. " Raymond ! Are you mad ? " His tones were of outraged amazement. I went swiftly up to them. " Don't interfere, Charles," I said, in a choked voice, " don't interfere with what does not concern you." And in a sudden rapid movement I swept the girl into my arms, and strode into the bedroom with her, depositing her on her feet gently enough. Retaining a harsh grip of her arm I brought my face down to hers. " You are mine," I snarled, " and you — and he — shall know it." She gave me a look which I could not interpret, and then I left her, snapping the door to behind me. "Come — come outside," I said, chokingly, to Cresswell. He followed me silently till we faced each other under the arching boughs of an old apple-gum. Then he spoke deliberately and impressively. " My word ! what you want, my boy, is a thorough, good, knock-down thrashing." " Will you give it to me ? " G 98 , ROCKY SECTION. " Nothing would give me more pleasure, but I am afraid it would not tend to^improve you much. The punishment must come from another quarter to have lasting effect. Marie Barrington gave you one slap in the face " " Marie Barrington be damned ! " " Ah, it's a pity you didn't act up to that long ago. Instead, you behaved like a naughty child — ran into a corner and sulked. I hope — I would like to see you get a stab from someone else which would leave something like a scar behind, and make 5^ou sit up." " Thanks awfully. I believe at one time you considered yourself my friend ? " " I am your friend now. I always will be while there is life in you. I was quite aware of the solemnity of the promise and all that it might incur when I told your mother " He spoke doggedly, a little moodily, not thinking at all of what effect his words might have, not expecting to see me wince and turn from him abruptly. He could not know how strangely, how strongly at times the pale-worn little face haunted me — how vividly it now painted itself on the grey evening atmosphere among the whispering leaves — how it brought to me a sudden sickness of life, and sense of my own failure as a man — how forcibly it reminded me of what had been and what was. I had been happy when that face was alive. I stood staring down the green vista of the bush. Cresswell's voice suddenly ceased. Amongst the trees the sun had set, and the chill twilight crept up. I turned and walked slowly back to the humpy with hanging head. Cress well did not follow me. ROCKY SECTION. 99 Chapter XV. RATHER to my surprise Reina was at the fire cooking when I re-entered the house. She turned and looked at me, but said nothing. Her face was hot from the fire, and her eyes shone. Her chin was up- lifted. A quaint picture of her as a dauntless knight in armour flashed into my mind. There was no quelling her. I said nothing, either. Our evening meal was eaten in silence. Instead of helping her put away the things as usual, I flung myself into a chimney seat, and became sunk in the gloomiest reflections. For some time now one of those ugly moods had not swallowed me up. There was a measureless plain spread out, and dusk lay upon it. A lonely man moved in the midst, grey-haired and stern-featured, hurrying forward to a point on the horizon, which always receded before him. The man was quite hopeless. It was I, and I watched his endless journey with a fixed despair. Suddenly a hand lightly touched my shoulder. I jumped as if a bulldog ant had stung me. " So nervous ! " Reina Cordova laughed scornfully, as she stood looking down on me — at the drops which that abrupt recall from another world had brought out on my forehead. The girl turned from me. 100 ROCKY SECTION. " Why," she said, " speaking from the judgment of centuries, you should be the woman and I the man. / am not afraid of you." Leaning forward I gazed on her with such a tenseness that I drew her eyes again to mine. " No," I said, with profound bitterness. " I see you are aware that it is I who am afraid of you." " Why ? " she asked, with a placidity I believe to have been assumed. " Why ? " The answer moved to the tip of my tongue on such a torrent of eloquence that I said nothing. I caught at hei skirt which brushed the seat I was on, and hid my face in it. A hand fell on my head, and pressed it away with a firm hard pressure. "Reina! Reina ! " The muttered words were smothered against the rough serge frock. The hand trembled, and was removed ; but the skirt was torn from my fingers. " Oh — h ! You said I was yours. You liar ! Thank God I am not afraid of you. I hate you — not as I would hate a man, but as I hate a loathsome reptile. You can overcome my physical resistance by brute force, as you did to-day, but that is the most and the least you can do. I afraid of you ? I shrink from spiders and scorpions, but not because I fear them. I step on them and crush them. Did Mr. Cresswell knock you down and thrash 3'ou ? But no, he is not a coward ! He would only strike some one of his own spirit and courage — he might punish j^ou with a whip. . . What ! can nothing touch you ? ROCKY SECTION. 