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 CORNELL 
 
 U N^l, V B R S I T Y 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Gift of 
 
 Susan Williams Beelick 
 Class of 1961 
 
The Snare of Strength 
 
 EX LIBRIS - LIONEL STONE 
 
 This booFs only out 
 
 on walkabout 
 It must be back for 
 
 the muster. 
 
mew 6s. BovelB 
 
 THE MAN 
 
 By Bram Stoker 
 
 SUSAN WOOED AND SUSAN WON 
 By Emma Brooke 
 
 THE CONQUEST OF JERUSALEM 
 
 By MvRiAM Harry 
 
 THE IMAGE IN THE SAND 
 By E. F. Benson 
 
 A DARK LANTERN 
 
 By Elizabeth Robins 
 
 THE FOOL ERRANT 
 
 By Maurice Hewlett 
 
 London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 20 & 21 Bedford Street, W.C. 
 
The 
 
 Snare of Strength 
 
 By 
 
 Randolph Bedford 
 
 London 
 Wilham Heinemann 
 1905 
 
/^%x 
 
 i^AC^. 
 
 T&is Edition enjoys copyri^^i in 
 all countries signatory to the Berne 
 Treaty, and is not to be imported 
 into the United States of America 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ' Some are born gladiators : all women are not Griseldas ; there 
 are men, by St. Thomas, who cannot live like bees.' 
 
 The three men, infatuated with the beauty of their 
 world, stood for a moment on the yellow sands, half 
 an hour after the dawn. The Pacific was true to 
 its name that day: the sea ran violet from eye to 
 horizon, except upon the last shoreward dozen feet 
 of beach, where it broke into suds, but never reached 
 spray. 
 
 Behind them, in the Bush, the honeysuckle-trees were 
 pressed upon by waratah shrubs, flaming their great 
 red clubs against the bloom of honeysuckle, yellow 
 and shaped like the brush of a chimney-sweep ; flanne- 
 flower and native rose splashed the green of leaf and 
 the dead- white of sand with wool-white and pink and 
 lavender, as frequently as the scanty wheat of Maremman 
 fields is gouted with poppies. Behind the sand-spit, 
 white on the dunes and yellow on the shore, showed 
 the smoke of an early steamer from Manly Beach to 
 Circular Quay ; and far away a blue mistiness, that 
 might have been the smoke of Sydney and might have 
 been the haze that promises heat. 
 
 ' God ! it's good to be young,' said Gifford, the 
 darkest man of the three, over middle height, but not 
 
 I 
 
2 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 too tall to be of great strength ; fleshy and powerful ; 
 dark-eyed and dark-haired. His were the big nose of 
 energy, an under-lip full and melting, a chin of resolu- 
 tion, and a neck of pride. 
 
 ' Good ? I'll race a hundred yards under the record,' 
 said Daven, crouching for the start. 
 
 'At you!' said Frank Abbey, a big, fair, yellow- 
 haired man, of less resolution and of slower strength 
 than Gifford. 
 
 'Go!' 
 
 Abbey and Daven ran so fast that their sinews 
 smoked, Gifford winning easily. They strolled back to 
 their clothes, three men as splendid as the day and as 
 natural, with all the tailor's shells of them piled on a 
 heap of dried seaweed, and feeling all the joy of the 
 healthy man in being naked in sunlight. 
 
 They raced into the water — Gifford's face burned to 
 olive from brow to neck, his arms blackened to the 
 elbow where the shirt had not protected him from many 
 years of sun, and his white body glistening strangely in 
 contrast ; Daven, brown as a berry from neck to feet, 
 by reason of swimming every day under strong suns, 
 and peculiarly fair of face ; and, last of them to enter 
 the sea, Abbey, the slow sun-god, his eyes blue as the 
 water and his hair as yellow as the shore. 
 
 There were two white flashes in the water, that 
 below the surface became green in depth, and one 
 brown flash that was always ahead. The brown flash 
 was Daven, swimming like a fish and diving like a 
 Maori of Coromandel. 
 
 Gifford swam in water just deep enough for the 
 rollers to lift him from the sands as they came inshore; 
 Abbey joined him, and Daven floated nigh. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 3 
 
 ' Better than Melbourne, this, George,' said Abbey. 
 
 ' That's right. Melbourne's the place to work in ; 
 Sydney is the place for play.' 
 
 Daven rolled on his side, shouted ' Come on, you 
 duffers ! I'll make the pace,' and led the way seaward 
 with an overarm stroke six feet long from the tips of the 
 fingers of the hand at the beginning of the stroke to 
 below his thigh at the end of it. He slipped through 
 the water silently ; Abbey followed, and Gifford came 
 last, swimming easily, and made languorous by the 
 divine air and the warmth of the sea. 
 
 As they swam over a shoal Gifford stopped suddenly, 
 floated motionless, and called them. 
 
 ' Come back, boys,' he said with an apparently un- 
 necessary quietness. ' See that ?' 
 
 The other two floated by him, and looked to where 
 he pointed, an object that looked like a dead seaweed 
 lying on the yellow sand, plainly visible in the lucent 
 water — a black and flattened star. 
 
 'What is it, Giff— weeds?' 
 
 ' Not so loud. That's an octopus. What's the depth 
 of the water here, Daven ?' 
 
 The expert calculated the deceptive element, and 
 said : 
 
 ' Under six feet.' 
 
 ' Then he's mine,' said Gifford, and led the way to 
 shore. 
 
 ' What are you going to do, Giff?' 
 
 ' Stick him with a spear and get him ashore.' 
 
 ' He might be too big for you.' ^• 
 
 ' No fear ; his suckers are only a foot long. You 
 fellows stay and see he doesn't go away.' 
 
 ' It's no use, Jack,' said Abbey as Gifford reached the 
 
 1—2 
 
4 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 beach and ran like a madman into the scrub ; ' he'll 
 have his own way.' 
 
 ' He always did as long as I've known him,' replied 
 Daven, ' so we'll talk to the pretty cocky.' 
 
 The ■ pretty cocky ' lay motionless on the sandy sea- 
 floor, its parrot beak lifted a little, and regarded them 
 with malevolent eyes. 
 
 ' A foot-long sucker is quite enough,' pursued Abbey. 
 ' It means nearly a three-foot reach, once he's got a 
 hold.' 
 
 Gifford's nude figure gleamed white, like a statue, in 
 the scrub. He ran across the dunes with a tough new 
 growth of honeysuckle in his hand, stopped at the pile 
 of clothes, took a clasp-knife from a pocket, opened 
 the knife and sharpened the stake as he ran to the 
 beach, galloped through the shoal water, put the stake 
 in his mouth, and swam out to the sandbank, where 
 Daven and Abbey watched the octopus. The three 
 were fired with the cruel instincts of the hunter now ; 
 the cruelty that belongs to strength. 
 
 Gifford floated for a moment over the black star on the 
 sand ; then he rose in the water, threw himself to the 
 bottom, and struck. At the moment his white body 
 parted the green transparency the octopus ejected a 
 stream of sepia and attempted to escape in the liquid 
 darkness. But it was too late. The stake transfixed its 
 palpitating body through membrane and cuttle, and 
 Gifford came to the surface again, triumphant. He 
 laughed as he held the stake at arm's-length, and swam 
 through the deep water to the inner shoal, while the 
 stricken fish-animal's tentacles reached and felt for the 
 flesh of its destroyer, and found the destroyer's arm an 
 inch too far away. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 5 
 
 In the shoal Gifford threw stake and octopus far up 
 the sand. 
 
 The three men ran ashore and again impaled the 
 octopus, which had wriggled off the spear. They were 
 as primitive as their nakedness; their nudity, their 
 strength, the hunting and the fight had stripped from 
 them the last vestige of civilization. Here was an 
 enemy scotched already and now to be killed. They 
 stooped around it and laughed — three splendid savages 
 exultant over the fallen ; man suddenly discovering his 
 dominion over the beasts, as in the beginning of the 
 world. 
 
 ' Turn him inside out, Giff,' said Daven. 
 
 The phlegmatic Abbey laughed and applauded. 
 
 Gifford withdrew the stake, and two arms of the 
 octopus fastened on the arm of the man, one squirmed 
 around his thigh, and a fourth tried for a hold on his 
 waist. Gifford laughed, enjoying the struggle, seized 
 the body of the octopus, and fastened it over its own 
 head ; but though the parrot beak disappeared in the 
 folds of the clammy body, the suction of the tentacles 
 grew oppressive ; and with a cry of anger he tore one 
 from his arm, and left a spiral track of red — the 
 blood beginning to ooze. 
 
 Daven made a movement of assistance, but Gifford 
 said : 
 
 ' It's a fair fight ; let me alone.' 
 
 He doubled the body over itself, so that the octopus 
 was in darkness, and tightened its grip, securing another 
 hold with another tentacle, and waving the other four 
 for something to cling to. 
 
 Then Gifford said something under his breath, and 
 tore at the constricting folds, only to find himself again 
 
6 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 seized. At last he went on his knees on the sand, 
 thrust the stake into the octopus again, and held him, 
 and by a great effort of strength and at the cost of 
 pain tore himself from the cirrous embraces and 
 stepped back — free ; but spiralled on arm and thigh and 
 breast with livid marks as of a giant's whip, and blood- 
 streaked where the suction had lasted longest. 
 
 ' Licked him !' 
 
 ' Good man, Giff !' 
 
 ' Seems a bit cruel,' said Abbey, whose civilization 
 was deepest rooted. 
 
 ' Cruel be hanged ! Snake, shark, octopus, or crow 
 — they are our natural enemies,' replied Gifford. 
 
 ' Frank would like to be kind to a bulldog-ant,' 
 supplemented Daven ; and he grinned as if he knew a 
 contradiction for his own words. 
 
 ' Not much,' said Abbey very quickly. ' I'd kill every 
 bull-ant in the world.' 
 
 N.B. — He had been badly bitten a few weeks before, 
 and his Christianity failed to anything that hurt him. 
 
 ' You're marked, old man.' 
 
 ' He was a terror for his size. Good job he wasn't 
 the Kraken. . . . I'll swim against either of you.' 
 
 ' You've no chance,' replied Daven, bounding to the sea. 
 
 The three heads were invisible for a moment in the 
 deep water, reappeared, and settled down to the work, 
 with its inevitable result of the two being beaten by the 
 brown man. 
 
 Gifford dived and gave up the race, and called to 
 Abbey : 
 
 ' It's no use trying to beat a man-fish, Frank.' 
 
 Well had they named him. The brown body slipped 
 tirelessly through the green — the amphibious man as 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 7 
 
 mobile as the mobile element, that was familiar to him 
 as the land. 
 
 They swam in circles for half a mile, and then 
 headed to the shore. The sun had doubled his 
 strength in that half-hour; and the three lay on the 
 hot sand as happy as cats before a fire. 
 
 ' Purr a bit for me, Giff,' said Daven. ' You've the 
 most energy.' 
 
 ' Can't purr ; ask Frank.' 
 
 ' Me ! I'm too lazy to turn over when I'm done on 
 one side,' said Abbey. 
 
 Gifford's laziness did not last long. He arose and 
 ran about the beach, and rolled in the sand, and 
 washed himself clean in the sea, and then stood on 
 Abbey's back and addressed Daven and the writhing 
 octopus as ' Gentlemen and fellow-electors,' finding his 
 speech cut short by the human hustings moving and 
 overthrowing him. 
 
 'Sit down, you energetic devil!' said Daven — 'sit 
 down and be a Christian !' 
 
 ' Not much of a Christian about him,' said Abbey ; 
 ' he's a Greek. Where's your pipe, Mr. Pan ?' 
 
 ' Good idea !' replied Gifford. He went to his 
 clothes, took his pipe and tobacco from a pocket, 
 remembered the knife he had dropped at the water's 
 edge, and called to Daven : ' Bring the knife, Jack ; 
 it's in the sand by my track.' 
 
 ' All right ; bring my pipe, too.' 
 
 ' And mine, old man,' said Abbey. 
 
 Daven went down the beach burlesquing the methods 
 of a black tracker, pretending great acumen in finding 
 the footmarks which the moist sand had made plain 
 enough to be felt by the feet of the searcher. 
 
8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 The three sprawled again, smoked luxuriously, and 
 Gifford spoke at intervals. 
 
 ' What's the next move, boys ? What are we going 
 to do to keep ourselves young? Where's the next 
 fight ?' 
 
 ' At the next rush.' 
 
 ' I know that ; but where's the rush to be ?' 
 
 ' North Australia's the only place.' 
 
 ' The Central might be,' said Abbey. 
 
 ' No fear ; we know too much about it.' 
 
 ' That's right. If there's too much evidence there 
 can't be much faith.' 
 
 ' First Broken Hill, then Zeehan, then Westralia ; and 
 the whole three are too old for anything but the share 
 market now. Then two or three duffer rushes; they 
 put the Central country out of court.' 
 
 • True bill, that. So it's the North.' 
 
 ' And it mightn't come for years,' said Gifford 
 gravely ; for he lusted for new worlds. 
 
 ' Well, while you're waiting, go into business.' 
 
 ' Business ? I ? No fear, 'old man !' 
 
 ' There's a General Election in Victoria in a few 
 months : tackle that,' said Daven. 
 
 ' He's at it again. He has politics on the brain.' 
 
 ' Well, I know I have. It's a game that means 
 fighting for a man — a real man.' 
 
 ' But only a lot of doddering old men to fight with.' 
 
 'You'd get rid of 'em in time, and young enemies 
 would take their places.' 
 
 ' But it's all a joke. What do you think of it, Frank ?' 
 
 ' Not in my line,' replied Abbey, luxuriously in- 
 dolent. ' Leave it to the old men ; they're fit for nothing 
 else.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 9 
 
 ' That's the cry of the lazy man all over,' said Daven 
 heatedly. ' Leave government to the old men, and 
 you get bad government. Why, a young fellow of 
 twenty, even if he hasn't got a penny, has a bigger 
 stake in a country than a millionaire of seventy. When 
 these old chaps know they haven't got long to live, 
 what do they care if the country goes to pot ? They 
 know it will last their time.' 
 
 'That's true,' said Gifford, more thoughtfully. 
 ' Almost thou persuadest me, John the Baptist. I think 
 I'll try politics if a new field doesn't open soon ; just to 
 keep my fingers from picking and stealing.' 
 
 Daven was almost excited ; he loved politics, and he 
 had a tremendous admiration for his friend. 
 
 ' Do, old man,' he said, ' and I'll be your secre- 
 tary for a start. Only don't look on it as a joke, as you 
 do everything else.' 
 
 ' It's all a joke, JaCk. Life's a joke.' He rose, saying, 
 ■ Come on. The sun's half baked me : we'll give the 
 Pacific another treat, and then away to breakfast.' 
 
 They followed him, and the brown shape swam again 
 ahead of the white figure of Abbey that swam before 
 the ivory body of Gifford, barred and banded by the 
 grip of the octopus. 
 
 Abbey and Daven returned soon to shore, and dressed, 
 calling frequently to Gifford to do likewise; but he 
 revelled in the sea, and they were ready for civilization 
 before he came to the inner shoal and danced up the 
 beach. 
 
 ' He's like a kid, Frank,' said Daven, watching him 
 admiringly : ' wants to go to bed the last and be up 
 in the morning first, and never leave the game while it 
 lasts.' 
 
10 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' It's his one fault, Jack ; he wants to take too much 
 out of life.' 
 
 The object of the friendly criticism ran a race with 
 himself to dry his skin in the moving air, returned 
 panting, and dressed himself in great haste ; and the 
 three mates lit their pipes and scaled the dunes. 
 
 The roofs of Manly and the marvellous harbour and 
 the hazy domes of Sydney moved into view. On a 
 gable ahead a blaze of bougainvillaea and flame-tree 
 challenged a violet burgeoning of jacaranda; the sun 
 leaped higher, and drove the haze away. 
 
 ' Hey !' cried Gifford, dancing down the slope, ' the 
 day will go, but it's morning yet 1 I praise the gods.' 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 ' When there is no war in thine own country, get thee with great 
 haste into another.' 
 
 A FEW months later Gifford sat writing in his study at 
 Brighton, overlooking Port Phillip Bay. The multi- 
 plicity of his occupations and half-occupations was in 
 evidence on the walls and bookshelves : a picture 
 jostling a framed ' Miner's Right '; an aneroid on a 
 camera ; a sectional plan of a mine, and a very dirty 
 draft manuscript of some fearful and wonderful verse, 
 made almost illegible by alteration and erasure ; a 
 telegraph code book between an Ovid and a Rabelais ; 
 Carne's ' Copper Mining Industry ' and a Bible ; 
 Church- Peterson's ' Nervous and Mental Diseases ' and a 
 Tennyson ; ' Copper Smelting ' sandwiched with Shake- 
 speare and the ' Romance of Engineering.' For this 
 man was greedy and assimilative ; swallowing all know- 
 ledge, and on the whole digesting it not ill. He had 
 the truly seeing eye in his head and the true romance 
 in his soul ; but his gift of impression was greater than 
 his capacity of expression, and so he had written very 
 many verses with conventional rhymes, such as ' dove,' 
 ' love,' and ' prove,' and ' above,' in them, and was only 
 saved by his self-criticism. 
 
 He sat at his desk restively, enduring but impatient ; 
 
12 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 like a proud horse tortured by a bearing-rein ; for the 
 hoped-for new field was still in the future, and there 
 was nought to do. 
 
 A beautiful, placid, dark woman, who looked not 
 more than thirty-five years, and was fifty-five, sat in a 
 low chair, and pretended to be engaged in drawing the 
 threads of a little square of silk. Her tall, slight figure 
 was full of peace as it rested in the chair. She drew a 
 thread, and looked at her son for a minute; drew 
 another thread, and looked again — a gaze of pride and 
 adoration. It had all the maternal protectiveness in it, 
 but also the proprietary joy of a lover ; and as the man 
 of twenty-seven had lived so quickly and stuffed his 
 life with so many experiences and so much effort that 
 he looked all his years, a stranger might easily have 
 made the mistake of not seeing the pride of the mother 
 and appreciating only the love-glances. 
 
 It was more than mother-love, because her husband 
 had died — killed by an accident — when the child was 
 but a month old. The horror of that sudden introduc- 
 tion to the fact that life is a shambles to many, had 
 transferred the wifely affection to the infant, so that it 
 doubled the mother-love. 
 
 Gifford pulled down the roller-top of the desk, and leaned 
 back in his chair. His mother looked up immediately. 
 
 ' Tired, George ?' 
 
 ' Tired of doing nothing, mother ; this loafing is 
 killing work.' 
 
 ' Mr. Daven says you ought to go into politics.' 
 
 ' That would be dull, too.' 
 
 ' Don't seek for action so much, dear.' 
 
 ' Won't it be time for me to settle down in another 
 ten years ?' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 13 
 
 ' I suppose so, George. You must have what you 
 wish for, or else you'll be unhappy. And you want to 
 fight. So Mr. Daven is coming this afternoon ?' 
 
 ' Is he ? Good old Jack !' 
 
 ' I asked him to come and ' 
 
 ' Persuade me to stand for election ?' 
 
 She looked up smiling and blushing, so that her 
 unlined face was exaggerated to yoUthfulness. 
 
 ' Yes, dear. I suppose I was sly, wasn't I ?' 
 
 ' You — sly ? You're the most transparent in motive 
 of anybody on earth.' 
 
 ' That's bitter and sweet : it flatters my honesty and 
 discounts my tact.' 
 
 ' You haven't tact except in the honest, kindly sense, 
 mother, and a good job, too. I don't like diplomatic 
 people. Force is the best diplomacy.' 
 
 ' It is the most honest, but sometimes hurts itself. 
 And there's John now.' 
 
 She nodded and smiled as the brown-faced man 
 passed the window, and the bare peach-trees dripped 
 rain on him. 
 
 ' You're the only one who ever called him John. 
 We all say Jack.' 
 
 She replied, with all the finicky inconsistency of 
 woman : 
 
 ' You do, but it would be too familiar if I were to 
 call him anything but John.' 
 
 Daven entered with the freedom of an old friend, 
 which he was and more ; for he and Gifford, and in a 
 lesser, degree Abbey, had faced long odds many times 
 together: had been rich together, and become poor 
 again in company ; had followed together rush after 
 rush, and had made camp and broken camp so often 
 
14 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 that cities were strange and unwelcome to them ; 
 because in a city were their family ties, and families 
 separate men of the track. 
 
 Mother and son greeted him with a quiet pleasure 
 that showed how much he was to them ; and he said, 
 as he said always, that he would ' take tea, thanks, 
 Mrs. Gifford,' and he would ' have a whisky, George '; 
 and he would smoke a pipe, and that the tobacco should 
 be from Gifford's pouch. And these preliminaries 
 being settled, he talked politics, his eyes brightening 
 as he proceeded ; for he loved the Bush first, Gifford 
 second, Abbey third, and politics fourth. After these 
 he had only likings ; although there was a certain little 
 curved, Titianesque-haired woman he had thought a 
 good deal of; but, not being sure of securing her, his 
 philosophical nature did not allow him to go too far 
 with a forlorn hope. 
 
 ' Nothing new. Jack ?' 
 
 ' No new country, if you mean that, George.' 
 
 ' He's very restless, isn't he, John ?' 
 
 ' He's just right, Mrs. Gifford. Don't let anybody 
 alter him.' 
 
 ' And how will the election go, John ?' 
 
 ' Against the Government, I think. I came here to 
 ask George to run for my old district — you know, 
 Korringajork. I was born up there.' 
 
 ' Is that near Ballarat, John ?' 
 
 'Yes; half-mining, half-farming place. My father 
 had a mine there that killed him at last. I've got a 
 show up there myself : it's rich and dangerous.' 
 
 ' Is that the alluvial mine George is in ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; we're partners in it ; and if George will run the 
 old member this trip, he'll beat him.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 15 
 
 * Anything to oblige you, mate. I'll have two rounds 
 with him.' 
 
 ' Now, dear, you said there wasn't enough fighting in 
 in it for you.' 
 
 'Fighting? Why, Mrs. Gifford, the next two 
 sessions will be crammed full of fight.' 
 
 ' I must do something, mother — and you ought to 
 give me a chance to change my mind.' 
 
 ' If it will please you, do it. It won't hurt you if you 
 are defeated.' 
 
 ' We've had too many lickings not to be used to it. 
 Haven't we. Jack ?' 
 
 * My word, old man ! but don't laugh at things. 
 Don't look on it all as a huge joke. Take yourself 
 seriously, and we'll win.' 
 
 ' I'll begin to believe in myself from this minute. Jack.' 
 
 * And I know the country, so we'll take it on together. 
 I'll be secretary.' 
 
 ' Thanks, old man.' 
 
 'And in six weeks you'll be Member for Korringa- 
 jork !' 
 
 ' I'm sure of it,' said Mrs. Gifford, excited by the 
 prospect. ' George will win, and he won't be content 
 to be a nonentity, as some of them are. George will 
 be Premier.' 
 
 ' He shall !' 
 
 ' He'll be Premier before he's been in the House a 
 fortnight, won't he ?' 
 
 ' Well, it's sudden, Mrs. Gifford.' 
 
 ' Give me a month, mother. . . . Oh, you flatterers ! 
 Would you lead a man to destruction ?' 
 
 ' My dear, if there were no conceit, there would be 
 no ambition.' 
 
I6 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' But I'm not conceited — much.' 
 
 ' Because you're not ambitious — much.' 
 
 ' I don't want to be celebrated, mother. I only want 
 to live for ever, and to be strong all the time.' 
 
 ' This is one of the ways to live, you old Jesuit !' said 
 Daven. ' It's all in the game.' 
 
 ' Good ! Then I bind up all my agents to this 
 terrible feat. Where's the whisky ? Here's the health 
 of the Member for Korringajork !' 
 
 ' I second the motion,' said Daven. 
 
 'And I send my best love,' said Gifford's mother. 
 
 ' " Best love " is unparliamentary,' replied Gifford. 
 ' I name the honourable mother.' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ' The comb of bees, the kiss of first love, and water to the thirsty 
 are not so sweet as the smile of the politician before the election.' 
 
 The stolid, hairy-footed horse which drew Daven and 
 the Liberal candidate for Korringajork trotted slowly 
 uphill and downhill and through the mud ; never 
 breaking to a walk or a canter, maintaining the same 
 speed, whether the track were metal, sand, or quag. 
 
 The cold air was stung by misty rain, and Daven 
 buried his hands in his pockets, leaving the stolid horse 
 to drive himself. 
 
 They passed a procession of pigs, of sleepy men 
 driving cartloads of grunting pork, of swearing men 
 driving pigs on foot — pigs that seized every rut as an 
 opportunity for wallowing, and squealed murder as 
 they were beaten to the journey again. 
 
 The candidate looked ahead, and spake : ' My in- 
 tended constituents seem very strong in the pig line. 
 Jack.' 
 
 ' Pigs and lumber, George ; and moss, and farmers 
 who vote Tory. At least it was a big timber place 
 once, but it's nearly cut out. Ballarat used to get all 
 its slabs from here once. . . . You'd have a chance to 
 talk to this chap coming over the ridge ; he's a voter 
 here, and he don't seem in a hurry. Now, don't be 
 
 17 2 
 
i8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 afraid of wasting a ten minutes' speech on him. Catch 
 a fellow like that, and there's more votes behind.' 
 
 The unsuspecting elector approached, to the accom- 
 paniment of his own grunts to the loafing horse he 
 drove and the complaints of the pigs that freighted his 
 waggon. 
 
 ' D'ye know him. Jack ? Introduce me.' 
 
 'I dunno him, but it's all the same. Hey, Mr. 
 Moody !' 
 
 The noisy waggon stopped, and the driver — a wonder- 
 fully dirty man of indeterminate features, made almost 
 unidentifiable by a stubble beard — spat on his horse, 
 and said in a damp voice : 
 
 ' Me name ain't Moody — it's Blake.' 
 
 ' My mistake,' replied the cheerfully irresponsible 
 Jack. ' Mr. Blake it is, of course. This is Mr. Gifford, 
 the Liberal candidate.' 
 
 At first sight it seemed that one of the pigs had 
 escaped to drive the cart, and when the candidate 
 clasped the voter's hand, he thanked the forethought 
 that had decided him in remaining gloved. The owner 
 of the pigs wore much real estate on his hands, and 
 was very amusing when considered as a guanaco. He 
 spat generally over the landscape, and demanded the 
 candidate's political views. 
 
 Gifford was not used to audiences so small. More 
 courage is required to address one man distinctly than 
 to speak confidentially to a thousand — there is safety 
 in numbers. Gifford, in the course of a twenty minutes' 
 statement, made known his views on all subjects within 
 practical politics, and on many things outside the same, 
 always excepting pigs. He dodged that subject in the 
 attempt to be impersonal. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 19 
 
 ' So y's a Lib'ral ?' said Mr. Blake slowly. 
 ' Yes, I'm Liberal.' 
 
 ' Ho ! Well, I don't b'leve in them Lib'rals. They'd 
 take away a man's pigs without judge or jury.' 
 
 * But, my dear sir ' 
 
 ' Nev'ew mind me dear sir.' He spat on the sleeping 
 horse again. ' Me dear sir !' (this with great scorn). 
 ' Take away a man's pigs !' (suddenly ferocious). ' Never 
 mind ' (calmly again). ' Vote for a Liberal ? Not me ' 
 (crescendo and waxing shrill). ' Take away a man's 
 pigs !' 
 
 ' Don't be a fool !' said Gifford good humouredly, 
 startled pleasurably into tonicity. 'The Liberal pro- 
 gramme ' 
 
 ' Never mind no Liberal programme,' said the pig 
 man truculently. ' I vote Free Trade, I do ; an' I don' t 
 vote in this electorate. I vote for Mr. Pursey at 
 Pursey's Springs.' 
 
 Gifford laughed loudly. 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me that you've no vote, and 
 yet you keep me talking here ?' 
 ' Yes, I do. I vote for Pursey.' 
 ' Dam frozen cheek !' said the secretary. 
 ' Nev'ew you mind, I don't want no Liberals. Good- 
 day, mister.' 
 
 He spat over the scenery again, measured the dis- 
 tance carefully, and whipped the sleeping horse on his 
 one cocked ear. The animal awoke with a jerk, and the 
 cart and its grunting freight resumed the journey. 
 
 The secretary was speechless with indignation, but 
 Gifford laughed. 
 ' Don't worry. Jack ; it's all in the game.' 
 ' But an animal like that — taking advice from it.' 
 
 2 — 2 
 
20 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 He threw his head back to indicate the retreating pig- 
 cart. ' Why, he's not good enough to chew liver for 
 orphan bears in a menagerie.' 
 
 They drove on, and the haze deepened as they 
 entered Koomera, a place that at one time had been 
 the home of an active community of foresters, but was 
 now abandoned, and consisted almost exclusively of 
 sawdust. There were miles long by many feet deep 
 of these trophies of the assault of the great circular 
 rip-saws on the sapful trees. All the summer they 
 glowed, and all the winter they smouldered. 
 
 The hotel at Koomera was closed. There were 
 many houses reminiscent of a one-time thriving settle- 
 ment — ugly homes, now being covered by the merciful 
 scrub — and two abandoned churches, one of these with 
 a new gum-tree growing through a displaced sheet of 
 iron in its roof — an illustration of Nature recovering its 
 own from most flagrant art. 
 
 A young man leaned against the horse-rail by the 
 public-house and volunteered information, and, as he 
 seemed to be bursting from long silence, Gifford and 
 his secretary hindered him not. 
 
 ' All the blokes is away at the pig sale at Pursey's 
 Creek, and the women went with 'em. Y' might a 
 seen a finger goin' down the wood driving a cart wif 
 nine pigs in it.' 
 
 He yammered on, and they brought him back with 
 determined politeness to politics. 
 
 ' You're the candidate ! Well, I don't think nufEn' 
 matters about the cove what's member now. He's a 
 hunassumin' kinder cove — never does no 'arm, never 
 does no good. Anyway, there's no Lib'rals these parts 
 now. When the sawmills stopped they 'ad to go away 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 21 
 
 an' get work. Pity yer wasn't 'ere seventeen year ago. 
 Them was the times. Y' could a got in then — flyin'. 
 We sent a bloke in wot was afterwards Governor. 
 Yes, seventeen year ago it 'ud been all right for yer. 
 Less 'n that — fifteen year ago, when the Trunk Lead 
 was workin'. But when they was on the gutter gettin' 
 good gold, in come the water an' flooded 'em out, an' 
 drowned nine miners.' 
 
 ' I propose,' said Gifford, ' to increase the liability of 
 employers.' 
 
 The local man gave the statement less attention than 
 he might have been expected to give to a spider. 
 
 ' Fifteen year ago y'd a been all right — but now ! 
 Not that I take no interest in it. . . . Y' seen that 
 bloke Blake ? Well, that's one o' Jim Crisper's pigs 
 he's got in with his own. Take it from me, that pig'd 
 go over four 'underdweight, stripped. . . . An' y' won't 
 get no meetin' 'ere to-day. There's only thirty votes 
 'ere, and everyone of 'em's at the pig sale.' 
 
 ' So I'll get no votes here ?' said Gifford. 
 
 ' 'Taint likely, b'cause nobody votes when they are 
 'ere. I don't meself. What's the good o' votin' ? If 
 you don't get a bad bloke be the name of Bill, ye get a 
 bad bloke be the name o' Jim. . . . I'd sooner vote f'r 
 them Labour Parties meself.' 
 
 ' Now, with you in a farming community, why ?' 
 
 ' Well, they wouldn't do no harm to us, an' they'd 
 stop old Blake overworkin' his nippers.' 
 
 ' The pig-cart man ?' 
 
 ' Yes, that's 'im. Dirty bloke, ain't 'e ? That's why 
 pigs is never afraid o' 'im — 'e looks like one o' them- 
 selves. Well, he's got a lot o' little kids — steps and 
 stairs — eldest one fourteen. They do all the milkin' an' 
 
22 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the dairy work, an' after that they go to sleep in school, 
 an' the teacher 'e 'its 'em with a cane and wakes 'em 
 up — poor little cows !' 
 
 ' Well, there's nothing to be done here, Jack,' said 
 the candidate, and then to the elector : ' Now this time 
 you'll go to the booth and vote for me, won't you ? 
 My programme's liberal enough, and ' 
 
 'Nev' mindyer programme, mister. I'll vote for yer, 
 an' give y' a start. I wouldn't see no man blocked from 
 gettin' a start. An' I don't care about the other bloke 
 anyway. But it's a pity you wasn't a candidate when 
 all the sawmills was goin' along the crick. I mind the 
 time there was three 'underd men between here and 
 Soapy Hills. See that big pile o' sawdust ? It's been 
 burnin' three year now, and it's a little 'eap. Now, 
 seventeen year ago — that was the time for candidates. 
 Why didn't you come then ?' 
 
 The candidate laughingly replied to the effect that 
 seventeen years ago his interest in life stopped at marbles 
 and stilts ; and as the elector, after stating that some- 
 thing unspecified was a pity, threatened by his de- 
 meanour to wax enthusiastic again in the matter of 
 Crisper's pig, Gifford and the secretary hurriedly left 
 him, stabled the horse in the deserted hotel-yard, and 
 set off through the interminable dewings to walk towards 
 Korringajork. All Dividing-Range men know that the 
 road from anywhere to Korringajork consists almost 
 exclusively of moss. The air was as damp and soft as 
 the earth ; and as during the long walk they rarely spoke, 
 Gifford and the secretary went as softly as cats in a 
 silence that was the silence of a Venetian midnight. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ' Cocker thy child, and he shall make thee afraid ; play with him, 
 and he will bring thee to heaviness. Laugh not with him lest thou 
 have sorrow with him, and lest thou gnash thy teeth in the end. . . . 
 Bow down his neck while he is young, and beat him on the sides 
 while he is a child.' — Killjoy Ecdesiasticus. 
 
 The mist lifted, and the moss made a running fight 
 against the belts of gum that invaded it in little tongues. 
 The wintry dusk found them by a fence corner, and 
 they followed the longer leg down to a great eucalypt 
 which bore a flapping calico sign, apparently extolling 
 a new pig food or a corn-sheller as 'The Farmer's 
 Friend '; but the other side of the tree showed them an 
 election notice, calling on the electors of Korringajork 
 to vote for George Gifford, the farmer's friend aforesaid. 
 
 A little distance from the gum was a hut, a miry 
 entrance to a milking-shed, and about it certain melan- 
 choly cows waiting, wishing that the milking had lasted 
 longer and that the bran-mash had been as long lasting 
 as the milking. Two dirty-legged, barefooted boys and 
 a young slatternly girl in navvy's boots came from the 
 milking-shed, staggering to the weight of great cans 
 that had secured some of the slush in the milking-yard. 
 
 A rusty black dog growled as the candidate and his 
 secretary stopped by the gate, and at the sound a short, 
 
 33 
 
24 THE SNARE OE bTKli-JNUi ti 
 
 hairy, thin-voiced, bent, middle-aged man, with the long, 
 patient, half-foolish face of a plough-horse, came from 
 the shed, and said, ' G'd evenin'.' 
 
 The secretary introduced himself by proxy. 
 ' This is Mr. Gifford, the Liberal candidate.' 
 The hairy farmer extended his hand, withdrew it, 
 studied its want of cleanliness for a moment, and then 
 decided to allow Mr. Gifford to take the risk. 
 ' G'd evenin', mister.' 
 
 ' What's your number on the roll ?' asked the 
 secretary. 
 
 ' Me name's Forby — Tom Forby '; and then half un- 
 willingly, but forced into the hospitality, as he saw that 
 the dusk was too far advanced for the secretary to read 
 the roll, he said haltingly, ' Better come in an' 'ave a 
 cupper tea.' 
 
 The secretary accepted with suspicious alacrity — he 
 had been fishing for the invitation. 
 
 Forby proceeded then to the door and half entered ; 
 then suddenly he seemed bursting with a sense of eti- 
 quette, and backed into the rain again to give precedence 
 to Gifford, so that he stumbled heavily on the feet of 
 the secretary, who said that ' It didn't matter ' in a tone 
 that proved that it mattered very much. 
 
 The living room they entered, with the ancient children 
 — childlike only in their open-mouthed wonder — at their 
 heels, was furnished with a rough table, split and warped 
 by sun and water ; a broken-backed form with a Bible 
 rest behind it, to prove that it had originally served in a 
 church, and four American chairs with impossible red 
 apples japanned on their backs. A big log fire blazed 
 in the wide chimney, and over the fire two great pots 
 hung from cruel-looking hooks. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 25 
 
 Art was represented by a patchwork of newspaper 
 illustrations ; the only framed decoration a certificate, 
 stating that ' Thomas Forby, grazier, was a member of 
 the Goorambat branch of the Reform League.' 
 
 The children put the milkcans on the floor while they 
 stared at the visitors, whereat Forby told them in a 
 harsh voice to take the milk into the skillion. They 
 did so, straining to the overweight, and carried the milk 
 into a room through whose open door Gifford, with all 
 his senses alive to the novelty, saw the outlines of two 
 stretcher beds made of flour-sacks upon saplings. 
 
 At the discovery of Mr. Forby's milk-cooling room 
 being also a bedroom, Gifford's hypercritical love of 
 cleanliness, already insulted by the smell of poverty- 
 dirt, revolted ; so that but for the secretary's touch on his 
 arm, which meant ' Remember, there's a vote here,' he 
 would have fled the house into the preferable rain. 
 
 A slatternly woman came from another room, and 
 cuffed a small boy who was digging the dirt out of the 
 table cracks with a nail, and Forby introduced her. 
 
 ' This is the candidate,' and as an afterthought, 
 ' This is his seketry.' 
 
 The lady extended a knotty hand, and said : ' You 
 ain't the ole member ?' 
 
 ' No, I'm not the old member, Mrs. Forby ; I hope 
 to be the new one,' Gifford replied, with that sweet and 
 heavenly smile only known to earth during an election 
 campaign. 
 
 ' Y' might,' said Mrs. Forby encouragingly, so en- 
 couragingly that Gifford said very thankfully : 
 
 ' It's good of you to wish me success.' 
 
 ' Y' might,' repeated Mrs. Forby, but more cautiously, 
 ' an' y' mightn't.' 
 
26 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 'The canderdate 'uU want some tea, mother,' said 
 Forby. 
 
 ' Course they will, course they will. Mag, you go 
 an' take baby : she's squallin'. Williee — where's 
 Williee ?' 
 
 ' Sleepin' ; he said he was tired after milkin', an' he's 
 lyin' down.' 
 
 ' I'll lyin' down 'im!' She darted into the combined 
 bedroom and milk-cooler ; there was the sound of blows 
 and of the voice of a weary child awaking to pain. 
 ' What, yer won't, won't yer ? You're tired, are yer ? 
 An' me payin' fines for yer at the school. Oh ! you 
 won't, eh ? Out with y' ; go ter yer multerplercashun !' 
 
 A thin, freckled boy, too tall to carry his age in 
 comfort, and having outgrown his strength, came half 
 sleepy and wholly miserable from the skillion, and his 
 mother added shame to his pain by beating him on the 
 head in the presence of the strangers. 
 
 He sat down like a criminal, and was cuffed again 
 whenever his mother passed in her work of preparing 
 the table ; covering its dirt with eight pages of the 
 Protestant Standard. At the third cuf&ng he became 
 wholly awake, arose, and from the cupboard took a dog- 
 eared book and a frameless slate — so sticky from spilled 
 treacle and the exploring hands of the baby that writing 
 on it was impossible. 
 
 The boy washed the slate uncomplainingly, and his 
 mother, passing with a piece of corned brisket on a 
 battered plate, cuffed him again in the sacred interests 
 of education and improvement. The boy seated himself 
 at the table again, sighed, looked at the dirty dog- 
 eared book drowsily, and then wrote hieroglyphs on 
 the slate. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 27 
 
 Gifford took a chair by theboy's side and suddenly 
 found that he was on the floor, and that the chair was 
 not a chair, but a weapon. 
 
 Mrs. Forby laughed shrilly as the candidate rose to 
 his feet, and remarked that ' Fallin' was a sign o' bein' 
 successfurl.' Her husband remarked unnecessarily 
 that the chair was not a good one ; but among all 
 those children not one laughed excepting the baby, 
 a child of a year, and not yet old enough to be en- 
 slaved by dairy drudgery. The other children, pale, 
 workworn, and afraid, sat silently in the big chimney, 
 the lanky Mag nursing the child who was happily too 
 young to work ; letting their marvellous fancies rest in 
 the shapes the coals made, making arabesques with 
 their naked chilblained toes — bloated purple by walk- 
 ing barefoot through icy mud — in the feathery warmth 
 of the spent ashes. 
 
 Mrs. Forby barked at Willie again. 
 
 ' Get up, you great big umpcha, and give the gen'lman 
 yer seat ! He'll wonder how you wus brought up.' 
 
 The candidate certainly wondered how the child had 
 so far survived the bringing up, but he said nothing but 
 ' Thank you ' as the weary boy gave him the reliable 
 chair, and patiently balanced himself on the weapon 
 that had overthrown the visitor. 
 
 Gifford moved closer and supported him, and asked 
 him what he was doing. 
 
 ' Sums,' said the boy, turning his eyes, lifeless and 
 without speculation, on Gifford. 
 
 ' He's very clever, if he'd only work,' said Mrs. Forby. 
 
 'What's nine times seven?' demanded Forby, not 
 knowing it himself. 
 
 The child's face spoke mortal terror, and Giiford 
 
28 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 whispered him ' Sixty-three '; but he was so afraid he 
 had no time to hear, and replied, ' Fifty-six.' 
 
 ' Fifty-six, is it ?' asked Mrs. Forby suspiciously. 
 
 The lanky girl in the chimney opened her mouth to 
 speak, a gleam of pleasure at being superior in know- 
 ledge of something flashing through her eyes ; and then 
 she looked at Willie, and her mouth shut tight. 
 
 ' That's right,' said the candidate. 
 
 ' Sure, nine seven's fifty - six,' supplemented the 
 secretary. 
 
 Forby, not from any knowledge, but from a sense ot 
 the general and all-pervading suspicion that Willie had 
 fallen under, regarded his son with a cold eye, and then 
 ordered him to read from the ' pa-a-per,' the Protestant 
 Standard, that did duty as a tablecloth. 
 
 All the terror returned to the boy's eyes. Truly he 
 could not read easily ; the schoolmaster's cane still 
 tingled on his blains in proof of his stupidity — the 
 stupidity that resulted from overwork. 
 
 He selected that portion of the newspaper tablecloth 
 which was nearest the candidate, because it was furthest 
 from his father, and luck gave him a stodgy leading 
 article, loaded with dogma, with crack-jaw words like 
 'predestination,' and 'justification,' and 'tribulation,' 
 which was as horrific to the boy as a frilled lizard at 
 liberty in a boudoir would be to a Duchess. 
 
 In despair he fell back on his old trick, racking the 
 memory that had been starved and stunted by a man's 
 work, reading haltingly till the full phrase came to him : 
 ' Suffer little children to come unter Me.^ ' 'Eav-en is 
 me 'ome.' And then very simply, ' Jesus wept.' 
 
 ' 'S that right ?' asked Mrs. Forby suspiciously, and 
 handing Gifford a plate of beef. 
 
THE SNARE'OF'STRENGTH 29 
 
 He replied quickly : ' Yes ; he reads very well,' and 
 covered the sermon and the crack-jaw words with the 
 plate. Then, to dissipate the last vapour of suspicion, 
 he gave the boy a shilling, and said : ' You're getting 
 on, Willie,' whereat Willie gasped, wondering if his 
 performance had been faithful, and if he had read 
 rightly by accident. 
 
 Forby sat opposite and ate without talking. He was 
 so weary that he had barely sufficient energy for the 
 meal. The landlord who had bought his land from the 
 Government for ten shillings an acre charged Forby 
 four pounds an acre rent, and Forby struggled against 
 the clay-guttedness of his landlord and against his own 
 shiftlessness, and ground his children into the land in 
 the attempt to stay above it. 
 
 The boy made more painful hieroglyphs on the 
 mucilaginous slate, writing with his head laid sideways 
 on the table, and his protruding tongue following the 
 blood-curdling pencil and almost touching the slate. 
 
 ' Your number's one hundred and eighty-four, Mr. 
 Forby,' said the secretary. ' I suppose you're with us ? 
 Mr. Gifford's down on the landlords, believes in com- 
 pulsory purchase, for subdivision, and all that — farmer's 
 friend, y' know.' 
 
 Gifford felt that a prouder title and a more necessary 
 occupation would have been that of 'friend of the 
 farmer's children.' 
 
 Forby replied slowly and painfully : ' Well, I dunno. 
 I'm a member o' the Deform League' — he meant 
 Reform, but he had struck the truth unwittingly — ' an' 
 I don't believe in sosherlism.' 
 
 ' Your railways are socialistic, and so is irrigation.' 
 
 ' I don't want no irrigation,' said Forby truculently. 
 
30 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Let them that wants it pay for it. It rains 'ere six 
 munce outer the twelve.' 
 
 ' But a Liberal Government would throw more land 
 open by compulsory purchase of big estates, and give 
 you a chance to be your own landlord.' 
 
 ' Not me ! I vote Conservative,' said Forby, clinging 
 to the leprosy whose more practical expressions were 
 killing him. ' There is too many Cartholics in the 
 Lib'ral Party, and that's another reason why I don't 
 vote for no Labour Party.' 
 
 The boy had ceased his painful hieroglyphs, and now 
 listened open-mouthed, and his mother, perceiving it, 
 asked him if he were finished. 
 ' Yes, I done it.' 
 
 Gifford looked at the marks on the slate, and dis- 
 covered that Willie had taken the kindly-meant lie as 
 gospel, and that he had recorded that nine times seven 
 amount to fifty-six, and no more. He looked up at 
 Gifford with something like worship in his dull eyes, 
 and Gifford looked down with pity in his own, knowing 
 that Willie would persist in the statement to-morrow 
 on the great authority of the man who had given him 
 the shilling, and that the cane would cut his purple 
 hands again. 
 
 ' If yer done it, yer'd better go to bed ; it's 'arf-past 
 seven now, an' ye've got ter get up at two fer the milk.' 
 ' Poor little chap ! Does he get up at that time ?' 
 asked Gifford. 
 
 ' Yes, 'e 'as ter. Y' see, his father's that tired, an' 
 the milk 'as t' be at the stashun for the Mel'bin train at 
 fourer o'clock.' 
 
 The boy crossed to his mother and said : ' 'Ere's the 
 shillun.' 
 
IGTH 31 
 
 Mrs. Forby reddened. 
 
 ' Whatcher givin' it t' me for ? 'Tain't mine. The 
 canderdate guv it t' yer. I don't want it.' 
 
 The eyes of the children in the chimney protruded at 
 this. They thought it might be true, but Willie knew 
 better. He still tendered the shilling, saying stupidly : 
 
 ' Y'd better take it now. I'd forget t' give it t' you 
 in the mornin'.' 
 
 She raised her hand to strike, but remembered her 
 company manners in time, opened her mouth to speak, 
 closed it without saying anything, and turned on the 
 boy a terrible eye. 
 
 He cowered under the look. He had not cowered at 
 the threatened blow. He was so afraid that he forgot 
 to say good-night to Gifford. He went into the skillion, 
 the childish heart not bursting with the injustice — 
 injustice was too common for that — but dead. He left 
 the door open that he might have light to go to bed by, 
 yet they heard no sound of walking or undressing ; he 
 was so stunned by weariness and shame that his move- 
 ments were as quiet as the retreat of a snake in green 
 grass. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 '•You may humbug some of the people all the time ; and you 
 may humbug all the people some of the time ; but you can't 
 humbug all the people all the time.' — Abe Lincoln. 
 
 ' Good to get away from there, Jack,' said Gifford, 
 striding along with all the new energy his horror of the 
 bitter lives of Forby's children had given him. 
 
 Forby had told them that they would be just in time 
 for the meeting at Korringajork — that meant at his 
 rate of walking. They found the distance to the town- 
 ship was a mile, and the time of their meeting half an 
 hour off; but they seized at the invitation to depart, for 
 the experience had made the secretary irritable and the 
 candidate heartsick. 
 
 ' Forby's against us,' said the secretary. 
 
 ' I'm glad of it. I'd be tempted to quit if that brute 
 supported me.' 
 
 The mist had settled down again, and the air became 
 colder, yet when they came to the place of meeting, 
 which was the billiard-room of the Korringajork Hotel, 
 there were a dozen electors standing under the in- 
 clement sky a few paces from the veranda that would 
 have sheltered them, but superior to the weather, 
 because they were deep in the amusing occupation 
 known as ' argyin' the point.' 
 
 32 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 33 
 
 The secretary introduced the candidate with that 
 open-handedness that distinguishes the secretary of 
 almost every candidate ; invited all to drink, which 
 everybody accepted, each man pretending that he was 
 not drinking at the candidate's expense, and thereby 
 breaking the electoral law. 
 
 ' Y' won't 'ave no meetin' 'ere till ten o'clock,' said 
 the publican. ' The chairman's the President o' the 
 Shire, an' he's away at the pig sale, an' there's fifteen 
 Eytalian charcoal-burners 'ere, an' they won't be 'ere 
 before nine. All o' 'em's got votes.' 
 
 He beckoned them out of the bar with a series of 
 mysterious winks, and not until they were safely in his 
 bedroom did he speak, and then it was in a husky whisper : 
 
 ' I don't know what yer views was at Goorambat, 
 but at Korringajork y've got to be agin sendin' any 
 more contingents to the Boer War.' 
 
 ' I am against that everywhere.' 
 
 ' Good again ! that's fust rate. We've been agin it 
 right here from the start.' 
 
 The Italian and other charcoal-burners arrived earlier 
 than was expected. All the farmers likely to attend a 
 Liberal's meeting had already arrived. They slouched 
 into the billiard-room in shamefaced silence ; they 
 seated themselves on the form as if they had all been 
 found guilty of murder, and as if the candidate were 
 the Sheriff, about to ask them if they had anything to 
 say before being hanged. 
 
 The meeting waited in silence, and the mist gave 
 place to a denser rain that pattered musically on the 
 iron roof. Then entered the schoolmaster, argumenta- 
 tively intoxicated, his overcoat steaming as he stood by 
 the fire, 
 
 3 
 
34 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 He regarded the candidate sternly as if he had caught 
 him in theft, and he was about to punish the meeting 
 with a speech on the promotion of somebody in the 
 Education Department, when a bull voice roared 
 outside. 
 
