“‘Well—this is God’s truth,’ says he, quite solemn. ‘His sister Kate’s been livin’ at Tin Pot Flat for months, under another name. They say she’s off her head at times, never been right since she lost her child.’
“‘Lost her child!’ says I. ‘Ye don’t say so—the puir crater, and a fine boy he was. How cam’ that?’
“‘Well, the time Kate rode to White Rock and started Dayrell after Larry Trevenna, just as he was goin’ to clear out for the old country, passin’ hisself off for Lance (that was a caper, wasn’t it?), she left her boy with the stockrider’s young wife at Running Creek. The girl (she was a new chum Paddy) was away for a bit, hangin’ out clothes or somethin’; the poor kid got down to the creek and was drowned. Kate was stark starin’ mad for forty-eight hours. Then she took the kid in front of her on the little roan mare, and never spoke till after the Coroner come and orders it to be buried.’
“‘And she at Tin Pot Flat, and me nane the wiser! Any mair of the crowd?’
“‘You remember Dick?—the young brother—he that was left behind when they cleared for Balooka—he’s a man grown, this years and years; well, she lives with him. And they say she goes to the shaft every day that Lance was hauled out from, to kneel down and pray. What for, God only knows. Dick’s quiet, but dangerous; he’s the best rider and tracker from Dargo High Plain to Bourke, and that’s a big word.’
“‘I ken that; I’ll joost ride round, and tak’ a look—he’ll need watchin’, and if he’s joined Ned, and Kate’s makin’ a third, there’ll be de’il’s wark ere lang.’
“That evening the tent was doon, Kate and the younger Lawless chiel gane—and nane could say when, how, or where.
“For a week, and the week after that, the wires were going all day and half the nicht. Every police station on the border of New South Wales and Victoria from Monaro to Murray Downs was noticed to look up their black tracker, and have their best horses ready. As for Dayrell, they couldna warn him that the avengers o’ bluid, as nae doot they held themselves to be, were on his trail. He was richt awa amang the ‘snaw leases,’ (as they ca’d them—a country only habitable by man or beast frae late spring to early autumn;) on the trail o’ a gang o’ horse and cattle thieves that had defied the police of three colonies. They had left a record in Queensland before they crossed the New South Wales border.
“Noted men among them—ane tried for murder! A mate, suspect o’ treachery, was found in a creek wi’ twa bullets in’s heid—there were ither evil deeds to accoont for.