But though temporarily worsted in the conflict, Trevenna had no whit abated of the ferocity with which he had commenced the encounter.
Declining, with a wave of the hand, the proffer of bush hospitality by the old man, Lance Trevanion made as though to mount his horse, when Trevenna shook his hand, and, with a voice hoarse and almost inarticulate, arrested his departure.
'Stop!' he said. 'I want a word with Trevanion before he goes. You've had the best of it now. I didn't think you were so good, blast you! But I'll see you at my feet yet. I've got the girl you were so sweet on, and you may thank her for being what you are—a runaway convict; d'ye hear that, Lance Trevanion? Kate Lawless is my wife now, and d—d well broke to come to heel when I crack the whip, you take your oath. I've got square with you so far, and by ——!' and here the ruffian swore a blasphemous oath, 'I'll be more than even with you yet.'
He paused, apparently more from exhaustion than from other reasons, for his disfigured face, all blood-stained though it was, grew ghastly pale as he swayed forward as though he would have fallen.
Lance rode towards him, and for an instant raised his hand; then gazing at him with deepest contempt, made answer—
'No doubt you have treated your unfortunate wife as only brutes like yourself are given to do. You are repaid in some slight degree for any cruelty to her, little as she deserves it at my hands. As for you, you scoundrel, I will shoot you like a dog if you come across me again. So I give you fair warning.'
Then Lance Trevanion mounted his horse, unheeding of food or shelter. For, as if the elemental powers had awaited the issue of the conflict, the sky was suddenly overcast, the wind arose and wailed stormily. The ranges were blotted out by driving mists, and without warning one of the sudden storms of a mountain region broke wrathfully over the plain. Another man might have sought protection. At any other time such a thought might have crossed his mind. But the fierce spirit of Lance Trevanion in that hour of overwrought feeling joyed in the elemental turmoil. Facing the tempest, he sent the spurs into his horse and drove recklessly into the very teeth of the storm; the drenching rain, the blinding lightning, the thunder rolling above him and echoing along the mountain crags, only serving as distractions to the yet fiercer tumult raging within. Two hours' desperate riding over flooded creeks, through forest and flat, rocky ridge and sedgy morass, brought him to Omeo. The storm-swept streets were deserted, the stores and hotels filled. Pulling up at the door of his hut, he unsaddled his horse, whose heaving flanks sufficiently attested the pace at which he had covered the distance, and turned him loose, with all reasonable expectation that he would discover his owner's abode, after the manner of 'mountain' horses, accustomed from colt-hood to find their way to particular localities, wholly irrespective of times and seasons.
This duty performed, he unlocked the door, carrying the saddle and bridle inside with him. His steed trotted off briskly, after a preliminary shake, and apparently made a straight course for his home. Nor was the act of turning him loose on that wild winter evening amid the still driving rain and bitter wind in any sense cruel and unfeeling. The stock-rider to whom he belonged would remark in such a case that the rain would wash his coat clean from mud or sweat stain. He had never been shod in his life, never known a rug or a stable, and was as impervious to disease of the throat or lungs as his ancient comrades, the wild cattle of the snowfields.