101 What a hide-bound soul. . . . I do not wonder Marie Barrington treated you as something too contemptible to be sincerely dealt with. . . . How sodden the heart which has forgotten the beautiful Marie — how rotten the mind ! . . I heard once your mother was a woman, but it must have been a mistake. The thing which was your mother " My hanging head was lifted — my wretched eyes looked up at her. " The thing which was my mother is now an angel, anc above and beyond your reproaches. If you had knowr her she might have taught you to show a little pity foi her son." " Did she teach you to show a little pity for the girl thrown by a devilish mischance into your power ? Did she teach you mercy or chivalry or honor or common kindness ? Did she ? Bah ! " " Reina ! " " Your soul is the abode of dishonour and your mouth of lies. You are a craven and a knave. " I was looking up at her in mute desperation. I do not know what in my look stung her beyond her self-control, but suddenly her words ceased. Quivering all over she regarded me steadfastly — a baleful light in her eyes. Then, as if urged by an irresistible impulse, she raised a hand, and struck me on the mouth. For half a moment I was as one stunned, and sat dumbly gazing at her still. Then a liquid fire rushed through my veins. I got on my feet. My hands clenched. My face had gone red, but now the blood ebbed again to my heart. 102 ROCKY SECTION. My lip bled a little, for the blow she had given was no light one. We stood looking into each others' eyes. And then I saw behind the ferocity and malice of her look and action, and knew the despair and desperation of the heart which had cried out against its evil fate. The hot anger died away from me. I fell on my knees beside her, and pressed my lips to the hand that had struck them. " It was rightly done. Oh, if I could atone for my wickedness and folly with my life." As I went out Reina Cordova lifted her hand, and stood staring at the mark of blood on it. The days that followed were days of discomfort and strain. Reina held herself aloof. Her manner to me was disdainful and arrogant. Then came a period when she showed a desire to pick a quarrel with me on every possible occasion, expressly for the purpose of letting me see how full of venom and bitterness were her thoughts of me. Every wounding jibe and cutting allusion of which her imagina- tion was capable was meted out to me with a measure pressed down and running over. And no fault could be found with the brilliancy of Reina's imagination or the fertility of her invention. I accepted it all in silence, but with clenched teeth. It was part of the debt owing me. To do myself justice, I fully recognised how small a part. In these later days she grew irritable and nervous, would stand suddenly in her walk about the house, and listen with dilated eyes and whitening face to some sound in the bush, would lift her head from her sewing and wait ROCKY SECTION. 103 with idle fingers and poised needle for an unexpected knock. Her manners changed, and she became silent and melancholy. Lines came under her eyes, and her mouth was piteous. I cursed Cresswell — cursed him again and again. It was he who was making her suffer. I found a certain relief in being able to blame him for thus much of the girl's trouble. He had created that hope, which, deferred, was making her heart sick. There were times when my heart, too, fainted within me, and I felt that death itself would be welcome could it end the suspense in which we both lived. One day which had ended in a furious storm of rain and wind I entered the humpy to find the living room deserted. The fire was burning brightly in spite of the great drops that fell hissing on the coals ; the pots were boiling ; the table laid. But the presiding genius was not there. I washed, brushed, put on my coat, and sat down by the fire to wait for her. But as she did not appear I went to her door, and knocked. " Are yovi coming to dinner ? " I asked at a venture. Yes — she was there. " No, I have had what I want " — pause — " thank you." Her voice was quiet, and it seemed to me, despondent. I ate my dinner with a weight at my heart. Was Reina Cordova going to be sick ? Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh it is a tree of life. I would pray for the desire to come did it but bring her health and happiness. The mere anticipation of an illness appalled me. 104 ROCKY SECTION. Dinner over, I went with relief to my chimney seat. When Reina Cordova was there I did not always remember how tired I was. Brain-tired more than body-tired, but sometimes both to the point of exhaustion. If things would only stop happening — if I might go to sleep and wake no more. My God — my God — I was tired of my life — tired of pain, tired of being selfish and unhappy, tired, dreadfully tired, of the burden I had imposed on myself, tired of existing without hope. Without hope ! The long lonely empty days — the nights, preferable even when Reina Cordova's scorn burnt me, but bitter nights when my dishonour took living shape