In the Roaring Fifties Part 39

'That's true; and I've hurt her deepest of all.'

Mary detected the expression of his face with quick alarm. She had said too much.

'There, there, Jimmy boy,' she said anxiously; 'we mustn't be forgetting that Joy's the strong sort. She'll come again, fresh and rosy and merry as ever--bet your life on it.'

Jim went into the tent that had been his sick-room, and sat for over an hour in deep thought, and his thoughts were all of Aurora. He missed her--missed her at every turn, and in every hour of his convalescence. As a reward for her love and tenderness, he had afflicted her with the greatest bitterness her brave heart could bear. His eyes were fixed upon the floor, and eventually discovered two oval objects half buried in the hard earth. He stooped to pick them up, and found them to be the halves of the locket that contained Lucy Woodrow's miniature. The case had been stamped into the floor with the heel of a boot, the pieces were torn apart, and the portrait ground off the ivory on which it was painted.

With the fragments of the locket in his hand, Jim pursued a new train of thought, but there was no comfort in it. He recalled Joy's words: 'I won't bind the strange man you may be to-morrow.' Her love had been too strong for her philosophy. What of his? Had he ever seriously considered the possibilities of a life wholly apart from her? His mind flew to Lucy, but by no effort could he devote his thoughts to either of the women who had so deeply influenced him.

It was no longer possible to keep the truth about Mike Burton from the invalid, and Mary broke the news to him as gently as she could, The shock seemed to stun Jim's sensibilities for a time. As the numbness wore off, a bitter, blind hatred grew in his heart against the men he chose to regard as Mike's murderers, and he had a ferocious longing for vengeance.

Again law and order, the forces of society, had intervened to embitter him. His subsequent sorrow over his mate was deep and lasting. He felt now that although their friends.h.i.+p had been free of demonstrativeness, it had been warmed with a generous sincerity.

Done awakened one day, with some sense of fear, to the knowledge that he was drifting back into a morbid condition. He found he had bred a disposition to brood over his weakness. The loss of Mike and the disappearance of Aurora were becoming grievances that he cherished with youthful unreason. He determined to rejoin the Peetrees at once, and, although far from being his old self physically, began to make preparations for the return to Jim Crow.

'There's somethin' I'd like you to be doin' fer me afore you go, mate,'

said Ben Kyley to Jim one evening.

'Well, you know I'll do it.

'I reckoned you would. You see, I've been thinkin' of marryin' my wife, an' I'd like you to be bes' man.'

'You've been thinking!' cried Mary. 'No, Jimmy, I've been doing the thinking: Kyley merely agrees. One of these days we're going to build a big hotel in Ballarat, and settle down. It won't be till the rushes peg out, as they're bound to do in time; but certificates of marriage are getting quite common amongst married people here, and we thought it would be as well to be in the fas.h.i.+on.' Mrs. Ben laughed boisterously.

'Well,' said Jim, smiling, 'a couple who disagree as pleasantly as you do can't go far wrong in marrying.'

'The customers at a decent family hotel would expect it, I think,' Mary added soberly.

'Jonathan Prator married his wife a week 'r two back, an' he's skitin'

about it,' grumbled Ben.

So Jim remained for the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Kyley, which was quite a public ceremony. He was Ben's best man, and he gave the rosy bride the prettiest brooches, rings, and bangles he could buy in Ballarat, and left, the blushless couple to the enjoyment of their honeymoon with his warmest blessing. Mary nearly smothered him in a billowy hug as he was trying to thank them for their goodness.

'Leave a kind word for my poor girl,' she said, 'and the minute she comes back I'll write you.'

'Tell her I shall be a miserable devil till I hear of her dancing jigs on Mary Kyley's bar counter again,' said Jim. 'And tell her she wrongs me when she says there is nothing of her in this heart of mine. She is an ineradicable part of it.'

Done found the Peetrees working a fairly profitable mine at Blanket Flat, a sort of tributary field to Jim Crow, and situated about three miles distant from the original rush. Harry stood in with Done, and the two pegged out a claim and set to work; but Jim did not derive the satisfaction he had expected from this return to his friends and his familiar pursuits. His weakness clung to him, and he was subject to pains in the head. His missed Mike more than ever now, and permitted the idea that he had blasted Aurora's happiness to worry him a good deal. He remembered the blithe heartiness of the girl in the early days of their acquaintance, and the image of the pale, worn face he had last seen haunted him with an abiding reproach. He could not enjoy the life, the scenes, and the companions.h.i.+p that had delighted him, and believed the capacity would never come back to him.

