The stockman nodded. “Horse been shy I think it, Billy, at that old fellow post-office there?” and he pointed to the old mail tin, which was not ten feet from where Billy said she had fallen off.
“Go ahead, Billy,” said the stockman, “I believe young missus no catch him horse again, and she walk along to Mulliner's.”
“Yo ai,” answered the black boy, and he started ahead. In a few minutes he stopped again with a puzzled look and pointed to Kate Channing's tracks.
“Young missus been walk about all same drunk.”
“By jingo, she's got hurted, I fear,” said the stockman. “Push ahead, Billy.”
A hundred yards further on they found her dead, lying face downwards on the track.
Lifting her cold, stiffened body in his arms, the stockman carried his burden along to Ballantyne's house. Haughton met him at the door. Together they laid the still figure upon the sofa in the front room, and then while the stockman went for Nell Lawson, Haughton went to Ballantyne's bunk and awoke and told him. His mouth twitched nervously for a second or two, and then his hard, impassive nature asserted itself again.
“'Tis a terrible thing this, Ballantyne,” said Haughton, sympathetically, as they walked out together to see the place where she had been thrown.
“Yes,” assented the other, “dreadful. Did you hear what Channing's black boy told me?”