and moved before me with angry eyes and scorching words, or downcast pallid face and mournful mouth. Either fashion meant pain to me — pain and shame. These in the wilderness, into which I had gone out to escape them, were my con- stant companions. I looked far back to the last happy day that had been mine, to the dinner at which my eyes had been opened, and falsity and deceit in all their naked hideousness had been set before me. I looked on that picture and on this, and wondered if that happy, healthy boy could have been the forerunner of the morbid, wretched man who sat in the shepherd's humpy. My head dropped in my hands, and I gave a long, heavy sigh that was almost a groan. " So you are unhappy, too ? Poor wretch ! " I straightened myself hurriedly. I had not heard Reina Cordova leave her room, and did not know how long she had been standing there watching me. ROCKY SECTlOh. 105 I was in no mood to stand any more scorn just then, or pain of any sort, and I said, irritably — " I do not ask your pity, or want it." " Ah, but the pity of it is that we often get what we do not ask for nor want," she replied. She spoke in a low voice, without acrimony. I saw that she was very pale, and the amber eyes looked black and wistful. She reminded me of the girl she had been in the first days of our acquaintance. A sudden longing •came over me to be friends with her, to receive a little kindness from her — just for once, " to see how it felt." I looked up at her with a mute appeal in my eyes. But she was gazing into the fire. For a long time there was silence. She seated herself. Then Reina Cordova spoke. " I have something to say to you," she said, " some- thing I want to tell you about the noblest man in the world." I sat up, and looked at her. My heart beat with a ■quicker throb. Our eyes met. " Yes," she said, " Charles Cresswell. I did not tell you before — why should I ? — that he came here twice when you were not home, and went again without seeing you. He was always forming plans for getting me away from here, but I confess they never appealed to me as satisfactory solutions of the trouble. Then came the time when you overheard him. You heard what he said about his cousin, and the letter he was to bring me ? " The muscles of my face grew tense. It seemed my lips would scarcely move to form the word " Yes." 106 ROCKY SECTION. " I have been waiting for the letter." She smiled bitterly. "I do not say I expected it. And at last I gave up expecting him. He had been disappointed, and he could not bear to reveal the disappointment to me. That^ I was sure, was the reason of the delay. In part, I was. right, but not wholly." She paused. " Mr. Cresswell was here to-day." The statement seemed to give her food for thought^ for she turned her gaze on the fire, and remained silent. The blood was beating like a hammer in my temples. " The noblest man in the world " — the words pierced my heart. " The letter ? " I managed to get out, in tolerably natural tones. She heaved a long, weary sigh, and was still silent. O, girl, I could have seized your white throat, and shaken the answer out of you ! " The letter ? " she said at last. " There was no letter^ but there was a message and a condition." I shaded my eyes with my hand. I hoped she had not seen their sudden flash, and that quiver which I could not still at once. No letter — no letter ! How pallid her face was — even her mouth was without colour. Her tones were passionless and cool. Her eyes were shaded in purple. She had wept away all her spirit and hope. And I ? I could not say. " I am sorry." In vain I essayed it. The lie stuck in my throat. " No," she said, and sighed again as if unconsciously. " The message was she would be glad to see me on a certaia condition." ROCKY SECTION. 107 " And you accepted ? " " No," she said. And suddenly a wave of red spread over her face and forehead and neck. She held my eyes with a look of singular fixit}'. " No, it was an utterly impossible condition. The woman is mad. Thank God, Cresswell had the sense not to give my name. No, no, never ! " There fell a long silence between us. When it had seemed probable that Reina Cordova should leave Rocky Section I was ready to catch at any straw that might drift over my drowning head to hold her back. But now that she had declared such a course impossible I spent my time beating my brains for a way of release for her. " Would it do you any good," I asked at length, " if I were out of the way ? " " Out of the way ? What do you mean ? I could not exist here by myself." " I mean if I were dead. It might be better for you. People could not talk about the dead." The calmness of my manner was not affected. This was not the first time I had seriously contemplated death as the onl}^ means to an end of all my troubles. " But I would not be dead. You would kill yourself ? " " Why not, if my death would be welcome ? To none more than myself. If it cojtild serve you in any way at the same time it would be kiUing two birds with one stone." I laughed at the rather ghastly joke. " Don't, for God's sake, don't. In my most miserable moment I have never thought of that cowardly way of saving myself. I have wished myself dead — often — but that is another thing." 