"This dog here. Hundreds of times has Geordie—my brother," Alec explained in a voice that shook though he tried to keep it steady, "sent him home to the head station with messages from all parts of the run. He might find his way from here. Anyway it is a chance. Eh, Como, will you?" said Alec.
The dog knew that they were speaking of him, and with ears pricked up and inquiring eyes, he looked at Alec as though waiting for an explanation.
It was with difficulty that Crosby could find what they wanted, but at last he discovered, on the decrepit side table, which was littered with bridles, foul empty bottles, odd bits of iron and straps and rubbish of all sorts, a stockman's dusty pocket-book, in which there were a few unused pages, and with a stump of pencil still fastened in it by the sticky and worn elastic band.
"Here we are!" said he, bringing these trophies in triumph to Alec. "You must look sharp, for I expect they will be coming back directly."
For a moment Alec sat quite still without putting pencil to paper; he had so much to say that he didn't know where to begin. At last he began to write swiftly. He looked up, after a minute or two, at Crosby, who was leaning out of the window, whistling softly to himself, and said—
"How am I to tell them where I am? I can't describe this place."
"Oh, say Norton's Gap, south of the Dixieville road, just after you have passed by Badger's Creek. Tell them to ask for Lingan's. Most people know where that is, though it is out of the way and few come to it."
For a moment or two the stump of pencil rapidly travelled over the paper, and then again Alec paused.
"I don't know what is best to be done. They can't send enough men after me to capture Starlight and all the rest, for, not counting you, of course, there are seven of them including Foster."
"Yes, and probably Lingan and his son would help them, and Lingan's son's wife, too, Big Eliza, who rather likes Starlight, and who is a regular Tartar, and nearly six feet high into the bargain. I can't think why a man, when he does want to marry, chooses a woman like a grenadier with a head of hair like a bearskin."