CHAPTER XI
'TRY WILLIE'
A few years quickly pass by, and very little change is noticeable in such places as Swamp Creek and on stations like Wanabeen and Cudgegong. The life there was monotonous enough, but there was a kind of fascination about it, and Jim Dennis would not have changed places with any man.
When he had thoroughly recovered from his illness Willie Dennis rapidly became strong, and now at twelve years of age was a fine, healthy lad.
Like his father, he was a good horseman, and already, even at this early age, he could ride any horse on the station. He had, as it were, been born and bred in the saddle, for ever since he could remember he was accustomed to ride about with his father.
It was the lad's ambition to be a jockey, and win a good race for his father. He did not mean to ride for everyone, there was no occasion for that; all he wanted was to be on the back of his father's horses when they ran in races.
Jim went in for breeding blood stock during the past few years, and had several promising youngsters by Seahorse, and Rodney Shaw was rather jealous at Dennis's stock turning out better than his own.
'I was a fool to allow him to mate those mares with Seahorse. I ought to have kept the blood for myself, especially after the trouble it cost me to procure it.' He forgot that, had it not been for Jim Dennis, he would probably have lost the horse altogether.
Rodney Shaw had been to Wanabeen several times, and of late his visits had been more frequent. He was an unprincipled man, and once he coveted anything he tried all in his power to possess it.
Of one thing he envied Jim Dennis, and that was his possession of the half-caste woman Sal. Rodney Shaw laughed at the idea of this woman living under Dennis's protection and being sacred to him. He had been assured such was the case by people who knew the life the owner of Wanabeen led, but he laughed at the assurance and said he knew better than that.
On one occasion he had, in a roundabout way, asked Jim Dennis if he would part with her, and hinted at a consideration. The look Dennis gave him made him quail, and he stammered out a lame excuse that he meant no offence, and that, of course, a black woman could not be regarded in the same light as a white.