The Odds Part 1

The Odds.

by Ethel M. Dell.

"If he comes my way, I'll shoot him!" said Dot Burton, her blue eyes gleaming in her boyish, tanned face. "I'm not such a bad shot, am I, Jack?"

"Not so bad," said Jack, kindly. "But don't shoot at sight, or p'r'aps you'll shoot a policeman--which might be awkward for us both!"

"As if I should be such an idiot as that!" protested Dot. "I wasn't born yesterday, anyhow."

"No?" said Jack. "Somehow you look as if you were."

"Don't you be a donkey, Jack!" said his young sister, with an impudent snap of the fingers under his nose. "Being ten years older than I am doesn't qualify you for that superior pose. You're only a man, you know, after all."

"Buckskin Bill is only a man, but he's a pretty tough proposition," said Burton, with a frown.

She smoothed the frown away with caressing fingers. "I know. That's why I'd like to shoot him. But he's sure to be caught now, isn't he? They've got him in a trap. He'll never wriggle through with Fletcher Hill to outwit him. You said yourself that with him on the job the odds were dead against him."

"Oh, I know. So they are. But he's such a wily devil. Well, I'd better be going." Jack Burton arose with the deliberate movements of a heavy man.

"I'm sick of this business, Dot. If it weren't for you, I believe I'd chuck it all and go into business in a town."

"Oh, darling! How silly!" protested Dot. "What a good thing I came out when I did! Things seem to be at a rather low ebb with you. But cheer up!

What's a few head of cattle when all's said and done? When once this rascal is laid by the heels, you'll make up quicker than you know. Of course you will. Don't let yourself get downhearted! What is the good?"

He smiled a little. There was something heartening in the girl's slim activity of pose apart from her words. She looked indomitable. He pulled her to him and kissed her.

"Well, take care of yourself, Dot! You won't be frightened? You needn't be. He won't come your way. Hill has sworn solemnly to keep an extra guard in this direction. He may call around himself before the day is over. It wouldn't surprise me. Don't shoot him if he does! At least, give him a feed first!"

"Oh, really, Jack!" the girl protested. "I shall be cross with you before long. You'd better go quick before it comes on."

She put her arms around his neck and gave him a tight hug. Her sunburnt face was pressed to his. "Now, you won't do anything silly?" she urged him, softly. "I don't like parting with you in this mood. I wish I were coming too."

"Rubbish! Rubbish!" he said. "You stay at home, little shepherdess, and look after the lambs! I won't be late back. Mind you are civil to Fletcher Hill if he turns up! He'll be a magistrate one of these days if he plays his cards well."

"If he catches the biggest cattle-thief in Australia?" suggested Dot, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her face into a very boyish grimace. "I wouldn't care to get promotion for that job, if I were a man. But I'll be vastly polite to him if he turns up. You've never seen me doing the pretty, have you? But I can--awfully well--when I try."

Her brother laughed. "Oh, don't be too pretty, my child! It's a dangerous game. Good-bye! Don't go far away!"

"My dear man! As if I should have time!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dot.

She gave him another squeeze and let him go.

There were a great many things to be done that day, things which a mere ignorant male would never have dreamt of. There was bread to be baked, an evening meal to be prepared, countless household duties waiting to be done, and work enough in Jack's wardrobe alone to keep an ordinary woman busy for a week. Poor Jack! He was not a great hand at needlework. She had been shocked at the state in which she had found him. But she had not shirked her responsibilities. And more than ever was she glad now that she had come to him. For he needed her in a moral sense as well. She was too much of a "new chum" to help him in any very active sense outside the homestead at present. But he needed a good deal of moral backing just at that moment. She had come to him straight from England, and full of enthusiasm. He had hewn his own way and begun to enjoy prosperity. But she had arrived to find that prosperity temporarily checked. A gang of cattle-thieves were making serious depredations among his stock.

The police were hot on the trail, and it was believed that the gang had been split up, but so far no notable captures had been made. Buckskin Bill, the leader, was still at large, and while this remained the case there could be no security for any one. Every farmer in the district was keen on the chase, expecting to fall a victim.

And--there was no doubt about it--Buckskin Bill was in a very tight corner. Inspector Hill had the matter in hand, and he was not a man to be lightly baffled. Jack regarded him with wholehearted admiration. But somehow Dot, the new arrival, felt curiously prejudiced against him. She wanted Buckskin Bill to be caught, but she could not help hoping that this astute Inspector of Police would not be his captor. She was sure from Jack's description that she would not like the man, and as she went about her work she earnestly hoped that he would not come her way, at least in her brother's absence.