108 ROCKY SECTION. " Cowardly or not, you have only to say the word, and the thing is done. Life is nothing to me — it holds nothing for me." " And is not that your own fault ? " she asked, quickly. " According to some, everything is my fault." " I mean, because you took your punishment lying down instead of fighting. I would have fought." Her eyes sparkled. " If I had you would not be alive to-day." " Is it a great advantage to me to be alive to-day ? " she asked, gravely. " Perhaps not — to you." I got up, and turned my back on her. Somehow this twisting of the knife in the wound was unusually painful and irritating to-night. Again that yearning for kind- ness came over me so strongly that I could scarcely with- stand it. I turned on her. " What a devil you are ! One of these days I shall either kill you or myself." " Let it be me, please. Then you will be hanged. And that would be satisfactory, too." Some of her usual spirit had come back into her tones. Undoubtedly Reina Cordova not only would have fought, but did fight. " You are a good hater," I^said. " And you ? " quickly. " No ; I don't hate well — now. When you have lived here for a few years longer you will not be able to hate as you do now. You will forget the way." •■' Never 1 " ROCKY SECTION. lOy " Ah, yes, you will. You get so tired." " For so tired a man it strikes me you can still throw off some very good manifestations of hatred." " Not lately," quietly. She contemplated me, and slowly the mocking light died out of her eyes. With a quick shrug of the shoulders she dropped her chin in her palms, and stared into the fire. " There was something else I wanted to tell you," she said, presently. " In fact, it was the chief thing. I called Charles Cresswell, if you remember, the noblest man in the world. Do you know what he did to-day ? " MHowshouldl?" " Asked me to marry him — begged me to. He, Cress- well, of Yuralie, asked me, with my story, to become his wife." " You accepted him, of course ? " very quietly. " Of course " — my blood went cold — " I did — nothing of the kind. I care for him too much to hurt him so cruelly." " Has he accepted your refusal as final ? " " No ; he said he would come again. " I smiled, " And again — and you wall accept. There would be a slight difference between your life and that as the wife of Cresswell, of Yuralie and Little Hills, 0." " I will never accept. You do not — you cannot; — know how I think of that man, and what he has been to me, and would do if I would only consent to his sacrifice." I looked in the fire. After a minute, with an effort, I said — 110 ROCKY SECTION. " You need not consider it a sacrifice if he does not." " He would afterwards. That would be terrible." She shivered. With dry lips I furthered my effort. " You had much better take the goods the gods send you. Men don't feel these things in the hyper-sensitive way in which you do." I felt her eyes on me. Then she laughed — grimly enough. " Isn't that one for your friend and two for yourself ? " she queried. The irony of this was too much for me. I laughed out. This nettled her. " You are not going to get rid of me so easily, I cannot see the end of this tangle, but Charles Cresswell is not going to suffer — whoever else may." " I am the last one to wish him to suffer — so." " Yet you urged me to deal him this blow ? " Then, after a silence, "Why do you smile in that horrid way? Yes, you are a traitor to your friend as well as to all the instincts of true manhood." My smile did not dissolve. I confess I rather liked to aggravate her just then. A great load had been lifted off my mind, leaving a curious ethereal sensation behind. It was a long, long time since I had felt so light-hearted, even for a moment. " Have I not just spoken for him to the best of my ability ? " " And have I not just said that, in so speaking, you are fighting against his interests ? " ROCKY SECTION. Ill " I was not aware you were so modest." . "I am speaking from a worldly standpoint," impatiently. •" You know that." I knew it, of course, but I was too shrewd to reverse Tny line of persuasion. Reina Cordova's own obstinacy would do more for my cause than all the principle involved in her theory. Yet the temptation to give in and accept the pleasant way out of the " tangle," which Cresswell had discovered to her, must have been tremendous. The easiness of the way made it all the harder to forego. Everything con- spired to draw her in that direction. I had no doubt that she loved Charles — she had not loved him, perhaps, so much, " loved she not honor more." And to put him aside and all that marriage with him meant for the sake of that honor — Well, I could not have done it in her place. " Speaking from a worldly standpoint, then," I said, "' I still do not see that you would do him any harm. The world need not know his wife's story." "As if the world