"Do you really think so?" I asked, hardly knowing whether he was quizzing me or was serious.
"Upon my word I am not jesting. I have too much superstition in my composition to think of spirits in any light, excepting that of the utmost respect; for why should not the dead revenge themselves upon the living if so disposed?"
"If that is your belief, how do you reconcile the fact of your having killed so many bushrangers, and yet escape their persecutions?" I inquired.
"Simply because the bad have not the power to injure the good."
I laughed so heartily at the explanation, that even my friend suffered his grim visage to relax a little.
"You may smile," he said, "but it's just as I tell you."
I saw that he was in earnest, so let the matter drop—but the conversation was afterwards renewed and discussed in all its lights and bearings, but still without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion.
It was near twelve o'clock when we reached the river, which was about three feet deep and forty wide. After hunting for some time we discovered the ford, and crossed without difficulty. We found ourselves in an immense grazing district, where ten thousand sheep could have been pastured without trouble or fear of their suffering for food.
The difficulty which we then experienced was to find the right path that was to lead us to the salt lick, but even that was overcome at length, and we galloped along the trail which we supposed that Bill meant, with bright anticipations of a successful termination of our mission.
Suddenly Mr. Brown reined up, and called to me to stop a moment.