 The owner of the voice entered, dripping water on 
 the way. Their noses told the candidate and the 
 secretary that the bull-voiced man had been to the pig 
 sale — several pig sales — and the bull voice roared at 
 them that he was ' Presedin' o' the Shire o' Goorambat.' 
 
 The schoolmaster received the information con- 
 temptuously, stating in polychromatic language that 
 he didn't care if the bull-voiced man were President of 
 Hell ; but the President was too full of importance to 
 hear anything unflattering, and began a speech intro- 
 ductory of the candidate — a speech that lasted half an 
 hour — while audience and secretary fidgeted in their 
 seats. The candidate seized all the humour of it ; he 
 had begun the campaign seriously enough, but the 
 pretence and injustice had wearied him, and now the 
 comic seriousness of it all made him regard all politics 
 as a huge joke, which they mainly are. 
 
 The bull-voiced pig farmer was so inspired by the 
 glory of his own position as chairman, and by the rum 
 he had taken at the pig sale and on the road, that he 
 lied fearsomely. He appreciated, he told the meeting 
 (but in no such common words as are here used to 
 report him), the honour of being chairman to the 
 candidate, whom he untruthfully stated he had known 
 from childhood. He could sympathize with the candi- 
 date, although the mean and ignorant persons of the 
 audience might not be able so to do. He had felt 
 the pangs of public life; he was a public man. He 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 35 
 
 had been for two months President of the Shire of 
 Goorambat. He and the candidate were the only two 
 public men there present. 
 
 At this last the schoolmaster, who was Premier in 
 the local Mock Parliament, whenever he was sober 
 enough to lead, snorted violently. 
 
 The bull-voiced man maundered for half an hour, 
 and then the candidate wearied of him, and stopped 
 him forcibly; and the audience applauded, more for 
 the eclipse of the pig farmer than in welcome of the 
 politician. 
 
 Gifford addressed them on land laws and closer 
 settlement, and various other things, with a subtle 
 suggestion running through all his speech that he, 
 Gifford, was the millennium, although he never spoke 
 directly of himself. In this is contained the law of the 
 profits of the politician. Through it all the chairman 
 supplemented and interrupted with short statements 
 about himself, public life, the fierce light that beat 
 about the throne of the President of the Shire Ox 
 Goorambat, the Pursey's River pig sale, and the advan- 
 tages of a classical education. 
 
 The schoolmaster sniffed at this last statement. 
 
 ' Education !' he said ; ' where did you find it ? In 
 the pig-sty?' 
 
 The President answered curtly but half afraid : 
 
 ' I knoo Latin afore you was born.' 
 
 The secretary demanded silence for his principal, but 
 the schoolmaster muttered like a soaped geyser before 
 the soap has had its full effect. During the meeting 
 the two snarled at one another, and the candidate's 
 peroration was lost in the bull roar of the chairman 
 on the subject of Latin and the shuffling of many 
 
 3—2 
 
36 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 bluchered feet steering for the bar. The secretary 
 followed them and paid for drinks, and then escorted 
 his principal to bed. 
 
 ' There's Pro-Boers here, and there's Baptists and 
 Orangemen, and you must keep clear of it all, and the 
 pig chairman and the schoolmaster will be at each 
 other's throats before daylight. 
 
 Gifford went to bed, but not to sleep. For an hour 
 the President of the Shire of Goorambat and the 
 schoolmaster wrangled over the meaning of ' aqua ' 
 and ' homo ' and other abstruse words, and at 4 a.m. 
 the little fiery black-moustached schoolmaster fell on 
 the bulky President and beat him into clamorous 
 howls. 
 
 A perfervid Imperialist sang ' Gord save our grayshers 
 Que-en !' and a charcoal-burner of Republican tendencies 
 struck him once, and stopped the music. 
 
 When Gifford and the secretary drove off at daylight 
 to pick up the express to Melbourne, the President of 
 the Shire of Goorambat sat on the veranda nursing 
 a very black eye and swollen cheek, but still swearing 
 with alcoholic solemnity that ' he knew Latin before 
 anybody was born.' 
 
 From the scrub came the cooees of wandering in- 
 toxicated charcoal-burners, lost in the perplexities of 
 the black woods and the wattles. 
 
 ' It was a bad meeting, Jack,' said Gifford. ' There '11 
 be very few votes for us at Korringajork.' 
 
 ' You never know,' replied the oracular Jack ; ' you 
 never know.' 
 
 At two miles from Pursey's Creek the mist lifted just 
 in time to save them from collision with a sleepful 
 horse, who drew a light waggon very slowly, going at 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 37 
 
 his own pace in his own direction, as his driver had 
 tied the reins to the brake and slept. 
 
 The secretary shouted to him, in damnation of his 
 carelessness, and the weary head lifted a little and then 
 fell again, too full of sleep to be troubled by less than 
 an earthquake. It was the boy of Forby's returning 
 from his midnight journey to the station with the last 
 night's milk. 
 
 In the train Gifford met his opponent, ' the ol' 
 member,' and that gentleman was so pleased with his 
 receptions by the electors, that he felt compelled to tell 
 Gifford how often and how loudly and how long he 
 had been cheered, and at that Gifford felt he had 
 embarked on a forlorn hope. 
 
 But politics produces queer anomalies. When the 
 polling day came, the old member found that he had 
 received all the cheers, and that the new candidate had 
 nearly all the votes. Gifford was declared elected as 
 member of the Legislative Assembly for the electorate 
 of Korringajork. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ' He was once a Mayor, but rose to be a hangman,' 
 
 GiFFORD, with three other Parliamentary colts, had 
 taken the oath, had moved the Address in Reply in 
 a speech covering all things from Protection to the 
 necessity for a new necropolis, and had barely achieved 
 ease in bobbing to the Speaker during an exit from the 
 Chamber, when the Conservative Opposition, filled with 
 the desire to carry out the noble duty of succeeding to 
 the salaries of the Treasury Bench, joyfully counted 
 heads, and discovered a majority of six. 
 
 In another week the neophytes were sitting in Opposi- 
 tion, released from the hard work of excusing the mis- 
 deeds of one Government, for the easy and pleasurable 
 occupation of criticising all the acts, good and bad, of 
 another. 
 
 The new Government was a marvellous thing — 
 forced into power, partly by the property vote and 
 partly by a newspaper that insisted on Cabinet rank 
 for its own small family solicitor ; headed by a lawyer, 
 who was supposed to be strong because he was so 
 unhuman that he had no human weaknesses. The 
 weaknesses of a man are most evident, and public 
 opinion searching for these, found them not, and finding 
 
 38 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 39 
 
 them not, accepted without inquiry the strength which 
 did not exist. 
 
 The frigid Premier's colleagues had been carefully 
 selected, so that there should be only one King in the 
 asylum for the blind. The Attorney- General was 
 selected because of his bitterness to all other religions 
 than the right one, which was the right one because it 
 was his, and which was his because it was dominant. 
 The Minister for Education had first been a bacon- 
 curer, and then a suburban Mayor, and then a Member 
 of Parliament. His rise — or fall — from more or less 
 honest bacon-curing to more or less dishonest politics 
 would have been nothing against him had he not 
 succeeded to the habits of the hogs he had slain. The 
 portfolio of Education had been given to him probably 
 that he might attend to his own ; yet so little did he 
 know, even of his original occupation, that he spelt 
 ' pigs ' with two ' g's.' 
 
 The other members of the Ministry were make- 
 weights. A gentleman, very estimable as a Rechabite, 
 but otherwise valueless, was made Minister for Mines, 
 because he represented a country district where he was 
 safe, although his only knowledge of mining consisted 
 in having once lost twenty pounds in a lignite syndicate. 
 
 The Treasurer was a city representative, and his 
 reputation as a financier rested on the fact that in the 
 last land boom, although he could not keep his own 
 money, he was able to lose other people's also, and in a 
 way that called loudly for imprisonment. 
 
 Of course, the Cabinet had its platform man — an 
 honorary Minister, who never made a speech, even 
 on the Rabbit Extermination Bill, without quoting 
 half a dozen pages from the classics. For him the 
 
40 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 world had not moved since the days of Pitt and 
 Fox. 
 
 Gifford had amused himself during that week of 
 marking time by watching the alarums and excursions 
 of the Ministers elect and those who hoped to be. 
 
 The bacon-curer-Mayor,-Minister-for-Education, had 
 suffered the agonies of Tophet before he at last got 
 the word which made his prefix of ' honourable ' 
 sure. 
 
 He came to Gifford, and was so anxious that he per- 
 spired, although the day was wintry. 
 
 ' I suppose I am to congratulate you, Mr. Hoggins ?' 
 said Gifford. 
 
 Hoggins perspired violently and tried to laugh 
 heartily, but was so indecently fat that he choked 
 over it. It was barely safe for Hoggins to smile. 
 
 ' No, no !' he said ; ' I don't want a portfolyer — at 
 least, I don't care for hoffis.' He mopped his face, and 
 head, and neck, and hands, and repeated nervously, 
 ' I'd rather not take hoffis — I don't want it.' 
 
 He went away nervously ; his attempts at smiling in- 
 difference in public showed how poignant were his 
 private si^gonies. 
 
 The disproof of his statement to Gifford he himself 
 provided next day when he knew that his position was 
 secure. The knowledge of his new importance had 
 stopped the perspiration and given him an elephantine 
 solemnity which was intended to be dignified. 
 
 Gifford's success had been even sweeter to his 
 admiring secretary than to the politician himself. 
 Jack Daven's interest in ' the game,' as he called it, 
 never flagged. He loved the moves, the intrigues, and 
 the chicanery as a chess enthusiast loves chess, although 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 41 
 
 he was personally as honest as he was plucky — able to 
 win without exultation and to lose without regret. 
 
 His principal had barely entered on his new life of 
 publicity, that was often uncomfortable, before Daven 
 suggested the opportunism of an intrigue for power, 
 and to that end he brought the Member for Boomanoo, 
 one Dr. Graham, also a green politician, and introduced 
 them. 
 
 Graham was the antithesis of Gifford — a blusterous, 
 irritable man, full of energy and brusque kindliness. 
 They were friends from the beginning, by reason of 
 their differences ; and by-and-by an act of their leader's, 
 who was indecently hungry for the flesh-pots of office 
 again, drove them to form an independent party of two. 
 Their position as a party seemed hopeless, but it was not. 
 The Directory of France started business in 1795 with 
 an old table, a sheet of paper, and an ink-bottle; but 
 Napoleon's whiff of grape-shot blew power and money 
 to the modest beginning. And the party of two was 
 strengthened when Jack Daven joined them by reason 
 of a by-election for Teddywaddy, and the party became 
 a power as three. 
 
 The Government fell by reason of its unspeakable 
 Treasurer, and went into Opposition utterly discredited ; 
 and the Opposition, only a little less than utterly dis- 
 credited, succeeded ; but the Independent party of 
 three held to its corner, and gave a discriminating 
 support to anything it believed in, whether the thing 
 had its origin on the Right or the Left. 
 
 The party of three became four by the defection of 
 Curran, the beloved man of the House. He had little 
 ability of the head, but he had an ability that was 
 worth more to him in securing his ends than mere 
 
42 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 genius would have been. His brains were in his heart, 
 and that is the sort of genius immediately discoverable 
 even by a baby or a dog. No man who opposed him 
 in his constituency could hope to escape destruction. 
 Opposition to Curran were blasphemy. The abilities 
 of Demosthenes, Machiavelli, Pitt, Fox, Mirabeau, and 
 Danton, collected in one personality, could not have 
 affected his seat for Cooroo. 
 
 ' Oive trown 'em over, Giff,' he said. ' That gang — 
 I've shtuck t' thim troo tick an' tin, because they phro- 
 mised me a racecoorse railway from Campbells to Coo- 
 roo ; an' now they say they can't foind the money this 
 Parlymint, so I'm wid you; an' when ye're Primeer ye'U 
 put the money on the estimates, will ye ?' 
 
 Gifford laughed — a Premiership seemed very far off; 
 but he promised the customary bribery and corruption, 
 and the four went down Collins Street very justifiably 
 happy, as the party had increased its strength by 
 twenty-five per cent, in half an hour. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ' The anvil is not afraid of the hammer.' 
 
 A BIG fleshy man, with a blue eye that challenged the 
 sky to rivalry and was full of sly humour, and the 
 brownness of whose skin was half native and half 
 acquired from an explorer's knowledge of the sun, rode 
 along the northern edge of an amphitheatre in a lime- 
 stone range, looking for an opening to the west. 
 
 There was the suggestion of the beginning of a 
 drought in the land — the bottle-trees darkened in their 
 foliage ; the salt-bush more seeding than leafy ; the 
 deciduous broom withering ; the wait-a-bit thorn dry, 
 though still ready to hold the intruding traveller's 
 clothing, because the thorn dies hard ; and the cotton- 
 tree, so hardy that it splits the marble of the ranges 
 and is the last of all but the fig-tree to succumb, 
 budded, from its dry and leafless limbs, its big flowers, 
 all glossy and yellow. 
 
 In the still heated light of the waning afternoon 
 chance sent to the adventurer a pilot — a plain-turkey 
 that started from a belt of scrub, ran at the solid range, 
 turned a corner, and disappeared. 
 
 Ned Hoskins, otherwise Ned the Prodigal, jabbed 
 his heel into the sides of his sweat-caked horse, and 
 
 43 
 
44 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 strained the halter of the despairing pack-horse he 
 pulled after him. 
 
 ' There y're, Jack ; that's the way out.' He spoke to 
 a black-and-white cattle dog that wagged his tail and 
 went mad with pleasure whenever his name was men- 
 tioned. Ned rode to the place of the disappearance of 
 the turkey, and found an opening half a mile wide, 
 cunningly concealed by the folding of the purer lime- 
 stone, which had not weathered, and as he rode through 
 it, Ned the Prodigal said : ' We'll call this Bustard 
 Pass, Jack.' 
 
 The pack-horse, who had not been spoken to, replied 
 by tripping over a table of limestone, falling almost on 
 his knees, recovering himself by throwing all his weight 
 on his halter, and so half-dislocating the shoulder of his 
 owner. 
 
 Ned the Prodigal cursed the pack-horse, but in a 
 moment had returned to the consideration of the 
 country Bustard Pass opened for him. It was another 
 great amphitheatre : the soil, where denuded of vegetable 
 covering, showed a bright-red, hard loam, speckled with 
 little iron slugs ; a great solitary rock rose from the 
 centre of the circus, and its two pinnacles decided the 
 fanciful Ned. 
 
 ' I'll call you Tower o' London. Gord luv me ! I 
 lived within three mile of it when I was a nipper, and 
 I've never seen it — only pitchers of it.' 
 
 He jerked sharply at the halter of the pack-horse, 
 who had dropped his head to snatch a mouthful, altered 
 the course a little north of the line of the Tower of 
 London and brought into view another rock, denticled 
 at its summit. 
 
 ' There's a bit of the Big Smoke again, Jack. There's 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 45 
 
 Westminster Abbey — what I 'ave seen, and no pitchers. 
 There can't be no mistake about that. . . . My grief ! 
 this is a big country. . . . Wonderful big ! . . . Bigger 
 than all Europe, Jack, and only a few thousan' people 
 sittin' down in Sydney and Melbourne. . . . Gord luv 
 'er. . . . She's great, is Australia. . . . Four days 'ave 
 I been ridin' through 'ere, an' not a soul 'ave I seen, 
 white or black, or yeller or piebald — not a man 'ave I 
 seen ; not a nigger. . . . 'Ello ! there's three 'roos all 
 in line, hoppin' very graceful, and an emu behind 
 'em. . . . Must be on a pad.' 
 
 He looked at the sun and marked him sprawling 
 to his daily death ; gave a sharp, bird-like glance at 
 the gravely kopping kangaroos, and the ridiculously 
 stately emu, walking with the self-conscious and un- 
 graceful undulations of a woman in long stays ; saw 
 some birds flying above the track of the animals, and, 
 having decided, pressed his heels to the barrel of his 
 horse. The horses had already responded ; they had 
 scented the invisible water and trotted through the salt- 
 bush to the line of the kangaroo pad — a track worn 
 deep as a wheel-rut by generations of animals athirst. 
 
 It was a granite pool in a creek that had ceased to 
 have any surface flow, and there the Prodigal camped, 
 hobbled his horses, and lighted his fire. 
 
 While the water was in course of boiling, the Prodigal 
 took a pick from the pack, still talking to his dog, and 
 went into the tall spear-grass ; breaking out-crops, setting 
 fire to the country to clear it that he might prospect it 
 the more easily. The darkness fell suddenly on him, 
 and interrupted the energy that always called for excess 
 to quench it. He broke another stone, took up the few 
 pieces of it, and returned to the camp, to find the water 
 
46 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 boiled away. He refilled the billy, and while it boiled 
 examined his find — a broken nodule of iron, and for its 
 core a beauty of red oxide of copper starred with crystals 
 of calcite. The dog sat on his hind-quarters looking at 
 every motion of his friend with a concentration and 
 intelligence that were human. ' It looks good enough, 
 don't it, Jack ? . . . N.T.B.S. mate, that's what it is, 
 an' we'll 'ave a look at it t'-morrow.' 
 
 They ate together. The dog had his half-pound of 
 meat and the licking out of the tin as dessert. He 
 lapped the water of the granite pool for a moment, 
 returned, and lay by the Prodigal ; but the man arose 
 to make the water-bag and provisions safe from the 
 ravages of ants, and the dog, divining his wants from 
 long experience, went before him, selected a tree whose 
 smooth bark promised not to be a harbour for insects, 
 and wagged his tail in his great satisfaction, while the 
 Prodigal hung the water-bag and the sugar-bag to the 
 branches. 
 
 They returned to the fire — the nights being as cold as 
 the days were hot — and the dog settled himself so that 
 his head was under the Prodigal's hand. 
 
 ' Now, if there's anything like a run o' that stuff 
 about 'ere^— there's more to be got. Jack. . . . Lissen 
 t' the water runnin' into the granite hole out o' the 
 soakage. . . . It's like music, ain't it ? . . . That was 
 a good op'ra comp'ny we seen at Brisbane, Jack. . . . 
 What was that op'ra 'Oward Vernon played in ? . . . 
 The Chineyman piece. Jack ? . . . Y' don't remem- 
 ber ? . . . Let's see ; it was " Mikado." So we'll call 
 that last pass between 'ere an' Westminster Abbey, 
 Mikado Pass. . . . An' we'll call this Op'ra Creek. 
 . . . An' if the copper lode's any good we'll call it 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 47 
 
 lerlanthy. . . . Gord luv me ! . . . That was a 
 pretty op'ra, Jack. ... All them girls dancin' about 
 with wings, an' the poor little cow what had been kep' 
 under water with the frogs for twenty years an' more, 
 because she'd 'ad a baby. . . . Them fairies that did 
 that to her was jus' like wimmen. Jack. . . . An' the 
 "'Ouse o' Lords!" 'E was a clever bloke that wrote 
 that, Jack — cleverer than me or you. . . . An' if we 
 get another reef beside the lerlanthy, we'll call it the 
 Girofla. That's a pretty op'ra, too, but it ain't as good 
 as " lerlanthy " or the Chineyman piece. ... So you 
 get inter yer pew, Jack, an' go to bed.' 
 
 He rolled the dog off his blankets, and the dog 
 pretended to bite him, and they played at fighting 
 back and forth until the Prodigal's blankets were twisted 
 into ropes. 
 
 With the dawn he prospected the new lode, and 
 followed it for nearly half a mile, finally deciding that 
 the new find was worthy to be called the lolanthe, and 
 should be so known. 
 
 For a week he backed and filled west and north, 
 prospecting the country in zigzags, and found other 
 lodes, so that the Girofla did not end the application 
 of opera nomenclature. 
 
 'The one we was on to early this mornin', Jack, 
 is the Patience, an' this one's the Gonderleer. But 
 what '11 we call the whole field. Jack? . . . That's 
 what's botherin' me.' 
 
 He had pegged all his finds as by law provided, and 
 it was only when camped in the lime east of Bustard 
 Pass that the name came to him. 
 
 The camp was under a great fig-tree wherein nested 
 many lime pigeons. They cooed softly whenever the 
 
48 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 smoke from the camp-fire or the noises of the strangers 
 ascended to them. 
 
 ' Curukity coo ! Curukity coo !' said the Prodigal, 
 in imitation. ' No ; it ain't exactly that, I know. It's 
 coo-coo-roo — like that. Jack. . . . Why, 'ere's the 
 name of 'er ! Coocooroo she is.' 
 
 He rode east next morning, carrying with him 
 samples of the copper lodes of Coocooroo — a name that 
 was yet to be blessed or cursed by most men who heard 
 it ; a name that was to set a few cities ablaze for a year 
 or two, and leave a crop of misery for ten. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 ' A coward often deals a mortal blow to the brave.' 
 
 Ned the Prodigal went no further south than Sydney, 
 where he met Berkshire — a man who cast a queer 
 globular shadow by day or night, so rotund was he. 
 Berkshire was a man who believed in himself so much 
 that he never admitted to himself that he deceived 
 others. He had made an adventitious financial begin- 
 ning, and it whetted his appetite ; thereafter he was 
 utterly unscrupulous. He deceived even himself so 
 much that, in his place in the Victorian Parliament, as 
 Member for Combenico, he voted Tory with the self- 
 sacrificial air of a patriot, and advocated almost tear- 
 fully the retention of the property vote as the Reward 
 of Thrift ; by which name he styled his various public 
 depredations. 
 
 There was much surplus money in the States by 
 reason of good seasons, increased export, and lavish 
 public borrowing. Money was a drug continually 
 cheapened by private investments from England and 
 Australia was ripe for a boom. More, it cried for one, 
 as a child cries to be allowed to spend its penny 
 to-night, and not to wait for the morning that may 
 never come. Berkshire formed a small syndicate, 
 
 49 4 
 
50 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 telegraphing to Gifford, Daven, Abbey, and other 
 acquaintances, who replied in careless affirmation of 
 the gambling risk — small by design, so that the 
 prospector's interest might be further reduced when 
 he enlarged the capital — despatched an expert with 
 Hoskins to examine Coocooroo ; manufactured values 
 by writing the word ' Capital,' and after it a sterling 
 mark, the numeral i, and four ciphers. Then he 
 returned to Melbourne and waited, employing the time 
 in making many disjointed speeches to the effect that 
 the property franchise was of Divine origin, and that 
 exclusively manhood suffrage would keep capital out 
 of Australia. And Berkshire wanted all the available 
 capital of the world to come into Australia — so that 
 he might steal it. 
 
 During the waiting for the expert's report the exist- 
 ence of Coocooroo was never publicly mentioned. The 
 men of inside knowledge on the Stock Exchange, in 
 the city, and in Parliament, quietly secured gambling 
 interests at slightly enhanced prices ; but the public — 
 the little people, who pay, as usual — heard nothing 
 while the fruit was ripening. Berkshire — thrifty man 
 — sold piecemeal from the beginning, standing on 
 many thicknesses of velvet, but still holding the share 
 of a lion, when he was but a fox. 
 
 Gifford had treated his gambling chance carelessly, 
 as it demanded. He was full of the excitement of 
 politics now; his party had grown by secession and 
 by-election to seven. It was only by their assistance 
 that the Government saw its certainty of reaching the 
 harbour of recess. Gifford despised the Government, 
 but he distrusted the Opposition, and therefore he kept 
 the Opposition out of power. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 51 
 
 A few days before the recess Gifford, at dinner, found 
 his mother unusually talkative of a new experience. 
 
 Just think, George ! My old friend Mrs. Field ! 
 I haven't met her for twenty years, because they lived 
 in New Zealand till her husband's death ... an 
 awfully bad man he was — as bad as she is good. And 
 she's an invalid now ; sits on a chair all day, and when 
 she goes out she has to be lifted into the little pony- 
 trap they have.' 
 
 ' Poor woman ! What's the matter ?' 
 
 ' Partial paralysis, dear — brought on by shock, the 
 doctors say. . . . And she's had such a painful life, 
 but she's just as sweet as ever.' 
 
 ' Poor woman !' said Gifford again. 
 
 ' They have one daughter — a very nice girl.' 
 
 ' Pretty ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes ! . . . Fairly handsome.' She never openly 
 stated any spinster to be beautiful. It was her one 
 deception by suppression, dictated by her desire to 
 keep her son to herself. Later she said to him : ' Of 
 course, we talked a lot of you.' 
 
 ' Why " of course," mother ?' 
 
 ' Oh, because you're a public man, and they've heard 
 a lot of you, and I told her all about us. Poor Marion ! 
 What a bright girl she was ! We used to tell each 
 other everything. ... So I've asked them to come 
 and see us, and they'll be here next Tuesday afternoon. 
 Marion can't go out at night.' 
 
 ' I shall see them, then ?' 
 
 ' Ye-es, I suppose so. But won't you be at the 
 House ?' 
 
 ' No ; the prorogation is this week.' 
 
 'Oh!' 
 
 4—2 
 
52 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Why ?' 
 
 ' Oh, nothing important !' But it was ; she was 
 afraid of Miss Field, and hoped he would not see her. 
 
 Her mother fear was ill founded. Two days later 
 Parliament prorogued with much eighteenth -century 
 formality and gun-firing and other preposterous per- 
 formances ; and on the same evening the expert tele- 
 graphed a favourable report of Coocooroo, and on 
 Friday Australia woke to the fact that it was again in 
 the fever of a boom. 
 
 Gifford saw his holding increased a thousandfold, 
 and plunged into the Maelstrom of false values. The 
 long-quiet city blocks that held the offices of scores of 
 financial leaders and their attendant jugglers began to 
 swarm like hives of disturbed bees ; and on the Monday 
 night Gifford, Daven and Abbey, and scores of specu- 
 lators big and little, crowded the trains and began 
 their two-thousand-mile journey north. In the lime- 
 stone ranges the pigeons said ' Coocooroo ' sleepily ; 
 the same word was uttered from hundreds of excited 
 hoarse throats in every city of the continent. ' I buy 
 Coocooroos !' shouted the raucous voices. ' Coocoo- 
 roos !' screamed the smaller men. A false crop came 
 already from this seed, that was yet barely above the 
 soil : ' Coocooroo Explorations '; ' Coocooroo Estates '; 
 ' Coocooroo Blocks '; ' Coocooroo Mining '; ' Coocooroo 
 Investments'; until the word lost all the dulcet soft- 
 ness of its origin, and was as hard as the gambling 
 counter it had become. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ' Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands ; 
 Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ; 
 For man is man and master of his fate.' 
 
 The road went steeply upward to the dividing range, 
 which hid the freak of the tropical forest below — a 
 freak that no self-respecting geological conditions would 
 have been guilty of. The change from volcanic soil 
 seventy feet deep, bearing tree-life on its every square 
 foot — cedar, bean, silky oak, and crow-foot elm, laced 
 with lawyer vines and protected by stinging trees — to 
 the rolling stones of the granite and sandstone moun- 
 tains, with their infrequent belts of stunted gums, had 
 been made in a hundred feet. The volcanic plain lay 
 in starlight ; the ladder- steep range was powdered by an 
 endless rain ; and in the misty darkness an army of 
 adventurers walked up the mountain as if it were a level 
 lawn, and left the lightened and ambitionless horses 
 toiling painfully in the rear. 
 
 They laughed as a man slipped cursing into a hole in 
 the road; they breasted the ascent as happily as 
 childreij go to play ; for here was the culling of a 
 continent — sons of men who in their time had been the 
 pick of the wide world. Courage, endurance, high 
 heart, and soul of cheerfulness, were all here, all old 
 
 S3 
 
54 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 losses and old efforts as forgotten as present hardships 
 were unheeded ; for before them was the new rush, the 
 alluring gold of the rainbow. Almost every other man 
 there had had god-like successes and cataclysmal 
 failures; and past success and old failure alike were 
 forgotten ; not so much in the hope of future gain as in 
 the pleasure of newness— the new tracks, the new ways, 
 the new pains, and the present struggle. 
 
 They were almost all strong, greedy, generous, hard, 
 kindly, pugnacious men, most of them as full of good 
 feeling as they were ashamed of showing it ; paradoxes 
 of abnegation and excess ; intimate mixtures of altruism 
 and selfishness ; fighting fiercely for their own hands 
 for all but one of their waking hours, and suddenly be- 
 coming for that hour as open-handed as the first flush 
 of summer. They drank the world like wine, and they 
 spent it like water. 
 
 The short-sighted man who lives in cities and counts 
 his success by results would have weighed the efforts 
 of these men by their bank balances; but these, the 
 strong, the untamed, and the primitive, knew better. 
 As small boys struggling joyously against the often 
 unkindnesses of their marvellous land of rain and 
 drought, bloom and dryness, the excesses of their land 
 had become native to themselves ; they knew that the 
 game is always greater than the stake. 
 
 Here the hypocrite partially discovered himself, or 
 was partially discovered, and suffered the hell of con- 
 tinuous reprobation by a crowd. In this primitiveness 
 a man became what he really was — part angel, part 
 devil. The man who had been apparently all angel did 
 not come here. If he had, his righteousness would 
 have crackled to powder in the flame of the ridicule of 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 55 
 
 these men, who did not fight a fraud, but laughed it to 
 death and sneered it to dissolution. 
 
 Further, most of the adventurers were half pros- 
 pectors, half agents, of the coastal town. They had a 
 little more polish and education than the bulk of the 
 men who hunt gold, for the rush was to Coocooroo 
 for copper; and gold — the primitive metal that needs 
 but to be picked up or beaten out of the rock to become 
 currency — attracts the most primitive. So the return 
 to the aggressive hatred of sham — that is the salient 
 characteristic of the savage man — was not so complete 
 as it would have been in the ranks of gold-diggers who 
 depend only on sweat and experience. The gold-digger 
 sheds his skin, and is proud to be morally naked to the 
 bone. These copper-hunters were merely always stripped 
 of their clothes, and as natural as the Little People of 
 the Cities are at night ; when the corset-clips are loosed 
 and the padded waistcoat is put off, and the faces that 
 have been grinning, for social recognition, or the poor 
 tongue that has been lying all day that it may find food 
 for its owner and his children, lose their wrinkles and 
 their weariness, and are left to know themselves in the 
 dark. For with the first house came deception, and the 
 civilized man, seeking the wild again, finds truth in the 
 first tree. 
 
 Among the cheerful toilers of the mountain were 
 Gifford, Daven, and Abbey, their happiness at again 
 finding the freedom they loved increased by the know- 
 ledge that they had not to seek wealth at the new field ; 
 that they already held their interests in Coocooroo, 
 and were approaching the find of Ned the Prodigal as 
 proprietors. 
 
 And all this kept them in the van of the army, reeling 
 
56 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 off the miles tirelessly and laughing at the rain ; finding 
 the city habits of the last three years fallen from them 
 as a garment, their blood leaping, unconsciously to 
 themselves, in anticipation of the excesses that no man 
 at such a time might keep clear of and live. 
 
 Three hours after dusk saw them far ahead of the 
 horses in the dizzily-built township of Nigger Creek, a 
 town without foundations, stuck to the sides of a 
 mountain as swallows' nests cling to eaves or house- 
 flies to walls. The rain was endless there; all the 
 adventurers were wet through, but the superb strength 
 of them all prompted them to further imprudences as a 
 means of reducing the strength that surged in them. 
 
 A big man, none other than the finder of Coocooroo, 
 stood by the bar counter of the Star of Australia Hotel, 
 and emphasized every other word by banging the 
 counter with a great fist that set the glasses jangling. 
 
 The three mates pressed forward at the call of the 
 miserable little man behind the bar, a one-time jockey, 
 now, by virtue of his liquor license, King of the Night. 
 He ordered the drunken customers to make room for 
 the new-comers. 
 
 ' Get a move on, you fellers. Now then, quick and 
 lively. Give the new chaps a chance. Keep yer 'ands 
 off the counter, Ned.' 
 
 Ned the Prodigal glared. ' Why, yer little sossidge 
 — I've at ten o' you at a coffee-stall !' 
 
 ' It's all right, mate,' said Daven soothingly. 
 
 ' Right y' are. You're a good-lookin' cove, too, you 
 are ! So's yer mates. 'Ere, 'ave a drink along o' me. 
 I'm Ned the Prodigal. I prospected Coocooroo.' 
 
 ' Is Coocooroo as good as the Sudden Jerk ?' asked 
 Gifford. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 57 
 
 Ned the Prodigal put his glass on the counter and 
 looked around suspiciously, as he asked : ' Who said 
 " Sudden Jerk ?" ' 
 
 ' I did !' 
 
 ' You ! Let's have a look at yer. Why ! I know 
 yer. You're George the 'Orse.' 
 
 ' George Gifford is my name.' 
 
 * That's right, mate,' interposed Daven ; ' he was 
 known at the Peak as George the Horse.' 
 
 Ned the Prodigal explained to the crowd : ' He was 
 called George the 'Orse 'cause he once beat a 'orse 
 runnin' a mile. Can yer run as well now, mister ?' 
 
 ' No ; I'm a bit older now.' 
 
 ' Eh ! outer condition. So'm I. Been boozin' for 
 about a fortnight. 'Ere, Billy — Billy Matthews ! Give 
 everybody a drink.' 
 
 The ex-jockey turned to show that he was attempting 
 to fill a dozen orders at once, and Ned turned to Daven. 
 
 ' You were at the Peak, too ?' 
 
 ' I was ; I was underground manager of the Extended.' 
 
 ' I thought so. Stick to minin' an' foller the rushes, 
 /an' y' can't miss meetin' old friends till yer dead. Yer 
 other friend was there, too.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Abbey. ' If you ever saw one of us the 
 other two weren't far off.' 
 
 ' 'S that so ? Well, I like to see good mates. I 
 could naver keep one mate long ; two er three times it 
 was me temper, but mostly it was this — the mates 
 being twicers, and loafin' or boozin', when there was 
 work on.' 
 
 ' Did you prospect Coocooroo without a mate ?' 
 
 ' Yes, barrin' a dorg . . . An' I lost 'im. A good 
 mate 'e was ; knoo more'n a man an' wouldn't take 
 
58 THE SNARE OF STRENGTil 
 
 advantage of it ... A cow poisoned him on me out 
 California Creek . . . What '11 ye drink mates ? . . . 
 Hey ! Mr. Sampson, 'ave a drink ?' 
 
 Sampson, a big, gray-bearded, blue-eyed man, replied : 
 ' I've got some friends here.' 
 
 'Never mind, bring 'em all — bring all AustraHa, if 
 it '11 come an' drink fair.' 
 
 Sampson and his friends — Majory, Burns, and 
 Forsyth — ^joined them, and they drank, while Ned the 
 Prodigal, by virtue of his right as the payer for the 
 drinks, talked, and the guests, by virtue of that Bush 
 law, which is incontrovertible because natural selection 
 has made it, listened. 
 
 Majory, Burns, and Forsyth were all small of bone 
 and big in muscle, all young, all slight, all blue-eyed, 
 and all bald. This premature baldness had made them 
 known on every mining camp in the continent as the 
 Three Graces. For the rest, they were ideal mates — 
 Majory, the very well-read man, who loved talking and 
 used excess as an alterative ; Forsyth, who loved his 
 wandering life for its romance, and could listen wonder- 
 fully well, and drank to oblige his mates ; and Burns, 
 who read not at all, drank only when he chose, and 
 was always uproarious as if he were a boy of ten, and 
 not a man of forty.' 
 
 ' Drink up again, mates !' 
 
 A dozen voices rose in protest : 'No fear — it's mine !' 
 
 ' It's mine !' 
 
 ' It's mine !' 
 
 ' Leave it to Billy.' 
 
 Billy spoke. ' You pouch your stuff again, Ned ; no 
 double bankin' — if the others want t' shout. Tell y' 
 what. . . . This man, George ' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 59 
 
 ' His name's Gifford.' 
 
 ' Well, Mr. Gifford he shouts, and then — what- 
 ever y' like !' 
 
 The liquor introduced them all. In twenty minutes 
 Daven was arguing with a beet-red bullock-driver whom 
 Daven never knew but as ' Red Mick ' — the white men 
 following the custom of the aboriginal inhabitants of 
 the country, calling a man by his most identifiable 
 feature, as Gifford had been named ' George the Horse.' 
 Abbey was engaged in a consideration of the country he 
 had never seen before with a fresh-skinned, young little 
 man, who had no distinctiveness, and was therefore 
 called by his real name, which was Taylor; Gifford 
 found a friend in a congenial spirit — half horse-master 
 and half clerk — a man who seemed to have been born 
 to a snake'§ knowledge of the Bush and Chiron's 
 mastery of all horses — one Charlie Byers. Gifford had 
 appropriated Byers because of Sampson's praise of him. 
 
 ' Look at his eye,' said Sampson, as they stood 
 watching Byers. ' I've been a dozen times to Coocoo- 
 roo, and I know a few short-cuts, and some secret 
 water; but that chap could go across Australia once 
 and he'd know every gully before he came to it on the 
 way back.' 
 
 ' Marvellous.' 
 
 ' It isn't ; he can't help it — it's a gift. He made a 
 blaze-tree line for a road twenty miles long. Simply 
 rode along it without a compass, and didn't add a 
 hundred yards to the track that wasn't wanted. He's 
 blazed road-lines in drought-time, and when the rain 
 came they found he'd taken the road away from all the 
 soft places.' 
 
 ' And what's he doing now ?' 
 
6o THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Nothing ; the damned fool wants to be a clerk.' 
 
 ' Why ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! he's struck on Annie Johns out at Girofla, and 
 she won't marry anybody who won't settle down.' 
 
 ' Poor devil ! And I suppose he'll find it hard to give 
 up the track ?' 
 
 ' Hard ! He'll find it hell. ... Of course, he won't 
 give it up at all. He'll promise to till he's married, and 
 about three months after she'll see that he's miserable 
 and she'll let him go.' 
 
 Gifford heard a voice behind him, a voice that was 
 Abbey's and was not. He turned and saw that Abbey 
 had a new gleam in his eye as he ordered all men to 
 order their drinks. The lymphatic Abbey had been 
 caught by the current of the excess, and was being 
 carried away by it, like a common man. 
 
 The night went on in wassail, and quarrel, and song. 
 Ned the Prodigal, waxing melancholy for a moment, 
 said : ' I've 'ad a 'ell of a time. . . . Oh, you coves 
 don't know. . . . But I left me old mother. I'm a 
 dorg. That's why I call meself Ned the Prodigal. . . . 
 'Ave a drink, the whole box an' dice o' ye.' 
 
 The babel rose and fell : two score men talking all at 
 once on diverse subjects — the mines that had been, the 
 mines that were, the mines that were not, and those 
 that were to be ; the tracks to Coocooroo, the water 
 stages, the certainty of a drought, and always the 
 invitation to' drink. 
 
 ' Do you think the field will last, Ned ?' asked Gifford 
 of the Prodigal, as the continuous emptying and refill- 
 ing of the bar shuffled the men, as a player shuffles a 
 pack of cards. 
 
 ' I think it will, mate, but I don't like it much. I 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 6i 
 
 don't know 'ow I got on to it, seein' I was lookin' for 
 gold, an' a man only gets what he's lookin' for. Y' see, 
 I like gold becos gold, brings the free 'eart after it, an' 
 copper brings the Jew inter the game quicker'n gold does.' 
 
 Sampson joined them. ' Have another drink, Mr. 
 Gifford ?' 
 
 ' I'd rather not, Mr. Sampson. I think I'll put the 
 peg in.' 
 
 ' At your age ? Why, I'm not going to put it in yet 
 for twenty years, although my liver's not too good after 
 a burst now.' 
 
 ' All right then ; I'll have a whisky.' 
 
 ' Beggin' yer pardon, y' won't,' said Billy Matthews. 
 ' Y' can't get no more 'ere t'-night.' 
 
 ' Why ? Who are you to tell us when to stop ?' 
 
 ' Y' can't, because there ain't none. It's all gone.' 
 
 ' Gin, then.' 
 
 ' No gin, n' no rum ; there's ginger ale and stout.' 
 
 ' How much stout ?' inquired the Prodigal. 
 
 ' Three cases and two bottles.' 
 
 ' Put the lot into buckets then.' 
 
 ' It's too cold, Ned.' 
 
 ' Nev' mind, we've got a fire, ain't we — ^we'U mull it.' 
 
 ' My oath !' said Billy. ' We've got two dray axles.' 
 
 ' 'Ooray ! out with the bodkins an' put 'em in the fire.' 
 
 They broke the bottles into buckets, heated the dray 
 axles, and mulled the black liquor, and the babel became 
 pandemonium, while the fragile ex-jockey attempted 
 marvellous feats which no one noticed. The worst 
 musician in the world played his one larrikin vamp on 
 the piano, and a dozen men roared a dozen songs to the 
 one accompaniment — one of them drunkenly lachry- 
 mose, yelling a marvellous version of ' Abide with me '; 
 
62 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 a Frenchman, beginning the Marseillaise and becoming 
 indignant when he found that no man would act as 
 audience that night, as all wanted to be performers. 
 The sentimentally regretful : 
 
 ' For night and day they're sadly waitin' 
 For the ship that never returned.' 
 
 ' Chorus, you chaps.' 
 
 ' Did she never return ? 
 No ! She never returned.' 
 
 But there was no chorus, and he stopped disgusted. 
 An Italian, bewildered by the unlatin drinks of whisky 
 
 and stout — 
 
 ' Tromma lari lara 
 Viva 1' amore.' 
 
 Red Mick: ' I'll sing " Come, birdie, come," if any 
 o' you chaps 'ull- do the echo.' 
 
 The men who were still sober enough to have a sense 
 of humour howled him into indignant silence. 
 
 A man who had determined to achieve recognition 
 and applause at any price — who had paraded the bar 
 with bank-notes twisted into pipe-spills, and displayed 
 in his hat-band, behind his ears, and protruding from 
 every pocket to show his contempt for wealth, and yet 
 had failed to find an audience in all that whirling 
 strength and childlike egoism — now called the attention 
 of the company to his existence by loudly stating that 
 he could break a door-panel with his head. A shower 
 of derision descended on him, but did not damp his 
 desire to ' show off.' 
 
 ' Break yer head with the door, y' mean.' 
 
 ' I'll break that there door with me head. 
 
 ' Garn — ye're a skiter !' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 63 
 
 ' You assault that door with yer 'ead, an' yer dried 
 brains 'ull rattle out like seeds outer a dry pum'kin.' 
 
 The ' show-er off ' lowered his head like a ram fight- 
 ing his spring battles, dashed at the door, and rebounded 
 into the centre of the bar. 
 
 The men around him laughed and applauded, so 
 inciting him to further injury of himself. At the fifth 
 blow on the door the timber became more resilient, and 
 the rebound threw him on his back against the counter. 
 He rose to his feet, half dazed by the blow, but alive 
 to the sweet praise given him by the audience, who 
 flattered him between the yells of their own laughter. 
 
 The man, who had hungered for the applause, 
 recovered almost immediately, although at intervals 
 he clasped his head very tenderly with both hands. 
 Then he said : 
 
 ' Well, I near did it ; didn't I, chaps ?' 
 
 ' You did, mate — you did.' 
 
 ' Is there another man here could do as much ?' 
 
 ' There's not another man in Queensland could do 
 what you did.' 
 
 His craving for notoriety was satisfied and his cure 
 complete. 
 
 ' Come along, Billy,' he said to Matthews, with a 
 suspicion of the patronizing tone of a conqueror. ' Give 
 all these 'ere chaps a drink.' 
 
 A man who had no friends, and whose original place 
 none knew, but was said by his fellow tin-getters to 
 have been a priest, sang very softly : 
 
 ' Ave maria, 
 Gratia plena, 
 Dominus te-cum, 
 Benedic — ah — ah. 
 He was asleep. 
 
64 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 And then some obscure genius who knew to strike the 
 time and place as surely as Rouget de Lisle struck the 
 Revolution with his song of the Marseillaise, sang a 
 chanty they all knew, humming softly until he was sure 
 of the audience : 
 
 ' I put my hand upon her knee, 
 Said she, " Young man you're rather free." 
 No more I'll go a-roamin' with you, fair maid.' 
 
 ' Chorus, chaps !' 
 
 A score of mighty throats answered him : 
 
 ' A-roamin' — a-roamin' — 
 To roam it was my ru-u-in ; 
 No more I'll go a-roamin' 
 With you, fair maid.' 
 
 At the fifteenth verse Ned the Prodigal, who had 
 been engaged in deep converse with Taylor, the 
 youngest recruit to the arm of the spoil, broke into 
 sudden indignation : 
 
 ' Why, yer ignorant little pup, I tell yer I can ! I've 
 done it often. Give us a long beer-glass, Billy.' 
 
 ' Now, don't go bitin', Ned.' 
 
 ' Mind yer own interferences. Give us a glass.' 
 
 The Prodigal took the glass, bit a great section out 
 of it, crunched the glass in his teeth and swallowed it, 
 looking at the frightened youngster as he did. 
 
 ' There,' said he. ' What yer think o' that ?' 
 
 The youth gasped and said : ' I could believe in 
 nature, but you're superblanky natural. You'll be a 
 stiff 'un to-morrer.' 
 
 ' Me ! Not me ! Y' can't kill me with an axe. Look 
 'ere, I'm that strong that after I've been in the Bush 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 65 
 
 a bit, an' get down t' Brisbane, I 'ave t' walk in the 
 middle o' the street or I'd pull the 'ouses down. Strong ! 
 That's why I drink ! If I didn't drink sometimes, I'd 
 pull the trees up be the roots. I'd jump outer me skin. 
 . . . Look 'ere ' 
 
 He raised his fists and struck himself a dozen terrible 
 blows on the chest, talking all the time, bit another 
 section out of the tumbler, ground it to powder, and 
 swallowed it ; and then called all men to drink, probably 
 because all of them, to whom glass-eating is common, 
 had failed to notice his performance. 
 
 ' Come up to the trough, all o' yer !' 
 
 ' Can't 'ave no more drink to-night,' said Billy 
 Matthews firmly. ' There's not a drop o' anything left 
 — nothing — absolute nix ; not enough to drown a 
 fly in.' 
 
 There was a dead silence as the skeleton made his 
 statement of the tragedy. Many, recognising the in- 
 evitable, said ' G'-night,' and went away. 
 
 Sampson spoke : ' Go an' get some more, Billy.' 
 
 ' I tell yer all's gorn, an' the other places is closed. 
 Why, it's two o'clock.' 
 
 ' Are you sure it's all gone ?' asked Burns. 
 
 ' I said so, Mr. Burns.' 
 
 ' But you mightn't be tellin' the truth,' said the 
 gigantic glass-eater. 
 
 ' Do ye want t' call me a liar?' demanded the dwarf 
 fiercely. 
 
 'No, Billy— no, Billy! I'm afraid of yer; that's 
 why,' rgplied the Prodigal, grinning at the farcically 
 small opposition. 
 
 ' Y-ye can 'ave ginger ale, if y' like.' 
 
 ' Billy,' said Sampson, ' that's an insult.' 
 
 5 
 
66 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 The bar almost emptied of men. The six stayed a 
 few minutes longer, willing enough to sleep, but hating 
 the unconsciousness that sleep brings — the nightly 
 death, the waste of an hour of the glory of life — even as 
 sleepy children cling to the toys and weep, begging for 
 but another minute of the light. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 Charley Byers, ' the complete bushman,' led them to 
 Coocooroo in a day and a half, his bushmanship leading 
 them across country, so cutting off many corners. 
 Gifford, Abbey, Daven, and the Prodigal made up the 
 party, five superb men on superb horses, a condition 
 the horses knew as well as the men did, so that five 
 splendid centaurs filled the track with pride. 
 
 They found at Coocooroo a feverish determination 
 to spend the first half-million of working capital with 
 as little delay as possible ; the general manager, greatly 
 dignified by his big salary, which was more than the com- 
 bined wage of a Prime Minister and a Bishop, and about 
 equal to the salary of a Governor-General, loomed large. 
 There was nothing wrong with the salary — it was big 
 enough to have purchased an initiative and administra- 
 tive genius, and as such was small ; but the general 
 manager reduced his functions to those of a Governor- 
 General, which are the functions of a rubber stamp. 
 
 The mine manager was also much in evidence — a 
 thin, exclusive man — and at sight of the two Ned the 
 Prodigal' grunted and predicted ruin to Coocooroo, 
 
 Men raged rather than worked at smelter building, 
 railway construction, bridges, culverts, and dams, and 
 other surface work, as if the end of the world were 
 
 67 5—2 
 
68 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 near, aiid there was to be no hereafter. Thousands 
 of navvies laboured and ran about and fell over one 
 another, and picked themselves up and raved to work 
 again, like a colony of bull-ants swarming to the repair 
 of their broken nests. Construction trains fumed over 
 unballasted lines at dangerous speed, sweating to break 
 fifty thousand cubic yards of clay from this cutting and 
 a hundred thousand yards of rock from that, and building 
 a bank fifty feet high to tie a spur to a plain ; a rake of 
 ballast squealing on the impossible curves from ballast 
 pit to permanent way, and then slowing down, while 
 the ballastmen shovelled it from the moving waggons, 
 the galloping navvies sweating till they smelled like 
 convicts. A gorilla of a man led this raving mass of 
 energy, shovelling ballast on to the naked new per- 
 manent way as if seven devils inspired him and a 
 hundred horse-power engine gave him steam ; calling 
 on the skulkers, shaming . the weak into heart-broken 
 attempts to march with him. His arms, long enough 
 to reach to his knees, plied the short shovel with a 
 tireless swing, that distributed five shovelfuls of ballast 
 at every stroke. The measurement of his chest was 
 the measurement of his height — five feet. He spat 
 tobacco-juice in an almost continuous stream, and 
 shovelled, and cursed, and harried, and insulted, and 
 so earned his extra shilling a day for making the pace. 
 A brave brute in the clothes of a man ; and his only 
 name, even on the pay-sheets, was Tommy the Dog. 
 
 ' They're working at the wrong end,' said the Prodigal. 
 ' 'Ardly doin' a tap o' good work in the mines. An' 
 what's the good o' the railway an' the smelters if they 
 neglect the minin' ?' 
 
 At the smelters a thin black-bearded man, riding a 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 69 
 
 white pony, gave a dozen orders at once, and each of 
 them clear-cut and definite, despite the speed of the 
 instructions. He was introduced to Gifford and Daven 
 and mates as Hempel, the company's metallurgist. 
 Abbey he had known before, greeted him affectionately, 
 and asked for tidings of his wife. 
 
