The cat-eyed Red came along the bank, walking as easily as if it had been day. He propped down on a log beside them, indulged in a little cowboy persiflage, before he came to the point. “I been spyin’ as usual. Hasn’t been much good lately, till tonight. But I always keep sayin’ it’ll come some day. An’ we got nothin’ but time on our hands. Gosh, Leslie, what date is it, anyhow?”

  “My journal says December fourth.”

  “Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” ejaculated Red. “Near Christmas!”

  “Maybe it’ll please you to know that this Christmas I can remember last Christmas — and be far happier,” said Sterl.

  “Please me? Wal! All I can think of now is Gawd bless Leslie!”

  “Me! Why should God bless me?” inquired Leslie. Intuitively she divined that she had taken the place of another woman.

  Red gave her no satisfaction. Then seriously: “Sterl, I was snoopin’ about early after supper, an’ I heahed Ormiston talkin’ low to Bedford. Near as I can remember heah’s their talk word for word. Ormiston first: ‘Tom, I tell you I won’t go any farther with Dann than the forks of this river.’ An’ Bedford asked, ‘Why not?’ An’ Ormiston said: ‘Because I don’t know the country across toward the Warburton River. It’s two hundred odd miles from the head of the Diamantina through the mountains to my station. If the rains don’t come we’ll lose all my cattle.’ An’ Bedford said: ‘Why not go on with Dann till we make sure of Hathaway’s mob? An’ also till the rains do come?’

  “‘I’ll have his mob an’ some of Dann’s — you can lay to thet,’ says Ormiston.

  “‘In thet case it’s all right. Jack an’ Morse have been kickin’. They want to make sure of more cattle. They came in on this because of a stake worthwhile — somethin’ thet they could end this bush-rangin’ on.’ Then Ormiston stopped him for fear somebody was listenin’. He left, an’ I seen him later with Beryl. How do you figger it?”

  Sterl’s speech flowed like running water. “Ormiston and his drovers have been rustling, in a two-bit way, until this Dann trek. Now they’re playing for big stakes. Ormiston is the boss. He fooled the Danns. His drovers are all in it, aiming to lead some of Dann’s men to their side. Old stuff. You remember how cheap, easygoing cowboys used to fall. How many have we seen hanged? They murdered Woolcott, got his mob. They have Hathaway’s, and will do for him, sure as I know rustlers. Ormiston has a range somewhere over the mountains east of the head of the Diamantina. The pot will boil over up at the forks of this river. Ormiston means to get more cattle by hook or crook and then shake us. Damn it, the thing looms bad!”

  “Pard, I should snicker to snort. We’ve never met its equal, let alone its beat. Bet you haven’t figgered Beryl. Where’s she comin’ in?”

  “Thunder and blazes! I forgot Beryl,”

  “Yeah. But I haven’t. An’ I say she’s the pivot on which this deal turns. Ormiston’s outfit haven’t that hunch yet, I reckon. But we have.”

  “You bet. Red, that hombre will persuade Beryl to go with him — or he’ll take her anyway.”

  “Do you reckon he can persuade her?”

  “I hate to think so — but I do.”

  Red’s voice sank to a whisper. “Hey — I see someone comin’!” He peered like a nighthawk into the gloom up the riverbank. “Holy Mackeli, talk about the devil! It’s Beryl an’ Ormiston. Let’s hide. Heah, this way!”

  In another moment Red had himself and comrades under the bank, where a ledge ran out a few feet, and some long plumed grasses obscured it from sight above.

  A rustle of weeds above, a footfall, and then Beryl’s rich voice: “Here, Ash, this is far enough. I’d like to hear the corroboree.”

  “Yes, you like those damned niggers. I smell cigarette smoke! Somebody has been here,” came in Ormiston’s voice, guarded and low.

  “Well, they’re gone. And all I smell is cooking meat.”

  “Hazelton has been here with that damned little baggage,” growled Ormiston.

  “Hazelton is no good. Like as not he’s one of those American gunmen. A killer! Jack saw six notches cut on his revolver. That means the blighter has killed six men, at least. I’d be a fool to provoke him further.”

  “Indeed you — would be, Ash,” she said. “He has made himself valuable. Dad has come to rely upon him.”

