Though her limbs trembled, Mary went up to the paddock and brought the cow down to the shed. She milked, with Davey on her knees and the dog crouched beside her; then, with the child on one arm and the milk pail on the other, she went towards the house again.
She did not go down to the creek for water as she usually did.
"It's not because I'm afraid, Davey," she murmured, "but Jo would not have barked like that for nothing. It was a warning, and it would not be nice of us to take no notice of him at all."
As she left the shed the dog darted savagely away. She did not notice that he was no longer at her heels until she had re-entered the hut. As she was going to call him, the words died on her lips. Two gaunt and ragged men stood in the doorway!
CHAPTER IV
Mary stood back from the threshold. The fear that had haunted her for days had suddenly left her.
At first glance she had seen that the men had rough pieces of wood in their hands. Her gaze was arrested by the taller, shaggier man who had sprung forward. He was about to speak roughly, breathlessly; but she anticipated him. Her eyes flew past him to the man who hung in his shadow. The gash of a wound was just visible under a grimy piece of rag wrapped across his forehead.
"He's hurt!" she cried, a sure instinct of protection urging her. "Come in, and I'll bind up your head. It wants water and a clean bandage. Oh, but you look starving, both of you! Have you lost your way in the hills? It's terrible to do that! But you're welcome indeed. Come in and have something to eat and rest yourselves."
The tall man hung in the doorway as though speech and reason had deserted him. But the other, whose thatch of reddish hair stood up strangely from the filthy rag that bound his forehead, raised his arm and took a step forward, the glare of madness in his eyes. But that movement was the last spurt of energy in him. He pitched forward and lay across the threshold.