 ' How was she looking last time you saw her, 
 Frank ?' 
 
 ' Fine, Bill.' 
 
 ' I thought so ; but she'd write cheerfully if she were 
 dying. How's Australia ?' 
 
 Abbey flushed to the roots of his hair, and replied 
 stammeringly : ' She's very well, looking beautiful.' 
 
 ' Glad to hear it. All you fellows come to my camp 
 any night, will you? Can't stay now. Got to go 
 over to the kilns about the lime, or my bricklayers '11 
 stop. ... So long ! Don't forget to come.' 
 
 He finished the sentence as he rode away — a tem- 
 pestuously energetic man, wanting to do all the work 
 of the world to-day, as if in fear of eternity beginning 
 to-morrow. 
 
 ' He's in a hurry, Frank.' 
 
 ' He always is ; but he's as good as three men, and, 
 in spite of his hurry, his methods are perfect.' 
 
 ' But who's Australia ?' 
 
 Abbey flushed again. ' Miss Field. She is a friend 
 of Mrs. Hempel's and — er — mine.' 
 
 ' Why do they call her Australia ?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Hempel calls her Stralie for short. Her uncle 
 was a rjpal red-hot Republican ; said he wouldn't die 
 happy if he wasn't sure Australia would be a Republic 
 one day. He was her mother's brother, and her 
 mother called her "Australia," and made him god- 
 
70 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 father. He was a good old chap — left the few thousands 
 he had to Miss Field when he died.' 
 
 ' And wasn't his name Burnett ?' 
 
 ' Yes. How did you know ?' 
 
 ' And isn't her father dead ?' 
 
 ' Yes. He wasn't much chop, either. But how did 
 you know ?' 
 
 'Why, my mother and Mrs. Field were friends as 
 girls.' 
 
 ' Oh !' responded Abbey very shortly, as if he did not 
 like even the intimacy of a dead friendship. 
 
 They rode from Coocooroo through the avenues of 
 marble and the amphitheatres of limestone to Emu 
 Rock, where Hempel's new house was abuilding, and 
 on to Girofla ; and all along the road every little out- 
 crop of copper and silver-lead had its windlass, its wind- 
 sail, and its little dump of white, green, and orange. 
 
 There was not one man workless. Here was the 
 millennium — plentiful work, high wages, and cheap 
 money, and not one human in the land sick or hungry. 
 The millennium comes to every new country between its 
 depressions. When it stays permanently, it will only 
 be a boom without a slump to follow. 
 
 Buggies full of eager speculators forced the horsemen 
 out of the road and the resultant dust-cloud ; and on a 
 tree near Girofla there was a vilely-written, ill-spent 
 notification on cardboard to show that the human 
 instinct to gamble was here being stretched to its limit : 
 
 ' The Sweep on Melborn Cupp will be drored at Sam 
 Sing's Stoar, near the Black's Kamp.' 
 
 Jimmy Johns, the licensee of the Cliffs Hotel at 
 Girofla, was a right-hearted, wrong-headed man, of 
 violent, if temporary, sobriety, alternating with baresark 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 71 
 
 sprees. He was the stepfather of Annie Johns, and for 
 that reason Charley Byers led the party past the Miners' 
 Arms, which was the superior place of entertainment, 
 to the home that held his fancy. 
 
 Annie Johns was the life of the score of girls and men 
 who had assembled in the long cracked dining-room of 
 weather-boards ; but her smiles changed to dulness as 
 she saw her unwelcome lover enter, and to smiles again 
 as she saw that he was accompanied, and as he intro- 
 duced her to his friends. She was a brown berry of a 
 girl — dumpy, plump, round, brown of hand, face, eyes, 
 and hair, and looked as if she were Daven's sister. 
 
 ' Will the gentlem'n play cotton-windin', Mr. Byers ?' 
 
 The gentlemen said very politely that they would, 
 although they wished themselves out of the entertain- 
 ment; but Delia Mills, the daughter of the man who held 
 the little cattle-station at Emu Rock — great in the matter 
 of acreage, but very unimportant in the number of cattle 
 it carried — took charge of Gifford and Abbey, and gave 
 them great reels of cotton to wind, laughing as their 
 unpractised hands missed one turn in four, and so left 
 them hopelessly out of the race. 
 
 Gifford finally abandoned it in serio-comic despair, 
 and looked at Delia, as she stood with Annie Johns, 
 regarding him in a swift, all - seeing, intuitive way. 
 Gifford's eyes gave him this impression of Delia : tall 
 and immature, slight and big-boned, a round, smooth 
 face, big brown eyes, a nose big enough to give her 
 character, very dark hair, and a big mouth, very mobile 
 and prodigal of smiles. 
 
 While he so regarded her, she said rapturously to 
 Annie, using that all- descriptive phrasing of women : 
 
 ' Oh ! isn't he a perfect love ?' 
 
72 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Who— Charley Byers ?' 
 
 ' Him ! No ; that dark love there — Mr, Gifford !' 
 
 ' Oh, I suppose he's all right !' 
 
 * You've no eyes, Annie. . . . Here's Mr. Byers 
 looking as if he were dying. I won't play gooseberry.' 
 
 Either this loverlike desire to see lovers alone or the 
 wish to be nearer the * perfect love ' decided her to 
 leave Annie as Charley Byers came up. She went to 
 Gifford and helped him to wind the cotton, talking the 
 while disjointedly, and looking up at him with her 
 strange, worshipping, school-girl gaze, that said she 
 was not yet in love with a man, only in love with love. 
 Glad of any chance of escaping from an excuse for 
 sociableness which seemed to him ludicrous, he at last 
 said he must look after his horse, and she was forced to 
 let him go. 
 
 Said Byers to Annie : ' Will you say " Yes " now, 
 Annie ?' 
 
 ' It depends.' 
 
 ' But I've given up the track. I've got a job with 
 Tom Locky as clerk.' 
 
 ' The manager of the Red Hills Mine ?' 
 
 ' Yes. I'm to do the correspondence ; and I'll stick 
 to it, if you promise.' 
 
 ' Let's see if you do stick to it first.' 
 
 ' I will. You'll see. And if I stick to it, you'll be 
 Mrs. Byers, won't you ?' 
 
 ' Oh, I suppose so, but not till you've stuck to it a 
 long time — till you've forgotten the Bush.' 
 
 He knew in the back of his brain that that was not 
 possible ; but, loverlike, he promised to compass even 
 the superhuman, and made such a lover's movement 
 towards her that she retreated a step, and said : 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 73 
 
 * You try to kiss me, Charley Byers, with all these 
 people looking on, and I'll slap your face.' 
 
 He laughed, and said : ' Well, come outside, then.' 
 
 ' I won't— there !' 
 
 She shook her head to emphasize the refusal, repeated 
 it, and went with him. 
 
 He was in disgrace again before Gifford left Coo- 
 cooroo. He bore the martyrdom of his clerkly service 
 for ten days, and then he saddled his beloved horse and 
 rode west, a free man. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ' For never yet did I behold one of mortals like to thee ; neither 
 man nor woman. I am awed as I look upon thee. In Delos once, 
 hard by the temple of Apollo, I saw a young palm-tree shooting up 
 with even such a grace.' 
 
 GiFFORD sat in the white-hot sunlight with all the 
 pleasure of a snake upon a rock, for he was a hot man, 
 and like called to like ; and he hated cold as he hated 
 death, of which truly it is the symbol. The raffle of 
 people who made up the guests of the Speaker's garden- 
 party thronged the palm-studded lawns at the Parlia- 
 ment gardens ; the majestic building itself turned the 
 yellow of its stones into glare in the heat ; even the 
 cool bluestone walls of St. Patrick's Cathedral found 
 their own haze of heated air. 
 
 The pretty women drooped like flowers, the ugly ones 
 reddened to beef colour ; and a new horror was added 
 to the afternoon by the necropolitan blackness of the 
 clothes and hat of a teetotal member of the Legislative 
 Assembly, a man who couldn't smile, and was therefore 
 elected because he was an ' earnest man,' whatever 
 that may be ; and by the thick black squeakful boots 
 of half a dozen doddering Legislative Councillors, who 
 couldn't remember anything happening later than the 
 year 1862. Where their intellects had stopped so had 
 their clothes ; the unlovehnes of the Victorian era was 
 
 74 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 75 
 
 in them, and in their women-kind exaggerated to 
 burlesque. 
 
 The wife of Millenet — the statistics' crank of the 
 Assembly, a thin, weedy, mercantile formula of a man — 
 looked cool and charming, daring and victorious, among 
 the faded lilies and the painted peonies of that after- 
 noon. While they sat under trees or haunted the 
 refreshment tents in a continuous consumption of ices, 
 Gifford and Mrs. Millenet walked pleasantly in the 
 open, a scarlet sunshade giving her pale face a delicate 
 colour, and slightly relieving the oliveness of Gifford's 
 complexion. She was tall, thin, large-mouthed, and 
 had big violet eyes that were always pleading. Her 
 dead-gold hair was always parted in the middle and 
 fastened in a knob that had all the exquisite softness of 
 a refined woman's hair to the touch, while in its form 
 it had all the hardness of a coronet. This simple 
 coiffure gave her a demure look, which her pleading 
 eyes helped, her luscious mouth, more like a great 
 overblown flower than flesh, cast suspicion on, and her 
 high cheek-bones contradicted. She was childless, 
 melting, conceited, and soft ; a woman who, without 
 desire, was greedy — one of those who want a piece of 
 everything that shines — and she had a husband who 
 lived in figures. 
 
 She talked without cessation, unless it was to pause 
 for applause, or to note the effect on her companion of 
 an apparently careless, but intentionally direct, question 
 of himself. She laughed and talked and laughed again, 
 once going over the edge of flippancy into a refined 
 vulgarity, but recovering herself before she had shocked 
 him much. Her friends said there was no harm in her, 
 and they were right ; her enemies that there was little 
 
76 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 good in her, and they were nearly right. She had a 
 squirrel's brain, which is good only for remembering 
 nuts, and cannot remember for more than a week. 
 Her sense of honour was little more than a word, and 
 as fragmentary as a flying fish's knowledge of the sun. 
 
 'Just look at that awful crowd, Mr. Gifford,' she 
 said, looking more like a ripe peach than a woman, as 
 a highly respectable and very stupid Legislative Coun- 
 cillor passed with his painfully ugly family. ' When- 
 ever I see that awful woman and her daughters I can 
 shut my eyes and see six horsehair chairs against the 
 wall and two china dogs in the fender, and a stuffed 
 parrot in a glass shade, resting on a wool mat, with 
 twenty pounds' weight of Family Bible at the corner of 
 the red tablecloth.' 
 
 He laughed, glad to lead her away from talking of 
 people, and said : 
 
 ' These Early Victorian furnishings were shocking, 
 weren't they ?' 
 
 But she got back to the forbidden track. 
 
 ' Yes. And how tough they are ! How they live ! 
 You can't kill them. I went to those new people the 
 other day. Oh, I can't remember names. They had 
 awfully pussy statuary all over the place. You know — 
 little girl with a baa-lamb, little boy with two peeky 
 birds in a nest.' 
 
 ' I know — fully clothed, to cover bad modelling.' 
 
 ' Yes ; and made attractive to the people who don't 
 know by tricky little carvings — lace petticoats and all 
 that sort of thing.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know.' 
 
 ' Lots of money they've spent because they have it.' 
 
 ' And no taste because they didn't have it ?' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 77 
 
 ' And in the drawing-room — overloaded with pictures 
 it was : you know, all the soft, pussy kind — that awful 
 old woman showed me with great pride her bridal 
 orange blossoms under a glass shade. Ha, ha, ha 1' 
 
 ' It's certainly inartistic, Mrs. Millenet ; but every 
 man isn't refined in his romance. I suppose it was 
 the poor woman's way of saying " I remember." ' 
 
 'You're the only romantic politician in Australia, 
 Mr. Gifford ; but I'm sure she didn't do it for that.' 
 
 ' For what, then ?' 
 
 ' Oh, I think she meant to say, " I'll anticipate any- 
 thing against my character ; there's my marriage lines." 
 You know how vulgar these people are in being so 
 careful of their reputations.' 
 
 She laughed a laugh full of her own vulgarity. The 
 slang she used, and which she would have called brutal 
 if uttered by the uneducated with the aspirate neglected, 
 she regarded as smart when spoken in her own cultured 
 tones. 
 
 She became more daring in her criticisms and more 
 loud-toned in her flippancies ; until at last he looked at 
 her to see if she were affected by the heat, and found 
 her still the same cool, peach-like creature, her fine skin 
 blushless, although she had been talking bowdlerized 
 women's club language ; which is Rabelais with most 
 of the coarseness and all the wit taken out and much 
 of the suggestion left in. 
 
 She led him to a refreshment-tent, where a kindly, 
 undecorative lady, closely related to the Premier, enter- 
 tained a dozen friends, and showed a terror of embar- 
 rassment and an agony of self-consciousness ; so that 
 the long flapping lace sleeves of her gown trailed 
 through tea and coffee, and over ices, and upset two 
 
78 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 cups of coffee unwittingly, and deposited the collections 
 on the clothes of her guests. Had the spoliation been 
 mentioned to her, she would have collapsed. As it was, 
 she smiled at the guests her self-consciousness ; and the 
 guests cursed her silently, hiding damaged skirts, and 
 grinning like the Spartan boy. 
 
 Mrs. Millenet's laughter amused Gifford. It was a 
 mixture of the irresponsible giggle of a girl and the 
 laugh of the boy of twenty who laughs because the sun 
 shines, with something of the malevolent cackle of 
 Quilp. And suddenly the band began the most human 
 expression extant in music of love, heart-break, and 
 despair ; the sound of the wailing brasses for the im- 
 pressionable Gifford shut out the sun and turned the 
 sky to blackness. 
 
 ' Robert, Robert, toi que j'aime.' 
 
 Almost imperceptibly she drew closer ; she was as 
 impressionable as he, but more consciously so, and 
 consciously ever ready to make impressions. 
 
 ' Isn't that sad, Mr. Gifford ?' 
 
 He rather resented the breaking of the silence. 
 
 ' It's sad and glad.' 
 
 ' And mad and bad, and had and lad,' said she 
 flippantly. ' I used to read it when I was a teeny, 
 weeny baby in arms. " A sad cat makes a flat hat," 
 and things like that' 
 
 She looked in his face for applause, saw none there, 
 dropped her eyes, and let the music steep her in languor 
 again. But she could not remain quiet for a moment. 
 
 ' Don't you think the world is very full of sadness ?' 
 
 ' Not very. Look at the happy crowd to-day.' 
 
 ' Oh, these ! A lot of ugly women.' 
 
 ' But they're all humans ; they can all feel.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 79 
 
 ' Oh, they can't. They're most of them animals.' 
 
 This brutality of exclusiveness in a man would have 
 caused Gifford to end the acquaintance; in Mrs. 
 Millenet's presence it made him physically uncomfort- 
 able, and she saw it. 
 
 ' There ! I've offended you. You believe in equal 
 rights and the Labour Party, don't you?' Her eyes 
 filled with tears, but she continued without waiting for 
 a reply : ' Oh, I didn't mean it ; but everybody mis- 
 understands me — everybody. My husband doesn't 
 understand me. Nobody does.' 
 
 She might have added that she did not understand 
 herself. She shed a few more tears, and Gifford would 
 have been greatly embarrassed, but that to this uncon- 
 scious Lilith there entered Eve- 
 
 The white head of a Supreme Court Judge, the dandy 
 of his time, leaned more than chivalrously to her as 
 she came from the Parliament Buildings to the lawn. 
 
 Abbey, uneasily self-conscious, and smiling all his 
 uneasiness, walked at her left. Behind them came 
 Daven, his head bowed and sideways like a lover, 
 bending to catch the emptiest word of a little curved, 
 dimpled, Titian-haired girl, as if all her utterances were 
 new revelations of Nature, which, after all, they were. 
 
 The music reached its Himalaya of agony. 
 
 ' Oh, mon bien ! mon Men supreme, toi que j'aime 
 
 ' And Gifford, lifted by the music, saw Her for 
 
 the first time — Woman the Roborant, Woman the 
 Weakener, Woman the Blood-stirrer. Immediately 
 he forgot' that Mrs. Millenet was at his side, as this 
 dark-haired beauty of the clear, pale face, the firm 
 mouth and chin, the straight nose, the arched black 
 eyebrows, and the great ropes of hair, soft and lustrous 
 
8o THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 as silk, advanced with the Judge, He murmured a 
 word of excuse to Mrs. Millenet, and stepped forward 
 to meet them. In her eyes and on her forehead were 
 pride, and in her walk — erect as a peasant woman of 
 Tuscany, and as if she had carried head-burdens from 
 childhood — there spoke perfect health, the majesty of 
 youth. She walked as walked a happy queen to her 
 bridal in those days when kings and queens were kings 
 and queens, chosen for their beauty, their courage, 
 and their wit. 
 
 He felt that she was curiously like his mother, or as 
 his mother had been in maidenhood; and then, the 
 introduction being compassed, he turned to introduce 
 Mrs. Millenet, and saw how the peach and pink hand- 
 someness of the fair woman shivered into insignificance 
 in the presence of the majestic beauty of Australia 
 Field. Daven's inamorata was introduced also, and 
 the three women regarded each other narrowly, easily 
 disguising their feelings from the blind men. Miss 
 Field and Miss Marsh — the Mrs. Daven-to-be — had 
 already settled in their first moment of meeting that, 
 although they could never be warm friends, they were 
 naturally-pleasant mutual acquaintances ; but that may 
 have been because Miss Marsh was certain of her 
 possession, and knew that Miss Field had no desire to 
 steal it. Now, since she had been introduced to 
 Mrs. Millenet, Miss Field was at one with Miss Marsh 
 — they regarded Mrs. Millenet with conscious enmity 
 at sight, their woman's intuition showing them the 
 snake under the leaves. They looked at her in haif- 
 frightened reprobation, as peaceful traders regard a 
 pirate ; and Mrs. Millenet answered their dislike with 
 defiance, glaring for a moment like a cat in dudgeon. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 8i 
 
 Abbey and the Judge walked ahead with the ladies 
 to find seats, and Daven and Gifford followed. 
 
 ' Isn't she pretty ?' asked Daven. 
 
 ' Pretty ! She's perfect.' 
 
 'Eh?' 
 
 He followed Gilford's glance, and saw it resting on 
 the figure of Australia Field — the apotheosis of grace 
 and beauty. 
 
 ' I meant Miss Marsh.' 
 
 * Oh yes, of course, What is it, Jack ? Serious ?' 
 
 ' As serious as it can be. We're going to be married.' 
 ' Good luck to you !' 
 
 * And you're to be best man.' 
 ' It's a deal, mate.' 
 
 They rejoined the party, and the forces of natural 
 selection paired off Gifford and Miss Field, so that they 
 talked interestedly, half to the exclusion of the other, and 
 Abbey watched his one-time mate with unfriendly eyes. 
 
 Of the seven of the group only the Judge was happy, 
 and that only because he was too old to see that he was 
 de trap. Miss Marsh and Abbey wished that the Judge 
 would go away and that Gifford and Mrs. Millenet 
 would leave also, so that the two pairs might be 
 together and yet separated enough to feel the tie of a 
 solitude of two. Daven wished for nothing, being 
 dully unhappy, for that communion with the beloved 
 was made impossible. Miss Field and Gifford were 
 unconscious of surroundings, being half shy and half 
 satisfied in each other's presence ; and Mrs. Millenet's 
 squirrel brain teemed with unpracticable revenges on 
 that dark woman whom she hated at the beginning, 
 but trebly so now that the defection of Gifford had 
 dealt this almost mortal blow to her vanity. 
 
 6 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Abbey's gaze lingered on the garden at Hawthorn, 
 trying to be gay in its autumn dress ; then he latched 
 the gate and walked slowly away. The thin graceful 
 woman, etiolated by seclusion and weakness, nodded 
 kindly to him as he passed into the road, but he was 
 too downcast to notice the action of farewell. 
 
 Stralie entered the room, but did not sit down. She 
 moved about the room, giving deft and unnecessary 
 touches to the flower-holders. 
 
 The youthfully bright eyes of the invalid followed her 
 for a few moments, and than the invalid spoke. 
 
 ' Has he asked you again, Stralie ?' 
 
 ' Yes, mother.' 
 
 ' And I suppose you gave the usual answer, dear ?' 
 
 ' Yes, mother.' 
 
 ' Poor Frank !' 
 
 ' I say " Poor Frank !" too ; but it's no use, mother, 
 I can't like him — not that way.' 
 
 ' He's a good man, and I'd like to see you settled.' 
 
 Stralie looked at her then and laughed. 
 
 ' I should be settled in more ways than one.' 
 
 ' Very well, dear, don't think about it. You know 
 best.' 
 
 ' My instinct is all against it, mother.' 
 
 83 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 83 
 
 ' We won't say any more about it, dear.' 
 
 ' We won't, then. Oh, these blundering men ! They 
 keep on doing the thing that hurts them. If I wanted 
 anything and couldn't get it, I'd forget it.' 
 
 ' I believe you would, dear ; but you're very strong.' 
 
 ' Oh, it isn't all strength. Pride would make me 
 avoid the people who didn't want me, even if I were 
 madly in love.' 
 
 ' You don't understand, Stralie. Everybody warned 
 me of your father, and I knew he was not a good man, 
 but I had to have him.' 
 
 ' But you weren't as proud as I am, mother.' 
 
 ' Yes I was ; but when love comes pride goes.' 
 
 'There's May. I'll go and meet her.' She was 
 glad of the interruption. All debatable ground seemed 
 to lead to the appraisement of the unwelcome lover, 
 and she ran to the garden and brought back Mrs. 
 Hempel, wife of the metallurgist of Coocooroo, a 
 pretty, plump, bouncing woman, full of energy and 
 impulse, with two life interests — her husband and 
 Stralie, and one life sorrow — her childlessness. 
 
 Stralie seized her, clasped her waist loverly, and 
 forced her to skip along the garden path to the 
 veranda, where Mrs. Hempel arrived roseate and half 
 breathless. 
 
 ' This is one of your madnesses, Stralie. You act the 
 chatelaine of thirty nearly always, and then for a moment 
 you forget you're twenty-two and dance like a school- 
 girl.' 
 
 ' So glad to see you. May !' 
 
 ' You've refused poor Abbey again.' 
 
 ' How did you know ?' 
 
 ' I met him near the station, and he said " Good- 
 
 6—2 
 
84 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 night " although it's afternoon, and then ran away. 
 Why do you do it, Strahe ?' 
 
 ' It's no use, May. I can't. And if you bully me 
 I'll sulk.' 
 
 ' Oh, I won't bully you. You can't help it, I suppose. 
 But Frank is such a good fellow, and if you married 
 him Will would be so pleased.' 
 
 ' My dear May, I can't marry the whole world to 
 oblige your husband.' 
 
 ' I should think you wouldn't, to even oblige the 
 whole world.' Then, in a voice full of quick suspicion : 
 ' Is there anybody else yet ?' 
 
 'N — no, no!' said Stralie, colouring for an instant, 
 thinking of Gifford, and wondering if she had spoken 
 the absolute truth. ' How could there be ? And I've 
 refused Mr. Abbey three times.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know. Well, we'll wait. One of these days 
 you'll give in.' 
 
 ' I will not.' 
 
 ' You will : no woman can hold out for ever.' 
 
 • That may he. . , . But I can. . . . Mother, here's 
 May. I'll leave you two to talk, and I'll make the tea.' 
 
 She left them, wondering if she could really believe 
 herself; for the new man haunted her, not as a memory, 
 not even with tenderness, but as a persistent thought.' 
 
 For the first time the deep and steady current of her 
 life was changed into something of that restlessness that 
 attacks roving men in spring ; and it was partly as an 
 outlet for the new fever that although usually a semi- 
 recluse she made many social engagements, it may 
 have been in the hope of meeting him. She had 
 not seen Gifford for two months ; only their meeting, 
 emphasized by the ill-concealed petulance of Mrs. Mil- 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 85 
 
 lenet, existed to identify him, and that she might have 
 forgotten but for Abbey's most recent expression and 
 repulse, which had set her, half-unconsciously to herself, 
 comparing the two men. 
 
 In that time Gifford had had no time to spare for 
 mere woman. A dissolution was threatened ; his party 
 was growing ; Curran, with the grievance of his Race- 
 course Branch Railway rankling, had become a tower 
 of strength ; the one-time Corner party, helped by the 
 compact little Labour party, had been so recruited 
 that, except in name, it was the direct Opposition ; and 
 power seemed very near. 
 
 For weeks Gifford had, after the time-worn custom 
 of country members, received visiting constituents, had 
 given them drink for themselves or subscriptions to 
 local temperance lodges, according as to whether they 
 were the more human and less costly drinkers or the 
 clammy and expensive teetotalers. The members 
 cursed their too-fond supporters while greeting them 
 with the smiles of trapped foxes, which were intended 
 to mean a cheery welcome ; they were dragged around 
 the city by despotic electors who wanted something 
 from every shop in Melbourne, and were unable to buy 
 without the advice of the legislator — given personally 
 and on the spot ; and they did not dare to revolt 
 because the threatened dissolution gave the elector 
 power, and the elector knew it. 
 
 One of Gifford's recruits, Rockingham, the repre- 
 sentative of a suburban constituency, had resigned his 
 seat three months before. 
 
 ' Simply can't stand it,' he said to Gifford, who 
 naturally strove to avert the probable loss of a vote. 
 ' I was earning five pounds a week before I got into 
 
86 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Parliament. I gave up the work when I was elected, 
 and tried to live on my Parliamentary screw. And 
 when I came to reckon it all up — contributions to 
 charities, football clubs, cricket clubs, and all the rest 
 of it — I have two pounds a week to live on ; and 
 blackguarded by everybody into the bargain. I'm full 
 up, Mr. Gifford ; I'm going back to hammer rivets into 
 boilers again.' 
 
 ' But some of the old hands manage to dodge these 
 blackmailers.' 
 
 ' Some of 'em do ; but it takes three years to know 
 how, and I can't spare the time.' 
 
 ' I believe in having a country constituency ; all your 
 constituents are too far away from Melbourne to bother 
 you,' said Daven. 
 
 ' Don't you believe it,' replied Rockingham. ' I've 
 never been a country member, but there must be a pain 
 in it somewhere. You can't tell me that those farmers 
 who are always cadging from the Government can be 
 careless enough to let their representative off everything. 
 If he doesn't pay one way, he will another.' 
 
 ' I haven't found it so yet,' said Daven half stub- 
 bornly. 
 
 ' You will.' 
 
 The retiring legislator's prophecy became fact a few 
 weeks later. Melbourne was invaded by hordes of 
 people of indecisive faces and intellects of the bovine 
 order. They came to the great agricultural show, and 
 before three days of their visitation had passed Daven 
 said, almost helplessly, that he believed that all his 
 constituents and their women and children had come 
 to plague him. For all that, he danced attendance 
 on the more conscienceless of them, who thought that 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 87 
 
 because they had voted for him as a politician they 
 had created him as a man ; and in the interval of rest, 
 which was from midnight to two hours after dawn, he 
 confided to Gifford that he despaired of ever succeeding 
 with Miss Marsh by reason of his enforced absence 
 from her. 
 
 Now that the courtship was established and the 
 bridal near, Daven in the autumn did the honours of 
 the city with even worse grace, knowing a dissolution 
 was near, caring nothing for politics when weighed 
 against a hair of the beloved, but holding it because 
 Miss Marsh liked the distinction his seat in Parliament 
 gave to her. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Forby, the child enslaver of Korringa- 
 jork, had not been a supporter of Gifford's, but when 
 he came to the city he called on 'our member,' and 
 made exceedingly miserable the life of that now am- 
 bitious man. 
 
 ' Course I was one o' the Deformed League lars 
 time, but I'm open ter conviction,' said he, in a tone 
 that was half-promise, half-threat; and Gifford hoped 
 that the conviction might be for a capital offence. 
 ' Don' want yer t' do much,' continued Forby. ' I'm 
 inderpendent enough, Gord knows. All I want is for 
 yer t' get me an' the missus inter the debate.' 
 
 Gifford felt so relieved at the assurance that he 
 became cordial to Forby, asked him to drink, and 
 inquired with an unsimulated interest how Forby' s 
 affairs were. 
 
 ' Splenderd !' replied Forby, his long pale horse-face 
 lighting almost to enthusiasm. ' Milkin' seventy-nine 
 now.' 
 
 ' And all the children well ?' 
 
88 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Yes ; one more since you came.' He drank, and 
 added with the air of a man who would do his duty to 
 the nation even if the heavens fell : ' That's seven all 
 told, an' steps an' stairs they are, from Willy down.' 
 
 ' It's a big family, Mr. Forby.' 
 
 ' I believe in big families — that is, f'r men at dairyin'. 
 Why, d'ye know, I don't 'ave to pay wages f'r more'n 
 three weeks in the year. The children do it all.' 
 
 Gifford thought of the old-man child Willy and his 
 chilblained hands, of the gawky girls standing bare- 
 footed in the icy slush of the milking-yard. His gorge 
 rose, and with difficulty he suppressed the desire to 
 smite Forby on the top of his flat head. He consoled 
 himself with the belief that he had only to introduce 
 Forby to the Speaker's Gallery and see him never 
 again ; but the promise of independence was Forby's 
 way and the Victorian farmers' way, to yell night and 
 day of their independence and resourcefulness of char- 
 acter, until the day when they approached the Govern- 
 ment to beg again for remission of rent, for reduction 
 of railway rates, or for some other form of blackmail of 
 the people of the cities. 
 
 Forby haunted the House for two days after that, 
 dragged Gifford into deputations that begged the 
 Government to spend money at Korringajork in useless 
 public works and roads to nowhere, and, after the depu- 
 tations were exhausted, he cursed his representative 
 with his acquaintance and blighted the soul of that 
 progressive legislator with his conversation. He led 
 Gifford to rope-works to give his valueless opinion on 
 binder twine, although Forby had no crops to reap, 
 and was never likely to have any; begged Gifford to 
 accompany him to the purchase of a tin of tea, and 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 89 
 
 succeeded, buying the tea with the flourish of a man 
 taking an option of purchase over the continent ; bor- 
 rowed four pounds, and thereafter became a Hmpet. 
 
 He lay in wait privily for the weary Gifford, and 
 Gifford fled from him on the fourth day ; turned into 
 Bourke Street an hour later, and found his enemy 
 again. 
 
 * Hello !' said Forby ; ' I was lookin' for yer.' And 
 Gifford reflected on the fate that encouraged this man 
 to look for another man in a city of six hundred 
 thousand people, and to find that man without 
 difficulty. 
 
 ' I am very busy,' said Gifford. His patience had 
 been exhausted long ago, but recognition of the cheap- 
 ness of Forby's intelligence, and possibly the politician's 
 newly-acquired tact, had to that time saved Forby 
 from direct insult. 
 
 ' Well, I was goin' t' arsk yer to come an' show me 
 the Gov'ment Butter Stores.' 
 
 ' I've no time.' 
 
 Forby sighed, grunted malevolently, as if to say that 
 the Reform Leaguers at Korringajork would be duly 
 informed of this neglect of an elector, smothered his 
 resentment, and said resignedly, ' I'll walk with yer 
 down the town, anyway.' 
 
 'I must leave you at Collins Street, Mr. Forby. I 
 tell you I'm busy.' 
 
 ' Well, s'pose I ain't doin' any harm walking with 
 yer?' 
 
 ' No, I suppose not.' 
 
 Gifford walked so quickly that Forby was forced to 
 trot to keep up with him ; but as he trotted Forby 
 talked, though almost breathlessly. 
 
90 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Y' mightn't ' (puff) ' get any opposishun this nex' 
 time if yer drop that there ' (puif) ' land tax.' 
 
 ' I wouldn't drop it if I could,' replied Gifford. 
 
 ' Well, even if yer didn't I might 'old opposishun off 
 yer.' He glanced slyly to see the effect of his words, 
 but there was no change of expression on Gifford's 
 half-averted face. ' Y' see, I'm the chairman o' the 
 Deformed League at Korringajork, an' what I say 
 everybody does.' 
 
 * I'm not afraid of opposition, Mr. Forby.' 
 
 The independence-loving Mr. Forby damned this 
 independence of Gifford, because it carried an implied 
 disregard of Forby and his works ; but he was silent as 
 they turned into Swanston Street, and did not speak 
 again until the Town Hall was reached. 
 
 Then he spoke with the air of a man who knows 
 that he is offering terms that must be accepted. 
 
 ' Well, you'll 'ave no opposishun if you promise to 
 increase the Government subsidy to the municer- 
 palities.' 
 
 ' Why should I ?' 
 
 ' Well, we want a lot o' road-mendin' done.' 
 
 ' Then increase your municipal rates.' 
 
 At this terrible proposal that the Victorian yeoman 
 — his country's curse — should tax himself Forby almost 
 fainted, but compromised by gasping at the blasphemy. 
 
 ' Why, look 'ere, Mr. Gifford ' 
 
 But at that moment Gifford saw in the moving 
 crowd, making it look inexpressibly sordid and mean 
 by comparison, the figure of Australia Field, graceful as 
 a palm. 
 
 She bowed to him, and he returned the salute and 
 tried to go to her, but Forby had buttonholed him. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 91 
 
 'Y' see, if y' talk like that ye're bound t' 'ave 
 opposishun.' 
 
 ' Another time ! another time ! I must go.' 
 
 ' But I'm goin' 'ome ter-morrow, an' we want ter fix 
 up at once whether we're goin' t' run a man agen yer 
 or no, yer see.' 
 
 Miss Field had passed them. Gilford turned and 
 saw her disappearing in the crowd. He wanted so 
 much to speak with her again that he wrenched his 
 coat from Forby's detaining fingers and cursed Forby, 
 whereat that political power became livid with rage, 
 and determined that Gifford should have the most 
 virulent opposition that Korringajork could produce. 
 
 But Gifford, caring not a straw for Korringajork at 
 the moment, made his way to where he had last seen 
 Miss Field, but failed to find her, and stood on the 
 kerb cursing Forby and hot with disappointment. 
 
 Love at first sight is possible only when the heart is 
 clean and young — not because there are yet illusions to 
 be lost, but because there is soil, not rock and ashes. 
 And Gifford was comparatively clean and wholly young, 
 and Stralie absolutely both. 
 
 Seeing her again, Gifford felt that he knew all Dante's 
 obsession by Beatrice, though he was too human to 
 understand the love that was content to worship from 
 afar, or to brook the losing of her to another man. 
 And now he had lost an opportunity. 
 
 ' Damn Forby !' said Gifford. 
 
 ' He might have spoken to me,' said Stralie. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ' It is an old, old story, 
 Yet bideth ever new. 
 And he to whom it chanceth 
 It breaks his heart in two.' 
 
 Luck made them meet often after that vain encounter 
 in the city, and their embarrassments at these meetings 
 were subtle compliments each to each. 
 
 The triumvirate was in danger of death by secession : 
 Daven's love affair separated him from his mates ; 
 Gifford and Abbey were drifting from friendship into 
 being merely acquaintances. All the tastes and kind- 
 nesses and memories that tied them to each other were 
 for the time forgotten ; the old loves of track and camp, 
 flood and fire, and of mutual endurance, gain and loss, 
 disappeared from Gifford's memory in the new and 
 enthralling pursuit of The Woman ; and Stralie was 
 Abbey's one jealousy — a jealousy quiet but very deep, 
 for this phlegmatic man had never loved before, and 
 his repulses only strengthened his stubbornness. 
 
 When Abbey and Gifford met, it was with an 
 embarrassment that made the parting a relief. There 
 must have been two men in Eden, because a woman 
 was there; Cain was not the first murderer. Abbey, 
 who had been such a stanch friend, lost not a jot of 
 his admiration for Gifford : that was too deep to be 
 
 92 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 93 
 
 affected ; but when he found Stralie and Gifford together 
 in his thoughts he forgot that friendship of three which 
 had made their early manhood a golden age — which 
 had, until a few months ago, gilded the struggles and 
 the hardnesses of such camps as Sudden Jerk and 
 Blazing Glory, the Peak, New Paris, and Sandy 
 Blight, beyond their unalluring names and merits. 
 
 Even Mrs. Hempel's optimism could not save Abbey's 
 faintheartedness. While there had been no apparently 
 favoured suitor in the field, he had hoped ; now that 
 circumstances seemed to be devoted to Gifford, the 
 thrice-rejected lover despaired of ever moving her. 
 Yet in all their frequent meetings Stralie had not 
 favoured Gifford over other men. Whatever may have 
 been her reali feelings, her pride saved her from any 
 exposure of them. Pride ruled her so much that she 
 was proud of her pride ; and if Mrs. Hempel and 
 Stralie's mother shook their heads smilingly, and 
 prophesied a sudden, complete, and Griselda-like sur- 
 render ' one of these days,' the confidence of youth 
 that admits no precedents, not even the precedent of 
 death, kept unshaken her own belief in herself. 
 
 Shp met Gifford often — at his mother's house, at her 
 own home, and at Mrs. Hempel's — and talked with 
 him and admitted to herself all her interest in, and 
 admiration of his qualities, without admitting even a 
 suspicion of loving him. Yet, always on her guard 
 against him, she failed to guard herself against nature, 
 the which can never be denied. 
 
 Gifford had called on Mrs. Field, who in a moment 
 yielded to his fascinations, making him so welcome a 
 guest that he visited almost as frequently as Abbey, 
 who was Stralie's second shadow whenever oppor- 
 tunity offered. Generally th? four people constituted 
 
94 THE SNARE OF STRENGlti 
 
 themselves a conversation of tw^o — Gifford and Mrs. 
 Field talking, Stralie listening and putting in a vi^ord 
 now and then, and Abbey regarding the whole arrange- 
 ment with a half-sulky jealousy. 
 
 Within a fortnight of his introduction to Mrs. Field, 
 Gifford discovered that the seaside in autumn did not 
 suit his mother's health, and although that lady's love 
 bred jealous suspicions, she said naught, and agreed 
 with a good grace to take a house near Mrs. Field's — a 
 removal which gave Abbey new fears when he thought 
 he had exhausted them all. 
 
 Stralie knew only that she had a subtle pleasure in 
 Gifford's company, but Gifford was in no doubt. He 
 knew, with his usual lightning decisiveness, that she 
 was the one woman for him, and no faintness of heart 
 dictated a delay in approaching her: he waited only 
 for an opportunity; but there was always Mrs. Field, 
 or Mrs. Hempel, or his mother, or Abbey, in the way. 
 Therefore he appeared to devote himself to Mrs. Field 
 when all his desires were to Stralie ; so that Mrs. 
 Hempel, who examined facts too closely to see them 
 quite truly, set him down as one of those pack-horses 
 which are content to carry wine and drink water. 
 
 Gifford called one afternoon, and found Abbey in 
 attendance. They greeted each other like armed men, 
 each waiting for the other to make the insult or draw 
 the sword, but Abbey the more bitter of the two, for 
 he felt that the victory was to his one-time mate. 
 
 Stralie entered the room dressed for walking. 
 
 'We are going to Mrs. Hempel's, Mr. Gifford,' she 
 said, as they shook hands. 
 
 Abbey's face grew sunny at the ' we.' 
 
 ' May I go with you ?' 
 
 ' I think so ; Mrs. Hempel will be glad to see you.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 95 
 
 Abbey's face clouded again. 
 
 They walked down the grassed road together in 
 uneasy silence, broken by converse merely mono- 
 syllabic — Abbey sulky and therefore most at a dis- 
 advantage, Gifford anxious to please, and Stralie 
 embarrassed. Suddenly the narrow road was filled 
 with uproar : a dogcart, drawn by a mad and bolting 
 horse, and occupied by a girl, white-faced and para- 
 Ij'zed by terror, dashed towards them at a gallop. 
 
 Abbey was nearest the fence, and Stralie's most 
 feasible escape lay in his direction ; yet nature found 
 her. As the horse approached them, she ran towards 
 the danger — and Gifford, clasped his arm, shrank 
 to the shelter of his shoulder, and cried in great alarm : 
 
 ' Oh, oh !' 
 
 Gifford put a protecting arm around her as Abbey 
 left them, raced with the horse for twenty yards, and 
 pulled him to a break, a trot, a rear, and a standstill. 
 He recovered the reins for the girl, and handed them to 
 the half-exhausted man, who ran to them in tardy rescue, 
 accepted their breathless thanks without half hearing 
 them, and returned to Gifford and Stralie. But less 
 than the usual prize of the martyr, which is momentary 
 applause, was his ; so occupied were the two with each 
 other that they scarcely noticed him. That light rest- 
 ing for a moment on Gifford's shoulder had found 
 Stralie's affections for her. The three walked to 
 Mrs. Hempel's house even more silent than before. 
 
 And at night, when Gifford and Abbey and Mrs. 
 Hempel accompanied Stralie home, all Mrs. Hempel's 
 plans for Abbey were disappointed by circumstance. 
 
 Abbey found himself walking ahead with Mrs. 
 Hempel; Gifford and Stralie, paired as by natural 
 selection, loitered at first a hundred feet and at last a 
 
96 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 quarter of a mile, behind them. Her beauty lighted 
 the darkness for Gifford ; her eyes shone like stars ; 
 she was as tenacious of impressions as sculptor's clay. 
 The very few words necessary were spoken ; the first 
 kiss followed without conscious will and as by instinct. 
 
 ' Don't go in yet, dearest.' 
 
 ' Oh, I must ! They'll wonder where we are.' 
 
 ' To-morrow, then ?' 
 
 ' Yes, to-morrow afternoon.' 
 
 ' No, the morning.' 
 
 ' Not the morning.' 
 
 ' Yes, at daybreak.' 
 
 ' At daybreak ?' 
 
 ' Daybreak — yes. We'll go down by the river again. 
 There's such a lot to talk about.' 
 
 ' I suppose I must.' 
 
 ' Yes, you must, if you love me.' 
 
 ' To-morrow, then.' 
 
 ' To-morrow. I shan't sleep a minute.' 
 
 ' But you must ; you might make yourself ill.' 
 
 Gifford laughed, as at a memory of strength given to 
 many careless nights and days — strength that could 
 never be weakened. 
 
 ' Then I'll try to sleep. I won't go in now.' 
 
 ' No, don't come in. I'll say you had to go home — 
 shall I ?' 
 
 ' Anything. Till to-morrow.' 
 
 ' To-morrow.' 
 
 ' God bless you, sweetheart !' 
 
 ' And God bless you and keep you safe !' 
 
 ' To-morrow.' 
 
 The winding garden-path hid her goddess shape from 
 him ; the happy lover looked at the stars, laughed, and 
 strode away exultant. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ' A,nd now above them pours a wondrous voice, 
 Such as Greek reapers heard in Sicily.' 
 
 The haze of the early autumn morning still hid the 
 river, although it had lifted from the far-off city roofs, 
 and every distant factory-stack showed its broken 
 feather of smoke struggling in the gray-blue air, when 
 Stralie, fresh as Monna Vanna, ran down the veranda 
 steps and flushed a little as she saw her night-old 
 lover. 
 
 ' Have you been waiting long, Mr. Gifford ?' 
 
 But he did not answer her thus distantly. It was 
 not his way to come into his kingdom a few hours ago, 
 and now to show any doubt of his ownership. 
 
 ' I've been waiting here since daybreak, dear, and I've 
 been awake all night.' 
 
 She flushed again, and extended her hand, but he 
 came closer and kissed her. 
 
 ' Oh, please — somebody might be looking.' 
 
 'There isn't, sweetheart. Look for yourself; there's 
 not a soul on the road.' 
 
 ' Which way shall we go, then ?' 
 
 ' That way — down to the river ; the other way leads 
 to the asylum.' 
 
 She laughed nervously. 
 
 97 7 
 
98 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Well, people would say you are mad — awake all 
 night and then standing at my garden-gate before 
 sunrise.' 
 
 ' I am mad, Stralie. If I were sane now I'd be a 
 miserable clod. But it is a wise madness. The world 
 is ours, dear.' 
 
 Her face was full of pride as her eyes of love, but it 
 was a new pride — pride of her lover, whose every word 
 had romance in it, and made this grassy road an 
 enchanted plain. 
 
 ' May told me that you gave a charm to the common- 
 place, Mr. Giff ' 
 
 'Are you speaking to me, Stralie ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' My name's George.' 
 
 'Well, May said that — George.' 
 
 ' You mean Mrs. Hempel ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' When did she say that, sweetheart ?' 
 
 ' Oh, never mind.' 
 
 ' But I do mind. When was it ?' 
 
 ' Oh, last night.' 
 
 'After ' 
 
 ' Yes, after that.' 
 
 ' So you found time to tell her and not time to tell 
 your mother ?' 
 
 ' I did tell my mother. I told her first.' 
 
 ' At that rate, you couldn't have left Mrs. Hempel 
 before two o'clock this morning.' 
 
 ' I did ! I left her at half-past one.' 
 
 ' Then you didn't sleep all night either ?' 
 
 • Oh, you mustn't ask me that. Let me keep some- 
 thing to myself.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 99 
 
 ' I can't, Stralie. You must be all mine — thought, 
 word, and deed.' 
 
 ' So I shall be. Do you think I could love you if I 
 couldn't be everything ?' 
 
 ' Yes, but the past, too.' 
 
 ' There's no past, George.' 
 
 ' We've got to hear it all, anyhow : what you did, 
 and how you grew, and when you began to love me.' 
 
 ' But you wouldn't care to hear all that,' she said un- 
 easily, the last soldier of her pride retreating to the last 
 ditch, the last defender of the citadel of identity dying 
 on the tower. 
 
 ' I would, dear. Wouldn't you like to hear how I 
 have loved you since our first walk together ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes ; that would be different.' 
 
 ' That is to say, you love me more than I love you.' 
 
 ' Oh, I hope not — I hope not. That would be 
 terrible !' 
 
 ' Well, then, when did you ?' 
 
 ' I don't know. Women can't remember their 
 emotions as men do. I think women love more with 
 the heart, men more with the brain.' 
 
 ' That is to say, a woman can love a man she doesn't 
 respect, but a man can't love a woman unless he 
 respects her.' 
 
 ' Oh, I don't know. Don't ask me. I can't argue or 
 find any reasons. It only seemed to me that you knew 
 when you began to love me, and I couldn't remember 
 when I began to love you.' 
 
 ' Whpn were you sure you loved me ?' 
 
 She flushed again, and a look of tenderness and 
 affright came into her eyes. 
 
 ' Must I say, George?' 
 
 7—2 
 
100 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Yes ; I command you.' 
 
 He laughed as he said it, but she was glad to take it 
 literally. She felt all the sweets of that submission 
 which is a woman's conquest as she replied : 
 
 ' Last night, George.' 
 
 He looked about, and seeing none, drew her close and 
 kissed her, and half-involuntarily she returned the kiss, 
 but so lightly that she only seemed to. 
 
 As they left the road and entered the park that dips 
 so steeply to the river, then white and smoky from the 
 haze of last night's frost, the sun rose higher and tore 
 the mist away. 
 
 They found a seat on a prone eucalypt, and Gifford drew 
 her to his arms, and she, looking about frightenedly saw 
 only a yellow-beaked bird with his head aside regarding 
 them with a comic interest, and dismissing any anxiety for 
 the little witness, she suffered the embrace and made no 
 movement of objection when he kissed her and laid her 
 head upon his shoulder. She was too noble to show 
 ordinary feminine coquetry. And as she rested there, 
 and he talked, kissing her at the end of every sentence, 
 she thought of her vaunted pride, of the prophesies by 
 her mother and Mrs. Hempel of the ' Mr. Right ' who 
 would come to conquer her, and was glad that ' Mr. 
 Right ' had come and now held her in his arms. She 
 knew that had she been weak enough to submit to be 
 worn down by Abbey's continued importunities, Abbey 
 would have been her slave and she the despot ; for she 
 was the true natural woman who enjoys having her 
 own way only with the husband she does not love. As 
 in a flash she saw — after that night of marvel that told 
 her that from hence she was to live indeed — that the 
 woman who remains her own mistress is the woman 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH loi 
 
 without a lover ; she is her own mistress, but never a 
 mistress to any but herself. 
 
 He talked like an angel, for he was greatly in love, 
 and all his qualities and his experiences and half- 
 forgotten memories were made evident, to help him 
 teach love to the beloved. All he had read or learned 
 by work and living returned to him, and Stralie listened 
 fascinatedly ; paying him his wage of an occasional 
 glance from eyes full of magic; her love of him, her 
 pride in him, growing from the tender plant of last 
 night, without limit, as if it would fill the earth. 
 
 She had always been religious, although it had never 
 had the brand of any ohurch, so for her there could 
 never be any half-hearted conviction ; in this newborn 
 love, that was growing into boundless adoration under 
 the fascination of the beloved voice, expressing the 
 beloved mind, she suddenly and without knowledge 
 made her love her religion. There had always been the 
 temple, and now she built the shrine. 
 
 The natural park became flooded with light ; every 
 tree-bole had its foraging bird ; the river lay green and 
 yellow in the sunlight. 
 
 ' Isn't the world beautiful, George?' 
 
 ' " And all that therein is." ' 
 
 ' Were you thinking of Bible talk then ?' 
 
 ' Yes, sweetheart.' 
 
 ' And so was I — the same thought as yours.' 
 
 ' A proof that we belong.' 
 
 ' I want no proofs, George.' 
 
 'Nor I. The head on the shoulder is the best proof. 
 Put it down again.' 
 
 • Will that do ?' 
 
 ' It's perfect. What Bible talk were you thinking of ?' 
 
102 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Just when the sun showed us the river I thought I 
 had never seen a day so bright before.' 
 
 ' I know. It seems to us to be brighter than summer.' 
 'Only to us?' 
 
 ' To a few other lovers, possibly. But most of the 
 Poor Little People are at work, and they can't see it as 
 we do.' 
 
 ' Everybody ought to be in love, George.' 
 'Well, you order it. Empress, and it shall be so. 
 But what was the quotation ?' 
 
 ' " They need no light of the sun ; for the Lord God 
 giveth them light." ' 
 ' Lord God Eros.' 
 ' Isn't that irreverent, George ?' 
 
 ' It would be blasphemous if I said I knew of any 
 other god or goddess than yourself, sweetheart.' 
 
 ' Don't crush my hat, George. . . . Did I mis- 
 quote ?' 
 
 * Whether you did or not, it's a misquotation no 
 longer. It's our revised version from this day, and we'll 
 order a new edition to be printed if you like.' 
 
