A small crowd of gold-diggers stood in front of Lowry’s shanty as a horse and sulky rattled up the sand track through the mulga. The driver was Lowry, and a murmur of excitement ran through the group when it was seen that he had a young woman beside him. Lowry’s shanty, glorified by the name of the Golden Peg Hotel, was the only one in a little mining camp that had sprung up, mushroom-like, in the midst of a mulga wilderness, and Lowry was the only man in the camp who had a wife. It was known that he had gone to get a companion for her, but what he brought was unexpected in that remote community of bachelors and widowers.
The men crowded round as the trap drew up, and the companion turned scarlet as she found herself the cynosure of all eyes. Once her cheeks paled, and once her eyes flashed with a light of pleasant recognition. Two of the men had recognised her. One was Ike Raymond, a shady character, who was familiarly known as Crooked Ike. The other was Roy Binny, a powerfully-built young fellow, who stood in the background with bared arms folded across his chest. He was startled at first. She was the last woman he had expected to see in a place like that.
She was a pretty girl, on the right side of thirty, with a neat, full-formed figure, and a certain air of refinement about her. Apparently a cheerful little soul. She smiled on all impartially, while half-a-dozen bearded gallants scrambled round the vehicle to carry her box. It was only a one-man load, but they all managed to hamper one another by giving a hand with it.
When the girl entered the shanty and took stock of her new surroundings she was shocked and disgusted. She had expected to find the appointments in keeping with the locality, but she had not expected to find in her mistress a half-caste Maori. Worse still, the woman was of the big, coarse, masculine type, with a face that was scarred, wrinkled, ugly. Still, she did not betray her feelings, and presently, at the invitation of Skinny Frank, she joined the men in a drink, and afterwards took a hand at cards. She was just the stamp of girl, thought Lowry, that would suit the mining camp. Her face was captivating, and she was pleasant, intelligent, and “not too particular.”
Drinking was heavy that evening, for Letitia Brice, the new attraction, was “lady help” behind the bar. Besides, it was Christmas week, when Lowry looked for a big roll-up. It was a noisy, but jolly, crowd that faced her–until Ike Raymond asked the girl to drink with him. She refused, and when later she declined to play partners with him, he got nasty.
“I s’pose I’m not good enough for yer?” he sneered. “You’re not a saint, anyway. I know–“
“What do yer know?” demanded a hairy person at his elbow.
“I know she’s no better than she ought to be,” said Raymond.
“You’re a liar!” cried the other man, and immediately he collapsed on the floor to a back-handed blow from Crooked Ike.
“That’s one fancy bloke overboard,” he remarked, rising.
Letitia rose, too, like a shot, and her bejewelled hand flung out and landed with a resounding smack on his mouth. With a muttered epithet he clutched her by the arms, but Roy Binny sprang over the table, and the fight started. Two of Raymond’s mates joined in, which drew others quick-fisted into the conflict. In the resulting confusion the table was overturned, the lamp crashed on the floor, and the room was plunged in darkness. Suddenly there was a flash and a loud report, followed by a general exodus.
When Lowry came back with a lighted lamp he saw Roy Binny lying among the wreckage on the floor, and sitting near him were two partially-disabled diggers, one with his head through a broken chair. Binny was laid on a rug outside, where he soon recovered. Raymond and his mates had disappeared, for which Lowry was thankful.
Letitia, after bandaging his broken scalp, remained with Binny, sitting beside him in the starlight. She was pale and troubled.
“Whatever induced you to come to such a place as this?” he asked her.
“I’ve been had, Roy. Can’t you see?” she answered bitterly.
“Then you won’t stay?” he Questioned.
“I don’t know what to do,” she answered. “But this place is no good to me. I knew when I saw Crooked Ike that something would happen. I knew him when I was barmaid in Perth. He threw a glass of whisky in my face one night, and I knocked him down with a bottle. He said he would ‘corner me’ if ever he got the chance. He’ll gel it here.”
“Not while I’m about. Say the word, an’ I’ll soon get you out of it. Skinny Frank has a good trap and horse. He’s driving to Lake Way in about a week, and he’d be glad of your company.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Aren’t you going?” she asked.
“I’d follow on the bike,” he replied. “What do you say?”
For answer she bent down and kissed him. One morning, a week later, the camp collected to see her off. Only Ike Raymond was absent. Though disappointed at losing her, they gave her a cheer as Frank drove away. Binny did not start till hours later, expecting to pull them up early in the afternoon. But they were pulled up earlier in an unexpected way.
Frank had not gone many miles when Ike Raymond stepped out of a patch of scrub and a revolver was levelled at him.
“You hop down, Skinny,” ordered Ike, “an’ do the quick-step along that track.”
His hand shook from recent heavy drinking, and that made Skinny fear the menacing weapon more than if the bushranger had been strictly sober. He got down and moved away slowly. Crooked Ike, clutching the reins and watching him, fired a shot at the ground behind him. Then Skinny took to his heels, and ran for his life.
