Part 4

“It ain’t much good, boss,” said another man. “She’s Gentleman Jim’s gal, she is, and I shouldn’t sleep easy if I so much as looked at her.”

“Gentleman Jim,” he repeated, and the bitterness in his heart none of his comrades guessed. “Gentleman Jim I heard of yesterday, somewhere about the head waters of the Murray--no danger from him.”

Bill, being a cattle man, cleared his throat and his brain by a good string of oaths--resonant oaths worthy of a man from the back blocks--and then gave it as his opinion that Gentleman Jim’s being seen among the ranges yesterday, was no guarantee that he would not be lifting cattle far on the plains to-day.

“Not our cattle,” said Fisher grimly. “We set a watch, and the first thing--man or beast, or ghost--that comes down among the cattle, we shoot on sight. D’ye hear that, mother?” and he turned to the old woman, who merely shook her head and groaned.

“It’s old I am--old--old--old. It isn’t the likes o’ us as ‘ll touch yer beasts.”

And Nellie slipped outside the door, and looked wistfully and anxiously across the plain, at the cattle now peacefully grazing on the salt-bush, and at the mocking mirage in the far distance. Never before, it seemed to her, had so much fuss been made about the cattle. The ghost trick had stood them in good stead for some time, and now apparently these men saw through it.

Two ideas she had firmly grasped. Ben Fisher was a man of his word, and Ben Fisher was a good shot.

Her brothers and her lover were down in the creek bed. One of the four would ride through the sleeping cattle to-night and that man would pay for his temerity with his life. The casual mention of her own name with that of the outlaw had sealed his fate. She was as sure of that as she was sure that the sun would set to-night in the west and would rise again to-morrow in the east. It did not occur to her simple soul to inquire the reason why; only she felt that it was so, and her heart was full of one passionate prayer, that the man who rode forth on that perilous errand should not be her lover. Her brothers were dear to her naturally, but her nearest and her dearest were as nothing when weighed in the scale with the love she bore this stranger. He must be saved at any cost--he must, he must. She walked slowly along with down-bent head, till she stood on the top of the bank overlooking the waterhole, and then, hearing footsteps behind her, looked up quickly to see Ben Fisher standing beside her.

“Nellie,” he said awkwardly, “Nellie, I--I--mean did that brute hurt you?”

“What? Oh, Ned Kirton. Oh, it’s no matter.”

“It’s dull here for you, Nell, out on the plains, isn’t it?” he asked still more awkwardly.

If her heart was full of another man, his was full of a strong man’s longing for her.

He saw her position, he knew her helplessness, he felt how much she stood in need of care and guardianship. If she would only give him the right to care for her. His very eagerness made him stupid and awkward, and she, looking up at him in the hot afternoon sunlight, read none of his thoughts, and only saw in him the man who held her lover’s life in his hands and would mercilessly take it.

She answered his question sullenly with a shrug of her shoulders.

“No, no.”

“But Nellie--oh, Nellie, Nellie--poor little girl, don’t you see that--that--”

“What?” she asked, for even she, indifferent as she was, could not fail to see that the man was shaken by strong emotion. “I ‘m all right.”

“All right, with a devil like that after you, a brute who--Nellie, Nellie, for God’s sake give me the right to take care of you.”

She looked at him stupidly and then a light dawned on her.

“Do you mean Jim?” she said. “Why, Jim--” and for a moment a tender smile broke about her lips, and a light was in her eyes such as would never be there for the man beside her.

“Oh, Nellie,” he groaned, “am I too late after all? I only want to take care of you, Nellie--only to take care of you.”

He stepped forward and caught her hands, holding them fiercely as Jim Newton himself might have done.

“Nellie, if you won’t let me do anything else, let me help you; for your own sake let me help you.”

Clearly outlined they stood against the summer sky; if there should be anybody in the creek-bed, lurking among the rushes and scrub round the waterhole, they would be plainly visible to him. Their attitudes were significant, and their speech was inaudible. If Jim should be there, thought Nellie, and then dismissed the thought. Rash as he was, he would never be so foolhardy as that. And yet she might have noticed a slight movement among the reeds--might have remembered that Gentleman Jim found no companionship in her brothers, and would be pretty sure to find his way to the water-hole at any risk, if it were only to vary the monotony and to see how the land lay. And so after one vain effort to free her hands, she stood still and listened, while Fisher poured into her unwilling, uncomprehending ears the story of his love for her, and then, since that made no impression, he warned her again and again against Gentleman Jim. Foolishly warned her--for was ever woman yet warned against the man she loved. An angry gleam flashed into Nellie’s eyes, and she stamped her feet and strove to draw away her hands again.

“I hate you--I hate you. He is good, I tell you--good--good--good! He loves me an’”--oh, the unanswerable argument all the world over--“I love him.”

Fisher dropped her hands.

“Oh Nell! Nell! My God! it is too hard.”

She looked at him wonderingly, and a dawning pity softened her face. It had never occurred to her that this man could feel any pain. She read it in his haggard face now, and because she was pitiful of all things she put her hand on his arm and said gently, “Poor Ben, I ‘m sorry.”