 ' I hope we shall always love one another, George.' 
 ' No necessity for hoping anything, Stralie. It is 
 done. We do love for ever.' 
 ' But we're both extremists.' 
 
 ' The other kind of love is no good, Stralie. Let us 
 stay extreme.' 
 
 They walked back to Stralie's house, both faces made 
 doubly beautiful by happiness, the man and the woman 
 so much in love with each other that they loved the 
 whole world ; and everything that lived that day they 
 gilded with glances of affection, and each other most of 
 all. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 103 
 
 In the days that followed — Gifford having been 
 accepted as the New Man of the House by Stralie's 
 mother, and Mrs. Gifford having in return accepted 
 Stralie after some secret fears and twinges of jealousy, 
 finally alleviated by the facts that marriage would force 
 settled habits on George, and that the marriage of a son 
 is, after all, not so terrible as the marriage of a daughter 
 — the two most important personages lived not of earth, 
 although in it. Abbey had heard the news, and retired 
 sullenly without seeing Stralie, and with a more marked 
 avoidance of his old mate ; and Mrs. Hempel, now that 
 Abbey's dismissal had been made absolute, accepted 
 the new king, like the courtier she was. She even 
 welcomed Gifford with advice. 
 
 ' Mr. Gifford,' she said, noting that his worshipping 
 eyes followed the beauty as she moved, * you mustn't 
 spoil Stralie.' 
 
 ' She's an angel, Mrs. Hempel ; she can't be spoiled.' 
 
 ' Anybody can be spoiled ; but, of course, it would be 
 difficult to spoil ner. Her mother's just the same — an 
 angel of a woman.' 
 
 ' She's very like my mother.' 
 
 Mrs. Hempel knitted her joined eyebrows and 
 searched him with a swift glance. 
 
 ' This man is a good man.' Then, aloud : ' You see, 
 the father was a very selfish man — spent his money on 
 himself, and so the mother and the daughter were 
 never spoiled by having too much money.' 
 
 ' He was a bad lot, I believe.' 
 
 ' AH the better for them. A spendthrift's children 
 ought to be glad of their father's meanness.' 
 
 ' But all the money in the world couldn't spoil 
 Stralie.' 
 
104 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' It might have made her selfish. As it is, she hasn't 
 a fault.' 
 
 ' I know she hasn't.' 
 
 ' You can't call pride a fault.' 
 
 ' I don't think pride is the right word. That self- 
 respect that Stralie has is just the same as courage 
 in a man.' 
 
 Mrs. Hempel laughed. 
 
 ' I see it's hopeless for me to criticise her ; you won't 
 see a fault in your idol.' 
 
 ' There isn't one to see.' 
 
 ' Oh, you perfect lover ! You don't belong to the 
 nineteenth century. . . . Now, don't tell her we were 
 talking about her. . . . Take him away, Stralie. I 
 told him it was bad taste to talk religion, but he's so 
 bigoted he insisted on it.' 
 
 ' Religion ?' repeated Stralie, looking at him, puzzled. 
 ' Were you talking religion, George ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Gifford, looking into her eyes. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 ' My one friend ! my only — all my own — 
 Who put his breast between the spears and Ine.' 
 
 ' I've come to say good-bye, Miss Field.' 
 ' Are you leaving Melbourne, Mr. Abbey ?' 
 ' Yes — business — Coocooroo. Leaving to-morrow,' 
 he replied jerkily, embarrassed by her beauty and made 
 incoherent by the disappointment of her engagement 
 to Gifford. 
 
 ' You'll see Mr. Hempel, then ?' 
 ' Yes — he's an old friend of mine.' 
 ' Will you give him my kindest wishes ?' 
 ' I shall be glad.' 
 
 And that was the end of the conventionalities, be- 
 cause by this time the feeling of the absolute loss of her 
 left only room in him for naturalness. 
 
 ' Stralie, I suppose if I were a good man I should 
 congratulate you, but I can't.' 
 
 ' Mr. Gifford is a good man, Mr. Abbey." 
 ' I know — none better. He was my mate for five 
 years. Until he knew you he was my friend.' 
 
 ' He is your friend still. He speaks always affec- 
 tionately of you. He calls you " good old Frank," just 
 as he speaks of Mr. Daven as " dear old Jack." ' 
 
 ' He can afford to be my friend, because he has you. 
 He can afford to be the friend of all the world.' 
 
 105 
 
io6 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' You must see him before you leave.' 
 
 ' Must I ?' 
 
 ' Yes, and take his hand, and be the good mates you 
 always were. Is a little accident like myself to break 
 up a tried friendship ? I'd never forgive myself — I'd 
 never be quite happy if I caused that.' 
 
 ' Then if that is so I'll see him, and I'll say good-bye 
 now.' 
 
 ' Good-bye, Frank.' 
 
 ' Good-bye, Stralie.' 
 
 Their hands parted, and the rejected went down the 
 garden walk, and inevitably met Gifford at the gate ; for 
 Gifford was always at Mrs. Field's house, except when 
 asleep, or walking with Stralie. They met in the early 
 morning and parted at breakfast-time, and met again 
 in the afternoon, and again at night, and parted then 
 as if parting were death. 
 
 His followers grumbled a little at his half-defection, 
 and were conciliated by Daven, who had married Miss 
 Marsh and understood that love knows no politics. 
 
 ' He can't help it,' said Daven. ' I'll speak to him, 
 of course ; but he's an extremist, and we've got to take 
 him so.' 
 
 Graham, the misogynist, grinned. 
 
 ' I'll bet his girl thinks his extremeness is the finest 
 of all the virtues ; but he won't look at work since he's 
 been engaged to her.' 
 
 ' Can't blame him much,' said Daven ; ' but I'll speak 
 to him.' 
 
 * It won't do much good. Jack. Women are not for 
 men of action, although the men of action pretended to 
 be women-hunters from mere vanity, and fear that their 
 manhood should be discounted by any rumours of cold- 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 107 
 
 ness. A good lover is a great loafer. While Giff is in 
 love vsre'll never get a stroke of work from him.' 
 
 ' Then he'll never work again, for it looks as if he's 
 playing for keeps.' 
 
 This ideal lover, to do him justice, simply had no 
 time for any but the business in hand — no time for 
 work, for constituents, for his party, for the old inti- 
 mate talks with his mother — who most keenly felt the 
 change and shed a few secret tears therefor — or for his 
 friends. 
 
 All the qualities which had made an adventurer of 
 him — the persistence which had carried him through 
 many a tight place, the dependability and the obvious 
 strength which had always put him in the van and 
 made him leader — weje now concentrated on the task of 
 conciliating and holding the sweet city he had won. 
 
 She never really settled down to the calm possession 
 of him, because he was full of surprises — mercurial 
 gaiety changing to fiery earnestness, a swift impression- 
 ability altering his thought and word in an instant ; 
 as quick as her own intuition, so that his speech 
 changed to anything she liked almost before she knew 
 it, his courtly reverence replaced in a moment by an 
 audacity that won while it frightened. If she forgot 
 him for a moment in his absence, he had always emis- 
 saries for her reminding — books, music, flowers, and 
 those swift memories of such a personality which make 
 the rememberer smile quietly. His mere initiative in 
 sending or causing these she unconsciously regarded 
 with a 'lover's egotism as his invention — as if there 
 had never been man, woman, flower, or music in the 
 world until she and Gilford had met and loved. 
 
 As Abbey moodily walked to the road he met the 
 
io8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 successful one, conquest writ large in his eyes, the step 
 of the master in his stride. Abbey looked at the 
 flowers in Gifford's hand, and was sulky again. 
 
 ' How are you, Frank ?' 
 
 ' I'm all right.' 
 
 He accepted the proffered hand and shook it limply. 
 
 ' How are things ?' 
 
 ' Coocooroos a shade weaker. I'm going up there.' 
 
 ' Are you ? Business ?' 
 
 ' Yes,' replied the other, knowing he was lying. 
 
 ' Hope you will be successful,' said Gifford, knowing 
 that Abbey was lying, and mainly desired to put distance 
 between him and Stralie. 
 
 ' Tha!nks. I'll clear now. Good-bye.' 
 
 Gifford caught his hand in the old grip. 
 
 ' Good-bye, Frank, and good luck ! We were always 
 good mates.' 
 
 Abbey did not return the pressure. He said sullenly, 
 ' Good-bye,' drew his hand away, and walked down the 
 road, the poor sulky yellow crest a few inches lower 
 than when that head held pride and the heart had 
 hope. 
 
 Gifford was cast down for a moment, and sorry for 
 half an hour. He was the winner, and, as the winner, 
 could afford the generosity of regret. 
 
 ' Poor old Frank !' he said later, when Stralie walked 
 with him under, the trees that knew no seasons except 
 spring and another. 
 
 ' I'm sorry I came between you,* replied Stralie, 
 shghtly piqued. 
 
 ' My beauty, I didn't mean that ! So far as you are 
 concerned, I'm glad he's " poor old Frank," but I'm 
 sorry he should forget we were once good mates.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH log 
 
 ' He doesn't forget that, dear. Give him a little time 
 and he'll see it was inevitable, and be friendly again.' 
 
 ' Then let us make it inevitable immediately, 
 sweetheart.' 
 
 ' How ?' said she, opening her eyes widely, but under- 
 standing him very well. 
 
 ' By marrying at once.' 
 
 ' But — we are quite happy as we are.' 
 
 ' We'll be more than " quite happy " when we're 
 married.' 
 
 ' But why are you not satisfied, George ? You know 
 I'm yours and I know you are mine, and isn't that 
 enough ?' 
 
 She made this ostrich-like attempt at concealment 
 of the obvious with a charming air of innocence, but 
 Gifford would not allow her to retain the pretension. 
 
 ' You know it isn't enough, dear. And as you love 
 me ' 
 
 ' When did I say so ?' 
 
 ' You said it just now.' 
 
 ' I didn't. I said you belonged to me.' 
 
 ' That's the same thing.' 
 
 ' I never said outright that I loved you.' 
 
 ' Not once in those words, but a thousand 'times by 
 suggestion. And you do, don't you ?' 
 
 ' Oh, well— yes.' 
 
 ' Then, when is it to be ?' 
 
 ' Oh, do not ask me for a day ! Say six months.' 
 
 ' No, one month.' 
 
 ' Oh, I couldn't ! You're unreasonable.' 
 
 ' Well, six weeks.' 
 
 ' No, George. Give mother a little time longer with 
 me, dear. Say two months.' 
 
no THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' It's a bargain, Mrs. Gifford, and I'll seal it.' 
 
 ' Mind, mind ! the cook is looking.' 
 
 ' Good luck to the cook's eyesight, then !' 
 
 ' George, you tell mother ; I can't bear to. She looks 
 at me often since our engagement as if she would cry.' 
 
 ' So does mine. But, dear, we can't wait all our 
 good time for them. We'd begin to lose all affection 
 for them if they were to stand between us.' 
 
 ' I suppose we would ; but it seems to me to be 
 selfish to leave them.' 
 
 ' It's natural we should, and most natural impulses 
 are selfish, Stralie.' 
 
 ' You'll be a preacher in your old age, George.' 
 
 ' The penalty for an insult is severe put pleasant,' 
 said Gifford. ' No hurry now ; serve you sentence with 
 resignation.' 
 
 Stralie accepted the punishment with a resignation 
 that bore a curious resemblance to rapture. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 ' Love makes time pass away ; time makes love pass away.' 
 
 Once the marriage was fixed and the coronation day 
 of happiness within sight, Gifford drifted a Httle into 
 his old ways of action, so that his party prophesied fair 
 things for him, and the Government was correspond- 
 ingly uneasy. Daven, his first lieutenant, and Graham, 
 his second, were full of hope for their chief and them- 
 selves. Berkshire, who occasionally gasped a speech to 
 the glory of money, and Millenet, the maniac of figures, 
 watched the continuously growing popularity of the 
 new party with a badly-concealed anxiety — Berkshire, 
 because the Toryism that was inherent in him appeared 
 in danger; Millenet, because the new party had an 
 outspoken contempt for precedent where a principle 
 was at stake, so threatening to cripple ' formula,' which 
 was Millenet's breath of life. 
 
 Gifford had said once in defending a political 
 organization that helped him, and condemning a sec- 
 tarianism that had helped the failures of the Parliament 
 into their position as members : ' It is a greater crime 
 to cut a man's nails in the name of religion than it is to 
 hang him in the name of political expedience ' ; and the 
 horror of such an iconoclast became their fixed idea. 
 
 The awful Legislative Council, which pretended to 
 
112 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 be mildly democratic, but was really more conservative 
 and almost as permanent as the English House of 
 Lords, echoed the fear of the reactionaries in the 
 Assembly. The Council was a dead House, that occu- 
 pied spasmodic session mostly in adjournments, after 
 stating in apoplectic voices that it — the Council — was 
 the only real friend of the people, and that all others 
 were pretenders and gross imitations. 
 
 From these councillors Gifford knew he could expect 
 only continuous obstruction, and the knowledge of that 
 kept a few wavering members behind the Government 
 and so held power away from Gifford. 
 
 Stralie came there often, and from the Speaker's 
 Gallery drank in the statements of her Leader of the 
 Opposition with the blind faith of an epileptic hermit 
 in a Divine revelation ; for him she became more greedy 
 of power than he. 
 
 Every day brought him to her cottage, so that 
 Stralie's mother, who had first endured this thief of 
 daughters, began to watch for his coming, and finally 
 accepted him as a son, as she had renewed her girl- 
 hood's friendship with his mother and made of her a 
 sister and a gossip ; for they were both done with life 
 and knew it all, and so had no need of confidants, 
 having no doubt of anything. 
 
 The wedding-day was but a fortnight distant when 
 Stralie, returning with Gifford from the afternoon walk, 
 found the household in confusion and her mother dead. 
 Then Gifford found himself shelved for the time ; with- 
 out thinking of it, to agree to being comforted by the 
 lover seemed to her a slight to the mother, as if the 
 sorrow of the bereaved were the right of the dead, and 
 the dead jealous of its right. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 113 
 
 Gifford knew her well, and effaced himself so easily 
 that first she felt grateful to him, and then wanted him 
 for the comfort she had regarded as undutiful. But the 
 first burst of grief over, and the clay consolidating on 
 the new grave under the driving rain, he came to be 
 readmitted to the old place, and to propose, with a 
 feeling of conscious magnanimity and abnegation, that 
 the wedding should be deferred for six weeks. To that 
 Stralie cried : 
 
 ' Oh, I couldn't think of it ! How can you propose 
 such a thing ?' 
 
 ' But you love me, dear ?' 
 
 'Well, even then. My poor mother! . . . Oh, 
 don't ask me, George !' 
 
 ' Say two months, then ?' 
 
 ' Oh, I couldn't ! Poor mother has been dead only a 
 fortnight. It would look like forgetting her.' 
 
 ' What does it matter what it looks like, sweetheart, 
 when you know you don't forget her and never will ?' 
 
 ' But to be happy when poor mother is only dead a 
 little time — it wouldn't be decent.' 
 
 ' Stralie, you mustn't make a luxury of sorrow.' 
 
 ' I don't. You can't understand. I would look on 
 myself as horribly selfish if I came to you for a long 
 time yet. I wouldn't be happy with you, either. My 
 conscienpe wouldn't let me.' 
 
 ' Stralie, this is foolish.' 
 
 ' Thank you. To call my grief for my mother 
 foolish ! I never thought I'd hear you say that.' 
 
 ' You, know very well that you haven't heard me say 
 it, don't you ?' 
 
 ' Y — yes, I know. I was cruel to say that. But — 
 oh, George ! she did all for me, gave up her life to 
 
114 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 me ! Can't I defer my happiness for even a little for 
 her?' 
 
 ' I'll say no more, sweetheart, but it's hard. And 
 how long am I to wait ?' 
 ' Six months, George.' 
 ' Six months ?' 
 
 ' Yes, dear. May and I have talked it all over. She 
 is going up to Coocooroo to her husband, and I'm to go 
 
 with her, and we'll both come back before the rains ' 
 
 ' There haven't been any rains for three years, Stralie. 
 Suppose the drought lasts another three years ?' 
 
 ' Well, I don't mean that. I mean before the 
 summer.' 
 
 ' And when do you go, sweetheart ?' 
 ' Next week. And when I come back, George, I'll 
 come to you gladly, dear, and we'll love each other all 
 our lives.' 
 
 ' But six months !' 
 
 ' It won't last long, 'dear, and you'll work better with 
 me away ; and you must make yourself Premier before 
 I come back, so that I may be prouder of you and love 
 you all the more.' 
 
 Her voice trembled, and her eyes were tear-filled. 
 They kissed silently. 
 
 ' You're right, Stralie — you always are iight ; and 
 I'll send you a letter every day.' 
 
 ' And I'll write every week, George. There's only 
 one post a week, you know.' 
 
 ' And if there's an early recess I might be able to 
 come to Coocooroo.' 
 
 ' Wouldn't that be splendid, George !' 
 They heartened each other up in this way, advancing 
 improbabilities to the rank of proved facts; but he, 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 113 
 
 more than she, beheved in the shortening of the proba- 
 tion she invented for his comfort. Comfort for herself 
 she did not greatly desire, for she had her grief. The 
 narcotic of sorrow, like the intoxication of joy, fills life 
 while it lasts. 
 
 During the last week together he might have broken 
 her resolution with his old habit of domination, but this 
 master passion had changed his ways, for the time at 
 least, as much as it had permanently affected her life 
 He found himself, as their engagement had lengthened, 
 strangely changed in his attitude to her, although to all 
 others he was the old Gifford. So far as concerned her, 
 all his old habits of taking by storm had been attenu- 
 ated into a semi-diffidence, made gentle by love, as 
 Stralie had been changed from pride. So he accepted 
 the separation, and saw her depart in tears, and returned 
 to his mother and his work numb with the new sense 
 of something essential lost, but questioning never 
 her judgment, nor attempting to analyze her sense of 
 duty to the dead. Thus he never discovered that that 
 sense of duty was partly respect for appearances ; partly 
 of genuinely, all-absorbing love of the mother, who had 
 been father and mother to her ; partly a selfishness to 
 the lover, to whom her most obvious duty pointed as 
 decisively as did her inclination. 
 
 8—2 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 'A woman who loves to be at the window is like a bunch of 
 grapes on the wayside.' 
 
 A MONTH of work, a month of loneliness, settled 
 Gifford to the new conditions that had at first seemed 
 impossible of endurance. The Tory alarms of Berk- 
 shire and the statistical excursions of Millenet showed 
 more plainly the fear of the growing strength of 
 Gifford's party. 
 
 In the beginning Gifford had no amusements, but 
 after the first few weeks, by a series of accidents, which 
 later appeared to be the circumstances of a design, he 
 met Mrs. Millenet at every turn — at the House, at the 
 theatres, at certain semi-society functions which in his 
 official capacity he might naturally be expected to 
 attend, and finally in a tea-room, where he might not 
 have been expected, and which he visited by reason of 
 a teetotal constituent insisting on that feminine re- 
 freshment. 
 
 As he rose to leave she crossed to him, and her tall 
 gracious presence affrighted the unsophisticated country 
 elector, so that he bade his representative good-bye in 
 an agony of distress and left the politician to the enemy. 
 
 She was still radiant as when they had first met in 
 midsummer, and th^ season was now late winter ; stiU. 
 
 ii6 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 117 
 
 cool, but yet not cold, as if neither heat nor frost could 
 affect her blood. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Gifford, I haven't seen you for an age !' 
 Their last meeting was three days old. ' I've been with 
 a party of old frumps, and as soon as I saw you come 
 in I thought, " Mr. Gifford has been sent to rescue me." ' 
 
 ' Was the danger great ?' he asked, regarding this 
 cool, trivial creature smilingly, because in the first 
 place she had saved him from the constituent, and in 
 the second her presence promised to save him from his 
 loneliness. 
 
 ' Terrible ! They would have talked me to death !' 
 
 ' Are you going to the train ?' 
 
 ' Yes. You'll take me to the station, won't you ?' 
 
 ' Of course.' 
 
 ' Now, isn't that " of course " sweet of you ? — as if 
 you couldn't do anything but take me to the station, 
 even if the heavens fell.' 
 
 She gabbled and he listened during the walk to the 
 station, and, arrived there, she suddenly stopped, faced 
 him, and said : 
 
 ' You're the most entertaining man I've ever met.' 
 
 ' But I've spoken scarcely a word,' said Gifford, in 
 surprised and smiling protest. 
 
 ' It doesn't matter. I understood you so well when I 
 found how well you listened. . . . Now, don't try to 
 analyze that. I hardly know what I mean.' 
 
 ' If you ask me not, I won't try.' 
 
 ' I know you understand me perfectly. Henry 
 doesn't:' She looked away petulantly for a moment. 
 ' You'll come and see me, won't you ? I'll be at home 
 
 every afternoon — mostly ' She added very softly 
 
 ' To you.' 
 
ii8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Thank you, I shall be glad to call.' 
 
 The locomotive whistle shrieked, and their hands 
 plasped. 
 
 ' Mind, you promised — to-morrow.' 
 
 ' Yes, to-morrow. Good-bye.' 
 
 The train had steamed out of the station before he 
 remembered that he had not promised any visit for 
 any day. 
 
 ' She must have misunderstood me,' said the blinkard ; 
 • but I'll have to go.' 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ' The cock shuts his eyes when he crows, because he knows the 
 song by heart.' 
 
 Dr. Graham noted the frequent, though unplanned, 
 meetings of Gifford and Mrs. Millenet, and he did not 
 scruple in his brusquely kindly way to let his friend 
 know of his estimate of the end. 
 
 ' Look here, Giff, this is going too far ; you must 
 drop it.' 
 
 'Drop what?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Millenet.' 
 
 Gifford received the advice with an unwonted stiffness 
 of demeanour. 
 
 ' What right have you to use a lady's name in that 
 way, Graham ?' 
 
 'The right of any man who objects to seeing any 
 lady make a hash of his friend's life.' 
 
 ' My dear old chap, you take too serious a view of it. 
 There is absolutely no danger.' 
 
 ' Not from you, but from her.' 
 
 ' She's a good woman. Her husband doesn't seem to 
 mind our friendship. He trusts both of us.' 
 
 ' Oh ! He hasn't enough jealousy to be suspicious, 
 nor enough blood to be jealous. He'd trust a dog with 
 a pound of butter.' 
 
 119 
 
120 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Don't be brutal, old man.' 
 
 ' Well, what's the attraction if it isn't the usual one ? 
 And what's the end to be if not the usual one ?' 
 
 ' There won't be any end, and the attraction is merely 
 sympathy.' 
 
 ' Oh ! She wants sympathy, does she ?' 
 
 ' Everybody does.' 
 
 ' And a childless woman most of all. Always want- 
 ing — never satisfied. Old Solly the Jew was right: 
 " The grave and " ' 
 
 • Graham, this isn't decent. I don't like to think ' 
 
 ' Giff, if I am brutal and truthful, you're hypocritical 
 and polite.' 
 
 'At any rate, I'm doing no harm. We are merely 
 friends. Mrs. Millenet is lonely, and so am I.' 
 
 'You've your friends, your work, and the letters 
 from the girl ! Good God, man ! if you want to do 
 something as a protest against dulness go and get 
 decently drunk and save your soul alive.' 
 
 ' Good old Graham ! now, where's the fear ? Mrs. 
 Millenet is a lady.' 
 
 ' I'd be easier in my mind if she were a gentleman.' 
 
 ' She's lonely, old man. Her life is very dreary.' 
 
 ' " He Cometh not," she said. Has she told you she's 
 misunderstood yet ?' 
 
 ' Why, how did you know ?' 
 
 ' How does anybody know ? Of course she said she 
 was misunderstood, and turned her head like that, and 
 stared into the bitter, irrevocable past — didn't she ?' 
 
 ' How the devil ?' 
 
 ' Of course she did ! And then you squeezed her 
 hand in sympathy, and said that you understood her.' 
 
 ' Where were you ?' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 121 
 
 ' I wasn't there, but I know that sort of woman 
 always does that sort of thing. Didn't you say you 
 understood her ?' 
 
 ' Yes, I said that once.' 
 
 ' Tell a woman anything flattering once, and the 
 devil will tell it her a hundred times before you see 
 her again.' 
 
 ' I'm sure she hasn't given me a thought since.' 
 
 ' Why are you sure ? Because you haven't given a 
 thought to her ?' 
 
 Gifford flushed and attempted denial. 
 
 'I ' 
 
 ' Of course you've given her a thought. Yet you're 
 in love with the best girl on earth. And if you think 
 of this flopping, melting woman because you're lonely 
 through love of your girl, how much more does the 
 flopping woman think of you ? She hasn't even work 
 to do — only to contemplate her imaginary woes.' 
 
 ' The're not quite imaginary.' 
 
 ' I agree with you a little. That husband of hers 
 isn't a man ; he's a damned fifth proposition. But 
 don't mind him — drop her.' 
 
 ' There's not the slightest danger ; she's a good 
 woman.' 
 
 ' The only woman who is good is the one who can 
 sit close to the fire and not burn. And there's only 
 one thing would make a good woman of Mrs. Millenet. 
 No lazy woman can be quite virtuous. If Mrs. Millenet 
 were left a widow to-morrow without a penny, and had 
 to put jn eight hours a day at a wash-tub, she would 
 be a saint by the time she had worn her fingers half- 
 way to the bone.' 
 
 Gifford turned away impatiently. 
 
122 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' We're too good friends to quarrel, Doc, but I'll 
 have to go while I'm peaceable.' 
 
 ' Go to the devil, you lunatic ! or ' — his voice softened 
 strangely — * tell me you'll leave her alone and come to 
 lunch.' 
 
 'I won't be dictated to by anybody,' said Gifford 
 savagely, and walked off. 
 
 ' Only by your own foolish impulses ; you don't mind 
 being a slave to them,' the doctor called after him; 
 but he strode on unheeding, and Graham, his dis- 
 pleasure abating rapidly, watched him pass up Collins 
 Street under the plane-trees, which were beginning to 
 be sore at their bud-points and ready to break into the 
 green flames of spring. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ' I have no bad motive,' said the Tertium Quid ; ' I do but visit 
 the lady to find if it be a fine day to-morrow.' 
 
 ' GiFF, it's a big mistake. You must drop Mrs. Millenet.' 
 
 ' Now, don't you bother about it too, Jack. There's 
 no harm in her, and I can look after myself.' 
 
 ' Can you look after her husband too ?' 
 
 ' He ! Why, life's only statistics to him. He can't 
 see anything but formula.' 
 
 ' He can see you ; and lately he's taken to look at 
 you from that corner bench-seat of his. Whenever you 
 speak or move his beastly little eyes follow you like a 
 crab's — simply sickening.' 
 
 ' Don't you worry, Jack. Anybody might hear all 
 I say.' 
 
 ' I know — I know you mean well ; but you risk your 
 girl, and you risk your party.' 
 
 ' It's all right— it's all right,' said Gilford, soothing 
 him like a mother her weary child. And with this 
 assurance Daven was fain to be content. 
 
 Gifford's love-hunger was not to be sated by the 
 husks of political success. He was not superficial 
 enough, or could not so appear, to be popular. Yet 
 now that the biggest prize seemed to be within grasp, 
 all sorts of people, who had before played the Levite 
 
 123 
 
124 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 and passed by on the other side, began to display an 
 affectionate interest in him. "Within a few days of his 
 conversation with Daven the sense of loneliness, that 
 Stralie's absence always produced whenever he rested 
 for a moment and lost the obsession of his work, became 
 so overpowering that, half without design, he crossed 
 the river and walked again through the gardens to 
 South Yarra. The bleakness of early spring was in the 
 air ; the searching gales had blown scentless the early 
 violets and narcissi. 
 
 He found Mrs. Millenet protected against the season- 
 able coldness by an exaggerated fluffiness in her house 
 furnishings, as well as in her clothing. It was a house 
 of moss on a foundation of chiffon. The fire-heat was 
 tempered by a rosy screen ; the weakly spring sun 
 banished by curtains that gave the room a cathedral 
 light only. 
 
 Mrs. Millenet came forward to receive him, dabbing 
 her eyes with an airy fabric softer than the tears it 
 absorbed, her tall thin figure looking taller by reason 
 of the dress she wore — black, soft, ethereal, and 
 entrained. 
 
 She offered him her hand, turning her face towards 
 her left shoulder as she did ; hoped he was well ; sniffed 
 a little ; dabbed her eyes again ; released his hand ; 
 asked him to sit down. More sniff, more dab, more 
 averted face, a sigh, a graceful declination, and lo ! 
 she was herself seated, her right hand on the chair 
 arm, and supporting her chin ; her left hand gracefully 
 settled by her knee, and holding the airy handkerchief, 
 and drooping like a stricken lily ; her gaze fixed upon 
 the fire, whose arrested rays softened all the theatri- 
 cality of herself and her surroundings. The waxen 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 125 
 
 lids fell over the violet eyes; her throat worked as if 
 she had lost the child of her womb that day. She 
 was the tragedy of disillusionment, the first cloud 
 of the melodramatic honeymoon — love's sorrow in- 
 carnate. 
 
 She dabbed her eyes again, and said : 
 
 ' I did not see you at Mrs. Grey's concert, Mr. 
 Gilford.' 
 
 ' No. I have been too busy, and I am very sorry that 
 I was at the last moment prevented from attending.' 
 
 ' You must be always busy now, of course. Those 
 dreadful politics ! But you missed very little. Mrs. 
 Grey can't sing now — quite an old timer, you know. 
 And everybody wasn't there.' 
 
 She dabbed her eyes again, and talked heart- 
 brokenly : 
 
 ' Millions of people stayed away, and nearly all the 
 frumps came. Old Billy Buster ' (it was in this ribald 
 way she designated that great statesman His Excellency 
 the Governor) ' came, and said, " Hm ! ha !" and fell 
 over things ; and that shocking old frump Mrs. Suthalay, 
 you could hear her loud timbrel all night. Thank your 
 good deeds that fate kept you away.' 
 
 ' I missed a good time, anyhow,' said Gifford. 
 
 'As how?' 
 
 ' You were there.' 
 
 ' Oh ! don't tell me that.' 
 
 She dabbed her face again, checked her tears suddenly, 
 rose, and walked to the piano. 
 
 ' Why shouldn't I ?' demanded Gifford. Her secret 
 sorrow made the whole experience piquant, and once 
 he tasted piquancy his appetite had to ravage. 
 
 ' Oh ! I'm tired of all this make-believe — tired of all 
 
126 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the flatteries and the speeches that aren't meant, and 
 all the rest of the sham.' 
 
 Thus did Sham enthusiastically condemn Sham, 
 shamming even not to be Sham. 
 
 She had seated herself at the piano. She was no 
 musician, but she had learned certain first bars of the 
 ' Moonlight Sonata,' half of Gottschalk's ' Dying Poet,' 
 and something else that yearned and sobbed in flats, or 
 was decorously plaintive, and she used these as ammu- 
 nition. When she played her little bit of Beethoven, 
 and looked dreamily at a vase on the lower end of the 
 concert grand, she saw the vase distinctly, although she 
 pretended to look in that rapt way that is generally 
 supposed to mean knowledge of the future and com- 
 munion with the past ; and then few men already 
 attracted by her could look at her and not swear to 
 avenge her imaginary injuries. 
 
 Gifford watched her sympathetically— doubly so 
 because he felt so sorry for himself. He was so self- 
 pitying in his loneliness that he was almost prepared 
 for insincerity to the beloved who was so far away, 
 simply by reason of her absence. 
 
 And suddenly, while he watched and she played and 
 gazed into the past and the future and the vase on the 
 piano at the same time, she let fall a splendid blue and 
 lucent tear, as big as a bullock's last tear in the shambles. 
 At that he crossed to her, put a comforting hand on 
 her shoulder, and told her of his sorrow of her sorrow. 
 
 She looked up at him smiling, and began to sing very 
 gently — her voice was little, but round and velvet soft 
 — an amatorian chansonette ; one of the million varia- 
 tions of the song, ' Sweet, sweet and long ' — the song 
 the sirens know. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 127 
 
 He stayed there while she sang, and was for the 
 moment the weaker. He thought many times of the 
 necessity for a rapid and decided retreat to his chair, 
 but her sex held him where he was, so that individuality 
 was thralled by impersonality. He answered her un- 
 spoken desire unwillingly and helplessly, the tonic, 
 forced by its own law to reply to the dominant. 
 
 He saw that tears fell on the keys as she played — not 
 too many tears, for five are interesting, and ten make 
 the eyes red ; and as if he were soothing a child he 
 patted her shoulder, and said, knowing he was talking 
 stupidly, but so shaken by her nearness that he was 
 unable to say otherwise : 
 
 ' There, there ! Don't fret ! There, there !' 
 Then she stopped playing, put up one hand and 
 grasped his, and flirted the mouchoir with the other. 
 Her long, cool, thin, pink hand lay in his, and he looked 
 at it, and saw in that hand all the character of its owner 
 — a woman mysterious as tangible, and frangible as 
 mysterious. 
 
 She allowed her hand to stay in his only for a moment 
 and then withdrew it ; for though she was in her tearful, 
 melancholy way, as light as pleasure, she was also as 
 non-committal as theologians in argument — and they 
 do not give away even the useless. 
 
 She was strangely drawn to him ; his sympathy ex- 
 aggerated her self-piteousness ; he had always been 
 desirable. Other men, who had little or nothing to do 
 beyond ordering new clothes and stalking women, had 
 paid to her more or less brutal court — the brutality dis- 
 guised sometimes by a society smartness which was so 
 false that it often pretended the vices it was too weak 
 for ; but here was a man who had never done her the 
 
128 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 subtle flattery of being self-conscious in her presence, 
 had never complimented her by patently projecting her 
 conquest any more than he had insulted her by appear- 
 ing to believe that such conquest would be easy. 
 
 At heart she wsls virtuous. A human husband, and 
 not the cold formula she had married, would have kept 
 her so ; children, even more than the best of husbands, 
 would have made her unassailable. But she had no 
 children, and she felt youth going, and was exceedingly 
 sorry for herself. There is no room in the world for 
 these half middle-aged childless women with the sham 
 enthusiasms and the neurotic emotions that call for a 
 new romance every fortnight. 
 
 She began to weep in earnest, and Gifford, to whom 
 a woman's tears were pangs and the sobbing of a child 
 agony, begged her in tones of real distress to be com- 
 forted. In emphasis of the advice he put his arm 
 around her shoulders and brought his face close to hers. 
 
 At that she sobbed in a very delicate and refined 
 manner, pretended to escape from his arm, tore her 
 little sodden handkerchief with her very even teeth, 
 which had attention directed to them by the act, and 
 said: 
 
 ' You — you don't care. You wouldn't care if I were 
 to die.' 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 ' Eloquence has its limits. There is no answer for " Get out of 
 my house !" or " What have you to do with my wife ?' ' 
 
 It was a challenge few men could refuse to accept. He 
 knew where the truth was — with Stralie, as honest as 
 the sun, two thousand miles away, safe in the kindly 
 tropics ; while he was here in the camp of the enemy, 
 beleaguered by his own loneliness, and his constitu- 
 tional hatred of all cold, decay and winter. He knew 
 that this new and adventitious attraction that filled his 
 head with blood and tripped his pulsations was all false 
 — not even the falsity of moonlight, the lie of a true 
 moon, but of a paraselene. 
 
 Yet he said, ' Oh, I would ! You mustn't talk so.' 
 
 ' Oh, mustn't I ? What do you care ? Nobody 
 cares.' 
 
 He wearied of her for the moment. ' Your husband 
 cares, doesn't he ?' 
 
 ' He ! He doesn't understand me.' 
 
 He had heard her say that before, but now it seemed 
 to be new and doubly potent. He bent nearer and said, 
 caressing her hand, ' My poor child !' 
 
 ' Oh, you do care, don't you ?' 
 
 ' Of course, poor little woman !' 
 
 The poor little woman was as tall as himself, but she 
 
 129 9 
 
I30 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 seemed to have dwindled, concertina fashion, as she 
 wept. She half responded to his caresss, still too self- 
 conscious to be all yielding ; it was not fusibility yet, 
 but emollescence. 
 
 ' He doesn't understand me. He has broken off all 
 my friendships.' 
 
 ' My poor child!' 
 
 ' Friendships with men, you know.' 
 
 •Oh!' 
 
 ' Yes. I hate women, You can't trust any woman.' 
 
 ' Don't you think so ?' 
 
 ' Oh, no you can't.' Her big blue eyes saucered 
 again. She looked up to him. ' But you can trust 
 men.' 
 
 It suddenly came to his mind that it is useless for 
 women to trust women — there are no spoils to the 
 vanquished in the event of betrayal. 
 
 She looked up at him again, misinterpreting his 
 silence. 
 
 ' Don't you think so ?' 
 
 ' It may be in some cases.' He thought of Stralie's 
 father. ' But women are better than men.' He 
 thought of Stralie. 
 
 ' How noble of you to think so !' 
 
 ' I mean it. The poor women ! They are man's to 
 mould.' 
 
 She looked at him quickly, saw that he believed it ; 
 shrank into herself again, and shed another tear, 
 
 ' Poor little woman !' 
 
 ' I'm always misunderstood.' 
 
 ' Except by me.' 
 
 ' Oh ! do you understand me ? I love to hear you 
 say so.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 131 
 
 * I think I understand you. You want sympathy.' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, sympathy ; that's it. Surely I have a 
 right to sympathy from my husband.' 
 
 At that mention of her husband, all Gifford's appre- 
 ciation of the tacit deception of this conversation 
 vanished ; he knew that the woman who had discovered 
 that she had such things as rights had lost not only all 
 love, but all consideration for her husband. 
 
 'There are so many of these unhappy marriages, 
 Mr. Gifford, aren't there ?' 
 
 * Very many. I know of only half a dozen happy 
 marriages.' 
 
 ' Girls are brought up to be married. You don't know 
 what a little fool I was.' 
 
 Had he been less glamoured he would have been 
 able to deny the assertion, on the evidence of the sort 
 of fool she was at that moment; but the physical 
 attraction of her saved both his politeness and his 
 truthfulness from rupture. 
 
 She added quickly : ' Of course I was in love with 
 Mr. Millenet when we married;' but it seemed that 
 the intended palliation blackened the offence. ' But he 
 does not understand, and you do . . . George.' 
 
 The sound of his first name on her lips — he had not 
 thought she knew it — completed the illusionment, and 
 made him a self-deceiver too. He laid his hand on 
 her hair. 
 
 She moved her head from under his hand, spurring 
 his man-sense of the chase by pretended flight. And 
 now she possessed him absolutely. In the proportion of 
 the strength of his love he forgot it ; in the ratio of his 
 power of repression he became reckless, as strong men 
 have strong maladies. 
 
 q— a 
 
132 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 For herself she lost her self-consciousness, and so 
 became calm enough to find her real womanliness 
 again ; checking that she had inspired, refusing her own 
 desires, but incalescent all the time. 
 ' Women must marry or be drudges.' 
 ' Sometimes they marry and are drudges, too.' 
 She looked at him and laughed. 
 
 ' That must be the nether hell ;' and then more 
 slowly, ' To slave for a lover — yes ! for a hus- 
 band — no !' 
 
 She said this confidently, although she knew that 
 she hated effort so much that she would not have 
 slaved even to keep life in herself, whom she loved 
 devotedly. 
 
 ' So woman loves marriage and despises the 
 husband ?' 
 
 ' Some of us do — when we are unhappy.' 
 Tears filled her eyes again. He took her hand and 
 held it. She meant 'when women are so bored with 
 laziness that they are contradictory of everj^hing, 
 even of the sun — his light.' 
 
 ' Poor little woman ! Why did you marry ?' 
 ' Oh, we have to have the condition ! Every woman 
 has her price, you know ?' 
 
 ' Has she ?' asked Gifford, startled. 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Some have not.' 
 
 'All of them have. The most popular price is a 
 wedding-ring.' 
 
 ' But you despise the price.' 
 
 ' My price is different.' 
 
 ' What is it ? Tell me. You can trust me.' 
 
 ' My price is love — George.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 133 
 
 ' My poor Helen !' 
 
 There, the word was out. He wondered afterwards 
 what devil had whispered her name to him. He could 
 not remember where he had first known it. 
 
 She turned fully to him and sought his arms, and as 
 they embraced they kissed. 
 
 While she lay idly against him, all her tears vanished. 
 There was a rustling of the curtains, and the small 
 metallic voice of Mr. Millenet said, without a trace of 
 emotion : 
 
 ' You scoundrel ! Leave the house at once !' 
 
 He seemed to have been prepared for this ; he was 
 not quite the myopic formula his wife considered him. 
 
 The gallant man is he who, taking the word in all 
 its meanings, is brave, generous, civil, or lewd — is, at- 
 least, never at a loss. Gifford never felt less gallant 
 than at the frigid voice of Millenet contemptuously 
 ordering him away, and he had despised the formula. 
 If he had not, Mrs. Millenet might have fletched her 
 arrows in vain. 
 
 He felt like a whipped child. Mrs. Millenet was ice- 
 cold and collected. She betrayed some curiosity as to 
 what would happen next, but no fear. 
 
 Gifford stammered something intended to be dignified, 
 and that was too unintelligible to be anything, said 
 ' Good-afternoon, Mrs. Millenet,' in a tone that made 
 the words and the wish ludicrous, seeing the manner 
 of his recent surprise, backed out of the room and the 
 house, and walked to town, a ganglion of doubt as to 
 punishment, and of fear as to consequence. 
 
 Mrs. Millenet looked at her husband in the way 
 that had always dominated him — chin raised, a half- 
 inquiring, half-supercilious smile on her lips, and a 
 
134 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 faint colour in her cheeks. She intended he should 
 ask her pardon for his intrusion, but Millenet was too 
 deeply wounded to be impressed by her beauty. For a 
 moment he looked at her, his little eyes cold ; his thin 
 lips rat-trapped in hatred, and, then he, too, left the 
 house and followed Gifford. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 ' A soul is worth only the price the seller puts on it. Any savage 
 will sell or pawn his manhood for a looking-glass and three beads.' 
 
 MiLLENET walked towards the city with no definite 
 intentions, feeling more his resentment to Gifford 
 than the half-wrecked faith in his wife, and very little 
 interest in either. As his brain began to teem anew 
 with figures — Coghlan's figures of production, Hayter's 
 figures of expenditure, comparing certain credit figures 
 of one year with the debit figures of another, uncon- 
 sciously and in all good faith wrenching figures his way, 
 differentiating and , varying, as in the manner of the 
 politician to suit the opportunism of the day — he almost 
 forgot the incident. But arrived at the House, he found 
 Gifford, as leader of the Opposition, speaking a little 
 more nervously than his wont, and until he finished 
 Millenet eyed him malevolently from his seat in the 
 Ministerial corner, regarding him as a cat the mouse 
 which is an inch outside the limit of a safe leap. 
 
 Millenet was diverted from his tigerish occupation by 
 seeing his onetime and present enemy Berkshire (who 
 had advised him to buy Coocooroos at forty-two shillings, 
 but had inadvertently sold shares in his own name) sigh- 
 ing, groaning, and waving the voluminous notes he was 
 never able to read during the agonies of oratory, and in 
 other ways trying to attract the attention of the Speaker. 
 
 135 
 
136 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Millenet caught the opportunity in advance of his 
 stertorous and self-conscious enemy, and as he rose to 
 begin the three hours of involved figures which he called 
 a speech, Berkshire groaned and subsided, the Premier 
 waddled out, the House thinned, and Daven said to his 
 chief: 
 
 ' Let's go ; he's safe for half the night.' 
 
 Gifford, very pleased to escape, went with him. 
 
 ' The game is in our hands, George. This Ministry's 
 cut its throat.' 
 
 ' How more than usual ?' 
 
 ' They have got a majority of two.' 
 
 ' Yes, it isn't much, but it's a majority.' 
 
 ' And the Premier has been knighted.' 
 
 'No?' 
 
 'Yes, he's Sir William Hoggins to-day.' 
 
 Gifford laughed. 
 
 ' So the savage has got his beads and hoop-iron at 
 last.' 
 
 ' Yes, and he's finished with.' 
 
 ' But how ? The majority is still there.' 
 
 ' It won't be ; a portfolio will make the majority ours, 
 leaving out the fact that the rats will leave the ship.' 
 
 ' Ah, but will they ?' 
 
 ' Dead sure. When a politician takes a title, isn't he 
 doomed ? And when they're already back-numbers and 
 going for a constituency again, doesn't Sir Thomas 
 Jones become plain democratic Tom Jones until after 
 the poll ?' 
 
 ' That's true.' 
 
 ' The game's ours. Two shoddy titles in the Ministry 
 before, and now the Premier takes one. I tell you 
 they're our meat.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 137 
 
 ' I believe you ! I think you're right.' 
 
 ' Right, but ' He regarded Gifford narrowly. 
 
 ' What's the matter with you ? You don't seem to 
 care for anything.' 
 
 ' Jack, I've acted the fool more this afternoon than 
 ever.' 
 
 ' What have you been doing now ?' 
 
 ' Probably losing my girl and my chances of advance- 
 ment.' 
 
 ' Who's the woman ?' 
 
 * I was too hot-headed to take your advice, Jack, 
 and ' 
 
 ' Good Lord ! Mrs. Millenet.' 
 
 ' Yes, Jack.' 
 
 ' How far did it go ?' 
 
 ' I don't exactly know. I think I had her in my arms, 
 and I believe I had kissed her.' 
 
 ' Well, that's all right. Don't go to see her again, 
 don't write any letters, and be out when she calls.' 
 
 ' She won't call and I won't see her again, but the 
 mischiefs done. Her husband caught us.' 
 
 ' What ! what ! Oh ! you fool ! And what a 
 miserable little calculating machine he is ! He catches 
 another man kissing his wife, and he consoles himself 
 with talking figures.' 
 
 ' I don't know what to do.' 
 
 ' Do nothing. Good Lord ! Statistics for a broken 
 heart.' 
 
 Graham joined them. 
 
 ' Millenet's in great form to-night ; he quoted Mulhall 
 back to 1856.' 
 
 ' He needn't go back further than half-past three 
 to-day if he wants to be quite happy.' 
 
138 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Why ?' 
 
 ' Better tell him, Chief,' said Daven. 
 
 ' Doc, you gave me excellent advice, and I didn't 
 take it. I went to see the lady, and her husband 
 caught us kissing !' 
 
 ' Oh, you idiot ! Didn't I tell you ! And now you've 
 ruined your own chances and lost your girl and damned 
 the opportunities of every man who has followed 
 you.' 
 
 ' It's not so bad as that yet, Doc. Millenet may keep 
 it quiet.' 
 
 * He may, but you can't apply a man's standards to 
 Millenet. When he forgets his outraged honour in 
 Mulhall and Coghlan — well !' 
 
 ' Doctor, I've been a fool, a double fool, because I 
 pulled my friends into the mud with me.' 
 
 ' Never mind ! Never mind ! We're not in the mud 
 yet.' 
 
 ' The suspense of waiting for this man to strike is the 
 worst. What a fool I've been !' 
 
 ' He may not strike at all ; may he, Daven ? And 
 anyhow, he won't strike yet. He'll wait till he finds 
 whether statistics make him a cuckold or not.' 
 
 ' Oh ! steady, doctor — don't be brutal.' 
 
 ' My brutality will never get me into the trouble 
 your politeness makes for you. . . . Never mind, old 
 man ; sorry I spoke. When in doubt — drink. Let's 
 have a whisky.' 
 
 In the refreshment-room the Premier was as close to 
 the bar counter as his stoutness allowed him. He 
 seemed more swollen than usual, as if the pride and 
 pomp of his decoration had inflated him physically. 
 He was surrounded by a little crowd, half of enemies. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 139 
 
 half of friends, the enemies congratulating him the 
 more warmly. 
 
 ' I knew this would be,' said Graham to Daven and 
 Gifford ; ' I knew it a week ago — there was an article 
 in one of the papers about Hoggin's ancestors — no less. 
 You know the kind of thing, written to show that his 
 family had been used to titles, and that he could safely 
 sleep in his new one without taking the shape out of it.' 
 
 The new Knight was talking. ' I know I was goin' 
 to get the knight'ood, but I thought it was goin' to be a 
 K.C.M.G. ; but the Colonial Orfis wrote the Governor 
 that they were givin' away a lot er K.C.M.Gees this 
 season, an' there was a K.B. left, an' I might 'ave that. 
 So I took it.' 
 
 The three firiends turned away, the irascible Graham 
 commenting, ' He was told he might have that — a case 
 of giving out cold meat at the back door. What worms 
 these people are !' 
 
 ' It's all wrong — it's all rotten !' said Gifford, for the 
 first time forgetting the accident of that afternoon. 
 ' The real manhood of Australia hidden by a few foreign 
 imported merchants or financiers !' 
 
 ' Don't you be afraid,' said Daven. ' Titles don't 
 impose on the people here. Mark my words : in a 
 month Hoggins is a private member, and next election 
 he'll lose his seat, even with a dozen Reform Leagues 
 and Conservative reactions, and lying newspapers to 
 help him.' 
 
 ' I am not sure. Jack ; I am not sure.' 
 
 ' I am !' said Graham emphatically. ' The people 
 saw through the farce of titles long ago. They've been 
 so wrenched from their true value ; the times are such 
 they can have none now. Once they distinguished — 
 
140 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 now they only make conspicuous. Why, man, its only 
 our worst men who accept them. Half a dozen of 'em 
 were in gaol, or should have been, over the bank frauds. 
 We'll reserve the foreign title for our distinguished 
 criminals by-and-by.' 
 
 At that his two companions laughed, and they went 
 to dinner very merrily. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 ' Stealing would be pleasant enough if thieves were hanged only 
 by the girdle.' 
 
 A FORTNIGHT had passed; Millenet had not spoken; 
 Hoggins' majority had become a minority. The 
 Government had existed, not by its own strength, but 
 by reason of its opponents' ignorance of its weakness. 
 The offer of a minor portfolio and an honorary minister- 
 ship had made the weakness patent ; five had deserted 
 for love of the two who had been bribed. 
 
 So soon as Gifford, Daven, Graham, and their 
 followers succeeded to the Government, Sir William 
 Hoggins, still much swollen by the newness of his title, 
 had shown a desire to play the part of a pathetic 
 Cincinnatus. Graham was Minister for Health and 
 Education ; Daven, Minister of Mines — a position he 
 said he had no right to, as he knew something about 
 mining ! In the good old days of coalitions, of city 
 lawyers and soft goods importers, the portfolio of Mines 
 had been the inalienable property of the representative 
 of the wool trade. 
 
