He little knew the task he had set himself or the woman he had to deal with. There was much of the cunning of the black in Sal, and she was not a woman to submit tamely to indignities. When Abe Dalton and his party arrived at Cudgegong Rodney Shaw at once had Sal taken to the room prepared for her.
'You will soon be happy and contented here,' he said to her; 'and you will not find me a bad master. You would not come to me of your own free will, so I thought I would send for you.'
Sal gave him a fierce look from her big dark eyes, and said, as she faced him,—
'You are a coward, not a man. Jim Dennis will throttle the life out of you when he finds out what you have done.'
'He will not find out, because he will never suspect you are here,' he replied.
She made him no answer. She felt Jim Dennis would know what had befallen her.
He left her and went to settle with Dalton.
'You will find yourself in a nice mess over this,' said Dalton.
'I'll take the risk. I have the woman, that is what I wanted. Here is your money.'
'It was a stiff job,' said Abe Dalton, 'and we have run a big risk. Can't you make it a trifle more?'