III
Jack hated the Reds with all the wholesale hatred of eighteen. There they were, all of them, swaggering round as if the place belonged to them, taking everything and giving nothing. Their peculiar air of assertion was particularly maddening, in contrast with the complete lack of assumption on the part of the other Australians. It was as if the Reds had made up their minds, all of them, to leave a bruise on everything they touched. They were all big men, and older than Jack. Easu must have been over thirty, and unmarried, with a bad reputation among the women of the colony. Yet, apparently, he could always find a girl. That slow, laconic assurance of his, his peculiar, meaning smile as he drifted up loose-jointed to a girl, seemed nearly always to get through. The women watched him out of the corner of their eye. They didn't like him. But they felt his power. And that was perhaps even more effective.
For he had power. And this was what Jack felt lacking in himself. Jack had quick, intuitive understanding, and a quick facility. But he had not Easu's power. Sometimes Easu could look really handsome, strolling slowly across to some girl with a peculiar rolling gait that distinguished him, and smiling that little, meaningful, evil smile. Then he looked handsome, and as if he belonged to another race of men, men who were like small-headed demons out to destroy the world.
"I'm fighting him," thought Jack. "I wouldn't have a good opinion of myself if I didn't."
For he saw in Easu a malevolent principle, a kind of venom.
Ross Ellis, the youngest of the Reds, was old enough to be joining the mounted police force in a few days, and Mr. Ellis had sent up a strong chestnut mount for him, from the coast. Easu, tall, broad, sinewy, with sinewy powerful legs and small buttocks, was sitting close on the prancing chestnut, showing off, his malevolence seeming to smile under his blond beard, and his blue, rivet eyes taking in everything. All the time he went fooling the simple farmers who had come to the sports, raising a laugh where he could, and always a laugh of derision.
"Tom," said Jack at last, "couldn't you boss it a bit over those Reds? It's your place, it's your house, not theirs. Go on, put them down a bit, do."
"Aw," said Tom. "They're older'n me, and the place by rights belongs to them: leastways they think so. And they are crack sportsmen."
"Why, they're not! Look at Easu parading on that police horse your father sent up from the coast! And look at all the other cockeys getting ready to compete against him in the riding events. They haven't a chance, and he knows it."
"He won't risk taking that police horse over the jumps, don't you fret."