"Why? Do you live so near the border, and can you ask? Did you never hear a Sydney-side drover blowing about his blooming Colony? Haven't you heard of Sydney Harbor till you're sick? And then their papers!" cried Kilbride, with columns in his tone. "But I'll have the last laugh yet! I swore I would, and I will! I swore I'd take Stingaree——"
"So I heard."
"Yes, they put it in their infernal papers! But it was true—take him I will!"
"Or die in the attempt, eh?"
"Or die and be damned to me!"
All the bitterness of previous failure, indeed of notorious and much-criticized defeat, was in the Sub-Inspector's tone; that of his subordinate, though light as air, had a touch of insolence which an outsider could not have failed—but Kilbride was too excited—to detect. The outsider might possibly have foreseen a rivalry which no longer entered Kilbride's hot head.
Meanwhile the country was changing even with their now leisurely advance. The timbered flats in the region of the river had merged into a gully which was rapidly developing into a gorge, with new luxuriant growths which added greatly to the density of the forest, suggesting its very heart. The almost neutral eucalyptian tint was splashed with the gay hues of many parrots, as though the gum-trees had burst into flower. The noise of running water stole gradually through the murmur of leaves. And suddenly an object in the grass struck the sight like a lantern flashed at dead of night: it proved to be an empty sardine tin pricked by a stray lance from the slanting sun.
"We must be near," whispered Kilbride.
"We are there! You hear the creek? He has a gunyah there—that's all. Shall we rush it on horseback or creep up on foot?"
"You know the lie of the land, Bowen; which do you recommend?"