"It is my time, ferret!" said Belle Demona. "This is the end of your trail, and the sun of Australia will shine on your defeat!"
There followed a flash and a report, but not from the six-shooter in the hand of Belle Demona.
The fair-faced witch of two worlds threw up her hands and reeled away as the pistol dropped from her grasp.
"Shot! Retribution!" said the captain of the coaster.
"But look! the avenger is one of her own sex," was the response, as all saw a figure run to Belle Demona's side and stoop over her.
"Stareyes!"
And with the word on his lips Old Broadbrim bounded over the ship's side and dashed forward.
"I have found her. I told you I would some day settle with the queen of the ranch," said the young girl who encountered the detective's gaze from the side of the prostrate woman. "Don't say that Stareyes forgets. Merle is yours, but this woman—this creature who sent him across the sea, and who would have seen me starve, who would have burned me in the sheepsheds—she belongs to Stareyes."
Belle Demona was not dead, nor was she likely to cross the bar from Stareyes' weapon.
The girl was led away, and the queen of the ranch was afterward found by Meg, her friend, who took her home.