They were all craning over. Down below, the bohunks were scattering like frightened sheep, while those further out gaped. The dust-cloud struck the bottom and spread, and out of it emerged a running figure, limping a little but covering the ground with surprising speed. Tag ends of clothing hung to him, and from head to foot he was the colour of earth.
Torrance cheered. "Hurrah! I'm surer than ever I made no mistake offering him the job . . . and I'll pay for the window myself, by hickory!"
Mahon was watching him with a faint smile.
"It's a lively reception to give a stranger. Is there more to the programme?"
"If there is," replied Torrance, "I'm only one of the innocent audience. That guy's beaten the limit three times inside as many hours. He's a continuous performance. He did a few careless flips and tumbles down there to get out of the way of that pole, then he swings up by way of the trestle while you'd say 'Jack Robinson.' He's gone down again," he added, measuring with his eye the dizzy height, "by way of Providence. Wouldn't you say he'd got the wrong job out here, even if he is an Indian?"
"Was it Mavy?" asked Constable Williams.
"We call him Mavy, but he's a blooming sparrow, or a toy balloon."
"An Indian who's been working on construction," Williams explained to his superior, "a strange, silent fellow. Always seemed a bit above the job. Peter Maverick was his name."
Mahon started violently. His heart had made a bound that almost suffocated him. Before his eyes swept a picture of a court of so-called justice, with a big half breed giving evidence for the Police in a rustling case. The Judge, ignorantly persisting in his demand for a name for a child of nature who had all his life been content with "Blue Pete," had swallowed an invention of the moment, though every rancher in the room laughed at the ludicrously unfit term they knew so well. "Peter Maverick," the halfbreed had replied without a smile.
The Sergeant closed his eyes with a weary shake of the head. The picture had faded before another—the halfbreed wounded to death by a bullet he had drawn to his own chest to save the Police friend for whom it was intended.