 Gifford, as the new Treasurer, was fired with the 
 ambition of the New Australian — to stop foreign borrow- 
 ing and foreign importing, to tax land and absentees. 
 In the excitement and hope of the new life he had 
 almost forgotten the nightmare of Millenet's discovery. 
 
 141 
 
142 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Stralie and Abbey had telegraphed their congratula- 
 tions, and he replied to Stralie's telegram in such a 
 letter that she laughed from sheer joy and pride — until 
 she cried of satiety. 
 
 The position was practically secured, not quite. As 
 representatives who had accepted offices of profit, a new 
 election was necessary to ratify their actions by their 
 constituencies ; and to the new Ministry the ratification 
 did not seem such a supremely intelligent safeguard of 
 the Constitution as it had appeared when Hoggins and 
 his Ministry had to face the electors. 
 
 ' But it's all right,' said Graham, answering the un- 
 spoken wish of the others. ' We're going out for a 
 walk-over — nobody will have the cheek to oppose 
 Ministers. Anyhow, Gifford and Daven, and Curran 
 and myself are safe against anybody.' 
 
 He partially lost his sublime self-confidence the day 
 after the issue of the writs for the new elections, when 
 Curran, the new Minister of Lands, came to him, saying : 
 ' I put the shtopper on a man to-day. Talking about 
 Gifford, he was.' 
 
 ' What was he saying ?' 
 
 ' Oh, that 'tis looky there was no scandal likely about 
 the Prime-eer an' Mrs. Millenet !' 
 
 ' Good heavens, man ! You don't mean to tell me 
 that yarn's about ?' 
 
 ' True enough ; an' this man, he said it was another 
 case of Charless Shtuart Parnell an' Kitty O'Shea.' 
 
 ' The devil he did !' 
 
 ' Yes ; an' a friend that overheard him in the club 
 told me, an' I went to the man an' put the shtopper 
 on him.' 
 
 ' Good man, you.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 143 
 
 ' But says he : "I'll say no more, but plenty of others 
 will." Then says I : " Who told you this mighty lie 
 about Gilford, that I'd trust with my own sister ? Is it 
 that dirty little Chinese calculatin'-board, Millenet ?" 
 " No," says he ; " that's the funny part of it. 'Tis 
 Mrs. Millenet herself," ' 
 
 ' Wha-at ?' 
 
 ' When he told me, I jumped just so, an' this man — I 
 won't give ye his name, for he's decent, and he won't 
 talk — he says Millenet an' his wife haven't.spoken since, 
 an' Mrs. Millenet hasn't been out of the house since, an' 
 every woman that calls to see her she tells everything, 
 an' flops an' sheds tears all over the furniture.' 
 
 ' Damn the woman ! She can't keep even a secret 
 like that ! She must cackle and tell the story against 
 herself!' 
 
 ' If she has no more vartue than brains, she'll see the 
 Chief Justice next Divorce Coort.' 
 
 ' And do many know of it ?' 
 
 ' Many ! I belave the tea-rooms '11 be full of it next 
 week. Every woman who ever knew her has taken a 
 sudden vi'lent fancy to her. They all go there and 
 cry with her and have tea, and pump her — pump her 
 dhry, man.' 
 
 ' Oh, the fool, the fool ! But if it stays at the tea- 
 rooms, and doesn't get into the papers, we're safe. After 
 the elections, let 'em talk !' 
 
 ' Yes ; but send somebody to warn her against her 
 talking any more — somebody she knows.' 
 
 ' I don't know of any woman she knows.' 
 
 ' Any woman ! No woman ! You might as well 
 advertise it on every hoarding in the Shtate as thrust a 
 woman to square it ! No ; it must be a man !' 
 
144 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Well, then, Curran, you go.' 
 
 ' Me, is it ? Man, I couldn't do it, and I wouldn't. 
 Me wife hates her, be reason of Mrs. Millenet bein' 
 impident about Mrs. Curran havin' so many children. 
 Send Daven. He's level-headed; she won't get any 
 change out of him.' 
 
 ' Daven it is. Let's find him.' 
 
 They found Daven, and he first refused, then objected, 
 and agreed when they showed him that Gifford's per- 
 sonal fate as well as the fate of the Ministry depended 
 on the securing of Mrs. Millenet's silence. 
 
 He walked out to South Yarra feeling as if he were a 
 convict on the way to execution. Apart from the delicate 
 nature of his mission, which involved the insolence of 
 asking a lady to cease destroying her own reputation, 
 he hesitated at witnessing the mental sufferings of a 
 woman who must be modest even if she were a suicidal 
 fool. 
 
 But when he was ushered into Mrs. Millenet's morn- 
 ing room he found no trace of the monopathy he had 
 imagined. He advanced awkwardly. His political ex- 
 periences had made him easy of manner among men 
 and before audiences, but he had not grown, and prob- 
 ably would never grow, out of the natural awkward- 
 ness he felt when in the presence of well-dressed women, 
 who seemed to be of another world, because they neither 
 toiled, nor spun, nor bore children, nor were in any way 
 useful to the earth they cumbered. 
 
 She had discarded the sombre robes that had helped 
 to the undoing of Gifford, and had anticipated the 
 summer in her dress of pink silk and cream lace, with 
 a knot of violets at her throat. All of it was almost in 
 good taste, but not quite ; for she had no equipoise in 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 145 
 
 anything, and slightly overdid her dress as she overfelt 
 her emotions. The violets exaggerated the blueness of 
 her eyes ; the pink silk accentuated the flush on her 
 cheek ; and Daven gasped at seeing such radiance where 
 he had expected to find a pale, broken lily of a woman, 
 soddened in widow's tears and etiolated by lamentation. 
 
 She came to meet him blushing, like a happy 
 bride. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Daven ! How good of you to come to see 
 poor little me ! Do you know, all my men friends have 
 deserted me lately.' 
 
 He could only mutter ' Good-day' and ' Really.' He 
 was not surprised at the information, but merely stricken 
 dumb by this unexpectedly gay reception. 
 
 ' I was thinking of you to-day. And so you're really 
 Minister for Mines ?' 
 
 ' Not really yet, Mrs. Millenet. We have to face 
 another election yet.' 
 
 ' But nobody is likely to oppose any of you. The 
 Government is so strong and every member of it so 
 popular.' ' 
 
 Daven took the plunge. 
 
 ' There's only one thing that could defeat us, Mrs. 
 Millenet. I'm sure you'll pardon anything I'm forced 
 to say.' 
 
 She paled a little, but her voice was equable. 
 
 ' Of course, of course, Mr. Daven. I can't imagine 
 you saying anything you shouldn't.' 
 
 ' Well — you see — of course I don't believe it, but 
 people are talking about you and Gifford.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Daven ! Oh ! oh ! how could they ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; of course I believe there's no truth in it.' 
 
 ' There isn't — there isn't indeed !' 
 
 10 
 
146 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' But they say you have told people that Mr. Millenet 
 came in while you and Mr. Gifford were — er — talking.' 
 
 ' Oh, it's not true ; and I only told two or three ! 
 I'll never forgive that Mrs. Kalman — never !' 
 
 ' I am sure you wouldn't like to conduce, even in the 
 slightest degree, to the ruin of Gifford and the party.' 
 
 ' I ! I don't want to ruin anybody, I'm sure. The — ; 
 b-b-bub-beasts ! If I couldn't keep a secret, I'd — I'd — 
 kill myself!' 
 
 ' You won't mention it again to a soul, will you ?' 
 
 ' I won't — I won't ; I'd rather die !' 
 
 She turned her beautiful eyes to his. 
 
 ' And oh, Mr. Daven, I'm so lonely ! My husband 
 never speaks to me — never !' 
 
 ' I am awfully sorry, Mrs. Millenet.' 
 
 'And it's all his fault, Mr. Daven. He doesn't 
 understand me. Everybody else in the world does. 
 He doesn't.' 
 
 ' I am very sorry — really.' 
 
 ' Mr. Gifford understood me ; so do you, don't you ?' 
 
 She unmasked her batteries again. She stepped 
 closer to him ; he thought she would fall. Pity over- 
 mastered prudence : he put his arm around her waist, 
 and she laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed there. 
 
 He felt an agony of embarrassment, and wrenched 
 himself from her, and said ' Good-bye !' continuously 
 until he had backed out of the room. The air in the 
 gardens was very cool, yet Daven lifted his hat to wipe 
 the perspiration from his brow. 
 
 ' My grief !' said he, unconsciously copying Ned the 
 Prodigal. ' If I hadn't had Luce, that woman would 
 have put me in the same street with Gifford.' 
 
 He reported progress to his friends, and for a day 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 147 
 
 they were satisfied, and then the tea-rooms had a new 
 story — fabricated by Mrs. Millenet — with Daven as the 
 very faulty hero. According to Mrs. Millenet, Daven 
 was violently in love with her ; but, of course, she had 
 been unable to give him any hope. As the story did not 
 concern Gifford, Gifford heard the story first, of course, 
 and recounted it to Graham and Curran. The former's 
 sense of humour blinded him to the consequences. 
 
 'Good Lord!' he said. 'Before that woman's 
 finished all the Cabinet will be co-respondents.' But 
 having had his laugh, he suddenly grew grave. ' We 
 can only die once, and that once we've got to die well. 
 Look out for squalls, you fellows.' 
 
 A week passed and the squalls did not come. The 
 social-political atmosphere was very calm, but it was 
 the calm of the Barrier Reef in March, of Bass Straits 
 in October — the calm that is the herald of cyclones. 
 
 10 — 2 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 ' When Fate lool?s cross-eyed at a man, a mouse can bite him to 
 death.' 
 
 The calm continued till two days before nomination, 
 with little movement in the constituencies, as opposition 
 was so unlikely as to appear impossible ; Millenet 
 speaking no word to his wife and few words to anybody ; 
 Mrs. Millenet weeping every morning, and making 
 herself radiantly beautiful every afternoon when she 
 talked confidences with ' her dearest friend ' (the caller 
 of the time was always her ' dearest friend '), but under 
 strict pledge of secrecy ; Graham waiting in badly- 
 concealed anxiety, and telling himself twice an hour 
 that Gifford was a damned idiot ; Curran, quietly 
 anxious, but by a great effort of will keeping the cause 
 of his anxiety a secret from his wife ; Gifford himself, 
 plunging into his new duties in a fever of impatience of 
 the suspense, and seeking to palliate his half-serious 
 defection by writing to Stralie every day — letters that 
 made for her a new heaven and a new earth, that gave 
 to the tropical beauty of Mrs. Hempel's garden a 
 loveliness that only lovers' eyes could see, that made 
 herself transcendently beautiful, so that nearly all who 
 saw her worshipped her, with Frank Abbey for priest, 
 and Annie Johns and Delia Mills as acolytes. 
 
 148 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 149 
 
 Daven's straightforwardness had helped him with 
 some dignity out of Millenet's house ; it helped him, 
 with no loss of love, out of suspicion. 
 
 He told his wife, and first she set her teeth and 
 railed at ' that woman,' and secondly she flashed her 
 eyes at her husband, and demanded the reason he had 
 talked with such a woman. 
 
 ' Well, you see, dear, Gifford ' 
 
 ' Oh, Gifford, is he a god, that everything he does is 
 excused, and other people are always ready to suffer 
 for his sins ?' 
 
 ' Not sins, dear. Why, the blessed woman flopped 
 on me. Gifford was lonely and a bit foolish.' 
 
 ' A bit foolish ! He's a fool all through. I never 
 liked him.' 
 
 ' How can you say that, Luce ? You used to tell me 
 how much you admired him.' 
 
 ' That was before he got my husband into a row with 
 that woman and her husband.' 
 
 ' Don't say any more. Luce. Everything will be all 
 right. After the Government's returned everything will 
 be forgotten.' 
 
 But when he next saw Gifford and Graham and 
 Curran, and heard that the exaggerated story of Mr. 
 Daven and Mrs. Millenet had made the Gifford episode 
 of secondary importance, that all Mrs. Millenet's 
 ' dearest friends ' were telling the story with little 
 shrieks and gasps of merriment, and cries to the Spirit 
 of Humour to be merciful, almost all his hopes departed 
 and left him cold. 
 
 Graham was furious. ' Millenet is evidently not such 
 a bad fellow, after all,' he said. ' He decided to send 
 his wife to Coventry and to keep silent, and then the 
 
150 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 she-lunatic herself gives the whole game away. What 
 is it — Machiavellian cunning or just plain idiotcy ?' 
 
 It was neither. It was, perhaps unconsciously to 
 herself, partly a revenge on her husband for that very 
 sending of her ' to Coventry '; it was more — mere 
 vanity. 
 
 ' She must be stopped till the day after to-morrow,' 
 said Curran. 
 
 ' That's a certainty ; but who's to do it ?' asked 
 Graham. 
 
 ' You are,' replied Curran. 
 
 'I?' 
 
 ' Yes, you. Daven's done his duty.' 
 
 ' And made a nice mess of it.' 
 
 ' That wasn't your fault. Now, Graham is older, 
 and he looks too aggressive for the lady to melt again. 
 Graham, old chap, it's up to you.' 
 
 ' My dear fellow, I'd sooner face a hundred drunken 
 Kanakas than that insinuating cat !' 
 
 ' Well, then, the game is probably up,' said Gifford 
 despairingly ; ' and it's all my fault.' 
 
 ' Oh, damn it ! don't talk like that ! I'll go.' 
 
 ' Old man, you've saved us all.' 
 
 ' I hope I have,' replied the Doctor grimly. ' If this 
 fails, we've got to play the ancient Roman and die on 
 our own reputations. They're pointed enough to kill us.' 
 ***** 
 
 Mrs. Millenet had lost the radiance of a few days 
 before, but wore as bright a dress, the gown of youth, 
 although her pallor belonged to the dead-black silk she 
 wore on the day of the undoing of Gifford ; and thus 
 she was doubly dangerous. 
 
 ' Good afternoon. Doctor. I must congratulate you.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 151 
 
 Graham waved the unfinished sentence away almost 
 rudely. He had been saying to himself as he walked 
 from the railway-station, ' She'll find her blandishments 
 lost on me,' and now he replied : ' I don't know, madam. 
 Is your husband in ?' 
 ' No, Doctor. Why ?' 
 
 * Because I don't want to see him. This nonsense 
 has got to stop. Good Lord ! one woman breaking 
 up a Cabinet ! It's preposterous !' 
 
 ' Won't you take a chair ? And poor me ! Why, 
 
 Helen and Cleopatra ' 
 
 ' Never mind 'em, ma'am. You're not Helen or 
 Cleopatra either, I hope. No, thanks ; I prefer to 
 stand.' 
 
 ' You're very disagreeable; and I'm so unhappy !' 
 She sank into a chair as she spoke, and dabbed her 
 eyes with the frail mouchoir — so little and so foolishly 
 inadequate to its real purpose, that the Doctor said 
 afterwards that the affectation almost nauseated him. 
 
 ' Can't help that, ma'am. Who caused it ? Your- 
 self. Look at the smash it means.' 
 
 ' I am sure it is not my fault. ... I think the world's 
 a b-b-bub-beast.' 
 
 ' It is your fault. You talk of Cleopatra. Why not 
 say Messalina ?' 
 
 ' If I knew who she was, I'd be qu-qu-ite offended. 
 I think you're brutal.' 
 
 ' And this isn't Egypt, and we're not Antonys. This 
 is Melbourne in the twentieth century, and there's an 
 easy Divorce Act here.' 
 
 ' Oh, Doctor, don't ! don't ! don't mention divorce ! 
 I've been ill ever since my husband used the word to me.' 
 ' Did he threaten a divorce ?' 
 
152 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Y-y-yes ; he was qu-quite — brutal. Why, nobody 
 would speak to me then. And Carrie wouldn't let me 
 kiss her children, or anything, if I were found out.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Millenet, is there anything to find out ?' 
 
 ' Oh, Doctor, it's an insult to ask me such a thing ! 
 If you weren't a doctor I wouldn't answer.' 
 
 ' But, being a doctor ? 
 
 ' Oh, well, a doctor isn't like a man !' 
 
 ' Thank you.' 
 
 ' Men are nice ; doctors are hard and beastly, and 
 stay on the other side of the room, and make you strain 
 your voice when you're sick with crying.' 
 
 ' Oh, well, I'll sit down. Will that do ?' 
 
 She coughed a little and wiped her lips, and then 
 said, a little slyly, but with due regard to picturesque- 
 ness : ' I think I'm consumptive, too. ... I ho-ho-hope 
 I am. It will spite Henry.' 
 
 Graham was impervious. ' That's a question for 
 your medical adviser, madam. What I must know is, 
 whether there is any chance of an open scandal through 
 Mr. Daven ?' 
 
 He knew her well. He asked the question he could 
 have answered himself. 
 
 She replied, almost contemptuously : ' With Mr. 
 Daven ! How can you ask that ? Why, it's impossible !' 
 
 ' But I heard that your husband found him with his 
 arm around your waist.' 
 
 That was Mrs. Millenet's own exaggeration as pub- 
 lished in the tea-rooms. Now that her own lie came 
 back to her she treated it as a truth. 
 
 ' Henry certainly makes a ridiculous fuss about 
 nothing. Why, a man puts his arm round your waist 
 when you're dancing.' 
 
THE SNARE, OF STRENGTH 153 
 
 * This wasn't dancing.' 
 
 ' Oh, don't worry, Doctor. It was just like dancing, 
 only there was no music' 
 
 He had to laugh, and she joined in it, though from 
 a different motive. 
 
 ' Isn't it silly of Henry, Doctor ?' 
 
 ' I don't know that it is. When a man is married to 
 a beautiful woman, he must be bloodless if he isn't 
 sometimes jealous.' 
 
 ' Do you think I'm beautiful. Doctor ?' The colour 
 came into her face again, her blue eyes saucered at hitn, 
 and he saw the danger and looked over her head. 
 
 ' Yes, you are beautiful.' 
 
 She laughed like a child at play. ' And is Henry 
 jealous ?' 
 
 ' He must be, unless he's dead.' 
 
 ' Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad !' 
 
 ' But has he anything to be jealous of, really jealous — 
 Mr. Gifford, for instance ?' 
 
 She paled. ' Oh, Doctor ! there was nothing wrong. 
 I couldn't. Why, my mother is dead only two years.' 
 
 Graham passed over the irrelevancy. 'And when 
 your husband discovered you with Mr. Gifford were 
 you — er — dancing without music ?' 
 
 ' Ye-s, just like that.' 
 
 ' What about the many meetings before that ; your 
 husband probably knows of them ?' 
 
 ' Oh, Doctor ! there was no harm. We were both 
 lonely — and he's so handsome ; and I was sorry for 
 him, and I was so unhappy and he was so kind, and we 
 were both so miserable that ' 
 
 ' That you were happy ?' 
 
 ' Yes, yes, Doctor — just like that.' 
 
154 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' And Gifford had you in his arms ' 
 
 ' Oh, Doctor ! don't, don't !' 
 
 'And was kissing you when your husband came 
 in?' 
 
 ' Oh, I suppose so. I didn't know, really. I couldn't 
 have meant any harm, because, when Mr. Gifford took 
 me in his arms because I was lonely and crying — you 
 know ' 
 
 ' Yes, I know.' 
 
 ' Well, I couldn't have meant any harm, because I 
 didn't know what I was doing. I was in a dream. You 
 know, don't you. Doctor ?' 
 
 ' Yes, I know,' he said grimly, yet amusedly ; for his 
 own memories crowded on him. 
 
 ' So I couldn't have intended any wrong, could I ?' 
 
 ' No, I suppose not.' 
 
 ' And now everybody is against me, and Carrie will 
 take her children away, and I wish I were dead.' 
 
 She rose, passed him, and seated herself in a new 
 attitude at the piano, her arms on the closed keyboard 
 and her face hidden in her hands. Human nature could 
 not withstand it. Graham read her truly, in her more 
 than childish irresponsibility, but he could no more help 
 pitying her than he could help pitying a wayward child 
 insistent on hurting himself in spite. 
 
 He followed her and laid his hand half on her 
 shoulder, half on her adorable neck, and said soothingly, 
 but without losing sight of the real reason of his visit : 
 ' Now you'll be a good girl, won't you, and you'll not 
 talk about your private business any more and bring us 
 all into trouble ?' 
 
 ' No, D-d-d-doctor, I won't. You're very kind. I'll do 
 anything you say.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 155 
 
 ' There's a good girl ! You wouldn't like to ruin the 
 Government, would you ?' 
 
 ' N-n-no, Doctor.' 
 
 ' You see, they've never had a doctor here as Minister 
 for Health, and I want a chance of making a name at it?' 
 
 *Y-y-yes, Doctor.' 
 
 ' There's a good girl. Now, you refuse to say a word, 
 and all will blow over. Good-bye, my dear.' 
 
 She rose, showing a face without a trace of weeping. 
 
 ' Good-bye, Doctor. You're a dear man. I won't 
 forget your kindness.' 
 
 They shook hands and she melted again. 
 
 ' What shall I do when you've gone ? Nobody comes 
 to see me except a lot of inquisitive cats.' 
 
 ' But you said they were your dearest friends.' 
 
 ' I suppose so.' She sniffed a smelling-bottle. 'That's 
 why they're cats.' 
 
 She brought the serviceable handkerchief to her eyes 
 again, and at that he soothed her with gentle words. 
 
 ' Now ! now ! I'm your friend.' 
 
 ' And you'll always be, won't you, Doctor?' 
 
 She looked up at him again and smiled. In a flash 
 he found they were in the position she called 'just like 
 dancing, only without the music,' and the discovery filled 
 him with rage. With as much brusquerie as he had 
 entered, and in a voice raspy with anger, he said : 
 ' Good-day, Mrs. Millenet. I hope we'll hear no more 
 of this nonsense,' and got himself out of the house with 
 another display of that rudeness which was at once 
 armour and weapon. 
 
 ' You're a fool still,' he said to himself, walking in the 
 wrong direction in his indignation at his own softness. 
 ' You said you understood women, and you do ; but 
 
156 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 you don't understand this one, and she almost caught 
 you. . . . Good Lord ! if Millenet had come in ! . . . 
 And if I had held her two minutes more. . . . Well, 
 I'd have forgotten all about the Minister for Health.' 
 
 At the entrance-gates to Millenet's grounds he 
 stopped and looked back at the house. 
 
 ' He's not such a bad man, after all,' he said in tardy 
 recognition of his enemy's manliness ; ' and if he's fond 
 of her, he must have his board and lodging in hell !' 
 
 Said Curran, on hearing the story : ' If every man of 
 us don't resign his portfolio, the whole lot of us will be 
 co-respondents.' 
 
 Until half an hour before the closing of nominations, 
 there was not one elector who entertained the possi- 
 bility of opposition to any of the Ministers. And 
 half an hour later the telegraphs were flashing to the 
 Metropolis the news that each of the Ministers of this 
 very popular Government was opposed by a nobody in 
 each instance. They were not even young nobodies ; 
 they were middle-aged frauds who were not even ' has 
 beens,' but only ' never weres ' — ancient gentlemen, resur- 
 rected and nominated by the Deformed League, the 
 Free Trade League, the Bible-Reading in State Schools 
 League, the Total Abstinence Societies and other weird 
 associations for the suppression of drink, the Labour 
 Party, the Land Tax, and Human Nature. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ' " Success to you ! God speed our work !" said the hangman to 
 the judge.' 
 
 The day after the nominations Hoggins formally 
 retired from the leadership of the Opposition, and 
 Millenet succeeded. Gifford, Daven, and Graham 
 accepted the development in anxious silence; Curran 
 fought it noisily. But none of them regarded seriously 
 the opposition in their own constituencies. 
 
 Two days later Gifford was served with a citation 
 in divorce — Millenet v. Millenet, co-respondent George 
 Gifford. A bolt from the blue, when all the indiscretion 
 seemed over, past and forgotten. 
 
 It affected Graham and Daven. to red rage and 
 Gifford to white wrath. He calmed to freezing-point 
 now that he saw the supreme struggle imminent. If 
 the constituencies upheld the Ministry, it would pre- 
 judge the divorce action in his favour ; if otherwise, 
 position was lost, the friends who had followed him 
 were lost, and, crowning shame and sorrow, Stralie 
 would be lost to him also. 
 
 The activity against the Ministry was strongest in 
 the constituencies of the Premier, the Minister for Mines, 
 and the Minister for Health ; all Conservative opinion 
 and propertied strength were directed against Gifford, 
 
 157 
 
158 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 who, as Treasurer, proposed the imposition of a land 
 tax ; against Daven, who as Minister for Mines would 
 administer his Department rigorously in justice of 
 miners ; against Graham, who as Minister for Health 
 would surely sow with thorns the way of transgressing 
 dairymen and insanitary shire councillors. That bright 
 and shining light of Toryism, Forby, the father of 
 child-slaves, had been selected to oppose Gifford ; the 
 full bitterness of the opposition appearing a few days 
 before the holding of the poll, when the Social Purity 
 Society (that, despairing of discovering any purity in 
 itself, had ventured into the cold world to find that 
 variable and undefined quality) announced that ' Mr. 
 Forby, the good-man candidate,' had been selected to 
 carry the Social Purity vote, as against Gifford, who 
 was by inference socially impure. 
 
 Gifford gritted his teeth on the bullet and waited 
 impatiently for the supreme test of fortitude when 
 Stralie should hear of the scandal and write to ask him, 
 ' Is it true or false ?' 
 
 Meanwhile, the opposition to Gifford waxed virulent. 
 His electorate first, and latterly the electorates of his 
 colleagues, were made hideous by great calico signs 
 calling on the electors to : 
 
 ' Vote for Social Purity and a Happy Fireside !' 
 
 ' Vote for the Bible in State Schools and the Sacred- 
 ness of Marriage !' 
 
 ' Vote against Sociahsm, the Land Tax, and Free 
 Love !' 
 
 They mixed Protection and polyandrism in the 
 most wonderful manner, showed that Free Trade and 
 Government by property votes were the basis of all 
 virtuous living ; that Bible-reading in State schools 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 159 
 
 and a system of non-interference with the owners of 
 dirty dairies and Legree dairymen, who bred children 
 because each toil-wrecked child saved the wages of a 
 man-help, were one and the same thing ; that State 
 protection of children enslaved by their parents was 
 a direct stultification of that Providence which has 
 ordained that every freeborn citizen shall have the 
 right to wallop his own nigger or his own son ; and, 
 shortly, that Gifford and Old-age Pensions were 
 anathema ; and that Forby, Protestantism, Free 
 Trade, Social Purity, the Abolition of the Labour 
 ±\"'rty, and Free Manure for Farmers, the only safe 
 guides to the millennium. All of the Cabinet were 
 Protestant excepting Curran ; the introduction of 
 sectarianism was aimed at him. 
 
 It was so comic that all the tragedy that underlay 
 it could not destroy the humour of it ; although the 
 comments of Gifford, Daven, and Graham were bitter, 
 if merry. 
 
 And then came a telegram from Stralie : 
 
 ' Please wire me it is not true, love.' 
 
 So she trusted him still, even to this end ; and for 
 that reason, even if not for the reason of the man's 
 innate honesty, he wrote her fully, telling everything, 
 not sparing himself — writing as a man might confess 
 from a scaffold at the end of hope, without reservation 
 and without excuse. 
 
 Then he telegraphed ' Posted letter,' knowing that 
 she would be in agonies of expectancy until the letter 
 came to her, and seeing no way in strict honesty how 
 he could save her the smallest pang. 
 
 He returned to his electorate dully hoping that the 
 
i6o THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 voice of the people might yet prove to be the voice of 
 God, and speak truly and acquit him ; and fighting his 
 best, though prepared for the worst, and probably 
 because of it. 
 
 At Korringajork the pig-man who had been President 
 of the Shire of Goorambat during Gifford's. first cam- 
 paign refused to preside at the meeting of the Unclean 
 Candidate ; but the schoolmaster, as being the most un- 
 popular man in the electorate by reason of his openly 
 expressed contempt for the unspeakable ' prodoocers,' 
 said he would gladly take the chair, and on his own 
 initiative gave a half-holiday to his school, Gifford's 
 meeting being held in the afternoon. 
 
 The children loitered by the door of the crazy billiard- 
 room ; the electors had unaccountably discovered as 
 much interest in politics as if politics were pig sales. 
 Even many women were there. At first Gifford re- 
 garded these proofs of newly-awakened interest as being 
 signs of a political revival in his favour ; later he knew 
 the truth — the women had come to see, not the candi- 
 date, but the co-respondent. 
 
 On entering the room he stopped to talk to the small 
 daughter of the bull-voiced ex-president of the Shire of 
 Goorambat — the girl who had given the great bunch of 
 wattle and roses to Stralie a year ago — and who now 
 blushed her pleasure and answered him as if he were 
 a god. 
 
 This seeing, the bull-voiced man called to her to 
 ' Come over 'ere 'megeately, Hemmer,' and then Gifford 
 knew that these low organisms, these child oppressors, 
 these thieves who battened on the Government and 
 talked the braggart lie of the holy independence of 
 private enterprise, had labelled him ' leper.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH i6i 
 
 He walked a few paces towards the improvised plat- 
 form and saw Willie Forby, taller and slimmer than 
 ever, his hands and ears bloated with chilblains and 
 sores ; and he stopped to talk to the boy, who received 
 the advance as the daughter of the bull-voiced man had 
 done — shyly and worshippingly. 
 
 Mrs. Forby, greasier and more slovenly than before, 
 and providing another outward sign of her mental 
 emptiness in a rapidly-growing moustache, called Willie 
 away from contamination ; and as Gifford left the 
 boy and advanced in her direction, the virtuous matron 
 turned her back magnificently. It was not more than 
 usually her fault that her dignified pose was discounted 
 by certain tapes protruding between skirt and bodice, 
 and by a gaping placket. 
 
 Gifford addressed them, and the schoolmaster had 
 much enjoyment. He would have been a martinet in 
 any position of authority ; nature and inclination, 
 seeing that he despised all Gifford's opponents and was, 
 furthermore, Gifford's friend, made him a very vigorous 
 chairman. 
 
 When Gifford closed his address he whispered to the 
 chairman to close the meeting, but that zealous sup- 
 porter proposed a vote of confidence, and so gave an 
 opportunity to the secretary of the local Reform League 
 to state in a series of roundabout insinuations that the 
 electorate and the country wanted good moral men, 
 who would tax men rather than tax land. 
 
 The vote was against Gifford, and it was a faithful 
 index to the result of the elections. Curran was re- 
 turned by such a majority that his opponent, who had 
 all the virtues — sexual morality ; total abstinence from 
 all things, including alcohol ; Free Trade beliefs, and a 
 
 II 
 
i62 THE SNARE OF StRENGTH 
 
 blind hatred of Rome ; all excepting the virtue of kindli- 
 ness — lost his deposit. Graham was elected by ten 
 votes, but the new Government was wrecked — its 
 Premier and all its Ministers but two defeated by 
 political accidents of the type of Forby. 
 
 And then Gifford knew that Stralie's answer, after 
 his confession of his half sincerity, would be kinder but 
 more draconically just than even the verdict of the 
 constituencies ; he knew that his life, though it might 
 not be wrecked, was neaped. 
 
 A week later he had cleared up his business and pre- 
 pared his simple defence to Millenet's petition. 
 
 ' What is the next step ?' he asked Graham. 
 
 ' You must advise the Governor to send for Millenet.' 
 
 ' I — I'm damned if I will ! Why, the whole position 
 is indecent. It is as if his wife were guilty and he were 
 trying to make money and position out of her infidelity ; 
 or that he knows her to be innocent, and is so much 
 the viler scoundrel that he is trying to get into power 
 by blackening his wife and me.' 
 
 ' No ! Millenet is dirty in his vindictiveness, but he's 
 clean in his hatred. He believes that you and his wife 
 are guilty, but he didn't want to make a position out of 
 it — he only wanted to ruin you.' 
 
 ' He has ruined me !' said Gifford, with much bitter- 
 ness. ' And now you say I'm to play the magnanimous, 
 and advise the Governor to send for him.' 
 
 ' There's nothing you could do better for yourself 
 than advise it, and nothing he could do worse for him- 
 self than to accept it.' 
 
 ' Too honourable ?' sneered Gifford. 
 
 ' Partly that, and partly because he's too cunning.' 
 
 So Gifford advised the Governor to send for Millenet, 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 163 
 
 and Millenet refused the commission, but dug Cincin- 
 natus Hoggins out of his alleged retirement and brought 
 him back as Premier, to keep the position warm for 
 Millenet. 
 
 And then Gifford, having said good-bye to all the 
 friends of his political life, went to the country to join 
 Daven (now in retirement on that deep lead-mine, which 
 could not produce gold, but could drown men and did), 
 there to rusticate until sentence should be pronounced 
 by Australia Field. 
 
 II — 2 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 The spring, for all the drought of the last two years, 
 came to Coocooroo with something of the beauty that 
 belongs to the season. Moonlight prompted a dance 
 or two at Eclipse Corner and a hospital ball at 
 Coocooroo. 
 
 Tommy the Dog, chief of navvies, maker of the pace 
 in galloping out ballast wakes, did not leave the district 
 with the army of navvies when the main railway con- 
 struction had finished. He had a hut near the smelters', 
 where he was supposed to sell hop-beer only, and, far 
 from obeying supposition, he did not sell hop-beer at 
 all, although there were six bottles of that marvellous 
 drink in the little shop-window — bottles that served as 
 a cemetery for flies. 
 
 Charley Byers rode up to the shanty late in the 
 afternoon to ask its proprietor to send him next day 
 the two timber-getters who lodged there ; and as no 
 man of gentlemanly instincts may leave a shanty with- 
 out drinking or losing his reputation for the gentle- 
 manly instincts aforesaid, Charley asked all and sundry 
 to drink. 
 
 He had passed Miss Field at Marble Hill. She 
 bowed and smiled graciously to him. She looked 
 radiantly beautiful, for she had just heard of her lover's 
 
 164 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 165 
 
 accession to the premiership, and was almost painfully 
 happj'. Byers had never before seen her or any other 
 woman so beautiful ; even his idealization of pleasant- 
 faced, dumpy Annie Johns was discounted by Miss 
 Field's loveliness. 
 
 The mail had been delivered before he left Coocooroo, 
 and in Silver Street he met her again in the late after- 
 noon, and bowed to her; but she seemed not to see 
 him, and he saw that her beauty had gone, and left the 
 perfect face gray, as if the light of life had been suddenly 
 withdrawn. She had received a murderous letter that 
 day — a gossipy letter, full of careless stabs that 
 made plain all the insinuations of the two weekly 
 papers that some kind friend in Melbourne had sent, 
 after carefully marking the interesting paragraphs in 
 red. 
 
 She did not believe the slander, but she was tortured 
 by the suspicion that in some unexplainable way it 
 might be true, or colourably true. The shock of even 
 finding that she could not at once put away from her 
 the shadow of a suspicion of him left her heart cold and 
 her brain numb ; but she instinctively sought her friend, 
 and frightened that lady by her pallor. 
 
 ' Good heavens, Stralie ! you're ill.' 
 
 ' No, I am not, dear ; but if I can't believe in George 
 with all my heart and soul, I'll be heart-broken.' 
 
 ' George ! What ! poor old George ! Why, what 
 has he done?' 
 
 But she uttered the reassuring interrogations so 
 haltingly* that Stralie looked at her, and noted her 
 heightened colour. 
 
 ' May ! You know it, too.' 
 
 ' I ? Well, I certainly did have a letter last mail 
 
i66 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 from Winnie Jervis. But you know her, and gossip is 
 nearly always lies.' 
 
 ' But the newspapers wouldn't dare if it were untrue, 
 May.' 
 
 ' My dear, newspapers will dare anything, even the 
 most cowardly of them. Nobody horsewhips editors in 
 our country, unfortunately. The little beasts are not 
 afraid of the libel law, because decent people won't go 
 into a court. They're only afraid of being thrashed and 
 of losing advertisements.' 
 
 ' Oh, if it's untrue — untrue in every way — I'll love 
 George better than any man was ever loved before, 
 and I'll never believe anything against him, even if an 
 angel swore it.' 
 
 ' My dear, I know George ; at the worst it's only a 
 flirtation.' 
 
 ' A flirtation ! It's just as bad. It's insincerity — 
 just as bad as the worst. It's only a difference in 
 degree.' 
 
 ' Don't be quixotic, Stralie.' 
 
 ' Quixote was the soul of honour — ^that's why most 
 people laughed at him. They couldn't understand 
 truth.' 
 
 ' You're an extremist, Stralie.' 
 
 ' I'm not — I'm not ! If the code of honour of poor 
 vulgar people who have to work before they can eat 
 makes a great deceit a crime, we ought to look on our 
 smallest deceit as a bigger crime than their great one.' 
 
 ' Have a cup of tea, dear, and don't be too serious.' 
 
 ' Look at George's advantages. May — ^young, strong, 
 wealthy, his ambition gratified, and — and having me. 
 If he even flirted with this woman he deserves the 
 worst.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 167 
 
 ' My dear — my dear ! this is foolish ! Even the 
 poor people you pity so much are not treated like that. 
 You'd have one law for the rich and another for the 
 poor.' 
 
 ' So there should be. Punish them according to the 
 advantages they had. Why, surely happiness ought to 
 bribe us to be good.' 
 
 ' My dear, it doesn't ; human nature is like that. 
 Look at me. I get bothered over Will this morning — 
 — he being away and all that — and I go into the kitchen 
 this morning in a perfect beast of a temper, and bully 
 that poor cook until I found she had been awake all 
 night with neuralgia.' 
 
 ' Your sins are very white, May.' 
 
 ' They're black enough for me, dear. But when we 
 were poor, and I did all the little housework and cooked 
 Will's dinner myself, I was a better woman. It's 
 easier for the poor to be good than it is for the rich. 
 Work, and not eating too much, and not having too 
 much time to think — that makes them good.' 
 
 ' May, if it's true I'll never forgive him.' 
 
 ' Stralie, if it's true you will forgive him.' 
 
 ' I won't.' 
 
 ' You will, dear. You know I am not a very strong 
 Giifordite, because I wanted you to have Frank ; he's a 
 more reliable man.' 
 
 ' Mr. Abbey is not worth George's shoelace to 
 me.' 
 
 ' And for that reason you'll forgive him.' 
 
 ' I wpn't, and I won't rest a minute without knowing. 
 I'll wire to him now.' 
 
 ' Let me see it before you send it." Here is a telegraph- 
 form, dear.' 
 
i68 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Stralie wrote a line and passed it to Mrs. Hempel.' 
 
 ' You must put " love " at the end of it, Stralie.' 
 
 ' Oh, I can't write the word, feeling as I do.' 
 
 ' You must. It's unfair. You are showing you 
 believe him guilty before you know the charges, and he 
 may not know them either. So you must show you 
 still have faith in him.' 
 
 Stralie took up the pen and scrawled the word. 
 
 ' There ! Will that do ?' 
 
 ' You're a darling ! and there's a kiss from George. 
 I'll send it off now. Never mind the money. I'll 
 charge it to the company.' 
 
 ' Oh, May !' 
 
 ' Oh, May ! Things are going from bad to worse — a 
 shilling more or less can't help their million.' 
 
 For a night and a day Stralie did not find relief from 
 that numbness of heart and body ; and then came hope 
 that made her almost happy again. Gifford's telegram 
 certainly did not deny anything, but she tried to believe 
 as she wanted to believe, and attributed the evasion to 
 his hatred of any publicity of his private affairs. And 
 then the last word, ' love,' spelled new life to her, so that 
 for the eight days that elapsed between the arrivals of 
 the telegram and his explanatory letter she filled the 
 house with music, and was so radiant that Mrs. 
 Hempel's eyes followed her with glances full of affec- 
 tion. 
 
 And then the letter came, and she grew into stone as 
 she read it. That fatal document told the honest fact 
 without reserve or extenuation, so that the little tangent 
 was exaggerated into a very black and latent sin. That 
 there should be no Mrs. Hempel to soften her resolution 
 she wrote the letter of dismissal immediately, and made 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 169 
 
 a packet of the few gifts he had made her — very few 
 they were, because he knew her ultra-refinement in her 
 objection to jewellery — posted packet and letter, and 
 then returned and told her friend. 
 
 That generous lady wept over the breaking of the 
 engagement as if it had been the death of a child, and 
 then incontinently abused her friend. 
 
 ' The weeping broomstick !' she said savagely — 
 ' always making eyes at men and drenching herself 
 with scent. Oh ! I do believe that that woman is 
 never satisfied unless she's being tempted. Eve gave 
 herself the apple, I'm sure. There never was any 
 serpent.' 
 
 ' Oh, it's no use talking, dear. He forgot me. Did 
 I ever forget him — did I for one hour ?' 
 
 ' No, dear, I don't think you did.' 
 
 ' I never did. And then he writes to me that it all 
 happened because he was miserable through always 
 thinking of me. That must be false. Wh}', I always 
 thought of him, and it made me glad — always. To 
 know he was going on so well, to know he was fight- 
 ing and beating the other men. Oh ! I was proud and 
 glad — glad always. But it doesn't matter now ; 
 nothing matters now.' 
 
 ' Don't fret so. It was only a flirtation.' 
 
 ' Only a flirtation ! How if it had been me ? Only 
 a flirtation ! If I had flirted he would have killed me, 
 and he would have been quite right.' 
 
 ' My dear — my dear ! If everybody were to be killed 
 for flirting, there'd only be you and me left on earth — 
 and I'm not sure about myself.' 
 
 ' It's no use being flippant, May — and I hate it.' 
 
 ' . . . Oh, these men ! . . . Just imagine anybody 
 
170 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 telling a stupid lie like that — that he flirted because 
 he was so lonely without me !' She laughed almost 
 hysterically, though there was no trace of hysteria in 
 her perfect system. ' He loved me so much that he 
 had to flirt with another woman! He's all a lie — a 
 lie that breathes, and eats, and drinks, and walks !' 
 
 ' Stralie, Stralie ! this is madness !' 
 
 ' Everything that is quite honourable and quite true 
 is mad in this awful world, I think. ... I am strong, 
 and proud, and true, and he seemed so. . . . May, 
 I wouldn't have wronged him by a thought for all the 
 world.' 
 
 ' I know, dear — I know. But men are different.' 
 
 ' To love single-heartedly — is it too much to ask ? 
 Why, we women are really the strong natures.' 
 
 ' You've never been tempted, Stralie.' 
 
 ' Tempted ! I wouldn't be, unless I loved, and then 
 it isn't temptation, because it needn't be fought. It's 
 the loveless sins that are horrible.' 
 
 ' Men are like little puppies, Stralie — good in the 
 main, but ready to run off the track after every bird in 
 the bush.' 
 
 ' Supposing we did ?' 
 
 ' Some of us do, dear — Mrs. Millenet, for instance.' 
 
 ' Oh, that woman ! But he's worse. He had me 
 and my letters, and they couldn't keep him.' 
 
 ' He hasn't done much harm beyond being found 
 out!' 
 
 ' Oh, May, don't make me hate you ! That worldly 
 cant ! It's the being found out that makes the offence 
 not so bad. He has told me all, and I could almost 
 forgive him if he hadn't written that lie.' 
 
 ' You expect too much from men, dear.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 171 
 
 ' I don't. Surely the ideal is always possible. I live 
 up to my own ideals.' 
 
 ' I don't to mine.' 
 
 ' You do. You think you haven't any, but you have ; 
 you live up to them unconsciously.' 
 
 ' I haven't any, really, Stralie.' 
 
 ' I live up to mine ; most women do. What makes 
 most women better than most men ? My mother 
 told me that a man can do bad things, and get so used 
 to them, that without shame he can think how much 
 better his women-folk are than himself.' 
 
 ' How did she know that ?' 
 
 ' She knew,' said Stralie bitterly. ' She had to 
 know. She was one of the best women that ever 
 breathed, and my father was one of the worst men.' 
 
 ' And yet she loved him, Stralie.' 
 
 ' I know she did — poor mother ! Bad as he was, he 
 respected her a little, although he was exacting.' 
 
 ' Like them all, my dear, excepting Will, and I think 
 Frank Abbey : take all there is and give as little as 
 they can.' 
 
 ' She said that he said to her once, " I am a bad 
 lot, and you're the best ;" and he said that " She was 
 Lucrece to all others and Thais to him." ' 
 
 ' Every good woman is that to some man, Stralie.' 
 
 'Every other woman might be; I wouldn't. I'd 
 keep my reserve even to Geo — to the man I loved.' 
 
 ' You're like a child explaining the stars.' 
 
 She broke down then. 
 
 ' Oh, May, I can't talk. My heart is not broken — it's 
 dead. I can't feel anything any more.' 
 
 ' You shall drink some wine and go to bed, and to- 
 morrow we'll forgive Mr. Gifford by telegram. 
 
172 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 But next day brought the news that the Premier of 
 Victoria was co-respondent in a divorce action, and that 
 all the Ministry were opposed by nominees of the Social 
 Purity League ; and Stralie turned her face to the wall, 
 old memories and new, fluent and refluent, and prayed 
 to the God of her mother — not that death might save 
 her from the pangs of life, but that youth might go and 
 maturity teach her indifference. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 ' When the cook and the steward fall out, the captain hears who 
 stole the butter.' 
 
 GiFFORD waited in the city, whose every pave and brick 
 he now hated, until StraHe's letter and packet came to 
 him, and the second explained the first before he had 
 read it. So it was all over. 
 
 ' Dead finish it is,' said he, and laughed humorlessly. 
 ,Then he was filled with rage at the position. Every- 
 thing gone — power, love ; only life left him, and life 
 seemed utterly valueless. There was his mother cer- 
 tainly, but mothers are only for men when they can feel 
 like children ; and he respected his mother as he 
 respected Stralie, and so was ashamed to meet her. 
 
 Stralie had dismissed him, but Helen Millenet loved 
 
 him : he could believe nothing else. As he had been 
 
 saddled with blame, he would deserve it. He and 
 
 ~ Helen would leave the country, and let the people who 
 
 had forced them to the step bear the consequence. 
 
 White for revenge on Millenet, he drove to Millenet's 
 house. When he was announced, Mrs. Millenet at first 
 thought of denying herself to him, and then curiosity 
 outweighed all other considerations, and she prepared 
 to meet him. 
 
 He entered the room of the tragic comedy of a few 
 
 173 
 
174 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 weeks before, and as soon as the servant had closed the 
 door, strode to the mistress, and put his arm around 
 her in significance of possession. She struggled for a 
 moment, but very faintly, and then decided to stay 
 where she was — ^but only for a moment. 
 
 ' Helen, we're both disgraced ! Let us go away 
 together.' 
 
 Her ready emotions brought tears to her eyes with 
 their usual facility, and she freed herself. 
 
 ' Oh, no ! we can't be disgraced. My husband is 
 doing this to frighten me.' 
 
 ' He is not, Helen. I know from my own lawyers 
 that he will force the law to the bitter end. Let us go 
 away together. Why stay to face disgrace ?' 
 
 'Oh, I can't! I can't!' 
 
 ' You shall. You've made me sell my soul, and you 
 shall pay me the price.' 
 
 He took her roughly in his arms again, maddened by 
 the light way she regarded the wreck she had caused. 
 She had not been used to anjTthing so real, and his 
 vehemence frightened her ; so that, with a lithe strength 
 few would have suspected, she twisted like an eel, and 
 was out of his embrace and two paces away almost 
 before he knew it. 
 
 ' You mustn't talk so horribly. I didn't make you 
 sell your soul. What should I want with anybody's 
 soul ? I ' 
 
 He had caught her again. 
 
 ' Helen, I'm alone. You caused it. I have lost Stralie, 
 I shall have you. I've bought you, and I've paid for you.' 
 
 ' Oh no ! no ! Oh, what madness !' 
 
 ' Your husband will never be reconciled to you. He's 
 done with you for ever.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 175 
 
 She half thought it might be so, and immediately she 
 knew she was in danger of losing the husband she had 
 always plagued and half-despised he became superla- 
 tively dear to her. 
 
 ' Oh, don't say that. I love him so.' 
 
 ' You what?' said Giiford, aghast. 
 
 ' I love him — I've always loved him. Do you think 
 I could ever have loved you ? My husband is the best 
 man in the whole world, and he won't speak to me. 
 What's the use of your standing there like a silly ? You 
 don't understand me ; nobody understands me, except 
 Henry.' 
 
 Gifford's face was very white : Judas, half repenting 
 the betrayal, now forced to recognise that the silver of 
 the bribe was counterfeit. 
 
 ' You Jezebel !' he said. ' You're lower than the 
 women of the streets !' 
 
 She began to sob, and as he turned to leave without 
 again glancing at her, she hurled a crushing retort : 
 
 ' You're a cad — a cad, and no gentleman ! and I'll — 
 I'll never speak to you again.' 
 
 She probably expected him to fall dead under the 
 threat, but he walked away unharmed. 
 
 After he had left the house she lay on the pink- 
 flowered settee and cried a little, and thought and 
 schemed for half an hour ; then suddenly smiled and 
 nodded to herself. She heard the noise of wheels, 
 listened for a moment, and heard her husband's voice, 
 trotted to the piano, and ran her fingers along the 
 keys, saying to herself: 
 
 ' It's lucky I learned that other song since Henry 
 stopped speaking to me.' 
 
 She heard his voice in the hall, fixed a ' Ring the bell. 
 
176 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 watchman ' gaze on the convenient vase, imported tears 
 into her voice, and sang very softly : 
 
 ' Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean — 
 Tears from the depth of some divine despair.' 
 
 There was the velvet sound of a footfall on the thick 
 carpet, and she turned her head, but so slightly that it 
 was unnoticeable to the man behind her, who sighed. 
 She sang a bar or two more in that soft little voice of 
 hers ; and then, half histrionically, half naturally — or 
 apparently naturally, for she could make herself believe 
 anything or feel anything at will — she crashed out the 
 last chord with the loud pedal hard down, dropped her 
 arms, folded, on the piano, laid her head on her arms, 
 and broke into heart-rending sobs. 
 
 The finicky brain of the statistics maniac thought the 
 pity that his little formula of a heart felt. He crossed 
 the room, placed his hand on the bent neck — an adorable 
 neck, with little golden curls on it, most kissable — lost 
 the politician in the man, was stirred in his small 
 affections by the love which had been obsolescent for 
 so long, and said, in his little voice, raspy with sup- 
 pressed emotion : 
 
 ' You mustn't cry, really. It will make you quite 
 ill.' 
 