  “The Yankee is a help, I’m bound to admit that. But, Beryl, I can’t stand your praising him. I see him watching you. He is as fascinated by your beauty as that redheaded churn of his. Their eyes just gloat over you. Beryl, you are so lovely! I’m mad over you. I love you beyond reason!”

  “Oh, Ash — do you, darling?” she murmured. “Ash — you! — must not...” she remonstrated, but it was the remonstrance of love, that invites rather than repels. That next tense moment, with its murmurings, must have been a dreadful ordeal for Red Krehl. Sterl’s heart was heavy for his comrade.

  “Ash, darling, we came away to talk seriously,” said Beryl, evidently regaining composure. “I must not stay much longer. Tell me.”

  “Yes, we must settle it,” he rejoined, in a deep low voice, without a trace of hesitation. “Beryl, I’m leaving this trek at the forks of this river, not many days from here.”

  “Ashley! Not going? — Oh!”

  “No. We can’t get along. Your father will never cross the Never-never! He will be lost.”

  “We dared that risk,” replied the girl. “Somehow Father has imbued me with his wonderful faith. We’ll win through.”

  “I doubt it. I almost know it. This interior outback grows impossible west of the Warburton. I’m no pioneer — no empire builder.”

  “Ash, I promised to marry you. I will. But come with us to the Kimberleys. Make a home there.”

  “No. You come with me. Stanley Dann will go on that interior trek without his brother and Hathaway and me. Beryl, come!”

  “Oh-h Ash! How I would love to! But I will not betray my father. I will go on, even if they all desert him.”

  “They will, sooner or later.”

  “Never! Not Hazelton! Not that droll Red Krehl! Not Leslie, or her family. They will go. And I will go, Ash!”

  Her voice had begun low and rich with emotion, then gathering power and passion, ended with the ring of a bell.

  “But Beryl — you love me!” he cried huskily.

  “Yes, I do. I do! But Ash, I beseech you — give up this selfish blind purpose of yours. For my sake, Ash, reconsider!”

  “Darling, I will, despite my better judgment,” Ormiston made haste to reply. Presently she was whispering brokenly, won over anew, if not to complaisance then surely to belief. They moved away from the log.

  Red sat with drooping head. He heaved a long sigh.

  “Pard, in the pinch heah she saved me my belief in her honor,” he said, his voice trembling.

  “She did, Red, she did, and I feel like a coyote — like a low-down greaser, spying on her.”

  “Me, too. But my hunch was true. Sterl, Leslie, if it wasn’t for you both, an’ a hellbent somethin’, I’d walk right in this heah river!”

  But Leslie was in no condition to answer. She clung to Sterl, weeping convulsively.

  CHAPTER 15

  ON THE MORNING of December twenty-fourth, the day before Christmas, Stanley Dann’s trek toiled and limped into camp at the forks of the Daimantina, there to be stranded until after the rainy season.

  Owing to waterholes lying in deep cuts almost inaccessible to the cattle, dragging sand and terrific heat, the last fifty miles of that trek turned out to be all but insurmountable. Smoke signals still preceded the drovers and aborigines still followed them.

  Dann selected his permanent camp site on the west side of the main river, above the junction of the several branches, which were steep-banked, deep, dry beds of rock and sand, with waterholes dispersed at widely separated points. The heat was fast absorbing the water. Animals and birds ringed the pools in incredible numbers. They would be dry in a few weeks. But below this junction the main waterhole was a mile-long, narrow, partly shaded pool that would last until the next rainy season. Except in sandy patches, grass grew abundantly. Dann was assured of the cardinal necessities for man and beast for as long a spell as they were compelled to wait there.

  Dann picked a camp site on the left bank, in a eucalyptus grove, standing far apart in stately aloofness. The pitching of this camp registered for the trekkers an immense relief and joy. Ormiston, however, refused to camp on that side of the river. He drove his cattle and Hathaway’s which together constituted a mob of about three thousand head, across the dry stream beds. As a bird flew, the distance between the two camps was scarcely a quarter of a mile.

