CHAPTER XXIII.

CROSBY ACCOUNTS FOR HIMSELF.

It was broad daylight when Alec awoke; the sun was pouring a brilliant flood of light into the room through the broken, unscreened window, and he could hear the loud "chirring" of the locusts outside in the morning heat. The room he was in looked even dirtier and more miserable than it had appeared the night before. The floor could not have been cleaned for years, and dust lay thick upon everything that was not in constant use. The white wood table was unscoured, and was littered with bones and crumbs and fragments of stale food. Foster sometimes swept all these remains with his dirty hand on to the floor, but as yet, this morning, he had neglected to do so. A greasy old newspaper that was crumpled and torn with use was lying on the floor, where one of the men had let it fall the night before; and a rusty candlestick, that was clogged with tallow, was standing at the edge of the table where the reader had left it when he rolled to bed. The frowsy hammock in which Starlight had slept was empty, the draggled blue blanket he had used was hanging over the side. Besides Alec there was no one in the room.

For half a moment, when he first awoke, he did not recognise the place he was in, but sitting up and looking round the uncleanly, slovenly room, with a shudder of disgust at his surroundings, he remembered only too vividly where he was. He got up and found a battered galvanised iron bucket full of water at the other side of the hearth, and at this, taking off his tattered shirt, he proceeded, without soap or towels, to wash himself. He had moved into the stream of hot sunshine that poured into the room to dry himself, and with bended head was shaking the water out of his hair in a little dazzling shower of spots, when the creaking door was opened and Martin Crosby stepped into the room.

"Oh, you are awake at last?" said the great genial red-faced fellow, walking across the room and slapping Alec on his naked back. "I've been in to look at you once or twice, and each time found you sleeping like a top."

"Yes, awake and hungry."

"All right, put your jumper on, and I'll get you something. We can have a talk while you are eating."

"Where are Starlight and the other fellows?" said Alec, struggling into his shirt, which clung to his damp skin.

"They are down at Lingan's, and won't be back just yet. They left Foster and me to keep our eyes on you, so that you could not give us the slip."

"That's just what I want to do. You will help me, won't you?" said poor Alec, almost trembling with eagerness. "Remember your promise of last night."

"Yes, I'll help you to clear out of this vile den if I possibly can do it. Heaven knows how willingly I would get out of it myself," said Crosby, earnestly.

"Leave with me, then," whispered Alec, grasping his arm.

"I can't. It's no use. I'm in with them too deep. If I did leave there's nothing I could turn my hand to, and nowhere that I could go. I'm done for. You don't know me I can see. I'm the man that did for Squiros down in Brisbane. But I'd do it again, without a moment's hesitation, if I saw that villain serving that poor woman as he did before."

"No, I don't know anything about it. Who was Squiros?"

"He was a low, South American sort of Spanish cove, who was mate to a ship from Rio. I met him at Ridley's. What! don't you know Ridley's? Then it is evident you don't know Brisbane--and none the worse for that," he added _sotto voce_. "Well, we had one or two bits of rows; he was always bumming round there and bossing everybody; and then one night I saw him striking a pretty, decent girl, from Troman's store in Wood Street, that I knew, so I ran up and caught him one with the stick I carried. I didn't mean to hit the little beast so hard, but I was angry, and had a drop on board, and the chap fell down without a word at my feet.

"I tried to bring him round, but he never stirred a muscle. I should have faced it out if I'd been by myself, but Annie was in an awful fright, and lugged me away when the folks began to come up. I got out of Brisbane that night, and had the bad luck to drop in with Kearney--I used to know him years ago--and I told him all about it, and he brought me up here to be out of the way. It served that little brute right, but I can't forget his ghastly face as he fell under the street lamp.

"If it weren't for that I'd have cut this concern as soon as I found out who and what Starlight was. But I'm tied here; wherever I went every one would know that I was Squiros' murderer."

During the last few words, unseen by either of the two men, Foster had been standing by the door that Crosby had left partly open when he came into the room. He had heard all the last words of Crosby's self accusation, and, perhaps feeling sorry for the evident distress of the young fellow, or perhaps moved by that desire to be the first to tell a startling piece of news, which we all feel, he said with a loud laugh--

"Well, you must be a fool to believe that any longer. Why, that Squiros chap is as well as you are, and is 'alf-way back to Rio by this time. We knew it three days a'ter you came 'ere, but Starlight told us not to let on about it as he wanted to keep you in our lot."

With clenched great fists and indrawn breath Crosby listened to Foster's story. His ruddy face flushed redder, but the hardened, reckless look upon it passed away.

"Thank Heaven!" he uttered brokenly and fervently, and his eyes for a moment grew dim. As Foster, still laughing at the credulity and simplicity of the fellow, left the room with the saddle and bridle he had come for, Crosby turned to Alec with a great sigh of relief, and said--

"Then I'm not a murderer;" he laughed an excited sort of laugh as he spoke, and his face brightened. "What a weight that man has taken from my heart. All these two last weeks I have felt utterly hard and reckless, and I didn't care a jot what I did or what became of me. Confound you, Starlight," said he, bitterly, and bringing his fist down on the table with a sounding crash, "I'll not forget this."

