Three weeks after the events we have just chronicled there might have been seen in the town of Perth, the largest place in West Australia, a young girl who stood on the principal street, with a pair of coal-black eyes riveted upon a man who had just emerged from one of the rich gaming resorts of the colonial capital.
Her figure was perfect and her face was white and handsome.
She may have passed her teens, for she showed a few marks of having reached and passed the twentieth mile-stone, but for all this she was striking, with her dark skin and her lustrous eyes.
Her prey stood in the light of a lamp that swung in a glass case over the door of the El Dorado, as the place was called, and now and then she seemed to start while she regarded him.
Those who knew the man would have called him Merle Macray, and his well-rounded figure, dressed in a rich ranch costume, was shown off to advantage.
"Wait!" said the girl through her clinched teeth. "My time will come, and then you will feel the vengeance of Stareyes. I never forget, monster, and by and by the hand of fate will fall and smite you. It can't always last thus. You can reign on the ranch as its king, but here and elsewhere you can't play out your hands and chuckle your satisfaction.
"I've waited for you to come back," she went on, her eyes flashing again. "I could have entered the nest and killed the bird there, but I thought I would wait till your return, and now you're back. It won't be long, Merle, the ranchman. It won't be long, I say," and she laughed as she turned away and left the man to himself.
Around the corner she darted into a small place and went upstairs to where an old woman sat in a dim light, sewing.
"I've seen him, Hester," cried the girl, standing in front of the woman and looking down upon her with passion.
"I've watched him for an hour and yet didn't touch the rascal."