  Sterl and Red pitched their tent in a circle of pandanus trees whose tops commingled, forming a dense canopy. The great seeds, somewhat resembling small pineapples, clustered aloft amid the foliage. Leaves covered with a ground canvas, furnished a thick and soft carpet for the tent. Their nets promised protection from mosquitoes and flies. But nothing could save them from the heat. They worked naked to the waist. Friday built himself a bark shack back of the tent. Slyter’s wagon, some fifty rods or more distant, was sheltered by the largest gum. Near at hand Bill established a comfortable cooking unit. The camps of the Danns were lower down, nearer the river-bank, and most picturesquely located among the gums.

  Not until late in the afternoon did Sterl feel free to wash up and change his wet and dirty garments. Then he turned to the never failing black, who was always there when wanted. “Come, Friday. Let’s go look-see.”

  They crossed the grassy flat back of camp, and climbed a low ridge. From this point Sterl expected to get in his mind’s eye the lay of this upper Diamantina land. But the blazing sunset and the appalling grandeur of that country drove from his mind at first any thought of topography.

  “Good camp place, Friday?” he asked.

  “Plenty wood, plenty water, plenty meat. All same bad,” replied the black.

  “Why all same bad?”

  “Plenty black fella, plenty lubra, plenty fly. Eatum up alive. No rain long time. Big water bimeby.”

  “One thing at a time, Friday. Why plenty black fella bad?”

  “Some black fella good. No good alonga here. Eat — steal. More come all time. Eat — steal. White fella like lubra. That bad.”

  “What black fella do about lubra?”

  “Mebbe stickum white fella spear.”

  “Not so good. But I hope our friend Ormiston runs true to type, and gets speared,” muttered Sterl, half to himself.

  “Friday spearum imm bimeby.”

  The black had said that once before, months back. Gazing up at him, Sterl thought his native ally was not one to forget.

  “Friday, what you mean, no rain long time?”

  “Black fella tell all about,” replied Friday, making one of his eloquent gestures. It seemed to include the sun, the land, the growths, the living things within its compass. “Why bad when rain comes bimeby? Big water. All alonga. Cattle stuck.”

  Sterl shaded his eyes and feasted them. A sheen of gold illuminated the sky and enveloped the land. The three forks of the Diamantina, dry watercourses, white and glaring by day, now wound away like rivers of golden fire. That afterglow of sunset left the league-wide areas of green grass faintly suffused with its hue, but the river beds of rocks and sand took on a phenomenal and supernatural intensity of color. There was a deeper tinge of gold on the canvas wagon tops, the tents; and a flock of white cockatoos, covering the branches of a dead gum tree, appeared transformed birds of paradise. Below camp to the right, where the water of the river gleamed through the trees, there was a flickering, twinkling myriad of golden facets.

  “Never-never Land!” said Friday.

  Red sat with his back against a tree, his hands spread listlessly. The cowboy was too tired to care about anything.

  “Pard, I seen you up there, like an Apache scout. Pretty nifty, huh?” he drawled, lazily.

  “Red, I’ve no regrets, any more.”

  “Wal! Not atall?”

  “Not atall, old friend.”

  “Thet’s dog-gone good! Neither have I, Sterl. Couldn’t we jest be happy but for thet bastard?”

  Leslie approached, for once not running nor even showing any of her usual energy. She had changed her rider’s ragged garb for a light cotton dress. “Do you boys know what day tomorrow is?” she asked wistfully.

  Sterl knew, but he remained thoughtfully silent.

  “It’s Christmas. I’m going over to see the Danns. Mum is there. Won’t you come?”

  “Les, I’m too dog-gone daid tired even to see Beryl, or to care whether it’s Christmas or the Fourth, days thet used to be red letters in my life.”

  “Me, too, Leslie. You see, we’ve let down. I did have the strength to climb the hill back here. And that was all!”

  When Leslie left, Sterl sat down heavily beside his comrade.

  “Red, you remember that day in Brisbane when we spent so much money?”

  “Hell, yes. But it seems years ago.”

  “Well, I flatter myself I’m a pretty wise hombre, if I do say it myself. I bought Christmas presents for you and myself. And as we heard there were to be ladies with us, I took a chance and bought some for them.”

  “Aw, pard!” wailed Red. “I never thought of thet. What a pore muddle-haided cowboy I am!”

  “Umpumm, Red, you haven’t missed it. I bought enough for you to give too.”