wouldn't find it out, or that there was something very queer connected with it. And to ask him to leave the country entirely for my sake — that would be a little too much. I have some conscience, though you seem to think otherwise." " But still " " But still — " Her eyes flamed angrily at me. " How well I know the reason of your urgency. But you shall not move me. . . I shall stop here. In spite of you, I will." Her voice ceased on a high note like a child's, and a 112 ROCKY SECTION. sudden tremble was in it. There were times when Reina Cordova was curiously childish, and at those times a man might feel through all the nerves of his being that it were right to take her in his arms and kiss the naughtiness out of her. I drew a deep breath. One of these times there would be a cataclysm in the hut if Reina Cordova per- sisted in her lapses into childishness. She would not trust herself to speak further, but rising^ quickly, withdrew into her room. ROCKY SECTION. 113 Chapter XVI. IT was long before I closed my eyes that night. There was plenty of new material to ponder over. What was the condition which the cousin had imposed upon Reina's entrance into her house ? Why had that erratic girl found it so impossible of acceptance ? I knew her well enough to be aware that conditions and her pride could never exist together. Her look and tone in spurning; it gave ample evidence that it was of considerable magni- tude. And now Mrs. Norman's home was barred to her forever. That nothing could induce her to enter it, in any capacity whatever, I was convinced. And when this scheme failed Charles had offered himself as an alternative. Offered willingly. It was easy to imagine that he had fallen a victim to the fascination of the girl's peculiar personality. Even I felt that fascination — I, to whom she was all thorns and bitterne'^s. What, then, must she have been to the man she termed " the noblest in the world ? " Those interviews, occurring when I was absent at my post, painted themselves in the darkness of the night on the canvas of my imagination, and there was nothing decrepid about my imagination. I saw Cress well ride up. I saw Reina's look of surprise and flush of welcome — how welcome her solitarj^ visitor was few could know. I felt — I thrilled — with the sweetness 114 ROCKY SECTION. of her manner to him, the music of her voice ran in my head. I watched the process of his gradual intoxication — I heard his deep, soft voice as he pleaded with her, and I turned on my bed, and ground my teeth. Surely his next pleading would not be in vain, his arguments would gain force from her resistance, and she would capitulate. The terrible monotony of the Rocky Section life, its hope- lessness — its lack of outlook — would drive her into his arms slowly, perhaps, but how surely, and one of these days I would come home to find her gone. And come home again — and she would not be there. The hearth would be grey and cold as it had been the day of her accident, the house silent, the other chimney seat un- tenanted for ever and ever. The ghost of her voice would startle me out of my dreams sometimes, the swish of her skirts would sound lifelike in my dull ears, the wraith of her pink blouse would flit before my eyes — but never, never would the living Reina Cordova hover round me any more. I swung my feet over the edge of the bunk, and sat staring into the blackness, biting my lips till a salty flavour on my tongue told of the blood I had drawn. " I want her," I said to myself, " I want her more than anything I have ever wanted in this world. Marie Har- rington ? Was it possible that Marie Barrington had ever existed — and for me ? At all events she had ceased to do so for many a day. I want this girl — this Reina Cordova — I can never live here — or anywhere — again without her. If she marries Charles Cresswell I shall kill him. I will not — I will not for a second time be cheated. ROCKY SECTION. 115 She will hate me always, but I would a thousand times rather live this cat-and-dog life than lose her. I want her — I want her — I want her." It was impossible that I could win her, impossible. The ordinary methods of mankind for such purposes were not open to me. The utmost that I could hope for was to retain her in my home that I might see her and hear her. For me her voice would never sweeten — her eyes never soften — her whole manner warm. No ! But I would have her hatred, her scorn, her blazing glances, her angry flush, her attitude of defiance, the curling of her hp, her imperial nose-upturnings. And each and all I would treasure as mine, as the best I could expect ; but still mine, and inalienably something of hers. Then, all my future held was the possession of the girl in such manner, and no more, for a shorter or longer time, as circumstances might determine. At least, it lay in my power to make it perhaps a little longer by alleviating her condition by every available means. Hitherto it had been she who had sought to force a kind of companionship from me, and which I doubt not had been