"Hush!" said Alec, moving round to where Crosby sat. "Don't speak so loudly; there's no knowing, in this den of thieves, who may be listening. I am glad of this for your sake," said he, laying his hand warmly on the other fellow's shoulder, and giving him a little congratulatory shake by it. "For my sake, too, for you will try to get away with me, now. Won't you?"

Crosby nodded and looked up. His face was wonderfully changed in expression in the last few minutes. The strained, uneasy expression that was visible behind the dare-devil recklessness of it was gone, and even the anxiety that was still apparent in it looked less hard and corrosive.

"I don't know how it is to be done," he said, "but we will try. Starlight, confound him, is so sharp. Whatever you do, be careful before him."

"If I could only let them know at Wandaroo where I was they might send help."

"That would be no good, I fear. Starlight is not one to be taken unawares, he'd get to know of it. Besides, in the first place, it is impossible to send any message."

"If I could only let them know that I was alive I shouldn't care. I have a mother and sister, and they will be breaking their hearts at their double loss. I know Margaret----"

"_Margaret!_ Is Margaret Law your sister--a beautiful, tall, dark girl? What an idiot I've been; why of course she is, you are very like her."

"Have you ever seen my sister?" asked Alec, with the utmost astonishment.

"Yes," said the great fellow, blushing a rosy red, like any girl; "many times last year at my uncle's house."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Alec, a sudden light bursting upon him. "Then you are old Peter Crosby's nephew!"

"Yes. I used to live with him. He adopted me when I was a lad, but he has turned me out since then; he said he couldn't afford to keep me any longer; I ate too much."

"Miserly old brute! Why he is as rich as Croesus."

"He was quite right, poor old chap," said Crosby, with that tenderness which the very strong and healthy often have for the old and weak. "I have been an awful fool, and haven't lived as decently as I might. He is old now, and couldn't bear to see me squandering my money, although it was my own; he thought I should be asking him for more when mine was all gone. So he turned me out before that time came. He was very good to me when I was a little un."

Whilst Alec was talking with Crosby, Como, having made a little tour of inspection round the house on his own account, came into the room, and seeing food on the table and no one very near it he thought he could not do better than help himself. This he could easily do, as he stood so high that his head was above the level of the table. Having demolished the food, that in his excitement Alec had hardly touched, the dog approached his master, looking, but for a crumb on the side of his mouth, the picture of canine innocence. With a sideway wriggle of his hind quarters, and with a preliminary wave--it was too stately a movement to be called a wag--of his tail, he laid his head on Alec's knee.

Alec always respected dogs' feelings--which are much more acute than most people think--so he noticed the dog, and, without interrupting his talk with Crosby, he caressed Como's tawny head and ears. He was listening to his companion, yet all the time there was a mental picture before him of Como's master lying unburied by that charred black stump, and exposed to the garish sunlight. He could not forget his loss, it was too recent, and the pain of it too keen; the events of the last night seemed burned into his mind in a series of indelible pictures. Suddenly an idea flashed into his mind, and leaping up from his seat, he exclaimed--

"Can you get me a bit of paper and ink or pencil?"

"Whatever for?" asked Crosby, surprised by Alec's abrupt movement, and by the earnestness of his face and voice.

"Como will take a message."

"And who in the name of fate is Como?"

"This dog here. Hundreds of times has Geordie--my brother," Alec explained in a voice that shook though he tried to keep it steady, "sent him home to the head station with messages from all parts of the run. He might find his way from here. Anyway it is a chance. Eh, Como, will you?" said Alec.

The dog knew that they were speaking of him, and with ears pricked up and inquiring eyes, he looked at Alec as though waiting for an explanation.

It was with difficulty that Crosby could find what they wanted, but at last he discovered, on the decrepit side table, which was littered with bridles, foul empty bottles, odd bits of iron and straps and rubbish of all sorts, a stockman's dusty pocket-book, in which there were a few unused pages, and with a stump of pencil still fastened in it by the sticky and worn elastic band.

"Here we are!" said he, bringing these trophies in triumph to Alec. "You must look sharp, for I expect they will be coming back directly."

For a moment Alec sat quite still without putting pencil to paper; he had so much to say that he didn't know where to begin. At last he began to write swiftly. He looked up, after a minute or two, at Crosby, who was leaning out of the window, whistling softly to himself, and said--

"How am I to tell them where I am? I can't describe this place."

"Oh, say Norton's Gap, south of the Dixieville road, just after you have passed by Badger's Creek. Tell them to ask for Lingan's. Most people know where that is, though it is out of the way and few come to it."

For a moment or two the stump of pencil rapidly travelled over the paper, and then again Alec paused.

