ver
out there? Not him, I'll warrant!"

"I happen to know it," said Langholm, "that's all. But do you mean to
tell me that it was Mr. Steel to whom you referred in your letter?"

"I do so!" cried Abel, and clinched it with an oath.

"You said 'they.'"

"But I didn't mean anybody else."

Langholm lowered his voice. Neither foot nor hoof had passed or even
sounded in the distance. There was scarcely a whisper of the trees; an
ordinary approach could have been heard for hundreds of yards, a
stealthy one for tens. Langholm had heard nothing, though his ears were
pricked. And yet he lowered his voice.

"Do you actually hint that Mr. Steel has or could have been a gainer by
Mr. Minchin's death?"

Abel pondered his reply.

"What I will say," he declared at length, "is that he might have been a
loser by his life!"

"You mean if Mr. Minchin had gone on living?"

"Yes--amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"

"You are not thinking of--of Mrs. Steel?" queried Langholm, after
pausing in his turn.

"Bless you, no! She wasn't born or thought of, so far as we was
concerned, when we were all three mates up the bush."

"Ah, all three!"

"Steel, Minchin, and me," nodded Abel, as his cutty glowed.

"And you were mates!"

"Well, we were and we weren't: that's just it," said Abel, resentfully.
"It would be better for some coves now, if we'd all been on the same
footin' then. But that we never were. I was overseer at the principal
out-station--a good enough billet in its way--and Minchin was overseer
in at the homestead. But Steel was the boss, damn him, trust Steel to be
the boss!"

"But if the station was his?" queried Langholm. "I suppose it was a
station?" he added, as a furious shower of sparks came from the cutty.

"Was it a station?" the ex-overseer echoed. "Only about the biggest and
the best in the blessed back-blocks--that's all! Only about half the
size of your blessed little old country cut out square! Oh, yes, it was
his all right; bought it for a song after the bad seasons fifteen year
ago, and sold it in the end for a quarter of a million, after making a
fortune off of his clips alone. And what did I get out of it?" demanded
Abel, furiously. "What was my share? A beggarly check same as he give me
the other day, and not a penny more!"

"I don't know how much that was," remarked Langholm; "but if you weren't
a partner, what claim had you on the profits?"

"Aha! that's tellings," said Abel, with a sudde