the salvation of my reason. From this onward it should be mine to take the lead where possible, to follow hers where politic, and always to devote myself, body and soul, to her service. I swore it solemnly, with my head bowed on my folded arms, and so presently fell asleep a little comforted. Something of the old Reina poured out my tea next morning. The tension of the last month was relaxed, the cause of it was removed, and once again the mental atmosphere suffered a subtle change. Fortune had made 116 ROCKY SECTION, a mess of my girl's life, but she had seemingly made up her mind to piece the broken bits as decent a whole as might be. " The storm's rooted up the big j-ellow-box above the- spring," she remarked. " It makes a bridge right across- the gully." " I'll cut it up for firewood," I said. " No, don't. It's a grand bridge. I like it. I tried it this morning." " What a baby you are." She glanced at me quickly, but I would not meet her eyes, and went on — " I am glad I brought all that wood into the back room wliile it was dry." " Ye — es, it is very convenient," she said meditativel}'.. As I rose from the table I said — " I won't let the sheep feed far to-day, it is so sloppy, so I'll come home to my lunch, if you have no objection."' " I ? " she raised her eyebrows. " The house is yours- to leave and enter when you like." " And I may upset the domestic arrangements as the- fit seizes me ? " " O — a — h, not quite thai, perhaps, but coming to lunch won't upset them." The great storm had left its footprints through all the- bush. Everywhere the ground was strewn with leaves, regiments of saplings had fallen, and many giant trees,, as well as great branches which had been torn from the- trees that had not succumbed. The ground was like a wet sponge, and a lively torrent rushed down the gully bottom.. ROCKY SECTION. 117 " That girl has a head to cross that," I thought, as my •e^'e travelled over the bridge Reina Cordova had discovered with such delight. " And more of these trees will come down sooner or later, or I'm a towny. The ground's rotten." Before the day was half out my j^rophecy was fulfilled. " So you haven't been squashed," said Reina, com- posedly, when I got home at lunch time. " There's a tree across the front track, and another on the way to the spring." " Perhaps I will be allowed to chop that up." Yes, you may, and I want my garden fence up again, too." This in reference to the sapling fence which I had partially renovated, and which the wind had blown flat. " I'll take a holiday, and fix 'em uji." " What would Mr. Cresswell say ? " "Mr. Cresswell won't know." " He will, if I tell him." " Well, tell him." We eyed each other, and then she gave a laugh, and looked out of the window. That little laugh stayed with me the rest of the day. I made good my words by bringing the sheep close home, and leaving the dogs to guard them, while I set to work on the tree which blocked the path to the spring. I cut off all the smaller branches, and chopped them into manageable lengths, and then got the crosscut saw, which had been sent out for Dawson's use, into the main trunk. But a cross-cut saw is a cross-grained invention to tackle alone, and will not readily cut on the cross or 118 ROCKY SECTION. anj' other way when underhandled. I don't know if Reina discovered this from the vantage point of a window, but- desisting frem my efforts, I was startled to hear a mocking voice say — " Don't swear, please," and, looking round, there she was almost at my elbow. My expression of savage indignation altered like magic, " Well, you know, if you don't wish to hear me — —" " I can stay at home ? That's polite, too. but you always were famed for good manners. However, I don't intend to stay at home, because I have a yearning to tr}' what being at one end of a cross-cut saw is like." And without further preliminary she seized the other handles, and drew the saw towards her. " If you'll allow me to express an opinion, I don't think you'll find being at one end of a cross-cut a very agreeable experience, and you had much better leave it alone." "Thanks, awfully." " Obstinate little devil," I thought, but aloud I said nothing, and the saw worked on its erratic way — two- straight saws and a jar — one straight saw and two jars, two jars and no straight saws. " Do you want to break the saw ? " I asked. "I'm not particularly anxious, but anything to'^ break the monotony," she panted. A colour had come into the hollows of her pale cheeks. " Perhaps you would like to break the record, too, for sawing ? " I suggested. She gave me the quick look with which she had already favoured me that dav. I had hardlv joked with her in the ROCKY SECTION. 