“‘I don’t deny,’ I answered, ‘that I thought it very suspicious that a man like him should be living with you fellows, and yet have no idea that dishonest work was going on?’
“‘All right, Mr. Bruce, don’t spare us. It was dishonest, there’s no two ways about it, and we chaps ought to be ashamed of ourselves, as are well able to get a living straight and square, and under fear of no man. Now we’ve had a fright and been let off you’ll never hear another word against us. But I wanted to have a word about Mr. Blount. If he had been copped along with us, it would have been a cruel shame, a regular murder, and him as innocent as the child unborn. His horse was knocked up, or next door to it, when I came across him a few miles from the “Lady Julia”; I’d a few cattle with me, and asked him to help me drive them. He stayed at our place that night. The man I was selling them to sent for them before daylight, and all he could hear was them being let out of the yard.’
“‘He was a dividing mate after that, though?’ said I, knowing that such mining agreements comprehend all knowledge in heaven and earth, and under the sea.
“Carter answered my unspoken thought when he said, ‘He bought Tumberumba Dick’s share, him as went to Coolgardie, and if he knew mullock from wash dirt, then, it’s as much as he did. As for cattle, he hardly knew a cow from a steer. Then he lost his moke and went down the river to get word of him.’
“‘Yes!’ I said. ‘I met him then; he came on me just as I was shooting a small mob of wild horses. I had been watching for them for months. They seldom came so far in; but I dropped the stallion first shot, a noted grey, said to be thoroughbred; the mares and foals wouldn’t leave him, so I got them all, one by one.’
“‘Mr. Blount was astonished, I suppose? Seems a pity, too, they were a well-bred lot. I’ve had many a gallop after the same lot, thinkin’ to yard ’em, but they always got away. Anyhow, they’re no blessed good, if you do yard ’em; mostly sulk and always clear the first chance. His cob, it seems, joined your horses, and was run in to the paddock. So you put him up for the night and sent him home on his own horse. Came part of the way with him, you and the ladies, and Black Paddy. Nigh hand to the “Lady Julia” you spotted your “E. H. B.” bullock with a fresh brand on. And he never said nothen’. Next day Black Paddy ran our tracks to the claim and the stockyard, found where the last bullocks had been driven to the Back Creek slaughter yards. That was as plain as A B C, and we had to clear. Phelim waited on to get his horse back that he’d lent him, and start after Pat and Lanky, who were well on their way to Omeo.’
“‘All quite correct,’ I said; ‘but why didn’t he act straightforwardly and tell me like a man that he had been working in your claim?’
“‘Because he didn’t want to give us away, and if he said what he knew, but didn’t understand, the police would have been up next day and collared the lot of us before we had a chance to cut it.’
“‘But why was he so tender about your party?’ I said. ‘You had deceived him, and he might naturally have felt angry at being let in for aiding and abetting cattle stealers, and all the more anxious to see you punished.’
“‘That’s all right, Mr. Bruce; but you see there was another reason why he stood by us, though he didn’t wait an hour after he knew we were on the cross; wouldn’t take his share of the gold neither, which he’d worked as hard for as any of us.’