“Just one man,” said Steve, “though I may be unjust to him even to think anything of the sort. But we had a falling out once, and he was pretty bitter over it.”
“That’s Ned Gunliffe,” said Aleck. “He’s the man I had in mind. But I’ll say no word to anyone, and then we’re safe. Tell you what—if I’m alone here and it’s a safe thing for you to come along, I’ll keep two little fires going—one of just a few sticks. If there’s only one fire—keep off.”
“Good enough,” said Steve.
They sat talking together till the first chill of dawn—the chill that comes even before there is a hint of light—warned them it was time for Steve to go, and Aleck walked down the hillside with him, and left him, and saw his figure vanish silently as a ghost into the darkness.
On two more nights Steve saw the double fire burning, and came up, and sat and talked with Aleck Gault, and spent some hours and had his wounds dressed, and took away replenished stores of food with him.
But on the third night there was only one fire, and he crept hurriedly but cautiously back to his hiding place, and when on the third and fourth nights the single fire still warned him off, he knew he was running heavy risks to remain near, and painfully shifted his little camp some miles away. He was growing thin and gaunt, his wounds were swollen and inflamed and stabbed him with burning shooting pains, and his store of food was running low.
Twice he saw a policeman and a tracker in the hills, and he knew they were casting back and forth in the hopes of cutting his tracks and guessing how he had headed. He was too good a tracker himself not to have taken care to walk lightly, to keep to bare stone and rock wherever possible, and to cover his tracks as well as he could, and he had no fear but that he could keep out of reach provided his wounds got no worse, and he could get food without leaving traces.
He sighted a small mob of strayed sheep and herded them into a gully, and killed a score of them, ripping the skins and tearing the flesh down to the livers and kidneys, which he wrenched out. He had seen the dingo marks on dead sheep often enough to be able to imitate the rending signs of their savage destruction, and when he had finished, he drove the rest of the sheep back and forth till all possible signs of his own tracks were trampled out. He was satisfied that if the carcases lay there without being found for a day or two, even a black fellow would hardly tell that they were not the work of a wild dog.
He saw several fires on these nights, but he was afraid to venture near, not knowing whose they were, and remembering how Aleck Gault’s dog had scented him and given the alarm.
He began to lose taste even for the little food he had left. He commenced to think how nice it would be if he could go back to the Ridge, and how his mates would look after him, and bring him plenty of drinks and dress his wounds. And perhaps Ess’s cool fingers ... and her kisses.... He wouldn’t stand this any longer. Why should he? He would go back to the Ridge, and to her at once.