119 old times, and even now my looks were undecipherable. "I'd like to break " she began, impetously, and stopped short. I looked at her deliberatel5^ The small amount of sawing she had indulged in was scarcely accountable for that brilliant complexion. But she said nothing, only resumed work savagely. I submitted to the inevitable, and presently the saw began to go smoothly as the girl acquired the knack of handling it. " Wouldn't you like a rest now ? " I asked, after a short time. " No," she answered in a tone which implied that she had come out there to gain experience in the art of sawing, not to talk to the other sawyer, who was merely an un- avoidable detail in its study. " Very well, my lady," said I to myself, " it shall be yours to next suggest the idea." And therewith I continued the labour with added activity. I don't know if she had an actual notion that she might tire me out, but at all events it failed if she had. The saw shivered under my hands, and she collapsed suddenly, sitting down on a branch of the tree with her back to me. I seated myself, also, and viewed the graceful back and long hair which she frequently wore in a tail. The damp weather curled it more effectively than any pins ever patented could have done. The amber spirals almost covered her ears and neck — all of which I noted with satisfaction. She sat in a loosely graceful position, swinging 120 ROCKY SECTION. her feet, and presently began to sing in an undertone, as though my presence were too insignificant to stay long in her recollection. And then and there the determination came over me to grovel to her no more, let my sin be what it might. Service she should have from me to the utmost of my ability, but servility no more. I took out a plug of tobacco, and, cutting ofi a pipeful, began to rub it up in my palm. Almost immediately down jumped Reina Cordova, and took again the handle at her end of the saw. " Come on," she said, impatiently. " In a moment." Leisurely I filled my pipe, and rammed the tobacco down. Then proceeded to light it in the shelter of a rounded palm, and with my back to the wind, knowing that all the time she was watching the process with extreme disfavour. " Mr. Cress well would not have kept me waiting," she observed loftily, as I took the place opposite her. " But then I never pretended to be so immaculate as Mr. Cress well." " Little use if you had. Besides," suddenly, " I object to your smoking." " You never have before — and this is in the open air. too." " Well, I do now," and she waited. This was arrant bullying. Latterly I had been so broken in spirit that I had given in to her on all occasions. She had held me under her thumb, rejoiced at her success, and despised me heartily for my position. Her prophecy > ROCKY SECTION. 121 ^hat I should become her slave had approached perilously near fulfilment. I hesitated half an instant, then knocked the tobacco quietly out of the pipe against the tree, and replaced it an my pocket, saying as I did so — " Ah, well, it is a woman's privilege to be inconsistent." " A privilege I have never claimed, then." It is undoubtedly human nature to tease and to bully — and for even otherwise kindly people to be sometimes downright cruel to those they have in their power. The history of slaves and convicts is a terrible witness to the truth of this, and on a smaller scale it is apparent in every- day life. To a great extent it was, I very believe, this spirit which actuated Reina Cordova in her attacks upon me, and the more I quailed, the more was she lured on to follow up her victory, and, though I should appeal for quarter, give none. My manner this afternoon puzzled her, for she had no key to what had been passing in my mind, and no sure know- ledge of my impulses either. It was the tone more than the simple monosyllable that caused her now to stand and regard me with a stare of insolent increduhty. She went straight to the point with a directness which showed her consciousness of the part she had played, and shameless disregard of other people's opinions concerning it. " So the worm has turned ? " ' Yes, the worm has turned." " Well, we'll see how long and how much it will wriggle." " Yes, we'll see." 122 ROCKY SECTION. It was like a challenge thrown down between us, but while I was handicapped by my secret mad passion, she, on the contrary, would have nothing to restrain her from wounding me to the utmost of her power and desire — there would be no curb to her cruelty, and I knew that^ however strenuously I might resist, she would stab me tO' the heart again and again, and do it safe in the feeling that justice armed her for the offence, and that right guided her blow. As these thoughts passed through my mind some of the light of battle died out of my eyes, and my face, I doubt not, was moody enough as I again laid hands on the saw. Reina Cordova laughed, and I defy anyone to compre- hend, without hearing, the venomous insolence of that laugh. Then she stooped, also, and once again the saw sang through the wood. ROCKY SECTION. 