He had been on Blanket Flat less than a fortnight when one morning Harry thrust his head into the tent.

'Blowed if there ain't a lady here to see you, Jim!' he said.

'A lady?' Jim's first thought was of Aurora. 'Don't you know her?'

He stepped from the tent as he spoke, and was astonished to find that his visitor was Lucy Woodrow. She was riding a splendid bay horse, and leading a small, st.u.r.dy-looking chestnut, and was dust-stained and tired.

Her face was gray with anxiety. She did not smile as he approached her, but held a letter towards him.

'Read,' she said. 'He says you will understand.'

'But, Lucy, won't you dismount? You are tired.'

'For pity's sake, waste no time! Read!'

He unfolded the note, and read:

'DEAR MISS WOODROW,

'I am seriously wounded, and lying helpless. My life is in danger. There is one man who will save me; there is one woman whom I can trust to go to him. You are that woman. I appeal to all that is good, kind, and merciful in you to help me. Believe nothing you have heard. I am the victim of circ.u.mstances--circ.u.mstances of the most terrible kind. Only be the sweet, tender woman you have always seemed to me. Ride to Jim Done at Blanket Flat as soon as possible in the morning; bring him to me. I know he will not hesitate when he knows that I am crippled in the Bush, and at the mercy of my enemies. The boy will explain the rest.

'Your unfortunate friend,

'WALTER RYDER.'

'The half-caste boy at the station, who knows where Mr. Ryder is hidden, brought that to me,' Lucy said. 'He met me at a gorge leading into the range this morning with this horse. The boy is to meet us at the mouth of the gorge and take us to him. He escaped from b.o.o.byalla when the troopers came, and hid in the Bush. He was seen and shot in the neck, but found another hiding-place, and is waiting for you. You will come?'

She had spoken in a hard, unimpa.s.sioned voice, as if repeating a lesson; only her eyes betrayed the intense feeling that possessed her.

'I will go,' he answered. 'Hadn't you better have some tea and something to eat? It is a long ride.'

'No, no,' she said; 'we cannot spare a moment.'

'I insist.' He put up his hands to help her. His words were quiet, but his tone was masterful. She looked into his face, and obeyed him. 'Better rest a while now than break down later--and I do not know the way.

Harry,' he called, turning to his mate, 'will you give the horses a drink? You have not pressed them?' he said to Lucy.

'No; I was afraid, knowing they would have to carry us back.'

'My mate will change the saddles. I must ride the stronger horse.

Meanwhile, get something to eat. We have just breakfasted; there is tea in the billy.'

He showed neither hurry nor agitation, he displayed no feeling, but, watching him narrowly, Lucy was convinced of his great earnestness, and the strain of anxiety that had gripped her heart like a band of steel relaxed. She breathed freely. Part of the burden had gone to him, and he would bear it.

Jim felt himself strong again in the face of this great need. Apart from the tie of blood, he owed Ryder the best service of which he was capable--his very life, if need be--but he did not question the matter, even in his own heart, and it was not till Blanket Flat lay four or five miles behind them that he sought further information from his companion.

They had ridden in silence, Lucy overwrought, thinking only of the wounded man hunted like a beast, perhaps dying in the Bush, Jim endeavouring to decide upon a plan of action. The news had not greatly surprised him; ever since Ryder's declaration of his ident.i.ty Done had foreseen some such possibility.

'Do you know the reason of the attempt to arrest Ryder?' said Jim, breaking the long silence.

'The troopers called him Solo. I have heard of a notorious gold robber of that name. Mrs. Macdougal says a new shepherd called Brummy recognised him.' She gave Done a concise account of the arrest and Ryder's escape.

'That is Wallaroo you are riding,' she said in conclusion, 'and Mr.

Macdougal is furious over his loss. I believe it was he who shot Mr.

Ryder.'

'If Ryder dies, I'll kill Macdougal!'

Lucy turned sharply, and looked at Jim. He had spoken the words in a tone sounding almost casual, curiously incongruous with their grim significance. She knew that he meant what he had said, and her heart sank.

'You would not be so mad,' she said.

'Let us push on,' he replied, disregarding her comment.