'I made the thieves give him up,' said Jim, looking straight at him.

'Then you knew who stole him?'

'Dalton's gang.'

'Who may they be?' asked Alec Beg.

'You'll find out before you have been long in this district,' said Jim.

'I'd advise you to keep out of their way, they'll do you no good.'

'I'm not likely to mix up with a lot like that.'

Jim had his doubts on that head, but made no remark.

'You'll have to be careful with this horse,' said Jim. 'He's got a devil of a temper, but I have tamed him down a bit. He had one of the biggest hidings he'll ever get, and it has done him good. He looks a well-bred horse.'

'He's by Fisherman out of Mermaid, and his name is Seahorse.'

'That's something like blood,' said Jim, enthusiastically. 'I'd like to send a couple of mares to him, if you will allow me.'

'With pleasure. It is the least I can do after all the trouble you have taken,' replied Shaw.

'I have some very well-bred mares,' said Jim, 'and I'll bring a couple over some day.'

Alec Beg was standing by, and muttered,--

'He's a blooming fool to let a man like him get hold of that blood. He's one of those prying sort of fellows. Hang me if I like him.'

It was not feasible that Alec Beg would like Jim Dennis, because the latter was an honest man.

When Jim Dennis took his departure, Alec Beg said to Rodney Shaw,--

'I don't think you are wise to let him get hold of the Fisherman blood.

You ought to keep it yourself about here.'

'A couple of mares will not matter much, and, besides, he got the horse back for me,' replied Shaw.

'That constable who came with Sergeant Machinson says he's a bad lot, and not to be trusted. He may have been in with Dalton's gang over this affair.'

'Don't be a fool and talk rubbish,' said Shaw. 'If he were one of the gang we should not have recovered the horse.'

He went inside, leaving Beg grumbling in the yard.

'I must keep in with Jim Dennis,' Rodney Shaw said to himself. 'He'll be useful to me. I am sorry my memory is so bad,' and he laughed curiously.

'So Adye Dauntsey is police magistrate at--what the deuce is the name of the place?--oh, here it is, and he picked up a piece of paper--Barragong. I wonder if the worthy P.M. will think I have altered much during the last eight or nine years. Probably he will, most people about here think me changed, even Benjamin Nix, my manager, says he would hardly have known me. The worthy Nix has not altered much, I'll be bound. So far as I can judge, he has managed things all right at Cudgegong--what a name to give a place! but it is suitable.'

'Jim Dennis is a man to be trusted, and he will stick to a pal, he says, and I know he will keep his word. It's deuced slow here after London. I think in a few years I'll sell out and go back again. And if I do return, that lady friend of mine will probably find me out and create a scene. I hate scenes. Perhaps I am better off here, and in time I may settle down into a respectable married man.'

He laughed again, but there was no mirth in the sound. It was an ugly laugh, a laugh that betrayed the baseness of the man, the treachery lurking within. It was not a good laugh to hear.

CHAPTER IX

THE SORT OF MAN DR TOM IS

Dr Tom Sheridan sat in his den concocting cooling drinks for himself, and mixtures of quite a different prescription for his patients.

On board ship, when he acted as medical adviser to the skipper, his officers, the crew, and the pa.s.sengers--the last-named lot he considered of little account--he had been in the habit of dosing them with the same compound for all manner of complaints.

'It saves a heap of trouble, and it's always handy,' said Dr Tom, as he filled a bottle from his regular tap. 'If it does no good, there is the blessed and everlasting consolation that it can do no harm.'

Pa.s.sengers annoyed Dr Tom, as they have continued to annoy ships'

doctors ever since, for the doctor had a soul above medicine. He considered himself a poet, a truly dramatic poet, and he was sore with the world because his efforts had not been appreciated. He had cast his poems upon the mess-room table, in the hopes of them bearing fruit, and they had been neglected in the most aggravating fashion.

The skipper put the finishing touch to one of Dr Tom's efforts. The worthy medico had, after much toil and brain work, composed a poem which he believed would appeal to the skipper's heart.

It was a wild, weird thing, a concoction of fiery skies, blistering sun, howling winds, dashing waves, heaving billows, snow-flecked seahorses, and what not, and in the midst of this poetic chaos was a good ship, commanded by a worthy skipper with a fiery beard. That was where Dr Tom blundered. He had no tact, even if his poetic ship had, and the skipper's hair being of a bright, flaming colour, he resented this personal allusion.

When the poem was solemnly presented to him by his 'boy,' he read the first few stanzas with pride, but arriving at the fiery beard period, he flew into a rage, hurled himself into Dr Tom's cabin, and said,--

'Did you write this... d----d insulting thing?'

The doctor was mortally offended, nay, he was more than that, he was hurt. He had expended many hours on the composition of that poem, and had neglected the groans of many patients in order to finish it off.

'That, sir, is an effort that has cost me dear,' he said.

'By the Lord, if there are any more such efforts, it will cost you untold wealth!' yelled the frantic skipper with the fiery beard, and he flung the offending poem into a ma.s.s of half-empty drug bottles.

Dr Tom picked it up carefully, smoothed it out, and caressed it as though it had been a pet kitten.

When he arrived in Sydney he secured the shipping reporter of the _Morning Light_ and took him into his cabin.

'Read that,' said Dr Tom, in a solemn manner, handing the rejected of the skipper to the worthy press man.

The shipping reporter of the _Morning Light_ blinked and looked uneasy.

He had read Dr Tom's poems before, or pretended to, and the effect was not pleasing.

But the doctor kept good whisky in his den, and the man who chronicled the doings of ships on their voyages from far countries dearly loved a drop of the real stingo, which money could not then purchase in Sydney, and of which very little is to be had even unto this day.

The poem was duly read.

'It is one of your best efforts,' said the scribe. This opinion was diplomatic, and committed him to nothing.

The doctor smiled, and there was a pleasant jingle of gla.s.ses, and a soothing odour penetrated the stuffy little medicine box.

'Ah!' sighed Dr Tom, 'I knew _you_ would appreciate it.'