 She sobbed out : ' Oh, Henry ! do speak to me a 
 1-1-little bit. I'm so miserable. And I have really 
 done nothing — only been foolish.' 
 
 ' If I could be sure — if I could be sure.' 
 
 ' Oh, Henry, you may ! That Gifford man was here 
 just now.' 
 
 ' He dared ?' 
 
 ' Y-yes. He'd dare anything. He's an awful man ! 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 177 
 
 He wouldn't go away, although I ordered him out of 
 the house !' (Sniff.) ' He stayed there and said he 
 loved me, and he'd die if I didn't go away with him.' 
 
 ' The scoundrel !' 
 
 ' Yes ! And he threatened to kill me, and I was 
 f-fif-firm ; and then he went on his knees and said 
 you would go on with the divorce, and I said I couldn't 
 help that, but I'd never look at another man, because I 
 1-1-loved you.' 
 
 He spoke very sadly, showing more quiet depth of 
 feeling than he had himself suspected. 
 
 ' You don't love me, Helen ?' 
 
 'Oh, I do! Idol' 
 
 She put her hand on his, and, after a little struggling 
 w ith pride, he allowed it to fall into his open palm. 
 
 ' Are you telling the truth, Helen ?' 
 
 She carried the war into the enemy's camp, raising 
 the siege by capturing the city. 
 
 ' I will swear it to you — now, now if you like.' 
 
 ' Don't swear anything, Helen.' 
 
 ' I'll do anything you say, Henry. And you know 
 how neglectful you've been — always at the House or 
 your office. And I was so lonely without you, and I 
 amused myself talking to these men, and no thought of 
 harm.' 
 
 ' And you never loved Gifford ?' 
 
 ' How could I, Henry ? how could I ? He could 
 never understand me ; nobody could understand me 
 but you.' 
 
 He looke^ at her long, well-kept, pink hand as it lay 
 in his own short, brown, soft, and rather fleshy palm — 
 the hand of an artist or a liar in the hand of a stubborn 
 myopic precisian — and felt himself giving way at the 
 
 12 
 
[78 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 nere contemplation of the contrast. The marvellous 
 itrength in the marvellous weakness of a woman's 
 land — force in softness, plenipotence in fragility ! 
 [ts weakness dominated him. He closed his hand 
 m hers. 
 
 ' You do love me, Helen ?' 
 
 • Henry, I do, I do !' 
 
 He kissed her, and she knew that she had won. For 
 1 long time to come there would be no eye-rolling and 
 philandering for her. The few weeks under the shadow 
 jf the Divorce Court had given her an almost mortal 
 right ; Gifford had completed the rout. Her husband 
 bund her strangely submissive, never half contemptu- 
 Dusly opposing his simplest statement of opinion, as of 
 jld. And they bade fair to be happy ; for she would 
 lever again go over the boundary of indiscretion into 
 mprudence ; and he — once his suspicions were stilled 
 — saw nothing, and heard nothing : the ideal husband 
 of the flippant wife — fond, deaf, and blind. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 ' Cull me love's roses in the hour approved, 
 When who so loves may hope to be beloved.' 
 
 GiFFORD knew of the reconciliation a day or two later, 
 when his solicitors advised him of the probable abandon- 
 ment of the proceedings in divorce, and three days 
 thereafter Millenet joined the Cabinet of Cincinnatus 
 Hoggins as Treasurer, and divided his happiness there- 
 after between his adoring wife'and the fearsome statistics 
 of his office. 
 
 A month later Gifford, seeking nepenthe in Daven's 
 murderous alluvial mine near Korringajork, read that 
 Hoggins had resigned the premiership in favour of 
 Millenet. At last all the spoils had gone to the real 
 victor. Gifford smiled bitterly, but said no word. 
 
 At Coocooroo, where the drought daily became more 
 hopeless, Stralie passed the weeks in mental torpor, by 
 gradual habit forgetting to suffer keenly, although any 
 little accident brought back the memory of her recreant 
 lover to her as a sailor feels the brewing gale at an old 
 wound. Sometimes she chid herself for wrecking her 
 happiness by making her sense of honourable dealing 
 so inflexible, and then she chid the soft-heartedness 
 that caused the first chiding. 
 
 Abbey came oftener than in the days when her 
 
 179 12 — 2 
 
i8o THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 engagement to Gifford had been active. Mrs. Hempel 
 had prompted his more frequent visits, that by-and-by 
 grevif to be nightly, and that by-and-by were watched 
 for anxiously by Stralie, so eager was she for distrac- 
 tion and so thirsty for forgetfulness. 
 
 He talked the usual gossip of the camp of Darby : of 
 the way the money was being spent by the company on 
 foolish work; of shafts costing ten thousand pounds 
 being sunk behind lodes ; of the general manager having 
 developed a marvellous laziness, and an unpleasant habit 
 of making the sites of new shafts and works carelessly 
 on a plan not drawn to scale ; and all the other errors 
 which were principally funny here, although they were 
 tragic on the Stock Exchange. 
 
 One day he found her weeping, and was so grieved 
 thereby that he could offer only incoherencies as 
 comfort. 
 
 ' There ! there ! Oh, don't cry, dear ! It wiU be all 
 right — everything will be all right.' 
 
 In an unguarded moment he laid a sympathetic hand 
 on hers ; but she was petulant — for probably the third 
 time in her life — and threw his hand from her. 
 
 ' It isn't all right, and I don't want it to be all right. 
 How dare you say that I want it to be all right again !' 
 
 He reddened and stammered, and so put himself 
 deeper in the wrong. 
 
 ' Who told you that I don't want it to be all wrong, 
 always ? Who told you ?' 
 
 ' Mrs. Hempel said ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Hempel said ? You talk about me ? You're 
 all spying on me. Go away. I never want to see you 
 again !' 
 
 She had ordered him to go, but, to cut short the 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH i8i 
 
 embarrassment, she left him and went to her own 
 room, and the abashed Abbey sought Mrs. Hempel, 
 told her of his unfortunate interview, and concluded by 
 asking helplessly : 
 
 ' How did I do wrong ? I always make a mess of it 
 with her.' 
 
 ' How did you do wrong ?' echoed Mrs. Hempel 
 pityingly. ' You're a blunderer, Frank. Why did you 
 tell her it would be all right ? You know you want it 
 to stay all wrong.' 
 
 ' I don't — really I don't. When I saw how ill and 
 worried she was, I wanted it to be all right.' 
 
 ' You did ?' 
 
 ' I did, honestly.' 
 
 'Well, I give you up. I thought I knew men — I 
 don't. Catch a woman playing that self-abnegation 
 trick !' 
 
 ' Plenty of them do.' 
 
 ' They're not my friends, Frank, anyway. Now, next 
 time you mustn't mention anything about it being all 
 right, or all wrong, either. You must never mention 
 the past. Talk about the future — with a little insinua- 
 tion of Frank Abbey in the future.' 
 
 ' But I won't have a chance of speaking to her 
 again. She distinctly told me she would never see me 
 again.' 
 
 ' Did she— distinctly ?' 
 
 ' Yes, absolutely. She said ' 
 
 ' Never mind what she said : it was quite true, and 
 she meant it. She will never see you again, to-day, 
 but she will to-morrow.' 
 
 ' It's too good to be true.' 
 
 ' It's too true not to be good. Now, you stay away 
 
i82 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 till you're sent for. And if you're near the works hurry 
 that husband of mine home.' 
 
 He shook hands and went into the garden, and, as 
 he reached the gate she called after him, so lowly that 
 he almost missed the words : 
 
 ' And you may come to dinner — Thursday.' 
 
 ' Oh, thank you !' 
 
 ' No thanks. You'll have a dull evening. There'll 
 be nobody to meet you.' Her arch and merry face 
 smiled at his uncertainty, and she added : ' Only Will 
 and me, and Stralie and you.' 
 
 Abbey walked away on air. He found Hempel 
 radiating energy, as usual — giving half a dozen orders 
 with the one breath, snatching at his desk telephones, 
 answering and ordering curtly the Main Range, Yeo- 
 man's Camp, Sulphur Creek, the traffic manager, the 
 Flux Quarries, and Eclipse Corner, swearing under his 
 breath if he were delayed a moment, but never finishing 
 the oath, as he had not the time for it, his thin, dark 
 throat convulsed with quick words. 
 
 ' Sit down, Frank. I'm just through with that — only 
 a few letters to sign.' 
 
 His few letters were about two score. He had dic- 
 tated them, certainly; but he was one of those free 
 horses whose temperaments spur themselves. He left 
 nothing to the underlings beyond the mechanical type- 
 writing, and so he read them at lightning speed, and 
 scrawled the hieroglyph that was his signature in a 
 second or so. And while he read and signed he talked. 
 
 * You ought to be general manager permanently. Will,' 
 said Abbey admiringly. 
 
 'Eh? No, thanks. Acting G.M.'s good enough for 
 me. There's squalls coming.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 183 
 
 ' Worse than before ?' 
 
 ' Before ? Before was only a breeze. Coocooroo's a 
 blue duck.' 
 
 'No!' 
 
 ' It is. The G.M. took a good time to be ill and get 
 his six months' leave.' 
 
 ' Wasn't he really ill, then ?' 
 
 ' Course he was. . . . Mum, 'm, 'm, yours faithf 'ly — 
 there, read it if you can. . . . Course he was. But 
 what was he ill of? Ill of himself — sick of the job. 
 Wasn't lead-poisoning — bet your life.' 
 
 ' Well, who said it was ?' 
 
 ' I said it wasn't. That lead furnace has never been 
 kept going long enough to poison a canary. . . . 'M, 
 'm, 'm. Coke freights. 'M, 'm. ... No: the G.M. 
 was a good man turned fool. Got led away by his pets. 
 That idiot Fenton as a mine manager ! Gr-r-r-r.' 
 
 ' And do you think the G.M. at last recognised the 
 show was in Queer Street ?' 
 
 * Course he did ! He only woke up a month before 
 he cleared. And when he found what fools he had been 
 petting and trusting to, he came to me like a man, and, 
 says he, " I've recommended you as acting general 
 manager, and I want to tell you I'm sorry I snubbed 
 you. I was misled." ' 
 
 ' Very cool of him. Didn't you tell him that a man 
 at his screw was paid not to be misled ?' 
 
 ' No, thanks, I didn't ! Why, the man was as miser- 
 able as a Jew in hell without his cashbox ; otherwise, I 
 wouldn't have taken the job on. Why, there's Fenton : 
 he's under me now, and he had a bigger screw at first, 
 and a" bigger job. Course he hates me. And that 
 traffic manager tries to be cheeky when I 'phone him. 
 
i84 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 because he thinks he ought to be acting G.M. Me ? I 
 say nothing — and saw wood.' 
 
 He ' sawed wood ' with his pen, triumphantly scrawl- 
 ing his unrecognisable signature to three letters in two 
 seconds each, and then continued : 
 
 ' Poor old Johnson ! It was a case of sure auto-toxin 
 — the man's worry poisoned his body. He got Bright's 
 disease out of his thoughts.' 
 
 A telephone-bell sounded. He snatched at the one 
 labelled ' Mines manager,' and held a suave conversa- 
 tion for a minute with that most excellent hater, 
 Fenton. 
 
 ' Directors coming here soon, Frank. Wouldn't be 
 s'prised at any rate. They've got to do something, 
 although they don't want to. It's hard to find a 
 courageous man in this game.' 
 
 ' 'M, 'm ?' 
 
 ' 'M, 'm, 'm ! They always want to break things 
 gently. As if you could fall gently off the top of a 
 two-hundred-foot smoke-stack ! Break things gently ! 
 My stars ! when they get to hell they'll ask for the 
 temperature to be reduced to ninety for a start.' 
 
 ' You're quite satisfied they'll go to hell, old man ?' 
 
 ' Dead sure. The tricks that crowd has played ! 
 Man ! they've known where we are for the last two 
 months, and the shareholders don't know it yet, 
 although there's a few of the public suspicious. The 
 shareholders don't know, and yet the market's drop- 
 ping. Who's doing it ? Why, the local directors 
 don't know yet, but all the Melbourne directors do. 
 And Berkshire is selling : I'll lay a worm or two on 
 that. When the cat's out of the bag the public 'ull 
 eat the directors — that is, if it's a decent public. And 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 185 
 
 yet they ask the exposure to be toned down. They 
 only want to put things off; it's quite natural to them. 
 They're nearly all Free-Traders, and they'd rather drift 
 than row.' 
 
 ' And is the position so bad, Will ?' 
 
 ' Look here. I'd tell nobody in the world but you, 
 except my wife. She'd coax a periwinkle out of his 
 shell on to a hot grid ; but she only tells Stralie, and 
 I trust Stralie. She's a jewel, that girl.' 
 
 Abbey flushed all over with pride at the praise of her. 
 
 ' We've got a very fine railway, haven't we, and a 
 good reduction plant ? But we've got damned little 
 ore that's anything like payable.' 
 
 ' Is it as bad as that ?' 
 
 ' Is it ? I'm telling you. We made a hard bargain 
 with you for your ore, didn't we ?' 
 
 ' You did.' 
 
 ' All bluff. We had to have that ore at your price if 
 necessary. I tell you that, because the deal is ancient 
 history, and you've sold your show. And if I weren't 
 working for this crowd, and hadn't some kind of a 
 cursed silly pride about going true to my salt, I'd sell a 
 " bear " of Coocooroos.' 
 
 Abbey left him soon after, with the obsession of 
 Stralie not dissipated, but temporarily dimmed by an 
 accession of man's other desire of possession — that of 
 gain ; and between the new hope of the girl that 
 Mrs. Hempel had given him and the hope of profit 
 that Hempel had unconsciously suggested he was very 
 happy and occupied. 
 
 He was a slow man, so he did nothing in the way 
 of speculation for three days, and on the second of 
 these he went to dinner at Hempel's and sat next to 
 
i86 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Stralie, who spoke to Mrs. Hempel and her husband a 
 great deal and to Abbey very little. 
 
 After dinner Hempel said he had brought some work 
 home and would be busy till ten o'clock, and ten 
 minutes after his departure Mrs. Hempel fidgeted a 
 great deal, and finally said she must really see that 
 Will was comfortable. Without waiting for reply or 
 approval she left them on the veranda, and was solici- 
 tous of her husband's comfort for two hours. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ' Love grows with obstacles.' 
 
 The embarrassed Abbey sat there with the stonily- 
 cold woman looking to the garden, the show place of 
 Coocooroo through all the three years of drought, 
 because the company's dams irrigated it. The scents of 
 the garden rose to them mingled with the smells of the 
 night ; an ethereal perfume that did not seem to be of the 
 baked earth, and did seem to be flooded from the stars. 
 
 Abbey blundered as usual, but she had over-punished 
 herself for her treatment of him, and the blunder was 
 fortunate. 
 
 ' I hope you'll say you've forgiven me for annoying 
 you the other night, Stralie,' he said, with the humility 
 usual to him whenever he spoke to her. 
 
 ' I have nothing to forgive, Mr. Abbey. You are 
 always kind, and I was bad-tempered. And then she 
 thought, with one of the pangs that were now so 
 familiar, that Gifford, if he had offended her, would 
 have forgotten all about it, and have greeted her with a 
 smile — nay, would have taken her in his arms, and 
 made her forgive him, although neither of them would 
 have mentioned the offence. Abbey's way of opening 
 his campaign with apologies seemed to her like the 
 half-c6wardly courtesy of a weak investing army to an 
 
 187 
 
i88 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 impregnable city — offering sweetmeats when arquebuse 
 and culverin had failed. Most humans — man or 
 woman, but especially woman — love to be swept off 
 their feet in matters of business and love. The weaker 
 the woman, the greater the desire to be taken by storm. 
 
 Words failed Abbey, and the two looked into the 
 obscurity of the garden below them. Stralie put her 
 hand on the long arm-rest of the lounge on the side 
 nearest to Abbey, and in a moment, but very stealthily, 
 he covered the hand with his own. She allowed him a 
 moment and then withdrew the hand, and he was seized 
 with a momentary petulance. He said, half sadly, half 
 in annoyance : 
 
 * Stralie, will you never love me ?' 
 
 ' Never.' 
 
 ' Never, Stralie ?' 
 
 ' I don't think ever, Frank.' 
 
 ' You love him just the same ?' 
 
 She paused for a moment, her lip quivering, her eyes 
 tear-blinked in the welcomely obscuring night. 
 
 ' Yes, Frank.' 
 
 ' Why do you love him ?' 
 
 ' How can I tell ?' 
 
 Abbey's love became jealousy, and jealousy of a very 
 weak and puerile kind. 
 
 ' Is he better looking than I am ?' 
 
 ' No ; I think you're the better-looking man.' 
 
 ' Is it because he's black-haired like yourself?' 
 
 ' No ; and I don't really like black hair. Fair should 
 go to dark, too.' 
 
 ' I know he's cleverer than I am. Is that it ?' 
 
 ' No. At first I was in love with his quick ways, and 
 because he was so much alive and all the other men 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 189 
 
 around him looked dead ; but what's the use ? He is 
 he, and'you are you. That's all, Frank.' 
 
 ' Will it never be different, Stralie ? I've always 
 loved you. I haven't cared for anything since you 
 were engaged to Gifford until it was broken off. My 
 sleep's no good to me.' 
 
 ' I'm very sorry, Fr — Mr. Abbey. It can't be helped, 
 and it doesn't matter. Nothing matters in this world.' 
 
 'You mustn't say that. Everything matters. You 
 don't think that I'm going to wreck my life even if I 
 don't get you.' 
 
 ' I hope not, Mr. Abbey ; ' but she looked at him 
 with a new respect. 
 
 ' I'll swear not. Because a man can't get the best 
 woman in the world he ought not to prove he wasn't fit 
 for her by going to the devil. I'd keep your respect if 
 I couldn't get you.' 
 
 They were silent again, she thinking of the ideal man 
 Gifford would have been, with his own volcanic strength 
 and enthusiastic imagination allied to Abbey's sober sense 
 of responsibility, and immediately she had thought this 
 she rejected the ideal she had imagined for the human she 
 knew. Then even Gifford's faults were very dear to her. 
 
 Abbey rose rather sulkily to say good-bye, disap- 
 pointed with the evening he had so looked forward to, 
 chagrined at this most decisive baffling, annoyed that 
 all the things he had rehearsed and intended to say had 
 remained unsaid, and that they had not talked of them- 
 selves, but of the absent and the recreant. 
 
 He showed his discomfiture so plainly that her heart 
 smote her for the apparently wanton cruelty, and she 
 tried to soften to him ; but all she could say as they shook 
 hands was of his rival — doubly a rival now, it seemed, 
 
igo THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 because he had no rights. 'Why should I make all 
 my friends unhappy?' And before he could reply, 
 she had asked him to leave her. Fearful of again 
 blundering, he took a precipitous departure down the 
 bungalow steps, prowled like a homeless puppy around 
 the house to Hempel's little study, saw that Mrs. 
 Hempel was not there, and entered. 
 
 ' Hallo, Frank ! Have a whisky ?' 
 
 ' Yes, old man.' 
 
 ' Help yourself.' 
 
 ' Thanks. Here's luck !' 
 
 ' 'Nother million a year to you ! Luck yourself.' 
 
 ' 'S luck !' 
 
 ' How goes it on the veranda ?' 
 
 ' No good at all, Bill.' 
 
 They smoked for ten minutes in silence, and Abbey 
 rose to go home. 
 
 ' Off so early ? Don't feel good ?' 
 
 ' No, old chap.' 
 
 ' News of the unfavourable developments of the 
 Australia Field caused Frank Abbey's stock to relapse 
 to tuppence sellers ?' said Hempel in the jargon of the 
 share market. 
 
 ' Something like that, old man. . . . Good-night.' 
 
 Abbey reached his house long before ten, but he had 
 recently shifted his quarters, and his code-book was 
 mislaid, so that midnight was passed before he had 
 coded a cable to his brokers instructing them to sell a 
 ' bear ' of Coocooroos till further notice. If his heart 
 was soft, his head was hard. 
 
 ' Stralie's not mercenary,' he thought; ' but I've never 
 heard of a woman refusing a man because he had money ; 
 and if I can't have the girl, I may as well have the loot.' 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 ' Honour and profit will not keep in the one sack.' 
 
 GiFFORD stayed in Melbourne and showed himself 
 about the city, as if in defiance of that public opinion 
 that believes it decent for the beaten to go into hiding, 
 and admires the defeated who refuse to hide. There 
 were strange rumours against the soundness of the big 
 company at Coocooroo, but feeling secure in his faith 
 in the general manager, principally because that gentle- 
 man enjoyed a princely salary and paid the wages of 
 bishops to his departmental heads, and also because the 
 rumours were merely rumours, which are three-quarters 
 lies, he dismissed the croakers lightly. 
 
 Graham and Gifford were still his friends, so, indeed, 
 were all his one-time following ; but he was out of the 
 game, and the men who are still fighting, no matter 
 how warm their hearts may be, have little time to 
 think of the already fallen. Berkshire passed him with 
 a cold nod. As he had been friendly when Gifford was 
 in power because of his fear of Gifford now he resented 
 the fear by cutting its cause. 
 
 Partly from fear of further scandal, Millenet, although 
 really reconciled to his wife, allowed the suit to be for- 
 gotten without publicly withdrawing it. It was not 
 until many weeks later that Gifford, who had joined 
 
 191 
 
192 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Daven on his hopeless alluvial mine, that had gold, but 
 had malevolently killed many men just as they were 
 putting forth their hands to grasp it, saw a small para- 
 graph in the smallest type in an obscure portion of a 
 newspaper, to the effect that the following suits were 
 withdrawn, and read his own name and Millenet's in 
 the ' following suits.' Then, with something like a 
 resurrection of the hope of youth, he wrote to Stralie, 
 saying that surely she would forgive, the alleged crime 
 being now proven at its worst an empty flirtation. 
 
 The letter despatched, he was almost happy, drown- 
 ing his suspense in hard labour, working double tides, 
 below and on the brace, keeping his feet from freezing 
 in the slurry and mine water by harder work ; cutting 
 timber in the Bush, amid a forest of perfume, the early 
 wattle shaking its scented gold upon his head and 
 shoulders at every step. 
 
 Their reef drives were well ahead, and they were 
 rising to the wash the day that brought the mail that 
 brought Stralie's letter. Gifford lived at Daven's house, 
 Mrs. Daven's dislike having softened to an exaggerated 
 courtesy, and the three were at table when the mail 
 came in. 
 
 Gifford, with a hurried ' Excuse me,' tore open the 
 letter, and read the ratification of his dismissal. 
 
 'You seem to think that, because all this shameful 
 business is not carried to extremities, I can take you 
 back with all my faith in you as fresh as ever, but I 
 can't. You had your work, your ambition, and me. 
 When I had your letters it seemed as if you were with 
 me, talking to me ; and all the time you were flirting 
 with this woman. You could kiss her, and then go to 
 
THE SNAKE OF STRENGTH 193 
 
 the House and write to me as if you were really true, 
 and had not one dishonest thought. I loved you 
 because I had faith in you ; but when faith goes, love 
 goes.' 
 
 She had looked at those last words again and again, 
 wondering why she should send them, knowing them 
 to be a lie, for she loved him still. Faith ! respect ! 
 What did they matter ? Love mattered all, and she 
 knew it. The rest was only a sop to her pride, or, 
 more rightly, a concession to her own high sense of 
 honour. Where instinct wars with education, education 
 is trampled underfoot, except in the case of the old and 
 the cold, who are old and cold because their instincts 
 are asleep or dying. And all her instincts cried out 
 for her lover, all the primitive woman in her wanted 
 him in the end, as at night on seeking sleep the acquired 
 falls off like a discarded garment, and the heart, as 
 naked as the body, admits to itself the truth of itself. 
 
 Yet at the last time of regarding the half-lie her face 
 hardened, though her eyes were soft, and she said 
 passionately : ' I don't care ; I meant it when I wrote 
 it,' closed the letter and let it go. 
 
 Gifford read it twice very calmly, and looked up to 
 reply to Daven, who had asked kindly : ' Good news, 
 George ?' 
 
 The cruel young woman had risen to look over 
 Daven's letters. She put one shapely arm around his 
 shoulders and brought her head close to his, apparently 
 attempting to read, but really only angling for a kiss. 
 She had this carelessly cruel habit very strongly, it 
 seemed to Gifford. She was continually waylaying her 
 husband at doors and calling him into the kitchen, 
 
 13 
 
194 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ostensibly to criticise the cooking, but really to make 
 love to him, as sundry kisses, some of them loud as the 
 crack of a whip-lash, testified immediately. 
 
 Now, as she leaned on her husband, she was radiant 
 and warm with love, and at last looked, cruelly it 
 seemed, out of her happiness at Gifford, so that he felt 
 the letter the more, and rose from the table, saying as 
 he did so that the letter was only on business. 
 
 He left the house and walked into the bush, where 
 the wattles made the earth of one hue, gold, and the 
 sky-blue and the blossom composed a symphony. The 
 serried ranks of colour climbed the hills, and flanked 
 the spurs from mountain-top to creek. He threaded his 
 way between the hundreds of shallow shafts of a dead 
 generation of diggers, and found a grass-covered dump, 
 and lay flat down on it, and looked to the sky, and 
 wished the grasses and the bush might grow over him 
 then and there. 
 
 He had never felt the need of her so much as at this 
 hour. The baby nuzzling the strange pillow to find 
 the smell of the breast of the mother who is gone ; the 
 child lost in the streets of a great city ; the maniac in 
 his moments of lucidity craving for the someone he 
 loved before he had lost his cunning and was found to 
 be mad ; the poor prisoner in his cell closing his ears to 
 his own anguish, knowing that the beloved of him may 
 starve or die, while he rots there, immured and impo- 
 tent ; the chained bullock lusting for the milk-bush 
 that grows a thousand miles away from the yoke — all 
 these hungers Gifford understood by the knowledge of 
 his own thirst. 
 
 So it was all over — that black time that comes to 
 all men who can superlatively feel, when youth, that 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 195 
 
 seemed so immortal yesterday, is not here to-day, 
 having died in the night. He idly opened the news- 
 paper that he had unconsciously brought with him 
 from the table, and there read that Cincinnatus 
 Hoggins, the stop-gap Premier and Knight, had re- 
 signed, and that Millenet reigned in his stead. 
 
 The defeat was perfect and the rout complete. Power 
 gone, honour gone, love gone, friends gone ! No, not 
 the friend. He saw his Damon coming through the 
 aisles of bloom, and he sat up. Daven advanced, an 
 anxious gleam in his eyes. 
 
 ' What's up, old man ? Bottom fallen out of Coo- 
 cooroos ?' 
 
 ' No, old man ; they look better, if anything. But 
 I'm at Dead Finish. Read that.' 
 
 Daven seated himself beside Gifford, read the letter, 
 handed it back, and commented slowly : 
 
 ' It looks like turning you down.' 
 
 Gifford laughed bitterly. 
 
 ' Looks like ! It is. It's all over.' 
 
 ' I don't think so, George. Go and see her.' 
 
 ' I daren't, after hurting her as I have done. And 
 what's the use ?' 
 
 'AH the use. Go and see her, and she'll forgive 
 you.' 
 
 ' Not she. You don't know her. Jack.' 
 
 ' I know women.' 
 
 'Eh?' 
 
 Daven reddened. 
 
 * Well, I know one, and what's true of one good one 
 is true of another good one, just as what's true of one 
 bad un is true of another bad un.' 
 
 * They're all different ; it's no use generalizing.' 
 
 13—2 
 
196 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Isn't it ? Do you think I could be taken in by 
 another flopper ? Not much !' 
 
 ' What's a flopper ?' 
 
 Daven replied confusedly : ' Graham called Mrs. 
 Millenet the flopper.' 
 
 'Oh!' 
 
 ' Take my advice, old man. You go to her and take 
 her in your arms, and she'll cry a bit, and take you 
 back again, and make more of you than ever. They 
 all do.' 
 
 ' You don't know Stralie, Jack.' 
 
 ' Well, I do — a bit. But you're wrong in staying 
 away from her. If you were with her she wouldn't 
 have time to think, only to feel.' 
 
 ' It's no good talking. Jack ; you don't know her.' 
 
 ' If she had any sense of humour all this foolishness 
 would be laughed to death. The whole Millenet affair 
 was a farce.' 
 
 ' But if she thought me ridiculous instead of insincere, 
 it might be worse.' 
 
 ' She's different to any other woman, then ?' 
 
 * She is,' said Gilford sadly, but with all the pride of 
 a lover's vanity in the girl that is his, because she is his. 
 
 ' We all say that. But you're a fool if you give her 
 any more time to think. Don't give 'em time ; call 'em 
 gently to a cliff and talk nice, and while they're thinking 
 you're not such a bad chap, pull 'em over and catch 'em 
 and kiss 'em till they're well.' 
 
 ' It's all very well for you, Jack ; you've got your girl.' 
 
 ' And you could have yours by taking her. Is Miss 
 Field a tricky girl, now ?' 
 
 ' Don't say that again.' 
 
 ' Well, she isn't ; I'm arguing for her. And not being 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 197 
 
 tricky, you can't think she can be in love one day and 
 out of it the next.' 
 
 ' No, I can't — bless her!' 
 
 'Well, go to her, say, " Look here, I'm a bad lot; 
 I'm not good enough to be found dead in your pad- 
 dock." And then she'll kick up a row with you for 
 running yourself down.' 
 
 ' No, I won't go near her. I've mortally insulted 
 her. You don't know her. Jack.' But neither did 
 Gifford — quite. 
 
 Daven left him and sought his wife. 
 
 ' Luce, poor old George is in a bad way.' 
 
 ' The letter was from Miss Field.' 
 
 ' Why, how did you know ?' 
 
 She pursed her lips, nodded thrice, and looked wise. 
 ' I knew.' 
 
 ' Well, she's given him up altogether.' 
 
 ' And serve him glad.' 
 
 ' Don't be harsh. Luce. You don't look nice when 
 you're severe. It wasn't his fault.' 
 
 ' Wasn't his fault that he ran away with Mrs. 
 Millenet ?' 
 
 ' Now, you know he didn't run away, and you know 
 that Millenet has made it up with his wife.' 
 
 ' More shame to him ! But I never thought he was a 
 man.' 
 
 ' Anyway, it wasn't Gifford's fault. Why, the woman 
 got hold of Graham, and ' 
 
 She turned on him, a little red-haired fury, her eyes 
 flashing, and her very white skin flushing to the colour 
 of her hair. 
 
 ' What ?' 
 
 He continued lamely : ' She tried to get hold of me — 
 
igS THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 now, you know she did. Don't be nasty ! Haven't I 
 always cared for you ? Give me a kiss.' 
 
 * Will you swear to me you told me everything ?' 
 
 ' Yes, I swear. I did tell you everything, now didn't 
 I ? And didn't I tell you immediately it had occurred ?' 
 
 ' Ye-es, you did. And you never cared for her, did 
 you. Jack ?' 
 
 ' Now, now, this is going too far. Haven't I told 
 you a dozen times that I don't care any more for the 
 woman than I do for her husband ?' 
 
 ' Yes, you did. "Well, kiss me.' 
 
 ' Not till you promise never to bother me again about 
 the woman, or any other woman.' 
 
 ' Won't I — if I have cause.' 
 
 ' Well, not about Mrs. Millenet any more, then. I'll 
 see that there are no others.' 
 
 ' I promise, then.' 
 
 ' And you promise to be real friendly to my mate. 
 He's lost his girl, so don't you be so nasty and polite.' 
 
 ' I promise. Kiss me.' 
 
 They kissed silently and walked from the kitchen; 
 but in the dining-room the arms of this impulsive little 
 bundle of nerves and curves, and white skin and Titian- 
 esque hair flashed round his neck, and she kissed him 
 again. 
 
 Gifford, who had come to the veranda, heard a 
 crack as of a whip-lash, looked down the track for a 
 driver and to the scrub for a whip-bird, saw neither ; 
 glanced at the house, understood, and smiled. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 ' As soon as the pauper had filled his belly, said he : " We must 
 make laws to protect our property." ' 
 
 Berkshire, immediately his possessions passed the 
 fifty thousand pounds mark, had found him a conscience 
 of the convenient kind that works only when it is told, 
 and goes to heel like a well-trained dog when so in- 
 structed. He was no orator, but long practice had 
 so accustomed him to the sound of his own platitudes 
 that while speaking he thought he had a silken tongue, 
 and was as self-deceived therein as he was when he 
 believed that the tongue of silk was not actuated by a 
 brain of rodent's cunning and a heart of hemp. 
 
 Graham, as leader of the Opposition, had proposed 
 an Electoral Reform Bill to provide for universal 
 suifrage, and Berkshire's secretary wrote for his prin- 
 cipal a speech reviewing the history of the franchise 
 from the invention of the plebiscite down to the French 
 Revolution ; and Berkshire, as of old, breathed heavily 
 and lost the place in his notes, and couldn't find it again, 
 and was forced to trust to his own marvellous eloquence 
 in pleading for the continuance of a vote for thrift. He 
 believed with all the sincere insincerity that was charac- 
 teristic of the man that a vote for manhood only would 
 bring national suicide ; he thought with all his unthink- 
 ing brain that the landowner who had stolen or dum- 
 
 199 
 
200 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 mied his land from the Government by all sorts of 
 chicanery and evasion of the law, and the begging 
 farmer who spent half his life in whining to the Govern- 
 ment for lower railway freights, free seed-wheat, and free 
 manure, and the other half in growing the unnecessary 
 pumpkin, were better citizens than the landless artisans 
 of the city, or even the miners ; there being a deep-rooted 
 superstition in his class of politician that pumpkins and 
 sheep are wealth, and that boots and gold are not. 
 He waxed almost tearful in his attempted picture of 
 Australia without a landed gentry, and then he looked at 
 his arm's-length-held notes again, gasped, and subsided. 
 
 His application for two months' leave of absence from 
 Parliamentary duties immediately following on this, was 
 a surprise to Graham, and, preceded as it had been by 
 rumours against the stability of Coocooroo, it had the 
 effect of strengthening the rumours. Graham wrote of 
 it to Gifford and to Daven, and the two mates were 
 half uneasy, half inclined to laugh away the trouble and 
 trust to the genius that must always surround the man 
 of princely salary. Then the stock began to fall, not 
 by pence, but by shilling and half-crown stages, and 
 they thought that one of them must go to see Coocooroo 
 and its condition, and that it would be time enough to 
 make the choice ' to-morrow.' 
 
 But by ' to-morrow ' their minds were made up for 
 them by a tragedy. There was another run in their 
 treacherous mine, more unfortunate than the earlier 
 ones, because they had mined rich wash, and had 
 started the puddling machine — a tragedy for one man 
 who had worked too late to escape, and now lay a 
 hundred feet below, choked in the slurry. 
 
 The ' Butcher's Shop ' was keeping up its reputation 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 201 
 
 as a man slaughterer, but, with the usual stoicism of the 
 miner, Daven prepared to resume work as soon as the 
 mine had been cleared and the body of the martyr to 
 progress recovered. Then did his wife coax and bully 
 and plead and threaten without avail; then did she 
 cunningly show that the path to glory and to gain led 
 to a visit to Coocooroo, where at the least they would 
 get some satisfaction and put an end to long suspense ; 
 and when the voice of the charmer sang this tune, 
 Daven listened and was almost vanquished. 
 
 ' But this show is payable. Luce ; and there is no 
 danger, if we are careful.' 
 
 ' I don't care whether it is payable or not,' said 
 Mrs. Daven, growing hot again. ' I've heard of a 
 woman's baby being born just when the husband was 
 killed, and I think you're cruel ' 
 
 ' Now, now, don't you fret ! I'll do anything for you. 
 But the mine's good.' 
 
 ' It will kill you just as it's killed other men.' 
 
 ' What shall I do with it ?' 
 
 ' Sell your share to Mr. Gilford.' 
 
 ' And give my mate the chance of being killed ? Just 
 like a woman !' 
 
 ' Well, float it, then.' 
 
 Daven stroked her hair. 
 
 ' Yes, I might do that. I will do it — there.' 
 
 There was another imitation of a whip-crack, and 
 the two were happy again, Daven even quite light- 
 hearted at the idea of selling the mine to strangers. 
 It might kill the strangers, or their men ; but Daven 
 did not think of that. His was the true — the human — 
 way of considering the man he did not know. No man 
 can help another to die ; no man is his brother's keeper 
 
202 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 unless he loves his brother. No man can balk his 
 fate, though he may modify it. Each for himself and 
 his beloved — it is the law of life. 
 
 They called Gifford, and asked him of his opinion 
 of the decision, and he assented as he assented to 
 everything — ^without interest or criticism. But he 
 became the old, eager, impulsive Gifford when they 
 talked of the untoward appearance of the market for 
 Coocooroos, and proposed the visit to the fields. He 
 was all for going hot-foot to the coast, and then to sea ; 
 but Daven showed him how the delay was as necessary 
 as it was fretting. That day, for the first time since 
 Stralie's telegram of inquiry had reached him, the 
 meat he ate had a savour, and his sleep that night was 
 as the sleep of a child. The prospect of seeing her 
 again, even from a distance, was like wine to a starving 
 man. He entered into the new work with a new energy, 
 so that within a fortnight, when the spring was but 
 half spent, they had floated the ' Butcher's Shop,' and 
 transferred the lease, and handed over the management, 
 and the train swung out north-east. 
 
 Daven purposely exaggerated the fatigues of the 
 journey to his wife ; but she coaxed, bullied, and 
 pleaded, as usual, and was made one of the party. 
 
 But Berkshire had had two weeks' start of them, an 
 advantage they discounted by travelling with the speed 
 of youth, whereas Berkshire stopped at every five 
 hundred miles for a day's rest, after the manner of age. 
 
 At every port the rumours of failure became more 
 definite, and they travelled as quickly as they could, as 
 if an hour could save them from ruin — these who had 
 sown money on the sea, and watched it sink, saying, 
 ' It will grow again next year.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 ' Poverty is not exactly a crime, but it is a kind of roguery.' 
 
 GiFFORD and Daven left Mrs. Daven near the coast, 
 but three thousand feet above it, in a queer httle hotel 
 perched by a river that suddenly came to a chasm, and 
 threw its twenty chains wide of foaming water down 
 eight hundred feet of cliff. The wild bananas jostled 
 the tree-ferns under the high, far-reaching kauri and 
 gum trees ; the lawyer vines laced tree to tree, and 
 swung liana and palm-frond from the topmost limb ; 
 a great rainbow, permanent as the day was long, 
 straddled the haze below the falls ; the gorge wandered 
 — a serpent in diorite — to the tropic town, that smelled 
 as if it were made of pineapples. 
 
 Daven's wife did not allow him to go without the 
 ceremony of detailed advice and lengthy exhortation, 
 generally assuming that he had not lived before he 
 married her, and that therefore he was an infant, who 
 would set fire to his pinafore unless he remembered her 
 motherly instructions. But at last, when he had 
 sworn to return in three weeks at most, she allowed 
 him to go, with this as a parting shot : 
 
 ' If you're not here on the twenty-first, I'll come and 
 fetch you, Jack.' 
 
 Once away from the tropic growth of the sea fringe 
 
 203 
 
204 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 and the jungle of the mountains, they saw the havoc of 
 the drought— the tell-tale skeleton ; the grassless earth, 
 like a ploughed field, where horses and cattle had dug 
 despairingly with their hoofs for the sapless roots ; the 
 old creek courses, that had not known rain for so long 
 that they were mere deposits of knee-deep dust, ruffled 
 by winds into hummocks and dunes. The mates and 
 their horses were powdered alternately red and white — 
 red from the alluvium of decomposed lime and iron, 
 white from the gray soils turned to dust finer than 
 flour — too fine to irritate the eye or grit upon the teeth 
 when they bit it, but pungent as pepper, and pumiceous. 
 
 Then succeeded the beautiful freak of tropical scrub 
 in that harsh and droughty land — of wild raspberries 
 and sting-tree, and gum and cedar, and crow-foot elm. 
 The roof of branches above looped and festooned, as if 
 for a Roman feast, the vines putting out their cirrous 
 fingers to take new holds, forcing a blossom like a 
 white star from every extremity — a star that expanded 
 in the sun, and melted in the dark to dew. 
 
 The railway had been completed to Coocooroo a 
 month before, but Gifford and Daven loved the long 
 openness too much to sacrifice it to the monotonous 
 discomfort of a train, and they had taken the track 
 with two good horses beneath them, and a pack-horse 
 laden with camp gear pig-trotting ahead of them, as 
 unwilling pilot to the hundred and fifty miles of open 
 track before. 
 
 ' Good to be back again. Jack, isn't it ?' said Gifford 
 on the first night in camp, the violet night closing in 
 on the flames of their fire, the great she-oaks in the 
 empty creek ramparting them, funereal as cypresses. 
 
 ' Well enough,' assented Daven indifferently for him. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 205 
 
 The uxoriousness of the new-married man sat heavily 
 upon him, and the parting had only been that very 
 morning, vv'hich was five years away already. 
 
 Gifford understood, and was silent. The knowledge 
 that a week more would take him to the place where 
 Stralie lived had filled his blood with mingled impatience 
 and content. 
 
 During the following days they had convincing 
 demonstration of the truth of the market's despairing 
 verdict. All the outside property they had sunk money 
 in, on the strength of surface indications, had been 
 developed into worse than forlorn hopes, and it was 
 with littles expectation that they approached Eclipse 
 Corner, twenty miles from Coocooroo, and a mile from 
 that marvellous tin deposit which should have made 
 a semi-millionaire of Gifford more than a year ago. 
 
 The work of the long drought was shown them in 
 the desolation of the country, that was green enough 
 with scrub in normal seasons, although too rocky for 
 rich grass-production at any time. The continent lay 
 before them, a rolling fiery sand-hill, where once the 
 little spinifex deserts had proclaimed the valuelessness 
 of that land for man or beast; a greater horror had 
 come, for even the desert was burned black. Its 
 surface rose to the wind of a footfall like paper-ash; 
 the porcupine spears of the spinifex lay in ash also — 
 ash shaped like wire, which the wind tore into the 
 impalpableness of flour. 
 
 They met many men, each with his weather-beaten 
 swag and his dust-dyed water-bag, tramping in the 
 endless search of work, and the search was the worst 
 work^ although unpaid for. This army rarely had a 
 young recruit in it. Most of the men were grim, some 
 
206 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 bitterly humorous, a few — (marvellous is the human 
 when he bites upon the bullet, that he may not 
 whimper for his manhood's sake; more marvellous 
 when he refuses to feel his flogging, or to use the 
 bullet, and goes on laughing) — generally light-hearted in 
 their extremity, facing that hard-eyed prostitute, For- 
 tune, and staring her out of countenance. These told 
 all the same tale. Such and such a mine closed down 
 for the drought ; such and such a contract stopped till 
 the drought broke up. 
 
 ' Out at Coocooroo they thank God for the drought,' 
 said one man, winking. ' It's a good excuse. All the 
 floods in the world wouldn't give 'em payable copper. 
 It's a pity we ain't farmers, with free land and seed- 
 wheat from the Government. But we're miners, and 
 we don't own any farms, and Government doesn't start 
 subscription lists for us.' 
 
 ' And rain seems as far off as ever ?' 
 
 'Just as far off as it has been right through the 
 last three years. There's a gin out at Coocooroo the 
 niggers say is a rain-maker ; but I think they're telling 
 fairy tales to the whites to cadge tucker of 'em.' 
 
 ' The monsoon's the best rain-maker, mate.' 
 
 ' My oath ! But if devilstick and prayin' '11 make a 
 flood, you'll get it. There's a new parson at Coocooroo, 
 and he's started prayin' for rain last Sunday.' 
 
 ' You don't seem to think much of his chances.' 
 
 ' Not me ! I've slung it. I'm tramping to the coast. 
 Course, he an' the gin might strike it lucky. I notice 
 these fellows don't start prayin' till a drought's old 
 enough to break up.' 
 
 He talked to Gifford and Daven for half an hour, 
 and then camped and lunched with them, telhng them 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 207 
 
 of the army of men haunting the parched deserts 
 searching for work ; how that this drought was general 
 from Charleville to the Burdekin, and again to the 
 Gulf, and from Aramac to the Diamantina ; and finally 
 left them, wondering how so much strength, know- 
 ledge, courage and humour, should seek for mere wages 
 and find them not easily. 
 
 Rarely they saw any animal or vegetable life in all the 
 dead country and bone-dry watercourses. Occasionally 
 a stunted and tortuous tree existing somehow in the 
 iron earth, and beneath it a grotesque, blear-eyed 
 bullock, lunatic from long heat and cursed by a rare 
 vitality that would not let him die. Skeletons half 
 shrouded in dust lay wherever there had once been 
 trees and shade, and no life, not even lizard life, 
 attended these ; but wherever the living waited for 
 death the accursed crow perched near — a glossy fiend 
 in black and water-grained silk — uttered his one word 
 of menace, gluttony, cruelty, and self-gratulation, and 
 waited for the end. 
 
 The bullock looked at- his torturer; something of 
 sanity came into his weary eyes. He lifted his head 
 a little and ' mooed ' faintly. It was his one protest 
 against the capricious elements that had denied them- 
 selves to him — against the men who overloaded and 
 overstocked the country in the fat seasons, providing 
 no means of segregation or subsistence for the lean 
 cattle in the lean years. 
 
 And here overworked Nature — who rarely makes a 
 mistake — having been defrauded of her chances and 
 eaten out of house and home, had done the best thing 
 for the preservation of the country ; killing some of the 
 cattle by thirst after the cattle had eaten the grasses 
 
2o8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 out, so that some little seed might be left to make the 
 earth green again after the rains came, and that the 
 cattle might not increase until the grass had grown 
 again to feed them. The suffering of the doomed 
 herds was soon over ; that of the men whose greed had 
 partly done this thing had been long drawn out. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 A girl will draw more than a team of bullocks. 
 
 In a creek two miles from Eclipse Corner — a creek 
 squdgy all over, and boggy at the crossing by reason 
 of a spring feeding it, and remaining faithful in this 
 time of dryness — rested a bullock waggon, bogged 
 almost to the bed. The team was still in the yokes, 
 panting heavily from recent Titanic exertion, trying to 
 brush off the ilies from their reeking hides with stumpy 
 tails that had been shortened by inoculation against 
 tick-fever; the freest still lolling their tongues, and 
 breathing so heavily that they were shaken from horn 
 to hoof. The great waggon had once been painted 
 blue, but the name on its panels — ' Rose of Australia ' — 
 in red, had been as continuously renewed as the body 
 colour had been neglected. 
 
 As Daven and Gifford rode down the bank a red- 
 haired, red-faced man rose from the stone that had 
 been his chair, swung his terrible whip, which hard 
 flogging had unplaited at the belly, and straightened 
 his team for the steep creek bank, his words punctuated 
 by the rifle-like whip-strokes. 
 
 ' Come on, hides ! Gee back ! Com-ee way ! Way 
 back, Stumpy ! Lift her, yer cows ! Whoa back. 
 Tiger ! Lift her ! Blast yer, lift her !' 
 
 209 14 
 
210 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 The team strained — all but one of them, a poley 
 bullock whose want of horns and head-strength had 
 given him a more than simian cunning to protect him 
 from his horned fellows. This bullock, having no horns 
 to be hurt by bow or yoke, slouched in the team, 
 carrying half the weight of the bow, and rarely pulling 
 a pound. 
 
 The driver's eyes had watched him in expectancy. 
 Now as he saw the polled bullock not only not drawing, 
 but advertising the fact by standing at an acute angle 
 to the draught chain, he took a pole-pin and threw it, 
 but was so enraged that he missed in his aim, and 
 struck the offender's yoke mate on the horn, so that 
 that animal bucked almost out of his yoke in pain. 
 
 The bullocky went round the team and recovered the 
 pole-pin, then he beat the polled bullock with it and 
 insulted him grossly. 
 
 ' Ah, yer dirty waster ! Yer lazy crawler ! . . . 
 George Reid!' He said this as a triumphant insult, 
 and looked at the beast as if he expected him to be 
 affected to tears. ' I'll make yer pull the flamin' pole 
 out o' the waggon yerself !' 
 
 He came to the near side again, and straightened 
 the team for another move. 
 
 ' Get up, hides ! Stumpy ! Tiger ! Faded Lily ! 
 Bony Brim ! Come-ee way ! 'Enery Parkes ! Alli- 
 gator ! Gee-e-e back ! George Reid — yer twicer ! 
 Gee-e-e !' 
 
 The team strained and panted ; the waggon moved 
 two inches, and stopped again. The bullocky lifted his 
 hat, and wiped his wet forehead with his hairy arm — 
 hairy from fingers to half-way above the elbow, where 
 the sun had touched him, and white as a child's to the 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 211 
 
 shoulder, where the scanty shirt of the track had pro- 
 tected it. 
 
 He straightened them again and again, and made 
 not a foot of progress ; exhausted his patience, which, 
 by the way, was great despite his impulsive colour ; ran 
 round the team to the polled bullock, beat him griev- 
 ously, and said in a murderously sneering tone : 
 
 ' Call yerself a bullock ? You're a schemin' cow !' 
 
 He went to the near-side leader and spoke kindly ; 
 tried the team once again, failed as usual, and, over- 
 come with grief, drew a pound-note from his pouch, 
 put it under the nose of Tiger, and said to the wonder- 
 ing, panting beast : 
 
 ' I'll bet yer a quid to a shillin' you can't lift the 
 waggon a bleedin' yard.' 
 
 And at that Daven and Gifford, who had stopped 
 their horses by the zamias that fringed the creek, 
 laughed, and the bullock-driver looked up shame- 
 facedly, and put the note in his belt-pouch. He 
 fronted the horsemen — a scarlet-faced, red-haired man 
 of vast breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, taper- 
 ing to hips just heavy enough to make the ideal of a 
 strong man — a sentient wedge of muscle. Daven recog- 
 nised him. 
 
 ' Why, it's Red Mick !' 
 
 ' That's me,' said Hercules of the scarlet blushes. 
 ' Think I remember you blokes, too. You was up here 
 in the boom ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' An' your names — now don't tell me ; it 'ud bother 
 me for a week if I forgot yer name. Yes, your name's 
 Daven and yours Gif something — yes, Gilford.' 
 
 ' That's right. Been here all the time ?' 
 
