“That ain’t the kind of thing that happens wid an accident,” said Murty between his teeth. He looked further.
Behind the burnt ground, the place where a man had lain was easily visible in the long grass. There were cigarette butts in plenty, and a little further away an empty cigarette box. Murty pounced upon it in triumph.
“Humph!” he said. “Harvey smokes that brand—an’ no wan else on Billabong.”
Then the whisky bottle, half hidden in the hedge, caught his eye, and he picked it up. He was sure now. The smell of fresh spirit was still in it; and he had seen the bottle in Harvey’s room two days before. And, with that, black rage came over Murty’s honest heart, and for five minutes his remarks about the absent Harvey might have withered that individual’s soul, had he indeed possessed such a thing. Then Murty replaced his evidence, and went for Mr. Linton.
He led the men away from the homestead an hour later, each as keen and as enraged as himself.
“Mind, boys, you’ve promised not to hurt him,” David Linton said, “He’ll get all that’s coming to him—but I won’t have the station take the law into its hands. We can’t be absolutely certain.” The men were certain: but they had promised, unwillingly enough. They went down the paddock at a hand-gallop, with set, angry faces.
Wally had ridden into Cunjee, to send telegrams and letters, and with an amazing list to be telephoned to Melbourne shops, since the township could not rise to great heights in the way of personal effects, saddlery, or even groceries. Billabong was, in patches, blankly destitute. Not a decent saddle was left, save those belonging to the men: buggies, harness, tools, horse feed—all had gone in the destruction of the stables. Norah and Jean were completely hatless, their head gear having been downstairs; and as Jim was wont to keep most of his every-day possessions in a downstairs bathroom where he shaved and dressed, he had nothing left but his best clothes, and a Panama sternly reserved, as a rule, for trips to Melbourne.
“Nice sort of a Johnny you look, to be wandering round ther—ruined ancestral hall!” Wally told him derisively. “You might be a bright young man on the stage. It’s hardly decent and filial for you to think so much of personal adornment at a time like this!” Further eloquence was checked by sudden action on the part of his friend, who was too unhappy over his own grandeur to bear meekly any jibes on its account. He had headed the telephone list with urgent messages for riding breeches and leggings, and a felt hat of the kind his soul desired. There was something little short of appalling to Jim in finding himself suddenly without any old clothes!
Following Dr. Anderson came riders from other stations, policemen from two or three scattered townships, and many other people anxious to help, so that the fences near the homestead were soon thickly occupied with horses “hung up” in every patch of shade. There was, of course, nothing to do. Nor could Billabong even maintain its reputation for hospitality, since it had been left almost without provisions. The storeroom containing the main quantities of groceries, as well as the meat house, had been amongst the first parts of the house to catch. Bags of flour could be seen, burst open, in the ruins, and thick masses of what looked like very badly-burned toffee, and had been sugar. The men’s hut had fed the exiles, and further supplies would be brought out from Cunjee by Evans in his buggy—the only vehicle, except the station carts and drays, left on Billabong.
“It’s really rather like being cast on a desert island,” said Jean.