She was busy indoors during the whole of the morning. As midday approached the heat became intense. Jack usually returned for a meal at noon, but she was not expecting him that day. He had joined the chase, and had taken with him every available man. She might have felt lonely if she had not been so engrossed. As it was, she hummed cheerily to herself as she went to and fro. There were so many things to think about, and it was such an interesting world in which she found herself.

In the early afternoon she went out to feed a few motherless lambs that her brother had placed in her charge. She stood in the shelter of a great barn with the little things cl.u.s.tering around her, while Robin, the old black hound, lay watching and snapping at the flies. Miles and miles of pasture stretched around her, broken here and there by thick scrub and occasional groups of blue gum trees.

The hot glare of the afternoon sun made the eyes ache, and she was glad when her task was over. When she stood up at length she was feeling a little giddy, and she leaned for a moment against the barn wall to steady herself. A rank growth of gra.s.s grew all about her feet, and as she stood there gazing rather dizzily downwards she saw a ripple pa.s.s along it close to the building.

Any but a "new chum" would have known the meaning of that small disturbance, for there was no breath of air to cause it. Any but a "new chum," being quite defenceless, would have beaten instant and swift retreat.

But Dot Burton in her inexperience had no thought of evil. She was only curious. She forgot her weariness, and bent down to watch the moving gra.s.s.

At the same moment Robin suddenly raised his head and looked keenly in the direction of the farm, with a growl. The girl barely heard him, so interested was she. She even stooped and parted the tall gra.s.s with her hands when unexpectedly it ceased to move.

The next instant she started back with a wild cry of horror. For it was as if the gra.s.s itself had suddenly come to malignant life under her hands. A shape--long, thin, vividly green--rose up before her, and swayed with an angry hiss.

Her cry seemed to galvanize Robin into action, for he sprang up fiercely barking, but his attention was not directed towards her. He leapt instead towards the house, yelling resentment as he went. And in a flash the green evil struck at the bare brown arm!

Dot shrieked again, shrieked like a demented creature, and in a moment, with hands flung wide, she was fleeing across the sun-baked yard.

She reached the open door immediately behind Robin, and sprang in headlong. Robin had ceased to bark, and was fawning at the feet of a man who had evidently just entered. He was bent down over the dog, fondling him with one hand. In the other something bright gleamed, and as he straightened himself the girl saw that it was a revolver; but she was too agitated to take much note of the fact.

She burst in upon him in breathless, horrified distress. "I've been bitten!" she cried to him. "Bitten by a snake!"

"Where?" he said.

He had her by the arm in a second and was pushing up the loose holland sleeve. Later she marvelled at his prompt.i.tude, his instant intuition.

At the moment she was too terrified, too near collapse, to notice any of these things.

He pushed her down upon a chair and knelt beside her. She found herself staring down at a shock of straw-coloured hair, while the owner of it sucked and sucked with an almost brutal force at a place in the crook of her arm that felt as if a red-hot needle had been plunged into it. She could feel the drawing of his teeth against her flesh. It was a sensation almost more horrible than the actual snake-bite had been.

Twice he turned his head and spat into the hearth, and she saw that his face was smooth and young, the colour of sun-baked brick.

At last he looked up at her with the most extraordinarily blue eyes she had ever seen, and said, with a kindly twinkle in them, "I don't think you'll die this time, missis."

She looked from him to her arm. The bite showed no more than the sting of a nettle, but around it was the deep impress of his teeth. Certainly he had done his task thoroughly.

The kettle was singing over the fire. He got to his feet and patted Robin on the head. "Let's wash it," he said. "Is there a basin handy?"

Dot sat in her chair, feeling rather weak. He fetched a bowl and set it on a chair by her side. He poured water into it from the kettle.

She looked up at him rather apprehensively. "I needn't scald it, need I?"

He smiled down at her in instant rea.s.surance, a vivid smile that warmed her fear-chilled heart. His teeth were white and regular, like the teeth of a young wild animal.

"There's some cold water somewhere, isn't there?" he said.

She told him where to find it, and he cooled the steaming water to a temperature that she could endure without flinching. Then he made her rest her arm in it.

"That'll comfort it," he said. "Now, have you got any spirits in the house?"

"I don't drink spirits," she said quickly.