 14—2 
 
212 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Yes. I 'ad bad luck this last drought. I 'ad a nice 
 place : 'bout 'undred 'ead o' fats an' fifty 'orses ; 'an 
 tick an' red-water kills me cattle, an' Ihe 'orses go in 
 the drought. An' I've bin three weeks on the road this 
 time. See that flamin' creek? Well, me tigers split 
 two bows last time I come through.' 
 
 ' How's the field looking ?' 
 
 ' Minin' ! Seems ter me it's lookin' pretty bad ; 
 chuckin' away money with both 'ands, they been. 
 What can y' expect from the English ? They don't 
 know what money can do.' 
 
 ' And is it so bad ?' 
 
 ' What d'ye think ? Lode underlyin' east — see ?' He 
 squatted on his heels and drew, with his forefinger as 
 pencil, a plan in the sand. ' Manager knows it's under- 
 lyin' east, because it goes out of the shaft east. Blast 
 me if the flamin' loonatic doesn't put a cross-cut out 
 west ! They tell me it cost five thousand pounds, too.' 
 
 Daven didn't accept all this evidence unreservedly. 
 
 ' If the place is so done up, Mick, why do you stay 
 here ?' said he. 
 
 Red Mick became Scarlet Mick again. 
 
 ' There's a piece here I'm shook on.' 
 
 ' Eh ?' asked Gifford. 
 
 ' A girl he's after,' Daven interpreted. 
 
 Gifford laughed. 
 
 ' It's good to get into the land of naturalness again. 
 Why, I was almost forgetting my slang !' 
 
 ' Going to be spliced, Mick ?' asked Daven, uncon- 
 sciously falling into the old style and the old talk, and 
 losing the company manners that politics had forced 
 upon him. 
 My oath!' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 213 
 
 •When?' 
 
 ' When ? Oh, well, as soon as the girl says " Yes." ' 
 
 ' What ! Haven't you asked her yet ? ' laughed Gifford. 
 
 ' Me ? Dozens er times.' 
 
 ' And she says " No " always ?' 
 
 ' You'll know all about it if you arst long enough, 
 mister.' 
 
 ' No offence, Mick.' 
 
 'Well, none taken. Yes, she says "No," but I'll 
 keep on arstin' till she says " Yes." ' 
 
 ' Good man.' 
 
 ' Going to stay in this creek all night, Mick ?' 
 
 ' No fear ! , I'll get out o' here soon, an' dodge along 
 to Eclipse Corner. It's only three mile or so, an' — an', 
 y' see, I want t' get there t'-night. Will you blokes 
 stay behind a bit, an' I'll try to shift them again. That 
 blasted George Reid ! I give him a spell to fat him for 
 the butcher, but a beast died on me last week, an' I 
 had to take him back in the team. He'd break up a 
 convent, would that cow.' 
 
 ' Would he ?' 
 
 ' He's as cunnin' as a waggon-load o' monkeys. He 
 never gets no sleep, because all the time he's workin' 
 hard, schemin' how to dodge workin'. He's a schlen- 
 terer, that bloke, an' knows 'e is. Ain't got no behef in 
 himself, an' that's why he's called George Reid. . . . 
 Now, then ! Hides ! Pull ! Gee back ! Gord luv a 
 duck ! D'ye call that pullin' ? . . . No use ! No use ! 
 They won't pull together, an' I'm sick o' floggin' 'em.' 
 
 ' What's to be done, then ?' 
 
 ' Well, look here : you two ride on ter that bank an' 
 up to the first tree — that one a 'undred yards away* 
 See?' 
 
214 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Then you gets off the 'orses, takes oif the saddles, 
 an' calls out t' me, " All right, mate : bring the billy !" 
 Then you lights a fire.' 
 
 ' But what's the use of that ?' 
 
 ' George Reid '11 think he's going to be unyoked, and 
 then he'll pull.' 
 
 Gifford and Daven were contemptuous of the result, 
 but they did as they were desired, and at their call the 
 weary team pricked their ears with curiosity. That 
 curiosity was excited to fever-height by the subsequent 
 proceedings of Red Mick, who had possessed himself of 
 a dozen bullock-bells and a billy-can, and who did not 
 attempt to muffle the sounds thereof, but rather to 
 exaggerate them. The bullocks were alive with in- 
 terest, and followed his every movement up the bank. 
 ' George Reid ' lifted his hornless head high above the 
 rump of the bullock before him. His eyes lighted with 
 cunning eagerness, and he raised his voice in salutation 
 of the fire that promised the camp. 
 
 Red Mick grinned. He climbed the creek bank and 
 threw the jangling bells by the fire with a noise that 
 was intended as a proof of publication, and not as a 
 guarantee of good faith. Then he placed the billy-can 
 near the fire, and returned to the waiting team. Their 
 eagerness was very human, but less disguised than a 
 human's. The whip was in the air and on their hides, 
 and the great waggon was behind, and a partial quicksand 
 below ; but before was the camp and the jangling bells 
 and the fire, and they pulled with strength and with 
 pain, but also with hope. And whether faith can re- 
 move molehills or not, hope can change continents. 
 
 The team trembled from the knees downwards as 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 215 
 
 they stood on their toes scratching for an inch of pro- 
 gress. The leaders fell on their knees. Even ' George 
 Reid,' his cunning outwitted, bent to the yoke and pulled 
 as if for life, without the whip ; for Red Mick did not 
 flog them once they started to pull in earnest, but gave 
 them merely the pleasures of anticipation by cracking 
 the whip over their heads. The scent of the camp-fire 
 came to them ; they lifted the half-embedded waggon 
 inch by inch ; the whip crackled like the discharges of a 
 Maxim gun ; strength lifted the load a foot, and hope 
 drew it a yard. 
 
 Red Mick swore a fearsome number of words to the 
 minute. The noise and the bustle, and the general im- 
 pression that beyond the creek was rest and payment, 
 made the bullocks hustle up the bank and to the fire. 
 There ' George Reid ' attempted to stop, but the driver 
 anticipated him. The great lash smote the loafer's 
 head until the pain maddened him, so that he pulled 
 four times his share — a fate that is almost always the 
 schemer's, once he has been found out. 
 
 Red Mick kept the bullocks moving for a quarter of 
 a mile, and then he stopped them and took the tin 
 trunk which was his travelling wardrobe from the 
 waggon. Gifford and Daven had slowly re-saddled 
 their horses, and now joined him. 
 
 'What's up, Mick?' 
 
 ' Oh, nothin',' replied Mick, grinning. ' I tore me 
 shirt a bit, an' I'm gettin' a change.' 
 
 Some piece of waggon-gear had caught hira in the 
 hustling up the bank, and the man was almost naked to 
 the waist. He produced a new shirt, and prepared it 
 for wear by cutting off the collar and the two topmost 
 buttons, and the sleeves above the elbow. 
 
2i6 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' A man wants plenty o' fresh air,' he said, explana- 
 tory of the apparently wanton destruction. 
 
 The waning afternoon saw the horsemen at the 
 Copper Hill Hotel at Eclipse Corner ; dusk found Red 
 Mick steering his ' hides ' through the dusty channels 
 to the gleam from the Copper Hill Hotel veranda-lamp, 
 most of the bullocks still sulky from the deceit ; an un- 
 oiled and bone-dry axle squealing querimoniously ; but 
 ' George Reid ' — not morose nor cunning now, but only 
 despairing — feeling as if the whip had flayed him, and 
 pulling as if he must pull or die. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 GiFFORD and Daven rode up to the veranda of the 
 Copper Hill Hotel and dismounted. It was the usual 
 building of hasty settlement in the tropics. Not a cool 
 double-roofed bungalow ; a brain-racking galvanized iron 
 roof at a steep angle covered a barn, divided into rooms 
 by iron partitions that halted ten feet below the ceiling, 
 so that the bedrooms were almost as public as the bar. 
 
 There was no living thing in sight and no response to 
 Daven's stamping on the floor ; so, leaving their horses 
 tied up to the veranda-posts, the mates explored the 
 house, found nobody, and entered the kitchen — a 
 detached building of log and dab, and immeasurably 
 superior in construction to the hotel. 
 
 There was a pig nosing a flour-bag ; on the table a 
 hen prospecting a rolled-out square of paste on a 
 pudding-board ; and seated by the table a comely girl 
 of twenty-two years or so, brown-haired and slightly 
 freckled, big and deep-bosomed, and tall and strong as 
 a police sergeant. Her sleeves were rolled up to elbow, 
 so exposing her plump and flour-dusted arms. She did 
 not hear the visitors, being obsessed by the novel she 
 held in her lap, and which caused her to weep quietly 
 and continuously, at the rate of a tear to every ten words. 
 
 ' H'm !' said Daven. 
 
 ' Pardon me,' said Gifford. 
 
 217 
 
2i8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 She jumped from the chair, and seemed to blush all 
 over, the blood showing even on her flour-whitened 
 arms. And then she saw — as if the novel had been a 
 successful incantation — the man of her dreams, and she 
 forget the plight he had found her in. 
 
 ' 0-oh ! Mr. Gifford !' she said, and advanced to him 
 all joy, all the last unshed tears still glistening in her 
 eyes. 
 
 Daven saved Gifford the confession of his disadvantage 
 by recognising her and extending his hand. 
 
 ' Why, it's Miss Mills.' 
 
 ' That's right — Delia Mills, and you're Mr. Daven ? 
 I remember you.' 
 
 She shook his hand, and thereafter acted as if to 
 prove that she had forgotten him. She turned to Gifford 
 and shook his hand, and did not want to let it go, and 
 said, ' And you've been well, haven't you ? We heard 
 all about your being Premier, and I was so proud.' 
 
 In embarrassment at having said so much she looked 
 away, saw the hen and the pig, left the men, seized a 
 broom, and drove the intruders out; so that the pig 
 trotted quite four yards and the hen flew against the 
 door, recovered herself, and ran out shrieking lunatically. 
 
 ' Mrs. Dunphy's out, but I'll show you the rooms.' 
 
 ' Isn't your father here with you ?' asked Gifford. 
 
 Delia blushed in anticipation of the explanation. 
 
 ' No. You see, I'm servant here.' 
 
 Daven was incautious enough to show his surprise. 
 ' You ?' 
 
 ' Yes. I You see, she's my cousin, and father's 
 
 dead.' 
 
 'No?' 
 
 ' Yes. He's dead — three months ago. And when we 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 219 
 
 came to look into things most of his money was in 
 Coocooroos, and we held too long. All the other 
 property — the bank had that. It would have been all 
 right had he lived, but as soon as he died they wound 
 all the business up, and I'll have nothing.' 
 
 ' What a shame ! And after educating you and all.' 
 
 'Yes. They've educated me, and I'll find it hard 
 now. But while you've got books you can forget 
 things.' 
 
 She left them and went back to the work of making a 
 pudding paste, to replace that which had been injured 
 by the broad-arrow tracks of the predatory hen. 
 
 'What luck!' said Daven, when they were alone. 
 ' That fine girl — one of the finest on the earth — ruined 
 by this rotten Coocooroo. It doesn't matter if we have 
 to start off scratch again. We're men.' 
 
 ' Yes. A pity, a thousand pities. Do you know. Jack, 
 I think she's the girl Red Mick spoke of.' 
 
 'No!' 
 
 ' Yes, she is.' 
 
 ' What ! a buUocky ?' 
 
 ' In better times he's something better. And he's a 
 straight man, and a good man, and no boozer.' 
 
 ' Oh, that's all right. But she's so much his superior.' 
 
 ' All the better. If a man thinks he's married to his 
 superior, he'll love her all the more.' 
 
 ' P'raps ! Hullo ! what's this ? Look at it ! That 
 woman tussling with that kid. ... By George ! she's 
 put the smallest one down, and she's carrying the big 
 little brute, who's just finished kicking her shins. Tell 
 me what there is in woman that makes 'em give way to 
 the bully.' 
 
 ' I don't know,' said Gifford, glad to escape the con- 
 
220 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 sideration of a subject whose careless study had wrought 
 him ill. 
 
 The woman staggered under the weight of her tyrant ; 
 the younger child came in her wake, his blue eyes 
 glancing at no one thing for more than a second, but , 
 taking a toll of everything in their flashing scrutiny, 
 his cheeks full of health-rud, his rosebud lips parted in 
 a smile that included the whole world in its caress ; and 
 Gifford and Daven bowed down and worshipped this 
 most rational of all gods. When man is young his god 
 is himself; when less selfish he adores a woman ; when 
 ripe, he worships a child. 
 
 But all children are not children. The four-year- 
 old whom his thin mother carried to the veranda was 
 a bloated voluptuary ; a muddy-skinned, muddy-eyed, 
 snub-nosed glutton, with the temper of a fiend. His 
 mother carried him to the veranda and seated him, 
 whereat he howled again. She twined and patted his 
 stiff maiden-aunt curls — four in front of each ear, and 
 a sort of fearsome hippocampus-shape in hair on the 
 top of his flat head. 
 
 ' Stop, Georgie darling, and mother will make his 
 pretty curls.' 
 
 Then, strange to say, the bloated child stopped 
 crying ; the baby Nero was sensible to flattery. 
 
 The woman took up her ungracious burden and 
 entered the house, saying ' Good-day ' as she passed 
 the mates ; and Gifford called to the frank, sunny-faced 
 baby, and the child came to him in an instant, as birds 
 came to poets in the golden age. 
 
 They were friends in a moment, but the friendship 
 was immediately interrupted by the arrival of a thin 
 man, weakly bearded — a man whose every inch and 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 221 
 
 motion spelled ' horse.' Him the child ran to, saying, 
 ' Dad, dad, dad, dad ;' and the man took the child in 
 his arms, and said to Gifford in welcome and inquiry : 
 
 ' Come far ?' 
 
 ' No, only thirty miles to-day.' 
 
 ' Know Red Mick ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' See him on the road ?' 
 
 ' Yes, about three miles back.' 
 
 ' H'm ! thought he'd get here to-night. He's got 
 some stores for me. . . . Come after his girl, too, I 
 s'pose.' I 
 
 'Who? Miss Mills?" 
 
 ' Yes, Deelyer. She won't have nothing to say to 
 him, though ; she wants a silver-tail.' 
 
 The bloated becurled heir came to the veranda and 
 looked at his father uninterestedly, until he saw that 
 the baby rode on the parental shoulder. Then his 
 jealousy raved. He screamed as if in the direst agony, 
 and tried to strike the little sun-god on the height, 
 whereat that happy youngster looked down and 
 smiled. 
 
 The father did not notice the demonstration ; he 
 asked Gifford and Daven if they would ' like a walk to 
 the paddick,' and, acting on their affirmative, led the 
 way to a dust-heap that had one time been a plain 
 loaded with life. A middle-aged gin, puffing her pipe, 
 drove before her an emaciated cow of podagric gait, 
 and Gifford, noting these signs of the rainlessness of 
 many years, said : 
 
 ' It takes a man with a big heart to live in a place 
 like this.' 
 
 Dunphy half assented. 'Yes, big heart or a little 
 
222 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 purse. If you can't afford to go away ye've got to 
 stay, just like a man in a war, and look as if you were 
 brave.' 
 
 The gin hurried the cow to the rough milking-shed, 
 and the animal staggered to the bail. 
 
 Dunphy explained : ' All the cows 'ave got the rickets 
 through eating zamias. Zamias and the cotton-bush 's 
 the only things that live through the drought, and it 
 gives rickets to everything that eats it. They can't fat 
 on it ; it just keeps 'em alive, that's all.' 
 
 The gin fastened the bail, and pushed the cow till it 
 leaned against the slabs of the shed. The cow groaned, 
 settled itself comfortably at a dangerous angle, and 
 yielded the milk. 
 
 ' I've seen 'em that weak,' said Dunphy, ' you'd 
 have to prop 'em up against a fence before you could 
 milk 'em.' 
 
 They walked to the horse-yard, and at the gate were 
 three other rickety cows, one leaning against a post, 
 while four magpies, perched on its back, picked the 
 ticks from its hide ; the other two lay in the dust, and 
 wild birds and domestic fowls eased them similarly. 
 All fears and prejudice and differences were forgotten, 
 now that Nature was at her last gasp, and the disease 
 of one form of life had become the food of the other. 
 
 At the door of the loose-box Dunphy's eyes brightened; 
 any man might understand that here was the one pride 
 the ruin of the drought had left him. He put the 
 child down and opened the top half of the door and 
 showed them a stallion — all black beauty ; but for the 
 great star on his forehead there was not a white hair 
 upon him. He had the great luminous eye of health, 
 the thin lips, the soft tongue, the delicate muzzle, the 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 223 
 
 fine sense of touch, the perfect bearing that on the 
 Persian plains, from whence his forebears came, would 
 have made him a leader of leaders among horses. 
 
 He had looked at Gifford, but Daven had moved 
 slightly, and at the sound all the stallion's senses were 
 for Daven — eye, ear, and all intelligence bent in his 
 direction. 
 
 ' He's a bute,' said Dunphy. ' Quick as a flash ; his 
 nerves are all on ball-bearings.' 
 
 It was at that moment that the uncouth child of the 
 sodden eye, seeing that the object of his jealous hatred 
 had fallen from the Olympus of the father's shoulder, 
 descended on the happy infant without warning, 
 clutched a good handful of bright yellow hair, and tore 
 it out, while the baby shrieked once. Dunphy turned, 
 and, in a spirit of poetical justice, he not ungently 
 pulled the long sausage curls of the assaulter. 
 
 Then arose long wails unto the fates, to his mother, 
 and the world, and the thin figure of Mrs. Dunphy 
 appeared at the kitchen. 
 
 ' Who's hitting George ?' 
 
 ' I did. He tore the hair out of Tom's head.' 
 
 ' How dare you touch him ! How dare you lift a 
 hand to him !' 
 
 ' He hit Tommy.' 
 
 ' You touch him again, and I'll ' The wrath was 
 
 that of a she bear robbed of her whelps. ' You — you ! 
 Come to mother, Georgie dear.' 
 
 The criminal went to her, established in his belief of 
 his own goodness by her sympathy. 
 
 ' Damn the women !' said Dunphy. ' They always 
 stick to the waster. She'll coddle that kid and pet him 
 till she pets him into gaol.' 
 
224 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' That's a fine horse, Mr. Dunphy.' 
 
 ' He is that. Only four years. You see, he's lost 
 his third grinder, and the mark's beginning to go.' 
 
 ' Want to sell him ?' 
 
 ' I've got to. The missus says I was a chump to 
 keep him so long. I've fed him on compressed fodder 
 for three years now, and this drought 'uU last another 
 year.' 
 
 Daven looked at the sky. ' There's a cloud in the 
 north.' 
 
 ' Oh, clouds ! We've had a cloud once a month for 
 two years, and never a drop o' rain.' 
 
 ' But have you had two clouds ? There's another in 
 the south.' 
 
 ' My troubles. I'll chance it. I want to sell the 
 horse. He's got no vices, and not a blemish. He 
 might run away with you once every six months, but 
 that's only his fun.' 
 
 ' How much ?' asked Gifford suddenly. 
 
 ' Forty quid — not a bean under.' 
 
 ' I'll take him, subject to trial.' 
 
 ' Right ; he's yours.' 
 
 The beautiful head flashed round again and looked at 
 Gifford. 
 
 ' What do you call him, Mr. Dunphy ?' 
 
 ' I called him The Boss.' 
 
 ' Well, his name's changed : I'll call him The Flash.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 'On pain of death let no man mention death to me. It is a 
 word infinitely terrible.' 
 
 In the dusk Delia Mills called them to tea, and as they 
 sat in the long dining-room a man drove a light buggy 
 to the door. Dunphy rose and took the horse to the 
 stable, and the stranger entered. He was a thin man, 
 of a height that the thinness exaggerated to the tallness 
 of a guardsman. He came slowly to the table and 
 seated himself, looked around with a swift, bird-like 
 glance, and recognised Gifford. 
 
 ' 'Ello ! 'ello ! Don't you remember me — Ned Hos- 
 kins ?' 
 
 ' Ned the Prodigal ?' 
 
 ' Yes — put it there. How are you ?' 
 
 ' Good enough to fight for my life. How are you ?' 
 
 ' Oh, me, I'm booked — gettin' slowly worse this last 
 year. Consumption in the throat it is.' 
 
 ' But you were the strongest man at the Jerk.' 
 
 ' So I was, mate. I was too strong. But I'm right 
 while the drought lasts.' 
 
 ' Dry air ?' said Daven. 
 
 ' Yes. 'Ello, I remember you, too. When the rain 
 comes I'll die.' 
 
 They rallied him as men rally the dying man, even 
 
 225 15 
 
226 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 when the death-rattle is in his throat. ' You die ! No 
 fear ; you're good for another score yet.' 
 
 Ned the Prodigal shook his head. ' No, not much ; 
 I'm done. Ar-r-h ! look at that damn little Dick 
 Deadeye pokin' his finger in the baby's eye ! A-r-r-h ! 
 ye little wild cat ! Do it again and I'll flay ye !' 
 
 ' Don't put your finger in his eye, Georgie dear,' 
 cooed the mother, glancing an impotent, snake-like 
 hatred at the Prodigal. 
 
 The interesting youth had mixed stew, tinned salmon, 
 pickles, and Worcester sauce together, and now he 
 protruded his long futile upper lip until he looked like 
 a tapir, pointed a spoon at the jam, and said, ' I want 
 some 'er that.' 
 
 His adoring mother gave it. He mixed the nauseous 
 ollapodrida, and ate it as if there were no hereafter. 
 
 Ned the Prodigal glared at him for a moment and 
 returned to his audience. 
 
 'An' I think the rain's comin' soon. There was 
 lightning to-night at Wes'minster Abbey, and the air 
 hasn't got the dried feel any more.' 
 
 ' Yes, they told me down by Poison Flat that the 
 niggers say rain is coming, and that the ants are building 
 in the trees.' 
 
 Dunphy spoke. ' That's nothing. Why, a ant is 
 the biggest damn fool in creation. Two years ago 
 they left their nests and took all the baby ants and 
 eggs into the trees. They was about two weeks movin' 
 house, and there was three men worked here three 
 months on the strength of it, stackin' the tin wash in 
 the creek while they waited for the water. And after 
 them ants had kidded them three poor blokes, what 
 hadn't got a whole shirt between 'em, to work all that 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 227 
 
 time, dash me if they don't all come down again and go 
 back to the old nests. Ants is loonatics. Yer can't 
 take no notice of 'em. I'd just as soon back a parson 
 to pray three inches o' rain as I'd lay odds on a ant.' 
 
 Daven rose and went to the nightly task of writing 
 the daily letter to his wife. Delia Mills and Mrs. 
 Dunphy cleared the table. The glutton child had 
 fallen asleep, his head in his unfinished mixture of 
 horrors. Mrs. Dunphy carried him away, half struggling, 
 half drugged by his surfeit, and breathing like a stranded 
 whale. 
 
 ' About midnight, I guess,' said Ned, ' that stuff 
 he's eaten 'ull begin to get'in its fine work on him, an"^ 
 the kid '11 howl like a dingo, 'n keep us all awake.' 
 
 ' What's Coocooroo look like ?' 
 
 ' Pig shearin' : much cry and little wool. Got fine 
 smelters there, and they're just finishing the railway. 
 But, man, there's no ore.' 
 
 * What a mess the first management made of it !' 
 
 ' True enough, and I believe they didn't know. 
 Why, they used the drought for two years as an 
 excuse ; but all the water in the Pacific wouldn't bring 
 'em a dividend.' 
 
 A fit of coughing shook him. He stopped suddenly, 
 and said, ' I'll go to bed. It's nearly always bed now. 
 Good-night, mates,' and went to the collection of iron 
 sounding-boards styled by courtesy a bedroom. 
 
 Gifford went to the veranda. A wicked crescent 
 moon had gored a cloud with each of its horns, and 
 showed an inky blackness closing on the light. The 
 dryness had gone out of the air; every atom of the 
 earth seemed electric ; the air hummed like a gigantic 
 dynamo. The tenseness and the density depressed 
 
 15—2 
 
228 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 him. Stralie was at Coocooroo, only fifteen miles off, 
 yet she seemed in another planet that night, so much 
 did that black sky and the thick atmosphere make for 
 isolation of the human. 
 
 Delia Mills came out and leaned on the rail, not 
 seeing him until after he had spoken. 
 
 ' Oppressive night, Miss Mills ?' 
 
 ' Oh ! you startled me. Mr. Gifford, isn't it ? Yes, 
 I feel suffocating.' 
 
 Her voice was hysterical, and he drew nearer, and 
 said, ' You've been crying ?' 
 
 ' No, I haven't. What if I have ? It's nothing.' 
 
 ' Now what's the trouble ? Why did you cry ?' 
 
 She turned half away. ' Oh ! I suppose I'm a fool. 
 It was over that book.' 
 
 ' The one you were reading this afternoon ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' What's the name of it ?' 
 
 ' " The Cloister and the Hearth." ' 
 
 ' Yes. Very good it is.' 
 
 ' But he was a fool — a good fool.' 
 
 ' Who ? Gerard ?' 
 
 ' Yes — to leave Margaret after he had found her 
 again ; to go worrying about his silly old church when 
 she loved him so.' 
 
 ' It was duty.' 
 
 ' Oh, duty ! Don't talk about duty. There's the 
 duty of a mother, but that's pleasant duty. Men 
 should never do their duty unless their duty's nice.' 
 
 'You may be right. I can't argue. Gerard was 
 wrong.' 
 
 ' Of course he was wrong.' 
 
 ' Love is the only thing worth having.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 229 
 
 ' Yes, and how many have it ?' 
 
 ' Very few. The world's all mixed up.' 
 
 From far down the road came the irregular harsh- 
 ness of a bullock bell, swung by the riding horse of a 
 bullock team. 
 
 ' Red Mick,' said Delia under her breath. 
 
 ' Red Mick !' echoed Gifford composedly. Then 
 some devil of inquisitiveness or some angel of sym- 
 pathy prompted him to speak again. ' Is he your 
 duty?' 
 
 ' He isn't ! he isn't ! Who told you he was ?' 
 
 ' I heard. That's all.' 
 
 ' You heard ! Well, he isn't. D'ye think I'd marry 
 a man who's got no " mister " to his name ? Mrs. Red 
 Mick, too ! Very likely. I ' 
 
 The bullock bell sounded closer. Through the dusk 
 she saw the lumbering bulk of the waggon, and fled to 
 cover. She did not appear again that night, and her 
 lover waited uncomplainingly till there was no hope, 
 and then made his bed under his waggon, and slept. 
 
 The heavy night closed down upon, the house, and 
 all the souls therein sought sleep in vain — the sick 
 man, Ned the Prodigal ; Daven, the uxoriously lonely ; 
 Gifford, looking vainly for light ahead, and seeing 
 none, and beginning to regard Stralie as for ever lost 
 to him ; Delia Mills, burning all over, as if her night- 
 dress were the martyr's shirt of fire, when she recalled 
 that Gifford had so carelessly spoken of her as the 
 Dulcinea of the Red Man, and that perhaps he guessed 
 her hopeless love of himself. They lay there looking 
 up to the common roof that sheltered all their sleep- 
 lessness, turning over stealthily in their beds, because 
 they knew that there were no complete partitions to 
 
230 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the rooms, and that all sounds were as public as a 
 daily newspaper. 
 
 Delia, with marvellously stealthy quietness, rolled in 
 h e sleepless bed as noiselessly as a fish turns in deep 
 water. 
 
 Midnight brought a fall in the temperature, and 
 immediately every stud, and plate, and nail, and board 
 in that house commenced to groan, and creak, and 
 shiver. A little wind stirred for a minute, lifted an 
 insecure sheet of iron on the veranda roof, and shook 
 it — tap-tap-tap-tap ! 
 
 Old Booper, the saddle-horse of Red Mick's waggon, 
 rang his melancholy bell as he walked around the 
 house. Dunphy's dogs hustled him from the back of 
 the house, and the horse went to the veranda and 
 scratched his neck against a post, so that the whole 
 building shook and jarred, and the cracked bell 
 sounded like a team of belled bullocks stampeding in 
 the dark. 
 
 Two bats who lived in a lime-cave near the house 
 commenced operations for the night, and Ned the 
 Prodigal cursed fretfully as their filthy wings flapped 
 about his head ; for, though phthisis had gripped him, 
 he had all a physically-sane man's horror of things that 
 creep and of the unclean life of the dark. 
 
 A flooring -board by the veranda door began to 
 contract loudly, with little squeaks and long-drawn-out 
 cracks ; a cane-chair in Delia's room took up the tale, 
 and proclaimed at great length that the temperature 
 had fallen fifteen degrees or so ; every piece of furniture 
 chorused the fact. 
 
 From the Government dam — now only a pestiferous 
 mud-hole filled with the bones of sheep, cattle, and 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 231 
 
 kangaroo — came the melancholy wail of the curlew, a 
 true kill-joy and a prophet of bale, sending that long 
 note of woe, agony, abandonment, and despair over the 
 land that seemed to be condemned to death. 
 
 ' Cooo-ee-la !' 
 
 The wakeful men heard the piercing, almost human 
 cry, and interpreting it each in the way of his pet fear, 
 were made more sleepless. 
 
 ' Cooo-ee-la !' 
 
 It translated itself to Daven : * My wife is ill.' 
 
 ' Cooo-ee-la !' 
 
 To Ned the Prodigal : ' All these hopes of health are 
 only the blind faith of the consumptive man. I'll never 
 get well ; I'll soon have to die.' 
 
 ' Cooo-ee-la !' 
 
 To Delia Mills : ' He never gave a thought to me ; 
 all they said of him's wrong. He hasn't been untrue 
 to Miss Field ; he's not the sort.' 
 
 ' Cooo-ee-la !' 
 
 To Gifford : ' She'll never forgive. There's no happi- 
 ness ahead for me.' 
 
 ' Coo-000-ee-la !' 
 
 To the waggon-dog it promised some unknowable 
 danger; he whimpered under it, and at last sat up, 
 lifted his head, pointed his nose at the dying watery 
 moon, and howled all his fear and anxiety in a long- 
 sustained ' O-o-o-o-o-oh !' 
 
 Red Mick slept under his waggon — the sleep of the 
 healthy man, deep as the Adamic sleep that is alleged 
 to have produced Eve. His dog patrolled the waggon 
 and whimpered, sniffed the new breeze, and tasted the 
 thunderbolts in it, and then showed his dislike therefor 
 by howling near the heels of old Booper, whereat that 
 
232 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 morose animal kicked with both hind-feet at once, and 
 the dog jumped to safety, retaining his brains by a 
 miracle. 
 
 The bullocks had stopped feeding on the withered 
 scrub, and patrolled near the waggon, oppressed by the 
 vague fear of something unusual in their lives of little 
 feeding and much work. 
 
 Tap! 
 
 Daven whispered from his side of the room to Gif- 
 ford's : 
 
 ' Hear that, George ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; what was it ?' 
 
 • A raindrop.' 
 
 ' No fear.' 
 
 ' Yes. Wait ; there may be another.' 
 
 ' Co-ooo-ee-la !' 
 
 The wind sighed round the building ; the loose sheet 
 of galvanized iron took up its tale again. 
 
 'Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap !' 
 
 ' Coo-oo-ee-la !' 
 
 A crackling perilously near, as of dry little sticks 
 burning under an oven. 
 
 ' What's that, George— fire ?' 
 
 ' No ; that's thunder.' 
 
 Tap! 
 
 ' Co-ooo-ee-la !' 
 
 ' Another raindrop, George.' 
 
 ' Yes, and that's about all.' 
 
 As if to answer him, a flood of blinding light filled 
 the house for half a second, showing the shadows of 
 the figures in their beds printed on the iron roof above ; 
 the thunder-peal came in one long loud crepitation, as 
 if the earth had burned up and gone aloft in a sheet of 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 233 
 
 flame, crackling to destruction among the stars. The 
 lightning flamed again, as sudden and yet as regular as 
 a lighthouse flash at sea ; there was another tremendous 
 crackling, and silence. 
 
 Tap! 
 
 ' Rain again, George.' 
 
 Tap, tap ! 
 
 ' There it is — that's true.' 
 
 Outside Red Mick's dog whimpered in delight ; the 
 bullocks voicing gratitude. The rain played its own 
 song upon the roof in many tones, splashed in the dust 
 of the road and turned it to mud, and then settled into 
 a long steady pouring that proved the drought had 
 really broken up. From the rooms the three healthy 
 people — Gifford and Daven and Delia Mills — crept, 
 thirsty for the rain, and with the desire to stand bare- 
 headed under it, and retreated, muttering apologies as 
 they found that each had the same desire. 
 
 They heard Mick remove his bed hurriedly from 
 under the waggon to the veranda ; the sick man, who 
 had been dozing, awakened, and cursed the air for 
 losing the dryness that meant easy breathing ; the 
 gluttonous ruffian of four years awoke, as Hoskins had 
 said he would, and screamed his horror of the night- 
 mares he had eaten. 
 
 Then did his father and mother awake and curse him 
 and pet him according to their feelings ; but the bright 
 and merry baby slept in peace through all the pande- 
 monium. 
 
 ' Ow-Qw-ow-ow ! a-r-r-h ! Fm killed ! 0-o-o-h ! 
 a-r-r-h!' 
 
 * Poor Georgie !' 
 
 'Poor George be hanged! What d'ye let the kid 
 
234 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 feed himself up for like that ? It 'd keep a camel 
 
 awake.' 
 
 ' O-o-o-o-o-h ! a-r-r-h ! o-o-o-o-o-o-h !' 
 ' Poor Georgie ! Go ter sleep, Georgie.' 
 
 ' While shepherds watched their flocks by night, 
 All seated on the ground.' 
 
 ' O-o-o-o-o-h ! a-r-r-h ! o-o-o-o-o-o-h !' 
 
 'Wake up, yer little wretch!' Then, suddenly re- 
 pentant : ' Ah, poor Georgie ! Was mother nasty to 
 him ? There, there, there !' 
 
 Georgie imitated the howling of a dingo with great 
 fidelity to nature. 
 
 ' Go ter sleep, Georgie dear.' 
 
 ' Oh, words of mercy, can it be 
 That gate was left ajar for me — 
 For me, for me, for me, for me. 
 Was left ajar for me ?' 
 
 ' O-o-o-o-h ! o-o-o-h ! a-r-r-h !' 
 
 ' You little wretch ! Will you be quiet !' 
 
 She slapped him vigorously, and he awoke from his 
 awful pursuit by a ferine animal made of stew and 
 pickles to the more tangible horror of a mother's hand 
 lifted in anger. 
 
 ' O-o-oh, mumma !' 
 
 ' Yes, poor Georgie ! Was mumma cruel ? Naughty 
 mumma.' 
 
 Dunphy spoke : ' For pity's sake make the little devil 
 go to sleep. You keep on apologizin' to him, and he'll 
 start again.' 
 
 ' You — don't talk. Go to sleep yourself. You made 
 me hit him.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 235 
 
 The tortured glutton was soothed to unconsciousness ; 
 the rain became a lullaby for all. 
 
 Delia Mills breathed the clearer air, and having ex- 
 hausted herself with thought and fretting, had fallen 
 asleep. 
 
 Daven slept happily, Gifford brokenly, Hoskins in 
 the stupor of weakness. Red Mick slumbered like a 
 baby, for he had worked hard that day and earned rest, 
 and the rain had come ; and he wanted only one thing 
 to make happiness, and that was Delia Mills, and he 
 had hope of her. The last sound they heard that night 
 was the rain coming from afar off against the wind; the 
 last sensation, the smell of the rain-broken earth, like a 
 new-made grave in moist and virgin ground. 
 
 The bullocks lifted their heads to the gushing skies ; 
 the rain made the mud to flow in saddle-coloured 
 rivulets ; the whole earth lifting to the promise of fat 
 years, of the monsoon in his immutable season and the 
 etesian winds. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 The day dawned to a hurricane; the rain ceased; all the 
 electrical energy that the drought had accumulated was 
 suddenly emptied on the earth. When the people of 
 Eclipse Corner looked out upon the plain and ridges 
 they saw an English winter — the ground whitened with 
 hail, as by a heavy and regular fall of snow, the trees 
 leafless, many of them rent by the gale and all ploughed 
 by hail, as if by rifle bullets. The hurricane ceased as 
 suddenly as it had begun, leaving the Copper Hill Hotel 
 without any roof to its veranda ; then the wind began to 
 blow again. But from the south-east the rain fell in 
 sheets, waves, and douches, discovering every hole in 
 the baked and warped iron, every crack in the bone-dry 
 weather boards, so giving every room its miniature 
 shower-bath. 
 
 The rains held the little settlement of Eclipse Corner 
 together for four days ; then came a day of sweltering 
 heat that made the moist earth intumescent, another 
 hurricane, and another deluge. 
 
 The new life that the rain had given to the world 
 raged in the blood of Gifford, and Daven, always in a 
 hurry to return to his wife, chafed at the delaying 
 weather. At last, seeing that the rain threatened to be 
 permanent, they decided to brave the elements, and go to 
 the mine that had eaten so much money without return. 
 
 236 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 237 
 
 It was but half a day's ride away, and an hour of 
 inspection showed them its utter valuelessness. 
 
 They returned to EcHpse Corner in rain, but next 
 day the sun shone brightly, and everything seemed to 
 trumpet its joy of being alive. Gifford had his trial of 
 the stallion, and found him perfect. Delia Mills rode 
 with him. The day was of supreme beauty ; the smell 
 of the moist earth ascended to them. The horses had all 
 the pleasure of the riders, and on that plain that 
 stretches from Eclipse Corner to the denticled lime 
 ranges that go to Coocooroo and beyond, the speed of 
 The Flash quickened unconsciously, and Delia's clumsy 
 mare responded. There was wind in front, and the 
 whirr of the reprieved world above, and below the breath 
 of the stallion rose to Gifford's nostrils. Disdaining all 
 the risk of the leap, he put The Flash at the great 
 gashes in the earth where the deluge had made new 
 watercourses, so that Delia — who was on horseback 
 courage incarnate — called to him to be careful. 
 
 He laughed back at her, his face flushed and his eyes 
 agleam, until he seemed to her many Greek gods in one. 
 
 ' I'm all right, but don't you follow,' he shouted to 
 her. ' " Time to plant his hoofs, hold his hoofs, length 
 and length — right enough." Now ! over.' 
 
 The big black gathered himself to the leap and 
 cleared the chasm by a yard, and Gifford reined, and 
 turned him to go back to the lady. But she had no 
 intention of staying behind. All her obstinacy rose at 
 being outplaced and ordered to stay in safety. She 
 flogged the clumsy mare to a gallop, and forced her to 
 the leap; but the mare knew the uselessness of the 
 attempt, and would not even try. Her fore-feet struck 
 the bank, and the impact brought her to her knees, 
 
238 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 throwing the rider. Gifford dismounted in an instant 
 and tied his horse to a tree, jumped into the wash-out, 
 and hfted Delia. 
 
 'I'm all right — ^just a bit shaken.' 
 
 He wiped her dress with his handkerchief, and, 
 finding that she was not injured, became parentally 
 annoyed. 
 
 ' Why did you do it ?' he demanded. ' I told you 
 not to follow.' 
 
 She said nothing, enjoying the bullying because it 
 hinted at proprietary rights, and, as she trembled still, he 
 put his arm around her waist, and half led, half lifted her 
 to the solid ground. As they stood thus a moment, 
 and she wished that his arm might stay there for ever, 
 and make them one flesh, a smartly-horsed buggy 
 came from behind the lime clilfs on the track to Silver 
 Valley and went on to Coocooroo. There was but a 
 moment for recognition, but it was enough. Stralie, 
 Mrs. Hempel, and Abbey were in the buggy. They 
 had seen him in this questionable situation. He cursed 
 his luck, and removed his arm from her waist, and 
 then Delia pretended to be more shaken than she 
 really was. In the blessed half-embrace he supported 
 her to her horse, and almost lifted her into the saddle ; 
 but that was the end of the half-philandering. They 
 rode back to Eclipse Corner slowly and in " silence, 
 Gifford chewing the bitter cud of memory, Delia look- 
 ing at him slyly now and then, and seeing nothing but 
 disappointment when she marked his knotted brow. 
 
 He and Daven left next day for Coocooroo, and, at 
 parting Delia brought them the stirrup-cup of tea, and 
 pleaded with eyes for the unconscious Gifford's pity. 
 But, when they were on the road again, the horses 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 239 
 
 stepping out briskly, The Flash pannading, stopping in 
 jerks and saccades, and going very delicately on three 
 legs, Daven told the blind man of Delia's passion for 
 him, and the blind man was very becomingly surprised. 
 
 ' You're mistaken. Jack,' said he. 
 
 ' Not much ! I tell you that while you're in the 
 country, and, any way, till you're married, Delia will 
 never take another man. And you know, George, if 
 Miss Field — you know.' 
 
 ' If Miss Field does what ?' 
 
 ' If she won't make it up again, don't you go wasting 
 your life. There's a fine girl madly in love with you — 
 pretty well educated, too, although that doesn't matter 
 in a woman. A man's wife needn't come up to his 
 head ; if she's as high as his heart, that's enough.' 
 
 ' If Stralie won't be reconciled, old man, I'll never 
 marry.' 
 
 ' Oh, bosh ! The " never smiled again " game won't 
 suit you. Shake up that moke of yours and I'll give 
 you a sprint up to the limes.' 
 
 The two horses thundered along the miles, going 
 free and full of the intoxication of their own speed, and 
 wife and maid were forgotten : for no strong man in 
 action can remember mere woman ; if he did, the 
 work of the world would never be done. 
 
 Rounding Pulpit Rock, they saw the metamorphoses 
 wrought by English money and Tom Locky. Every- 
 where great excavations of marble — white, and crystal- 
 line, and dull blue, but never the colour of ore. 
 
 The leading spirit of all this criminal foolishness was 
 eleven thousand miles away, probably engaged at that 
 moment in lying to his shareholders in London. The 
 aider and abettor of the extravagance, Tom Locky, 
 
240 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 came to meet them as they turned into the deeply- 
 milled track that led to the mine buildings. He was a 
 Cornishman, and slow and heavy at that, yet, with all 
 the Australian casualness, he greeted them as if they 
 had not been absent for more than an hour. 
 
 ' Got anything yet, Tom ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes ; the 'ill's all hore— a mass o' hore — once 
 we get on to it. I'm sinkin' on a leader now.' 
 
 ' Money holding out ?' 
 
 He grinned. ' Pretty well — good enough f r me. 
 They've spent sixty thousan' poun', an' as much of it 
 was spent in London as here. Still, I've saved a bit ; 
 an' if they close down to-morrow I'm all right.' 
 
 ' And Coocooroo ?' 
 
 ' They're doin' splendid. Can't make a mistake 
 there.' 
 
 He nodded oracularly, but they were unimpressed, 
 knowing the general ignorance of this optimist, and 
 rode on more doubtful than before. The waste of 
 money and the loss of effort in Tom Locky's lime- 
 quarries, made to discover the mythical ' mass of hore,' 
 gave them a foretaste of the disappointment of 
 Coocooroo. 
 
 They came out on a great amphitheatre walled by 
 lime-cliffs. That great space had once been covered 
 by the roofs of caves, now decomposed into the hard 
 ferruginous earth, that rung metallically to the horses 
 hoof-falls. In the centre of the circus a pump gasped 
 and drew, near a little heap of lead ore, and the sick 
 smell of steam on the ore and the mine sludge came to 
 them. A man sat by the poppet-head eating his 
 dinner ; the pump-exhaust spat at the solid rock and 
 dropped a greasy sweat upon the earth. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 241 
 
 They did not know the man, but that was of little 
 moment. Daven rode as closely to the steam as his 
 snorting horse would take him, and said : 
 
 ' Good-day, mate.' 
 
 ' Good-day, mate.' 
 
 ' Who's show is this ?' 
 
 ' The Damn Fool Syndicate, / call it ; but it's called 
 the John Peters Syndicate.' 
 
 ' That's the divining-rod man, isn't it ?' 
 
 ' Yes. He come here an' hops about with a twig, 
 and by-an'-by the twig goes down, an' he says, " Sink 
 a shaft here." So down we goes two hundred and fifty 
 blasted feet, and at two hundred feet we cut a pound o' 
 lead, an' at two hundred and fifty we gets swamped out.' 
 
 ' A shaft sunk on faith, eh ?' 
 
 ' Yes, that's about it.' 
 
 ' Good enough to move mountains with, but not to 
 open mines on ?' 
 
 ' My oath, no ! Well, it's all of a piece. This field 
 all through is the same: plenty o' money, an' lots o' 
 Scotch navigation.' 
 
 ' What's that ?' 
 
 ' All brute strength and no brains.' 
 
 They laughed and left him, and rode on. 
 
 Two miles out of Coocooroo they met the last railway 
 gang by a ballast pit in a virgin creek of ti-tree and 
 swamp-oak. The great rake of ballast-trucks writhed 
 like a snake as it was galloped at breakneck speed 
 over the unfastened line and round the screeching 
 curves. The men sat stolidly on the heaped trucks, 
 holding their places by mere custom on this maddest 
 journey known to man. 
 
 But the ballast-rake was the only sign of the old 
 
 16 
 
242 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 energy. As they approached the town the efforts of 
 the men working near the track seemed perfunctory, as 
 if they knew that all their effort was certain to be vain. 
 
 When Gifford and Daven met Hempel the first 
 impressions became fixed. 
 
 ' Berkshire's gone,' said the always busy man in his 
 usual jerky fashion. ' Came up here with the other 
 directors and had a look round, said he was ill, and he'd 
 have to go t«> the coast.' 
 
 ' What's the matter with him ?' 
 
 ' Dyspepsia, I guess. He's got a " bear " on his 
 stomach, and he won't get well till he gets to a 
 telegraph-station and cables his broker to sell Coo- 
 cooroos till the cows come home.' 
 
 ' But he's been selling before.' 
 
 ' Course he has, and some of the others, too — all of 
 'em except one. They had this information two months 
 before they let it out.' 
 
 ' And the mines ?' 
 
 ' She's a blue duck, old man.' 
 
 ' After all the flourish of trumpets ?' 
 
 ' The same trumpet flourishers 'ull soon be as small 
 as a little dog in tall grass. But they've sold and 
 they've got the cash, and very little else matters. 
 This thing's been mismanaged from the jump. Shafts 
 all sunk by contract here. See ?' 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 ' They sweated the good man, worth seven pounds a 
 week, down to four pounds a week by puttin' him in 
 hard ground, and then they brought the waster worth 
 thirty shillings a week up to four pounds a week by 
 puttin' him in soft country. They engaged miners at 
 Ballarat, and company paid fares here. See ? Agent at 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 243 
 
 Ballarat got ten shillings a head for selecting men. 
 One time he sent two shoemakers here as miners. One 
 got to the shaft and looked down, and guessed he'd 
 rather die on the surface ; other fellow stated candidly 
 he'd only come for a health trip. And it was all of a 
 piece — unmanagement everywhere. They wouldn't let 
 good contractors select their own mates. Y' know, 
 tried to force the good men to carry the bad. Result, 
 the good men leave. Why, they had a foreman, a pet of 
 the G.M.'s, and he was so slow they called him Light- 
 ning Jim. He was a marvellous man, never been in a 
 mine before, but he must have got leaded somehow. 
 Look at him movin', and you'd say he had two ton o' 
 lead in each boot.' 
 
 They laughed at the shameless exaggeration. 
 
 ' True bill. That man took a longer time to do 
 nothin' than any other man on the job.' 
 
 ' The whole business is rotten.' 
 
 'So it is. D'ye know, they had an assistant mine 
 manager here, and he had such control over his men 
 that one day a miner comes to him and puts a five- 
 pound note on the desk, and says, " Look here, I'll 
 give that fiver to the hospital if you'll only come out- 
 side and fight two rounds with me." The manager 
 jumps to the telephone and calls for help, and the 
 miner was so wild at not being able to make a date 
 with him that he went away crying.' 
 
 ' And how much has the thing cost ?' 
 
 ' First and last, she means a million of money, bad 
 management, and no ore. What can you expect ?' 
 
 Hoping against hope, Gifford deferred personally 
 proving the truth or exaggeration of the verdict until 
 he had seen Stralie again, and settled his fate once and 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 for all. Daven's reiterated belief that Stralie would 
 succumb to the presence of her old lover stayed with 
 Gifford, though he had persistently refused to believe 
 that she was like other women in the facility of yielding 
 to the nearness of the beloved. 
 
 It was unfortunate that they should meet in Mrs. 
 Hempel's garden, and in broad daylight. Shelter or 
 darkness would have brought her to his arms, but 
 civilization has made us afraid of showing emotion 
 except in darkness, and more ashamed of being sus- 
 pected of naturalness. 
 
 So this foolish pair met and parted without either 
 discovering the true meaning of the other. 
 
 He said : ' Stralie, do you forgive me ?' 
 
 And she replied, stonily correct : ' I have no right to 
 either blame you or forgive you now.' 
 
 The memory of the scene on the road to Eclipse 
 Corner was in her mind, and he divined it, and 
 answered it so lamely that she deemed him again guilty 
 of a suppression of the truth. 
 
 ' It was Delia Mills : she fell from her horse.' 
 
 ' It's of no consequence to me, Mr. Gifford.' 
 
 ' And you won't forgive me ?' 
 
 ' I neither forgive nor blame.' 
 
 ' Stralie, I've been imprudent, but I never wavered 
 from you in the slightest.' 
 
 ' Never ? And yet you confessed you had kissed that 
 woman ! Oh, I have nothing to say to you.' 
 
 ' That is final ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Then you never loved me, and I won't stay to 
 argue.' 
 
 He lifted his hat angrily, and left her; yet a hair 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 245 
 
 would have drawn them together. She wanted to call 
 him back, but thought of her supposed wrongs and 
 stayed silent ; he wanted to return and force a recon- 
 ciliation, but believing her heart was hard, his hardened, 
 too, and he went his way. 
 
 He was almost glad that they were to be strangers 
 when a week of experience of the mines of Coocooroo 
 showed him that he was almost utterly ruined. With 
 the marvellously rapid change of fortunes that belongs 
 to new communities, he, who from his birth had been 
 petted by circumstance and enriched by blind luck, now 
 found all his money departed with his honours. 
 
 ' I'll have to buckle to again,' said Daven. ' I've got 
 to start nearly off scratch. And you're about blown 
 out, George?' 
 
 ' I've a few hundred pounds, unless I can sell my 
 stock, and you can bet the whole game's up by now. 
 But I'm as strong as a lion, and I've got the best horse 
 in the north. Australia's wide, old man, and there's 
 a fresh start for us.' 
 
