At the door of our hut I found the superintendent, who had just dismounted. Harris had gone to bed. 'I have some news for you,' Stevenson said to me when we had entered.
He hung his saddle up on a peg projecting from the partition which divided it into two parts, one being used as a storeroom, the other as a bed and sitting, as well as a dining-room. The beds being boards or sheets of bark, with sheepskins laid on them, on which were stretched mattresses stuffed with the 'wongul,' or down of the reeds which abounded everywhere near the river banks. There were four of these beds in the room, two on each side; they were placed on posts driven in the ground, and in the day-time were used as seats. The only other articles of furniture were a movable table standing against the partition, an easy chair made out of a flour-cask, and some shelves fixed on the walls. The centre of the room was therefore clear. After ascertaining that no blacks were lounging about the hut, Stevenson continued,—
'You know I wrote to Brown, the magistrate over on the Edward, and sent the note by Scott's overseer, who happened to pass here the day after our ride round the run. That was eight or ten days ago, and up to the day before yesterday I had got no answer; so I rode over to find out the reason. And would you believe it?—for nearly a week the fellow had actually taken no steps whatever in the matter.'
'How was that? Had he got your note?'
'Oh yes, he got it; and a pretty fellow he is to have J.P. written after his name. Can you credit it?—on the very morning after he got my letter, he had discovered that the horse-stealers had swept his paddock! Above all, had taken his two hunters! For you must know he keeps hounds to hunt the dingo, as the fox is hunted in England. Actually had the impudence to tell me he was surprised and shocked to hear that I was laying poison for those animals!—hoped I would give up such a design! They ought to be hunted, he said, fairly; not poisoned like rats, or other vermin. This to me! who had lost from first to last, during the few months I have been here, nearly a thousand sheep by these creatures. His is a cattle-station principally, and his sheep country is all open plain, so that he is not troubled by these pests. He can bear other people's misfortunes in that line very easily. I told him a piece of my mind'—
These same dingoes were the plague of poor Stevenson's life, and when once started on the subject he forgot everything else; so I ventured to interrupt and bring him back to the point.
'But how was it nothing was done about these suspected murders?' I inquired.
'How? Why, because the fellow sent all three of the constables attached to the lock-up there off in different directions to look for his horses! The lives of poor fellows travelling in the bush are nothing compared to his hunters! I told him I should report his conduct to the authorities in Melbourne, and so I will too!'
'But has nothing been yet done?' I asked.
'One of the constables came back three days ago, and he has been making inquiries at the most likely out-stations. He returned before I left; and from his report my suspicions are confirmed. Eleven travellers called in the course of the last three weeks at the places he visited, on their way to this crossing-place, from the Edward. Now only five or six have arrived here from that part. I inquired before I started at our own men's huts, and all agree in that.'