!" he said, recognizing me. "How is he? Will he die?"

He asked the question so earnestly that I imagined he had softened at
the last moment, and feared to leave the world with another homicide
upon his conscience. Truth, however, compelled me to shake my head
mournfully, and to intimate that the wound would prove a mortal one.

Maloney gave a wild cry of triumph, which brought the blood welling
out from between his lips. "Here, boys," he gasped to the little group
around him. "There's money in my inside pocket. Damn the expense! Drinks
round. There's nothing mean about me. I'd drink with you, but I'm going.
Give the doc my share, for he's as good--" Here his head fell back
with a thud, his eye glazed, and the soul of Wolf Tone Maloney, forger,
convict, ranger, murderer, and government peach, drifted away into the
Great Unknown.

I cannot conclude without borrowing the account of the fatal quarrel
which appeared in the column of the _West Australian Sentinel_. The
curious will find it in the issue of October 4,1881:

"Fatal Affray.--W. T. Maloney, a well-know citizen of New
Montrose, and proprietor of the Yellow Boy gambling saloon,
has met with his death under rather painful circumstances.
Mr. Maloney was a man who had led a checkered existence, and
whose past history is replete with interest. Some of our
readers may recall the Lena Valley murders, in which he
figured as the principal criminal. It is conjectured that
during the seven months that he owned a bar in that region,
from twenty to thirty travelers were hocussed and made away
with. He succeeded, however, in evading the vigilance of
the officers of the law, and allied himself with the
bushrangers of Bluemansdyke, whose heroic capture and
subsequent execution are matters of history. Maloney
extricated himself from the fate which awaited him by
turning Queen's evidence. He afterward visited Europe, but
returned to West Australia, where he has long played a
prominent part in local matters. On Friday evening he
encountered an old enemy, Thomas Grimthorpe, commonly known
as Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury.

"Shots were exchanged, and both were badly wounded, only
surviving a few minutes. Mr. Maloney had the reputation of
being not only the most wholesale murderer that ever lived,
but also of having a finish and attention to detail in
matters o