123-- Chapter XVII. '* WjfAM going out 'possuming. Will you come ? " ^ _ I was cleaning my gun b}' dropping down the- barrel a chunk of lead attached to a piece of strings on the other end of which was a filthy rag — repeating the operation until the barrel looked smooth and shining. " Will you let me shoot ? " was the cautious answer. "If you like." " I'll come, then," and she disappeared into her room for her cap. I had put my question somewhat diffidently, as it was the first time I had asked her to accompany me on any of my nocturnal expeditions. It was a brilliantly clear night. A full moon was rising up the dark vault of the sky, the ground was white with frost, and the air cuttingly cold. The dogs jumped round us, barking with delight, then tore off on minor excursions- of their own. fossicking and sniffing among decaying logs and heaps of leaves, rustling through the underbrush,, frightening kangaroo-rats and bandicoots from their nests. and then pursuing them until lost in the bush, or run to harbour in a hollow log. Presently, instead of the short yap-yapping of the hunt, we heard a steady prolonged barking, which came from one- spot. 124 ROCKY SECTION. " They've treed something," cried Reina, and dashed •off through the trees in the direction of the sound. We found the dogs under a white-gum, which hghtning had killed the previous summer. The limbs showed white and ghostly in the moonlight, and in a fork near the top a small dark object could be discerned. The dogs were capering wildly round the tree, making futile jumps up at the trunk, and barking themselves hoarse. Reina, a little ahead of me, had already located the 'possum between Jier and the moon when I came up. " I can see its ears," she called, in an excited under- tone, as though the beast might overhear her, and be off. " Come here, Raymond, quick ! It's moving." Even as I joined her I found time to wonder how she had managed to familiarise herself with my Christian name to the extent of addressing me by it. I could only presume that Cresswell must have made very frequent use of it in her presence. The child-like side of her character was uppermost to- night. She abandoned herself to the excitement and pleasure of the sport. For the time her rancour againsi me was in abeyance. " Let me," she said, as I loaded the weapon, and put it to my shoulder. And then as I held it towards her she ■drew back nervously. " Never mind, I'll try the next." With an amusement I dare not evince I observed both bands go to her ears as I again lifted the gun into position. Taking careful sight I fired, and the dark body spun from the fork into mid-air. The dogs were on it the instant it touched ground, and I had to kick them off in order to preserve the skin. ROCKY SECTION. 125 We soon located another in a tree further on. It was lower down, but the tree being alive, the foliage rendered it a less conspicuous target. " Will you trv this time ? " I asked, as I extracted the empty cartridge, and slipped in a fresh one. " Does it kick much ? " she enquired, eyeing the gun with half-fearful desire. "Scarcely at all." I handed the gun to her, showed her how to hold it,, explained the use of the sight, and tendered a few words of advice. Standing behind her I had a good view of its painful wobbles, as, after a protracted sighting, she frred^ Nothing came of it except a heavy sigh of satisfaction from the belligerent. " Well, I reckon I went pretty near it," she said, after a moment. Most foolishly I laughed. " Ah ! I suppose you never had to learn how to handle a gun. But it isn't given to everyone to be a genius. Kindly show me how to put the cartridge in." " Aim higher to allow for the drop," I ventured, with all due humility. " But, I think I'll stand behind you, if you please." Which piece of jocosity was received in silence. The next venture was more successful. Some of the shot lodged in the body of the 'possum, which rushed up the branch with a loud " gurr — r — ring " noise. Reina dropped the gun, appalled. " Horrible," she exclaimed. " O, poor wretch ! Kill it,, quick — quick ! O, how cruel you are ! " 126 ROCKY SECTION. Before the night was ovei- Reina Cordova had conquered her natural nervousness of firearms, and killed her first "possum — two solid facts which filled her with elation. She chattered unrestrainedly as we made our way home- ward, and for once I tasted the delights of friendly inter- course with her. That I would pay for this on the morrow 1 was instinctively convinced, but to-night I determined to take my good fortune with both hands. As we went in out of the keen, frosty air, we were tingling with warmth, albeit there was rime on my mous- tache. " My hands are burning, and — O, I am so tired," said the girl, flinging herself into a chair. " What a way we went ! But it was fine." I looked at the glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. She was very pretty that night— too pretty to gaze on long with -safety. I turned hastily to the fire, knocked it together, and put on the billy, which I filled with boiling water from the kettle. In a few minutes the coffee was made, and then lifting the table closer to the fire I set it with cold meat, damper, and Reina's currant scones, while she lay following me lazily with her eyes. As I drew in my chair to the opposite side of the table she gave me a straight queer glance, and there was a decided