"This morning," he whispered, "I thought I was tied to shearing for life; now I am harnessed, in some mysterious way, to a romance. This dead man clutches me like the Old Man of the Mountain. He has me in his grip; and this Mary moves me strangely. Shall we ever meet?"
He mounted his horse, and cantered down the valley till he came to the main road, where he stood uncertain where to turn. At first he thought of going to the nearest township, twelve miles to the east, to report the finding of the body, so that an inquest might be held; but it occurred to him that his movements this morning might savour of madness, or worse, and he might be called upon to show why he left the shed so abruptly. He might be accused of causing the old man's death. These and suchlike thoughts ran up and down his brain for some time; then he slowly turned his horse to the west, and rode furiously till he came to the Yantala woolshed.
The men had finished dinner, had washed and brushed up a bit, and were catching their horses preparatory to dispersing till Sunday night.
Constable Duffus was coming out of the manager's hut, where he had dropped in for dinner. Bill told his tale to him, and the manager, coming up at that moment, listened with all his ears. One by one the shearers and the rouseabouts clustered, like a swarm of bees round their queen, and hung about Bill with open mouth, while he told of finding the dead body at the Devil's Punch Bowl.
"Fwhat's this?" said the constable; "a man kicked de bucket widout benefit av clargy. Och! the lonely man. To turn yer toes up to de sky, an' nobody handy to close yer eyes, is gashtly creepy."
"But what's to be done?" said Bill. "We must give the poor man decent burial, an' find out where he came from, an' whether he has a wife or children, an' all about him."
"Them lonely buffers never have wife, nor chick, nor child, nor uncle, nor aunt, nor any other frind," said the constable. "They've got a story tacked on their back like a clout, every mother's son av thim. Or maybe, every patch on their trousers is stitched wid a mother's tears or a wife's groans. They've generally been turned out av the family for the drink or the disgrace av them. Tin to wan you'll find he's prison cropped, or you'll percaive a broad arrow on his small clothes."
"He looks as if he had been a decent old chap; respectable like, honest, but poor," said Bill.
"We must have an inquisht," said the constable "on Monday morning, at tin o'clock, say, at the Pretty Sally Inn. I'll requisition a cart av ye, Mr. McDonald."