  “What kind of presents?” ejaculated Red, elated.

  “Candy, for one thing.”

  “Naw, not candy! Why, pard, you’re loco. Heah we been trekkin’ a thousand miles under this hot sun! Candy would melt.”

  “No, it’s hard candy packed in tin boxes. Then I bought some pretty handkerchiefs and sewing kits. Lastly, two leather cases full of toilet articles — you know the kind of things girls like. Imported from England, mind you! Tomorrow morning we’ll unpack the stuff and plan our surprise.”

  Breakfast was called at sunrise. “Dann wants us all present after breakfast,” announced Slyter. Sterl and Red went to their tent and reappeared, mysteriously, each carrying a canvas knapsack on his shoulder. They were the last to arrive at the Dann encampment. All of the trekking party were present except Ormiston’s drovers and several of Dann’s. Stanley Dann stood up, bareheaded, to read a passage from the Bible. After that he offered up a general prayer, commemorating the meaning of Christmas of peace on earth and good will to man, and ended with a specific thanksgiving to God for their good fortune.

  Beryl, looking lovely in a blue gown that had evidently been donned for this occasion, was holding a little court all her own in the shade of a tree near her wagon.

  “Tip off your mother an’ dad to rustle over heah pronto,” whispered Red to Leslie.

  They approached Beryl. Cedric, Larry and the younger drovers were offering felicitations of the day. Ormiston, shaven and in clean garb, occupied what looked like a privileged place close to Beryl.

  Suddenly Beryl espied Sterl and Red. Her eyes sparkled with delight and anticipation when the cowboys unlimbered their knapsacks, to set them down with a flourish.

  “Folks, me an’ Sterl heah air playin’ Santa Claus,” drawled Red, with the smile that made him boyishly good to look at. “But he is a modest gazabo, so I have to do the honors.”

  Beryl let out a shriek of delight. Leslie, blind to the issue until that moment, flushed with amaze and rapture. The Danns and their company looked on, smiling.

  Then Red and Sterl reached into the knapsack with the air of magicians, to fish out a small box of cigars for Dann and his partner, some brightly wrapped gifts for Miss Dann and Mrs. Slyter.

  “My word!” boomed Stanley Dann. “I haven’t had a good smoke for months. Well, well, to think these Yankees could outdo English people in memory of Christmas!”

  The donors gave Beryl and Leslie handy little sewing kits which were received with deep appreciation. Then came the two handsome leather cases which evoked cries of delight.

  “Out here in the Never-never!” exclaimed Beryl, incredulously.

  “Sterl Hazelton,” cried Leslie, with glad eyes upon him, “when all my things are gone or worn out — Aladdin!”

  “Girls, thet ain’t nothin’ atall,” beamed Red. “Come on, pard, all together.”

  Then in slow deliberation, purposely tantalizing to the quivering girls, each cowboy produced two boxes, one of goodly size, the other small, both wrapped in shiny paper and tied with colored ribbons.

  “What in the world?” cried Beryl, her eyes shining in purple eagerness.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh!” burst out Leslie, reaching brown hands for her boxes. “What? Oh, what?”

  “Candy!” shouted Sterl, triumphantly.

  “Red Krehl! You mean sweets? Not ever!” whispered Beryl.

  Evidently Leslie had been rendered mute, but she bestowed upon Sterl’s cheek a kiss that left no doubt of her unspoken delight.

  Beryl scrambled up, holding all her presents in her arms.

  “Leslie, you shall not outdo me in thanks,” she cried, with spirit. “Red Krehl, come here! I would knight you if I were a queen. I am glad somebody remembered me on Christmas Day!” And as the whiskyard cowboy, impelled beyond his will, stumbled to his knees before the girl, she lifted a lovely rosy face and kissed him.

  Sterl, glancing at Ormiston, saw his face grow ashy and a glare of jealous hate light his prominent eves. Then Ormiston turned on his heel and strode away, an erect, violent, forbidding figure.

  He did not return the next day or the next. Beryl palpably chafed and worried at this evidence of his resentment, but so far as Sterl could see, her pride upheld her. His conviction was now that Ormiston, having arrived at the scene of his intended split with Dann, had an arrow to his bow besides persuasion.