“Now, Letty, my dear, you an’ me will have a little drive on our own,” said Ike as he climbed into the trap.
She sat like a stone, speechless and horror-stricken, as he whipped the horse into a trot. At the first break in the timber he turned off the road, and drove her through trackless bush. He drove with desperate haste, but his course was erratic. Late in the afternoon she realised that he was lost when, without noticing it, he crossed his own track. An hour afterwards he crossed it again, and a little later the exhausted animal jibbed in a bed of sand. Whilst he tried impatiently to urge it forward with the whip, Letitia deftly slipped the revolver from his pouch, and hid it in her dress. The horse would not budge.
“Get out,” he said, as he jumped down to lead it.
Letitia quickly obeyed and, with a little basket in her hand, stepped over to a thick-topped tree, and sat down under it. Crooked Ike zigzagged the horse along a few paces, and called to her to follow.
“This is my roof to-night,” she answered.
He turned back, his face ugly and determined. Then she produced the weapon, and pointed it at him.
“You come near me and I’ll give you a pill of your own making.” she warned him.
His hand went mechanically to his belt and then he stiffened in sudden surprise.
“So that’s your game!” he snarled. “Clever young lady, ain’t you? ‘Dept at pickin’ pockets?”
He returned to the vehicle and, giving the horse some mulga, tied it to a tree. His eyes searched the bush uneasily, dreading pursuit. But when darkness fell he knew he was safe till morning; and if he could disarm the girl he would have no fear of the man that he knew was somewhere on his track. He approached her again.
“You needn’t be afraid, Letty,” he said, in a conciliatory manner. “I’m not going to to touch you. I’m dead beat. What did I do back there? I was drunk…mad. I’ll take you back to-morrow, an’ give myself up. I must ‘ave a sleep.”
Letitia, afraid of dozing, paced up and down for a couple of hours, the man stealthily watching her. Then she sat down again mapping out plans for to-morrow. Raymond after a while, turned over, so that his back was towards her. She waited until he appeared to be asleep, then climbed cautiously into the tree, the numerous offshoots affording her foothold. Among the thick branches she settled herself securely, and hung the basket above her head. The man had not stirred, and assured that her movements had not been observed, she reclined against the thick cluster of branches, tying one arm, with her handkerchief, to a limb and went to sleep.
It was daylight when the cracking of twigs and a light shaking of the tree awakened her. Crooked Ike was climbing stealthily towards her, a light axe, which had been strapped to the back of the trap, thrust through his belt. She covered him quickly.
“If you’re not down in one minute I’ll fire,” she threatened.
“Ain’t you clever!” snarled Ike, with more venom than admiration in the remark. But he slipped back, and as his feet touched the ground she fired into the air. She surmised that Binny would not be far away, and if he heard the report of the gun it would bring him to her quicker than by following the wandering tracks of the vehicle.
Ike’s face betrayed some signs of fear at the action. Then he commenced to chop away the offshoots round the butt of the tree. A third, and a fourth time she fired, and a little later, in shifting her position, she accidentally exploded the fifth cartridge. Ike chuckled, and began chopping at the tree. Letitia understood, and a cold fear crept over her. The other charge had been fired the previous day to expedite Skinny’s departure.
The chips flew thick and fast from the axe strokes, and soon the tree was more than half cut through. Then he started on the other side, whilst the girl prayed that the ring of the axe would bring Binny to the place, in time to save her from a crushing fall. Deeper and deeper the blade went in. When the tree was almost tottering, he paused and looked up.
“Goin’ to come down?” he demanded.
She hesitated, looking helplessly around, seeking for a sign of pity where there was none, and wondering how long Binny would be. Where was he? How far were they from the road? Had he ridden on without noticing that the vehicle had turned off? Or did Skinny turn back and tell him?
“Two more strokes does it,” cried Ike. “Are you comin’ down?”
She hesitated, looking helplessly around like a scared ‘possum for a means of escape.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, parleying to gain time.
The sun was rising, and a crow in a neighbouring tree watched the tethered horse and the woman-hunter.
“Take you back.” said Ike. “Are you comin’?”
“I can go back myself if you leave me,” she said.
He spat on his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he returned, “but if you won’t take the easy way you’ll ‘ave to crash.”
As he swung the axe a cry escaped the girl, now clinging desperately, as if for protection, to the branches. The persecutor faltered, and the blow fell harmlessly; but, with set teeth, he swung it again. While it hung in the air the crack of a rifle sounded sharply from a sand ridge near by, and Crooked Ike, carried by the force of his abortive stroke, fell forward with a shattered wrist.
Then the girl climbed slowly down, and fell into the arms of Roy Binny, while Skinny Frank was hard riding on a skinny horse a quarter of a mile behind.
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