“Nell, I ‘ll kill you.”
She smiled at him through her tears, then stooped and kissed the hand that held her, and as he loosened his grasp, flew up the embankment and joined her grandmother.
Next day the Durham lads and Gentleman Jim had disappeared. It seemed a wonder in that flat open plain where they could disappear to, but the creek had many windings, and its bed was so wide and so far beneath the surface of the plain, there was ample room for men and horses to hide there.
About three in the afternoon, a lowing of cattle and cracking of stockwhips announced the arrival of Macartney’s mob, and the beasts, wild with thirst, for the way had been long and hot, and the waters were dried up for miles back, rushed tumultously down into the waterhole, trampling one another in their eagerness to get to the water. The men could no nothing but look on helplessly, and finally Fisher, a tall young fellow with that sad look on his bearded face, which sometimes comes of much living alone, left the mob to his men, and flinging his reins on his horse’s neck went towards the hut.
Nellie stood in the doorway, but when she saw who it was, mindful of her lover’s fierce warning of the night before, she drew back into the hut, and the sadness on the man’s face deepened, for Nellie Durham, the cattle-duffer’s granddaughter, was the desire of his heart, and the light of his eyes, and Murwidgee Waterhole, when he had charge of the cattle, was on the main road to everywhere.
He dismounted and entered, and Mrs. Durham bustled up to him—eager to make amends for Nellie’s want of cordiality.
“It’s pleased I am to see ye, pleased, pleased,” she said, “for ‘tis lonesome hereabouts, now the boys is away down Port Philip way.”
“Are the boys away?” he asked, watching Nellie, as in obedience to an imperious command from her grandmother, she began to set out a rough meal.
“Oh, ay—there ‘s on’y Nell an’ grandfather, an’ me, an’ we’re gettin’ old. Oh, ‘t is lonesome for the girl whiles.”
If it were, she did not seem to feel it, and she steadfastly refused all Fisher’s timid advances. Farther away than ever he felt her to-day, and yet she had never looked so fair in his eyes.