"I don't know what is best to be done. They can't send enough men after me to capture Starlight and all the rest, for, not counting you, of course, there are seven of them including Foster."

"Yes, and probably Lingan and his son would help them, and Lingan's son's wife, too, Big Eliza, who rather likes Starlight, and who is a regular Tartar, and nearly six feet high into the bargain. I can't think why a man, when he does want to marry, chooses a woman like a grenadier with a head of hair like a bearskin."

Alec could not help smiling at this pleasant portrait of Mrs. Lingan, junior, for Martin had a very dry and humorous way of saying things.

"I don't like the idea of sneaking off without a bit of a row with them," said Alec, who was still longing for vengeance; "but I suppose that we must as they are so strong. If I could only have it out with Starlight I shouldn't so much mind."

"You must look on that as a pleasure deferred. Now, then, have you got that letter ready?"

"Yes. I have told them to try to communicate with me through you. I've said that to-morrow night at eleven o'clock you will be on the track that leads from the Dixieville road to Lingan's. I have said what you are like. I expect old Macleod, our manager, will come, and you and he may be able to concoct a plan. I don't think I can say any more."

"Come on, then."

"Will you do it?"

"Do it! of course."

Alec called Como, who was sitting on his haunches in the sun idly snapping at the flies which buzzed about him, and with a bit of frayed string that Crosby produced from his pocket, he tied the all-important letter round the neck of the dog. He folded the paper as small as possible, and placed it underneath the dog's neck, and hid the string in the hair of his neck, where it was longer and thicker than elsewhere.

"I don't think Starlight will see that."

"Not unless he stops him."

"Oh, he won't do that if Como once gets a start."

They took the dog to the front of the house, and Alec, pointing towards Wandaroo, tried to start him off. But the dog did not seem to understand; in vain Alec said, "Home, Como," "Home, then," "Good dog," "Go home," any one of which would have been enough from Geordie. He was in despair about it, for the dog would not leave him, and he could conceive no other plan of communicating with the station. At last Crosby came to his rescue with a suggestion.

"Try to make him go back to your brother. He may know what you mean when he hears his name."

It was hard for poor Alec to say it, believing, as he did, that his brother was lying dead in the trampled grass where he had fallen the night before, but he remembered how much was at stake, and manfully controlling his voice, he spoke again to the dog, who was looking up at him wistfully.

"Hi, then, Como. Home. Take that to Geordie."

It almost seemed that he did recognise the name, for with a quick, short bark, and an intelligent flourish of the tail, he started off to Wandaroo.

Very anxiously they watched the dog, as with his long stride he quickly covered the ground, though he appeared to be trotting so easily. He travelled at the same easy pace, and without looking back, till he came to the corner which hid Lingan's house and buildings from the place where they stood. Here the dog suddenly made a bolt of it, and rushing madly along was out of their sight in a moment. They could hear the noise of several men shouting, and then the sharp crack of a pistol shot. Alec turned pale and bit his lip, and looked to Crosby for confirmation of his fears.

"They've seen him, the brutes, and tried to stop him by force, as they failed to do it by persuasion. He may have got off. We must go in. Don't let Starlight see us here. And try not to look so anxious."

They returned to the house, and a moment or two later Starlight and two of the other men came into the room. In a perfectly natural manner, and with rather a complaining tone in his voice, Crosby said--

"What a time you have been. I thought you were never coming back again. I don't want to be boxed up here all day."

"We wanted to see what Lingan had got for those bullocks for us, and it took some time to settle up."

"What bullocks?"

"Some that strayed up here, and whose marks we couldn't make out," said one of the men.

"Don't be a fool, Evans. Why, some bullocks that we drove off from Sheridan's station, all the marks on which we got rid of. But it was before you joined us, Crosby, so you don't get any of the plunder," said Starlight.

"What was that shot I heard just now?" asked Crosby, in an incidental manner.

With what sickening anxiety Alec awaited Starlight's answer! He almost feared to listen, yet he could hardly breathe till he heard what was Como's fate.

"Oh, just as we were coming out of Lingan's yard we saw that dog, that great beast of yours, Law, trotting calmly off. We called to it, but that made it start off at full rush, so I lugged out my snapper and let fly at it."

"Well?" said Martin.

"Why, the brute got away. He was going too quick, I think. But it doesn't matter. We don't want a great hulking brute of that sort about the place. He would eat as much as any two men."

When Starlight so lightly dismissed the matter, he little knew what momentous results to him and his gang depended upon that "hulking brute" getting safely away. Alec breathed freely again when he heard that Como had managed to give them the slip, and Martin could not prevent a faint smile flickering in his sunny face. Starlight noticed it, and said--

"What are you grinning at, Crosby?"

"At my own thoughts, which are distinctly comic."

"Well, don't keep the joke to yourself."

"Ah, that's the funny part of it. _You_ wouldn't think it at all amusing."