men of Birralong, looking sheepishly at one another,
fidgeted uneasily as Marmot took up the letter.

A selector's boy, riding into sight at the moment, was hailed.

"Take that out to Cold-blood Slaughter at the Three-mile, and I'll give
you a shilling when you come back," Marmot said; and the boy rode off.

Then they sat, wherever there was shade, and waited, uneasy lest the
quick-tongued Ailleen should again swoop down upon them with anger which
they knew was just, and yet unable to do otherwise than wait, if only to
see whether Slaughter would come, and what he would do when he did come.

A cloud of dust rapidly advancing along the road was the first
intimation of his approach, and as it came nearer they caught the sound
of the galloping horse. He rode right up to the school-house gate and
jumped out of the saddle. Marmot and his companions gathered round the
gate as though to intercept him, till they saw his face. Then they fell
back, and made way for him as he strode up the path towards the
cottage, following him with their eyes, silent before the fascination of
the terrible expression on his face. They were men whose minds worked
slowly and in stolid grooves; men who pondered heavily over the prosaic
occurrences which made up the monotonous routine of their lives; men who
had no grasp of more subtle phenomena than those which formed the
ordinary sequence of events in the restricted limits of their
commonplace experiences. How, then, could they grasp in a moment, let
alone comprehend, the sudden transformation of Slaughter from a soured
and indifferent man to one of keen, quick, resolute character, whose
tightly closed lips and lowering brow only emphasized the flash and
glitter of his eyes?

They watched him as he passed up the pathway, with a stride and a swing
so different from his ordinary listless dawdle. They heard the sound of
his heavy tread on the boards of the cottage verandah. Then there was a
silence, and the heavy wits of each of the waiting men strove to grasp
sufficient of the spectacle to put his thoughts into words and ask for
his comrades' help to understand. But before that could be done
Slaughter again appeared coming down the pathway. He walked towards
them, the frown gone from his face, and his eyes wide open and staring.
A yard from them he stopped.

"He's dead," he exclaimed, in a hard, strained voice. "Dead--and I was
too late."

The first words roused their interest, the last touch