 It was at Girofla that a man brought to them news 
 of a mountain-range of mineral— copper, lead, silver, 
 and gold. He sat on his boot -heels — a ragged old little 
 man with a fierce eye that flamed at contradiction, and 
 a white and bristling beard — and drew his mountain- 
 range in the dust with his forefinger. 
 
 ' See that ? Well, that's the lode, about two mile 
 long an' four chain wide, an' y' can't see the stone for 
 metal. I knoo it fifteen year ago, but I was druv back 
 by drought.' 
 
 In their altered condition, Daven and Gifford were 
 ready to take up anything that offered a possibility of 
 success ; so it was arranged that Daven, having exceeded 
 
246 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the limit allowed by his wife, should return to her, 
 and bring her back to Coocooroo to await their explora- 
 tion of the distant field. 
 
 Gifford stayed at Girofla, and the night of Daven's 
 departure Ned the Prodigal came from Eclipse Corner, 
 stating, amid coughing and curses, that sleeping in a 
 house was rapidly bringing him to the grave, and that 
 he proposed to accompany Gifford wherever he liked to 
 lead. 
 
 They waited a week for Daven — a week of watching 
 Annie Johnson and Charley Byers knitting and quarrel- 
 ling, of listening to the tales of Jim Johnson, of revel- 
 ling in the new life that had come to the earth— every 
 root and seed growing as if to make up for lost time ; 
 and on other days of being imprisoned by the rain, 
 falling as if it could continue indefinitely. 
 
 All the creeks were running bankers for a day, and 
 damp the day after if the sun shone ; the scented scrub 
 that rent and rifted the lime was gay with colour and 
 perfume ; the bottle-trees had a lighter green of leaf. 
 The fig-trees at the entrance of every cave had alone 
 been unaffected, for drought had not touched them ; 
 their roots went waving and searching down the caves 
 for a hundred feet or so, feeling for the water as an 
 elephant feels with his trunk, and finding it. And every 
 rood of that iron soil, seemingly as nutritive as asphaltum, 
 sprang into bloom — poison-peach and rosella, hibiscus, 
 lilac, and amaranth. The grass grew on a new earth 
 under a new heaven, the rowen springing thick and 
 green from a soil as clean of haulm as if it had been 
 gleaned and burned and swept. 
 
 King Smith with his gins had settled at Girofla. The 
 oldest and ugliest of the harem was the sorceress, who 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 247 
 
 had been invested with the power of rain-making. Now 
 that the rain continued unreasonably, the tribe had 
 insisted that the gin should stop the rain she alleged 
 she had caused ; and as they threatened to spear her 
 in case of failure, the sorceress regretted her fame, and 
 sought refuge in Jimmy Johnson's yard. And there 
 was talk of a deputation of scoffers to interview the 
 parson of Coocooroo, who had prayed for rain and had 
 his church damaged by it, and now stood hopelessly by 
 while wise Nature did her work in her own way at her 
 own season. The approximation of the rain-making 
 gin to the rain-praying Churchman was too great for 
 the hard-headed people who had borne those four 
 dreadful years — seeing inexorable Nature killing her 
 moaning flocks and herds, taking toll of all life, and 
 then rebuilding all, at double the speed of its destruction. 
 They knew she would do it again and again inevitably ; 
 for the clock of the world was started so in its begin- 
 ning, and no prayer can make it change pace or path 
 unto the end. Sorceress and priest ! They were the 
 same value in the minds of the men who criticised 
 them with the same laughter, and appraised the black 
 magic at the standard of the white worship. 
 
 Meantime, conventionahsm protected the white 
 magic, and the simple logic of the wild men made 
 them lay in wait to spear Bililla the Sorceress, who had 
 called the spirits of the rain and could not lay them 
 again. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 The rain ceased the day before Daven's return, and 
 King Smith received BiHlIa as a much greater sorceress 
 than he had first beUeved — a sorceress who had at last 
 stopped the rain, although the work had been difficult 
 and lengthy. The little tribe sat in the dust by John- 
 son's veranda, happy again, and full of puppy humour ; 
 King Smith, with his brass device of monarchy — the 
 burglar-proof-safe plate, hung around his neck by a 
 parrot chain — shining resplendent on his breast. 
 
 Phelan, the fierce-eyed little man, had come to hurry 
 Gifford on the quest of the new mountain-range bf 
 metals. He sat on his heels and drew more finger 
 diagrams in the dust, and smoked and spat, and talked 
 of his two-mile-long lode, and glared fiercely from his 
 bushy eyebrows whenever the cross-examination cut 
 too near the bone. 
 
 The marvellous lode was his fixed idea. 
 
 ' There's a gray sort o' stone here,' he said, tracing 
 a straight line in the dust, ' an' blue diorite 'ere, 
 an' ' 
 
 'An' when you get inter the rainbow quartz you'll 
 strike the Bank o' England,' interrupted Jim Johnson, 
 his right eye ablaze with his most recent potations, the 
 blood covering the white till the eye looked like a half- 
 furled Union Jack. 
 
 248 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 249 
 
 Phelan darted at him a look of monkey rage ; then 
 he said to Gifford, ' See you to-morrer,' and went back 
 to his camp as if he were afraid to stay. 
 
 ' Don't you take no notice of 'im,' said Jim Johnson, 
 drunkenly solemn. ' I've seen plenty o' blokes like 
 'im, comin' here an' tellin' lyre-birds' tales, an' gettin' 
 people out to look at duffers. Nearer you get ter the 
 place the smaller he'll say it is.' 
 
 ' But he seems to believe all he says.' 
 
 ' Them's the worst o' the lot ; that kind keeps on 
 talkin' to themselves when they're alone in the Bush, 
 an' gets to believe all they hear themselves talk. Come 
 an' 'ave a drink.' 
 
 ' No, thanks. You've had enough, Jim.' 
 
 ' I 'aven't 'ad any to feel. It takes half a bottle o' 
 rum to give me self-respeck. Come an' 'ave a cigar, 
 then. I suppose I'm not good enough.' 
 
 It was an unanswerable argument, and they went 
 with him to show they were not proud ; for in the Bush 
 pride is a crime and an excessive dignity ridiculous. 
 
 Jim Johnson took up the tale again. ' Don't you go, 
 Mr. Gifford ; might 's well go snake-'untin'. None o' 
 these old Bush whackers is to be believed. They used 
 ter sit out there on the form, an' call school in, an' spit 
 the drought away, an' lie the laces out o' their boots. 
 I know 'em.' 
 
 ' There must be some of them straight, Jim.' 
 
 ' Not a one ! Spitologists an' blasted fiblicators, 
 every one on 'em. An' listen to 'em, an' they'll lie 
 more to amuse yer — look yer in the eye and lie, and 
 put on dog about bein' honest men all the time.' 
 
 He lurched towards the little sitting-room, and the 
 two men who were left went to the veranda, where the 
 
250 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 blacks played noisily, with shrieks of lunatic laughter 
 at nothing. 
 
 ' He seems to think the trip '11 be a duffer,' said 
 Hoskins. 
 
 ' I don't think so ; I have faith in this man, and I 
 can't be any worse off. But, duffer or not, I'm going. 
 I must move on, and keep moving.' 
 
 ' I'm goin' out to live,' said Hoskins. ' But what are 
 you goin' for ?' 
 
 ' To forget.' 
 
 ' What have you got to forget — a girl ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Turned you down ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' They're none of 'em to be depended on — nearly as 
 bad as men.' 
 
 • She's not. It's all my fault.' 
 
 King Smith took up the parable. 
 
 ' That white Mary, gin along o' you one time, Missa 
 Giffer ?' 
 
 ' Yowi ! one time like me ?' 
 
 ' Big fellow like you ?' 
 
 ' Yowi.' 
 
 ' Gin no been like you big feller this time ?' 
 
 ' No ; too much not like me now.' 
 
 The savage delivered his verdict tersely : 
 
 ' S'posen that fellow White Mary not been walk 
 about along you this time — s'posen my gin been too 
 much sulky like it your white Mary, I ' 
 
 He rolled his eyes in earnestness. 
 
 ' What you do, Smith ?' 
 
 The black man shook his club in illustration. 
 
 ' You been gib it your gin waddy along it cobbera.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 251 
 
 The white men laughed at the black man's way of 
 settling love quarrels, but Hoskins insisted that the 
 black man's methods had sense in them. 
 
 ' Look at how some o' the city people beat their 
 wives — an' the women 'ud go to hell for 'em.' 
 
 Gifford admitted the fact, denied the application, and 
 recognised the futility of argument. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 Daven duly returned with his wife; and bright and 
 early next morning the four men rode off westwards, the 
 fierce old man who was to guide them to El Dorado in 
 the rear. Gifford, Daven, and Hoskins rode abreast, 
 and always within laughshot of one another ; and 
 twenty yards ahead three pack-horses, one moment 
 moody and slow, so that a stockwhip-cut awakened 
 them to such surprise that they bucked almost free of 
 their gear, and, the moment the stripe was forgotten, 
 pig-jumping and pretending to bite one another in mere 
 joy of the redintegrated earth, with much display of 
 newly-shod hoofs in the sunshine and pretence of 
 viciously flattened ears. 
 
 The track ended at a bouldery river, where some 
 flower-seed imported in fodder during the drought, and 
 brought here in horse-droppings, had covered the lower 
 flats for many miles, with the little red bachelor's 
 button, and the small poppy of the field. 
 
 The trees below the river-banks were dirty to their 
 topmost branches with the flood wrack, and the new 
 blossom struggled bravely for the mastery. Twenty 
 feet above the present river-level a great gray gum held 
 in its fork the carcase of a drowned horse, his badges 
 of servitude, saddle and bridle, still on the rotting head 
 and withers. 
 
 252 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 253 
 
 Old Phelan took the interest of a guide in this. 
 
 ' A man was drowned, too,' he said — ' goin' down the 
 scrub to see a girl. They told him to wait a day till the 
 river went down — ^y' know these rivers : they're flood in 
 the mornin' and close up dry at night — an' he says he'd 
 go that night an' swim through hell if he couldn't get t' 
 the girl any other way. So in he goes, an' the flood 
 lumbered him.' 
 
 It was rather a long speech for him, and near the end 
 he flagged visibly, and at its conclusion dropped to the 
 rear again. 
 
 They rode into the river, and found it shoulder deep, 
 and dragged the stream to a shallower depth, and 
 there found farce galling the kibe of tragedy. There 
 was a tree four feet deep in rushing water ; twenty feet 
 above, and fifty yards away in a direct line, was the 
 tree bearing the carcase of the horse ; yet the man of 
 the Divisional Board had nailed to the tree a notice to 
 travellers : 
 
 When this board is under water the river is not 
 
 fordable. 
 
 By order, 
 
 I. Macgregor, Clerk. 
 
 And on the further bank were many laughing jackasses, 
 each bird on his own gale-stripped gum, laughing and 
 cackling so that it seemed that the world was only a 
 huge joke — sometimes bitter, but always to be laughed 
 at. They crossed so many necks and flats that the 
 river seemed circumfluent to them, and beyond the last 
 crossing the track ended, so far as they were concerned, 
 and as far as the eye could see there was a great plain 
 of spear-grass new springing, six weeks old and more 
 
254 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 than a foot high, and growing so quickly that the eye 
 might almost measure it. 
 
 Life was breaking round them everywhere ; the air, 
 the water, and the earth teemed with action and desire. 
 Even in the giant ant-hills, where the defenceless white 
 ants held their pulpy bodies safe by an imprisonment 
 measured by the sun, hermetically sealed in their cities 
 till the darkness, there was a whirr of these low 
 organisms striving to imitate a life of action. Every 
 stone and log and bark fragment and puddle, that only 
 six weeks before had seemed permanently dead, had 
 now its colony. 
 
 It was Ezekiel's Valley-of-Dry-Bones allegory become 
 form and fact. Out of every crevice of the rimose 
 trees came all description of creeping things — some that 
 ran sideways, some that progressed crab-like, queer, 
 cautious fellows who protruded a nose and an eye on 
 the end of an arm twice as long as their bodies to feel 
 dangerous foreigners and things, and be thereby warned 
 to go astern for their lives. 
 
 There were spiders that had exhausted all spider 
 shapes and all freaks of grotesquerie — triangular, 
 square, diamond, ugly and beautiful, brilliant as rain- 
 bows and dull as toads. The travellers rode into the 
 webs of the great yellow spider, who spun from tree to 
 tree his yellow viscous web of raw silk, strong enough 
 to catch and hold the giant grasshopper in his leap — a 
 web that swung just high enough to be broken by a 
 rider's face, whereat the rider felt maniacal until he had 
 removed the strands, and the great yellow author of it 
 — who, lunatic and bloated with terror, forgot to bite, 
 and fell off into the grass. 
 
 The rocks, the earth, the grass, and the trees sw" >rmed 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 255 
 
 with ants — red, green, white, black, brown, purple, and 
 orange ; the little sugar ant, the black, the stinging 
 green ant, the hopping ' soldier,' and all the varieties of 
 the bull -dog, filling everything but the air with a sugges- 
 tion of work — more or less well directed — of acquisitive- 
 ness, of cruelty, and of courage to the death. 
 
 ' They're busy,' said Gifford, ' those ants.' 
 
 ' Always like that,' replied Hoskins. ' But I don't 
 think much of 'em — just like a crowd at an election : 
 no brains, all shove, and Scotch navigation.' 
 
 Most of the life of the air was there — beetle, grass- 
 hopper, and butterfly, and bird — all wings, plumed and 
 sharded, saltatory, papilionaceous : the black cockatoo, 
 the sulphur-crested and the galah, the eagle and the 
 hawk wheeling for their prey, the lory, the diamond 
 sparrow, the little painted finches flashing in the trees 
 by the water-holes, looking at rest, like toys made by 
 an artist of old Japan ; the squatter pigeon, who is 
 frightened of noise, and is paralyzed by a hoof-beat, so 
 that the rider may kill him with a whip ; the great jay, 
 useless for man, or bird, or beast, or for himself, who is 
 none of these three ; the magpie, who has one note that 
 is the father of all flutes, and a few others which are the 
 mothers of all such as file-saws ; the rosella dashed by, 
 a flash of red and gold, screaming like a small locomo- 
 tive whistle in the excitement of the love chase ; the 
 irresponsible tits, crimson breasted and ebony saddled, 
 flirted in the frequent scrub belts. 
 
 There was an occasional snake to show that dangers 
 are necessary for an Eden, although the bull-ants were 
 ready to prove that ; scores of ' goannas,' whose brains 
 are in their stomachs, so that they are always looking 
 for food, and are so eager that they know where it is 
 
256 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 by inspiration ; and many jew-lizards, who were so glad 
 that the world had been reprieved that they became 
 almost energetic for half a minute in the day. 
 
 Hoskins had the black dog on his shoulders that 
 morning, but all the world was calling him to be merry, 
 and the boundless hope of the consumptive succeeded 
 the consumptive's illimitable despair. As his chin 
 dragged a web, he held the strands, broke the scuttling 
 spider on the horse's neck, and twisted the spider-silk 
 into yarn. 
 
 ' 'Ere's a cracker, Daven, for your whip ; them 
 spiders make the best crackers in the world. Give's a 
 match.' 
 
 The grasshoppers jumped direct at the riders' faces 
 while the horses were yet two yards away ; and, his 
 memory stirred by the wing-beats on his face and by 
 the sounds of their drumming one wing-case against 
 the other, as token of courtship — the Prodigal spoke on 
 grasshoppers : 
 
 ' Ain't the world just chock full o' lies ? An' school's 
 the worst. Give us a match. . . . Remember that 
 yarn about the grasshopper comin' round to the bee in 
 the winter askin' for honey ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Well, course it's a lie. Give us a match ; damn 
 pipe won't light. Grasshoppers don't want honey in 
 winter ; they don't want it any time, but in the winter 
 they're dead. It's a fraud on kids, that is. . . . Give 
 us a match.' 
 
 ' There's fraud in every game,' said Daven. 
 
 Gifford, who had been long silent, responded with 
 something of his old interest in everything : 
 
 ' Except in our game.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 257 
 
 ' Oh, there's roguery in ours, too,' said Hoskins, 
 who had taken him literally. ' The only game there's 
 no roguery in is pullin' a flat-bottom punt against a 
 flood. . . . Give us a match. I talk so much me pipe 
 won't draw.' 
 
 They rode on silently for half a mile, and Hoskins 
 saw a hawk go wheeling down to earth, and that 
 opened the well of information again, and set it 
 trickling. 
 
 ' Once in Swiper's Creek the camps was very 
 bothered with 'awks, so a smart chap there began t' 
 set baits f r 'em : y' know — bits o' meat with a little 
 dynamite inside, an' a fuse. He'd light the fuse an' 
 throw it away, an' the 'awk 'ud pick up the meat and 
 fly away with it, an' in about two minutes off goes the 
 charge an' down comes a shower o' feathers ! One 
 day this smart chap thinks he'll put in a bigger charge ; 
 so he does, an' the 'awk takes it. But the smart chap 
 had made it too 'eavy, an' the 'awk flies round a bit 
 and then drops it, right where the smart chap an' his 
 dog was standin', lookin' up with their mouths open 
 and their tongues out. The smart chap fetches a yell 
 an' starts runnin' through the scrub, and falls into a 
 water-hole, an' the dog he claps his tail down hard and 
 runs — maybe he's runnin' yet. . . . Give us a match.' 
 ' You smoke matches,' said Daven. 
 ' Yes ; when I get talkin', half a box o' matches to 
 a pipe o' terbacker's about my average.' 
 ' Drawing now ?' 
 
 ' Yes ... I think. I knew a chap at Puffin' Billy's 
 who was always cadgin' matches, so me an' another 
 chap lay a trap for him, an' when he asks us for a 
 match we give him a box. There wasn't any matches 
 
 17 
 
258 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 in the box, only two bull-ants — real tigers they were. 
 He commences to talk about the drought and things, 
 an' he opens the box — not lookin' at it, y' know — an' 
 them two bull-ants they run out an' bit him good and 
 strong, an' him clawin' an' yellin' an' us laughin' at him.' 
 ' It cured him of the match trick after that ?' 
 ' My oath ! . . . Never asked me for no more, any- 
 way. Give us a match.' 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 ' A- dear assurance to be loved by her, 
 For silence is love's best interpreter.' 
 
 Stralie had sent Gifford away, and now half blamed 
 him for going. She struggled with her pride for a 
 fortnight, and then wrote him asking that he should 
 explain, if he could ; the business-like words almost 
 completely concealing the unwritten tenderness. The 
 letter had no reply, for the reason that Gifford had been 
 away three daj's before it came to Girofla. 
 
 Persuading herself, to cover her own unhappiness, 
 that the slight of silence was intended, she vowed to 
 herself never to be even friendly with any man again, 
 and, to emphasize her too ostentatious forgetfulness of 
 Gifford, she unintentionally became almost tender to 
 Abbey. 
 
 Abbey was probably the only really happy one at 
 Coocooroo, excepting Hempel, who was always too 
 busy to be anxious. But his wife felt the coming 
 eviction of all the families, whose breadwinners would 
 soon be workless ; and these, who had given a little 
 comfort to their camp-ovens of houses and had struggled 
 to raise patches of cultivation and a few flowers all 
 through the drought, found in the red plain in the 
 
 259 17 — 2 
 
26o THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 centre of the concentric hills of lime which for three 
 years they had cursed and hated because it seemed to 
 be theirs for ever, a new beauty, and gilded it with a 
 new-discovered love. They forgot all but the little 
 streaks of pleasure that had come there — as a woman 
 who has daily reminded a hard husband of his sins, and 
 so becomes a shrew herself, when he is dead forgets 
 everything but the courtship and the caress ; the wild, 
 smothering love of youth ; the lover's oaths, learned 
 from a gambler ; the self-sacrifice for the beloved, 
 before the world dirtied them both to selfishness ; the 
 mingled reverence and desire ; and the whispered 
 pleasure in the dark. 
 
 And now it seemed almost certain that Coocooroo 
 would close down, and be left to the wallaby, the 
 lizards, and the birds. There was a soft-faced, golden- 
 bearded, spectacled engineer conning qualities and 
 quantities underground. According to his finding, the 
 eviction would have to be immediate and complete, 
 or compromising and gradual ; but in any event 
 these families knew that half of them would have 
 to go. 
 
 Stralie could have tabulated the various forms of 
 unhappiness in her experience of the next few weeks : 
 the passionate, the tenderly regretful, the revengeful^ 
 the self-condemnatory, and that other indefinable 
 unhappiness which romantic women love as animal 
 women like pleasure. And as the tenderly regretful 
 and the happy unhappiness were the two whose obses- 
 sion of her were most frequent. Abbey was filled with 
 joy and hope; for although not directly encouraging 
 him, and not thinking it possible to herself so to do, 
 there was an air about her at rare moments that said 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 261 
 
 she knew Gifford's life had been broken by her resent- 
 ment, that she was sorry for his crime and its conse- 
 quence, and that no other man should ever be wrecked 
 for love of her. 
 
 When Abbey said intendedly tender things in the 
 wrong place it was always in her mind that Gifford 
 would not have made these errors ; and at that she felt 
 like bidding Abbey a permanent farewell, and of send- 
 ing for the only man she knew she wanted or ever 
 would want. To combat these most excellent, kindly, 
 and Christian feelings comes the vision of a devil — tall, 
 thin, black-gowned, golden-haired, angular of chin, 
 delicate of nose, a little high of cheek-bone, taper of 
 finger, and great, violet, and melting of eye ; and 
 another vision of dark-haired, dark-eyed Gifford ; and a 
 third vision of the two visions — more marvellous of 
 beauty together than apart — kissing. And at that all 
 Stralie's blood seemed to rush to her brain and then to 
 her face ; she felt the insult burn her again, and her 
 maidenly pride, which was half a wifely jealousy, 
 silenced her love, and again spoiled Gifford's happiness 
 and her own. 
 
 It was but natural that she should compare them 
 then — the eternal reliability of Abbey, his unwavering 
 fidelity, his heaviness that would never attract tempta- 
 tion, his blindness that would not see temptation when 
 attracted ; the mercurial easiness of Gifford, his fiery 
 impulsiveness, his magnetic audacity, his impression- 
 ability, alas ! Then would come thoughts of Abbey 
 the lover, loving like a middle-aged husband; and of 
 Gifford, who loved like a blade of the fifteenth century — 
 his voice a lute, his words a serenade, all fire, yet with 
 much reverence when passion was not on him ; the 
 
262 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 sensuous poem celled in his memory for the summer 
 night ; big and protecting and full of bear's warmth 
 when the winds blew keen ; ready with delicate con- 
 ceits that women mistake for the speeches of the true 
 romance, because they lend to passion a name polite, 
 an innocence light and subtle as a perfume ; a man 
 who could lead men, and thus give fame to the woman 
 who could lead the leader, or think she led him ; and, 
 more, a man whom she felt was her complement, brain, 
 body, and heart — made for her, and so hers by natural 
 right. 
 
 At that stage she softened again to the absent, medi- 
 tated his recall; again conjured up the vision of Mrs. 
 Millenet and the wrecking kiss ; thought again of the 
 beauty of the lady, and, instead of excusing Gifford 
 with the fact, used it to charge him with a new crime ; 
 finally tortured Gifford's involuntary silence into 
 another offence ; turned to Abbey as a friend, found 
 him a lover, and turned away again ; and so pendulized 
 between heaven and earth, with the possibility of falling 
 into hell. 
 
 Had Abbey been more highly strung, more imagina- 
 tive, and therefore more able to see facts as they are — 
 for imagination is necessary to surely grasp even fixed 
 and measurable rules — his life would have been similarly 
 miserable. But he was in love, and so duller than 
 naturally ; and when Stralie did not treat him with 
 marked coldness he was happy. 
 
 Mrs. Hempel had, in the interests of the bespec- 
 tacled engineer who wished to see the caves, arranged 
 a picnic to Girofla, and she gave Stralie a little advice 
 thereon. 
 
 ' Now, Stralie, Frank will drive you, and the expert 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 263 
 
 man will go in the buggy with me. I've got all the 
 others fixed up.' 
 
 ' But isn't there a seat for me in your buggy ?' 
 
 ' No, there isn't. Give poor old Frank a chance, 
 there's a dear !' 
 
 ' I'll go with him, but it's no use, May : I won't 
 marry.' 
 
 ' You will.' 
 
 ' I won't marry him, anyhow.' 
 
 ' You will, dear. Women are creatures of circum- 
 stances. You've simply got to be married. Here, you 
 are twenty-three.' 
 
 ' I don't care if I'm thirty -four.' 
 
 ' Nobody does when they're not. Now, be a dear, 
 and don't say " No," will you, to oblige me?' 
 
 ' But after I'm married I'd have to live with him, even 
 if it didn't oblige me.' 
 
 ' He's a good fellow, Stralie, better than the other — 
 you know, not so fascinating ; but that's all the better. 
 Other women won't run after him.' 
 
 ' Oh, May, May ! you shock me,' said Stralie, who 
 was not at all shocked, but wanted to be alone. 
 
 ' Do I ? Well, I'll go ; but don't say " No " this 
 time.' 
 
 Mere human pleasure in the day made her bright and 
 ready to please, as Abbey drove her in his light buggy, 
 whose weight was a plaything to the two horses, well 
 ahead of the procession of brakes, dogcarts, buckboards, 
 and horsemen and horsewomen who rode out from Coo- 
 cooroo to the picnic. The fig-tree, the bottle-tree, the 
 myrtle, and the wait-a-bit thorn, showed their new green 
 against the blue-gray of the lime ranges that bore them ; 
 the lime pigeons uttered that turtle-dove note which 
 
264 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 had made the imaginative discoverer give the field the 
 name of Coocooroo as he lay in his blankets on the 
 first night of discovery, and heard the half-awake and 
 brooding birds. 
 
 And everywhere the teeming life in earth, and tree, 
 and air, that Gifford had found further west : the plains 
 below the lime had become great parterres ; every tree, 
 and grass, and shrub, rising into leaf and flower, and 
 hurrying to seed-time and generation. 
 
 Stralie enjoyed that drive because she was dreaming 
 with visions, imagining Gifford in Abbey's place ; and 
 Abbey thought the softness was for him and was 
 radiant with happiness. The drive was all too short : 
 the four miles to Emu Rock were covered as in a 
 moment ; the four miles from Emu Rock to the great 
 pinnacled range of marble, named Westminster Abbey 
 by the sponsor of Coocooroo, were even shorter. 
 
 ' How did they find the caves ?' asked Stralie as Abbey 
 pulled up the horses and swung the fore-carriage of the 
 buggy for her to alight. 
 
 ' See those big fig-trees ?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Wherever there's a fig-tree there's a cave. The fig- 
 trees won't grow anywhere else, but they grow at every 
 cave mouth, and send their roots all over the place, look- 
 ing for water.' 
 
 ' Isn't it wonderful ?' 
 
 ' Everything is wonderful,' said Abbey enthusiasti- 
 cally, looking at her whom he thought the greatest 
 marvel of all ; and all was marvellous that day, as she 
 had said. 
 
 She did not look away from his admiring gaze, because 
 she was not stirred by it ; she only said for the sake or 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 265 
 
 lifting the embarrassment : ' Are there many caves, Mr. 
 Abbey ?' 
 
 ' Hundreds discovered ; only a score or so explored. 
 Where you see the ranges weathered into round shapes 
 there are no caves, only where they are worn into spires 
 like Westminster Abbey.' 
 
 • Why is that ?' 
 
 ' Because the caves are all in the purest limestone, 
 and the purer the limestone, the less rounded.' 
 
 Stralie had a great respect for all knowledge, and she 
 looked at him with a new interest, and he returned the 
 gaze so hungrily that she looked away again — back to 
 the road they had come, where the long line of horses 
 and vehicles grew suddenly from toy size into their real 
 shapes. 
 
 Mrs. Hempel managed well. There were reorganiza- 
 tions of parties during the day, but Stralie remained 
 Abbey's exclusive charge. He helped her over the 
 talus of shattered marble that made a ramp from the 
 plain to the cave entrance, a hundred feet above ; after 
 they had entered the cave — vaster than a cathedral and 
 as cold — she twice half-rested in his arms a moment, as 
 they descended to the cave-floor, which was a little 
 below the level of the plain. Above them the great 
 walled heights and spaces, first eaten out by water and 
 then a little redeposited, rose into darkness. 
 
 Stralie called to the main party, whose candles and 
 occasional bursts of red fire showed them climbing a 
 narrow shelf a hundred feet above ; but Mrs. Hempel 
 answerfed for all, shouting : 
 
 ' We'll come down afterwards, dear : don't you worry ;' 
 and Abbey blessed her, and Stralie's eyes grew hard for 
 a moment. 
 
266 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 They watched the far-off candles glimmer, like damp 
 match-heads, until the party far above turned an angle 
 of the cave and were lost to view. Abbey lit some red 
 fire and showed her a bewildering range of form and 
 tint — a dazzling white crystallization, walls rugged and 
 water-smoothed, coralline drapes and curtains, white or 
 stained by iron to a golden brown — gray and white 
 where there was no direct communication with the 
 upper air, lavender and orange where there was. 
 
 She looked without seeing, angry at this pitchforking 
 into the arms of the twice-rejected, and he saw her face 
 as the Bengal light burned to a fume, and set himself 
 to amuse her in a ridiculous hurry, as an old bachelor 
 tries to comfort a crying child. 
 
 ' Would you like to know what caused the caves, Miss 
 Field ?' 
 
 ' The red fire flamed again, and she replied listlessly : 
 ' Oh, yes !' 
 
 ' Well, you see, the water carrying'^ carbon dioxide, 
 dissolves the limestone, and redeposits some of it drop 
 by drop. That is what causes the stalagmites and the 
 stalactites.' 
 
 ' Is it ?' 
 
 ' Yes. Do you know what carbon dioxide is ?' 
 
 ' Oh, yes.' 
 
 She did not know, but, truth to tell, she had not heard 
 him, being intent on her resentment of the unsports- 
 woman-like conduct of Mrs. Hempel, and the necessity 
 of a woman to beware of women. 
 
 Abbey looked at her astounded, but too polite to force 
 an explanation after her direct avowal. He showed 
 her the stalactites slowly forming drop by drop, and 
 broke one, saying : 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 267 
 
 ' I can tell you the age of this by counting the rings of 
 growth. Each ring shows a wet season. You can almost 
 see how one year had a bigger rainfall than another.' 
 
 He lit more red fire, and led her to an ascending shelf 
 of rock, showed her that these shelves were of cave- 
 earth — not limestone, but cave-earth — mixed with the 
 bones of bats and -snails and wallaby, cemented into a 
 solid floor by carbonate of lime. There Stralie lost all 
 her resentment, and became suddenly tender as she trod 
 that adamantine mosaic of tiny skeletons, and said : 
 
 ' Poor things ! poor things !' 
 
 The red fire burned out again, and Abbey put out a 
 guarding hand and caught her arm. 
 
 ' What a soft heart you have !' he said, his voice 
 thrilled by admiration. ' Why, they died thousands of 
 years ago.' 
 
 ' What does it matter ? Poor things ! all the same.' 
 She put her hand before her, and uttered a little shriek, 
 but immediately recovered her self-possession. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Abbey, light a candle ! I've put my hand 
 on a creepy thing like a spider's web.' 
 
 He lit the candle, and they gasped in admiration. 
 Her bogey was a green wonder of moss, curtaining the 
 brown wall, and as filmy as a spider-web, and near it a 
 great tortuous fig-tree root dropped over the shelf and 
 into the darkness, searching for water. 
 
 Stralie lit her candle from the flame of Abbey's, and 
 they went on to the end of the shelf, and came to a 
 great pulpit of crystalline limestone, with an occasional 
 stain of copper carbonate, efflorescent, as if fallen on 
 the coralline surface from a height and splashed, like a 
 gout of green blood. 
 
 Columns polished like old ivory extended from the 
 
268 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 unseen floor far below to the roof high above in invisi- 
 bility ; curtains, folded with the precise regularity of 
 human hands, came from the darkness down to a basin, 
 draped in liquid shapes, as if a cascade of milk had been 
 suddenly arrested and frozen as it fell. 
 
 ' How beautiful ! Oh, how beautiful !' said Stralie. 
 
 ' This is the last red fire we have,' said Abbey. He 
 lit it, and the splendour leaped into a new magnificence 
 — this mountain that had once been liquid, these marvels 
 of solidity that water had once borne in solution and 
 gravitation had chiselled in their fall. 
 
 ' Oh ! it's everything, isn't it, Mr. Abbey — Milan 
 Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey, and St. Peter's, and 
 the Pantheon, and Notre Dame ?' 
 
 Their shadows filled the enormous cavern, showing 
 them as gigantic bipeds of two hundred feet high ; their 
 voices found echoes in unknown branches of the cave a 
 mile away, and in little flutings and convolutions by 
 their elbows. And Stralie looked and saw all the beauty, 
 and Abbey looked — and saw Her. 
 
 ' See these curtains ? Each has a different tone ; so 
 this is called the Organ Cave.' 
 
 He struck the fold of marble with his knuckles, and 
 immediately floated from above a sound surrounding — 
 not merely majestic, but ravishingly sweet, unearthly 
 dulcet ; not a tone to fire the blood, but one to bend the 
 neck of pride and fill the stubborn soul with peace. 
 
 Stralie was softened almost to tears by it, having 
 been overwrought, first by her anger and then by the 
 quiet and the darkness ; and then she moved a step, and 
 crushed some glassy organisms beneath her feet, and 
 felt she had killed something, and at that she put forth 
 her hands and caught Abbey's coat. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 269 
 
 He soothed her, forgetting even his pursuit of her in 
 her distress, and brought his candle to the floor. 
 
 ' See ! it's all right,' he said. ' It's only the shells of 
 dead snails. There was a little pool there, and they died 
 when the water dried up. There are millions of 'em there.' 
 
 ' The poor things !' 
 
 This petty tragedy of the drought, the slow death of 
 these low organisms, retreating from the outer air to the 
 damp darkness as the sun blistered all moisture from 
 the earth, seemed to her sadder than the martyrdom of 
 the herds, because the life of the over- world was not 
 strange to her. Here every little hint of pain or death 
 in this more than cloistral gloom seemed more terrible 
 than did pain or death itself in the free air beneath the 
 sun. 
 
 ' Shall we go further or wait here ?' he asked ; and 
 she replied, terrified of the loneliness : 
 
 ' No, no ! we'll wait here. They said they wouldn't 
 be long.' 
 
 He found a seat for her on a raised shelf by the organ, 
 seated himself beside her, and talked a great deal of 
 nothing ; and at intervals struck the curtains and filled 
 the cave With harmony. 
 
 ' They're staying a long time, Mr. Abbey,' she said 
 impatiently. 
 
 ' Yes, longer than I thought they'd be ; and these are 
 all the candles we have.' 
 
 ' What then ?' 
 
 ' If they don't return soon and we have to find our 
 way out, we've only light enough for that.' 
 
 ' Then put them out.' 
 
 He blew out the candles in a great hurry. He had 
 been waiting for the order, and now they sat in the 
 
270 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Cimmerian darkness, so close together that their arms 
 touched as they moved, in a silence almost Venetian, so 
 that they were reminded that the normal condition of 
 the ear is listening to sound; and they listened until 
 their ears ached for the familiar noises that were not in 
 this windless, lifeless grave. There was the dripping of 
 lime-laden water through the dark and silent depths ; 
 the last faint echo of the marvellous blend of tones 
 from the marble harp, wandering in the secret places of 
 the hollow mountain. 
 
 In silence there is born an antipathy, or a sympathy, 
 rarely an indifference ; and when it was broken by the 
 deep tone of a thicker curtain that Abbey struck with 
 the side of his hand, and Stralie was startled thereby, 
 she let her hand, that he had taken prisoner, remain 
 clasped by his, and seemed to be glad of the protection. 
 
 ' Stralie.' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' Will you never take pity on me ?' 
 
 ' How can I ?' 
 
 ' You know how. Will you never forget — him ?' 
 
 ' No, never.' 
 
 She hardened again, and tried to withdraw her hand, 
 and he secretly cursed himself for the false move of 
 speaking the name of the other. 
 
 ' Stralie, I can't live happily without you. I'm full 
 of health and strength, but life is no good to me with- 
 out you.' 
 
 ' I'll never marry anybody.' 
 
 ' You must. If Mrs. Hempel were to die, you haven't 
 one really true friend in the world.' 
 
 In her heart Stralie sarcastically thanked the only 
 • really true friend in the world ' for betraying her tQ 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 271 
 
 this surprise, yet, strange to say, she softened to Abbey 
 even more, although she replied : 
 
 ' I am sufficient for myself.' 
 
 ' No, dear, you're not. Few men are ; no woman 
 can be. You don't hate me, do you ?' 
 
 ' No, of course not. I like you, but I don't love 
 you.' 
 
 ' But if I'm satisfied with your liking me, dear ?' 
 
 ' It isn't you only that's to be satisfied. I have to 
 look forward to — what ?' 
 
 ' To life with a man you don't really love, but who 
 loves you better than any other man can.' 
 
 ' And does it make such a difference to you ?' 
 
 ' Difference ! Good God ! it's all the difference 
 between night and day.' 
 
 She was sorry for him, and became even more sorry 
 as she felt that the passion which shook this man and 
 made the darkness vibrant merely chilled her, and that 
 there was not one responsive fibre in her body. And 
 then somehow he wrought on her pity and her patience, 
 so that at last she replied : 
 
 ' Well, it shall be so ; but if I find it's too much for 
 me, I'm to be free to give you up.' 
 
 'Yes, yes! I agree: anything — anything!' 
 
 He had her in his arms at last ; he kissed her, and 
 she tried not to be unresponsive, though she thought 
 the caresses stupid and tiresome, and felt that his 
 presence suffocated her ; and he did not know what she 
 thought, and tried to soften her by caresses and 
 promises. 
 
 And then they heard the hum of far-off voices, and 
 saw a glare of distant red fire upon the milk-white 
 basin as the returning explorers descended seemingly 
 
272 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 from the clouds. Abbey settled into a deep, quiet 
 happiness as they met the party. Stralie dropped her 
 glance, afraid and half ashamed of what she had done. 
 Mrs. Hempel noted the differences of demeanour of the 
 important two, and smiled, as Hannibal might have 
 smiled hot from a conquest. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 At a creek shaped like a V, by reason of the gneissic 
 range it flowed around, Gifford had made his camp 
 distant a week's ride from Girofla. They had been 
 camped there for ten days, every day making the 
 finding of the fierce-eyed man's pet lode more im- 
 probable by narrowing the area of search. Yet had 
 they postponed abandonment of the quest until the 
 range and its vicinity had been ransacked, for the old 
 prospector's fixed idea of his great mine had suffered 
 no modification as they had neared their journey's end ; 
 rather had he waxed more enthusiastic. 
 
 On the seventh day of the search Hoskins' weakened 
 body refused to carry him on the day-long climbs and 
 ramblings in the ranges, now that faith in the story of 
 the prospector had deserted him. He stayed by the 
 camp, fishing for the little white fish, whose five square 
 forts on either side give them the name of Ten-gun 
 Brigs, resting himself in the divine air — very hot, clear, 
 and thin — his broken lungs apparently mending them- 
 selves, and giving him again the childlike hope of the 
 consumptive, who will assuredly, and in the face of all 
 peril, walk to the foot of the rainbow — to-morrow. 
 
 For days his work had been of mingled small 
 pleasures and great irritations — the catching of the Ten- 
 gun Brigs that had miraculously survived the furnace of 
 
 273 18 
 
274 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the long drought to rush blindly on a thinly-disguised 
 hook ; the watching of the gorgeous bird-life that came 
 to the water, and the protection of the food and of the 
 camp against the millions of rats that came from God 
 knows where, and overran the country like a bush-fire. 
 If life and beauty had come to the rejuvenated earth, 
 so also had horror. The new green world was dirtied 
 and blackened by flies, that drove men and horses 
 frantic. 
 
 Half a score of miles from camp that day Gifford, 
 Daven, and Phelan, the fierce little prospector, forced 
 their way through the tall new growth to a rugged- 
 riven mountain in the west, and each man was escorted 
 by flies in millions. Daven wore a fly-veil ; his love of 
 open air made unendurable to him the gossamer bag 
 that Gifford wore, because his fine skin was irritated by 
 even the approach of the little black fiends that preyed 
 on everything — living or dead. 
 
 Phelan had lived this life so long, and had been 
 so coarse at the beginning, that now he had almost the 
 indifference of the black to the plague. He wore no 
 veil ; his old hat was pierced around the rim, and at 
 half-inch intervals with lengths of ravelled boot-elastic, 
 each piece suspending a bobbing segment of cork — a 
 contrivance of some effect in normal seasons, but value- 
 less now that the flies were fearless and millionous. 
 Long habit had given him the folded eyelid of the 
 black, so that as the flies swarmed on his face he closed 
 the lids until the sight was not an eye, but a slit with a 
 gleam in it. 
 
 Gifford, his head enclosed in the gossamer bag pro- 
 vided by the forethought of Johnson, was free of flies, 
 but almost suffocated. They climbed the teeming 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 275 
 
 ridges silently, wanting all their breath for work. The 
 innumerable variants of life sprang from them and at 
 them as they approached : the spear-grass, breast-high 
 and still growing, put forth new leaves and broke 
 immature spears against and in the travellers' clothing — 
 springing so quickly that it might almost be seen in the 
 act, budding to be heard, growing as if it would never 
 grow again — as if to-day were the last day, and 
 to-morrow the world's end. Song and chirp and 
 creak and rustle and whirr ! An insect as big as a 
 dewdrop calling to an insect the size of a daisy to 
 hurry up and save the solar system ; great grasshoppers 
 in an insanity of fear whirring in the faces of the men, 
 who cursed the endless blows ; everywhere the bound- 
 less egotism of self-preservation and the colossal conceit 
 of reproduction. 
 
 They reached the summit of the last ridge, and saw 
 before them a change of country — a slope that half-way 
 down its course lost all the greenness, and became 
 almost as arid and unfruitful as pumice, with infrequent 
 blooms of broom and hummocks of amaranth to show 
 the desert it was. A little wind sprang up, and brought 
 to them the pollen of amaranth and broom, so that as 
 they left the limits of the green scrub they breathed at 
 intervals the fibrous air of a rope-factory. The scarred 
 and fissured mountain lifted its heights of limestone from 
 a talus of boulders, and as they crossed it Phelan cried : 
 
 ' This is it !' 
 
 His companions grunted disappointedly. 
 
 ' Yes, that's the hill, and there's a bottle-tree — there's 
 the bottle-tree !' 
 
 He went on quickly, rounded the knee of the 
 mountain, and showed them a great gorge overhung 
 
 18—2 
 
276 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 by trees at its neck, and shiny from cave drippings. 
 He stopped at a shallow hole, and said with the 
 grandeur of a man discovering a continent : ' And 
 here's the lode.' 
 
 Gifford and Daven looked at the metallic greenness 
 in the little excavation, and were too disgusted for speech. 
 
 The fierce little man talked on excitedly. 
 
 ' Here she is !' said he — ' three 'undred feet wide !' 
 
 ' You mean the lime is three 'undred feet wide ?' 
 
 He turned on them his madly-gleaming eyes. 
 
 ' I don't — strike me crossways if I do ! I mean the 
 lode !' 
 
 ' But it's not a foot wide.' 
 
 ' Send I may live ! she's three 'undred feet wide !' 
 
 ' And how long ?' asked Gifford ironically. 
 
 ' A mile an' a half — every inch of it.' 
 
 Daven looked at Gifford, and his lips formed the 
 words, ' He really believes it. He's mad.' 
 
 But Phelan, if he understood the message, made no 
 sign, but continued in rapture : 
 
 ' All she wants is a little sinkin' on, an' there you 
 are. Y' could have yer works down there, an' — there 
 must be plenty o' water in sinkin'.' 
 
 ' How many tons d'ye think are here ?' said Daven, 
 humouring him. 
 
 ' 'Bout a million. How many do you say ?' 
 
 ' No tons at all ; about five hundredweight.' 
 
 Phelan looked at him murderously, but contented 
 himself by saying, with all the glibness of the certain 
 idiot in recognising the possibly insane : 
 
 ' Yer off yer onion, mister !' Then to Gifford : ' Come 
 up an' see her where she crops on the hill,' 
 
 Gifford, with the usual desire to know the worst, 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 277 
 
 agreed, and they climbed a precipitous ridge, whose 
 declivities were flanked by great cool-looking fig- 
 trees. When Phelan stopped again they stood on the 
 summit of the gray-blue range. A few bottle-trees 
 and clumps of wait-a-bit thorn grew around them ; the 
 magnolia green of the fig-trees in the gorges, and behind 
 them, rolling away interminably to the range where 
 they had made their camp, the sap-green of the new 
 scrub that had bred the plague of flies. And there on 
 the summit Phelan's ' mine ' was even more ridiculous 
 than it had seemed at the first place of seeing. 
 
 They watched him narrowly while he ranted of the 
 wealth of the barren rock that lay beneath them. They 
 followed him silently down the range to where the flies 
 took possession of them again, accompanying them in 
 black clouds up the gorge to its neck, where the fig-trees 
 grew so quickly that the air was half dark and cool, and 
 the flies less energetic. 
 
 ' There's another lode ought to be in here, but I ain't 
 struck it yet,' said Phelan. 
 
 ' But why ought it to be here ?' 
 
 He explained as laboriously as obscurely, and Gifford, 
 releasing his head from the gossamer in respite from 
 the heat, entered a great cave below the fig-trees to 
 escape the flies. 
 
 Daven lighted a candle and followed., Their feet 
 sank in the fragments of tiny skeletons. There came 
 to them a sound as of thousands of young cockatoos 
 screeching to be fed, and of the flapping of fleshy 
 wings, as the colonies of flying foxes, hanging head 
 downwards from rock-ridges, , and the invading roots 
 of fig-trees, were startled by the light or jostled by each 
 other. The irritation of the flies in the clean air was 
 
278 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 preferable to the stench of all this obscene- life. They 
 adjusted their veils again and left the cave, and went 
 down the mountain with their torturing retinue. 
 
 By the strip of everlasting flowers Phelan halted and 
 demanded, in a half- threatening tone : 
 
 ' Where '11 we put the pegs in?' 
 
 ' Nowhere for me,' said Daven. 
 
 ' Nor for me,' said Gifford. 
 
 ' Think ye've got me, eh ? Think yer goin' t' get me 
 out o' the way, an' peg it out yerself, an' do me out o' 
 me reg'lars, eh ?' 
 
 ' I wouldn't buy the lot for tuppence,' said Daven. 
 
 ' Nor I,' said Gifford. ' You may have it all. We 
 are going back to camp.' 
 
 'Then you go first. I'm not goin' to be swindled. 
 The show's mine.' 
 
 They laughed at him, and he grew maniacal as they 
 laughed, lengthened his grip of his tomahawk, and 
 attacked a sapling. Seeing that he really intended to 
 cut pegs, they left him, and passed into the green 
 scrub, and there the clouds of flies were increased 
 fivefold. 
 
 When they reached camp they found that Hoskins 
 had rounded up the hobbled horses and lighted fires to 
 disperse the torture of the insects ; for now as the night 
 drew on the flies were recruited by swarms of mos- 
 quitoes from the creek. The horses, once unhobbled, 
 trotted to the fires and ranged themselves in the smoke. 
 Their hides were covered with flies and mosquitoes, that 
 abandoned them as the smoke of green bushes and 
 horse-dung made the air acrid. Hoskins ran his hand 
 along the belly of his own horse and drew it away 
 bloodied. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 279 
 
 ' Any better luck, Giff?' 
 
 'No, old man — worse. We found his show. The 
 man's mad.' 
 
 ' Didn't I tell y' so ?' 
 
 ' Oh, don't say " I told you so " ! You told us all 
 right, of course ; but don't say you said it.' This from 
 the usually equipoised Daven, made irascible by fly- 
 bites and disappointment. 
 
 Hoskins laughed and began the preparation of the 
 meal, setting out the tins of meat and the onions, and 
 breaking the ashes and producing a damper the size of 
 a bicycle - wheel ; making the tea while Gifford and 
 Daven washed the grime of the day from their faces. 
 
 The sun set in his usual hurry, and the temperature 
 dropped the usual twenty degrees ; a cool wind sprang 
 up and strengthened, so that the mosquitoes were driven 
 into quiescence with the flies, who had stopped biting 
 immediately after sunset. 
 
 The change of air brought a fierce appetite with it ; 
 veils and hats were doffed ; the three ate heartily as 
 they sprawled by the fire, Gifford on his side, Hoskins 
 on his belly, Daven half reclining against his swag ; 
 for these bushmen had found in the habits of primitive- 
 ness the highest civilization, and ate luxuriously as the 
 old Romans did, accumbent and at ease. 
 
 ' Wonder what the mad bloke's doin' ?' said Hoskins 
 interrogatively. 
 
 ' He's pegging out his new Broken Hill,' replied 
 Gifford. ' He thought we were trying to bluff him out 
 of it.' 
 
 ' Well, I told yer he was mad, an' Jim Johnson told 
 yer he was mad ; but yer wouldn't take any notice of me, 
 would yer ?' 
 
28o THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Oh, shut up ! It's enough to have had this trip for 
 nothing, without being told of it.' 
 
 Hoskins opened his mouth to reply, but at the 
 moment there was a rustling in the scrub, and the 
 figure of Phelan showed as a moving shadow in the 
 starlight, and became soHd as he walked into the glare 
 of the fires. He did not appear to notice them, but 
 picked up his own quart-pot and walked to the water. 
 
 ' Hallo ! is that you ?' cried Hoskins. 
 
 ' S'pose it is,' replied the now morose Phelan, still 
 walking towards the water-hole. 
 
 ' Thought I see yer.' 
 
 ' S'pose yer did — if yer can see.' 
 
 ' There's plenty o' tea made.' 
 
 ' Never mind ; I'll make my own.' 
 
 ' Seems to think we'll poison him,' said Daven, as 
 Phelan's shape became shadow again. 
 
 ' That's it, Jack. He thinks we're trying to steal 
 his rotten mine.' 
 
 Phelan returned to the fire and put the quart pot on, 
 and then he asked for the can-opener. 
 
 ' What d'yer want that for ? There's plenty o' good 
 meat open.' 
 
 ' I'll 'ave another tin, I tell yer. I won't eat after 
 nobody.' 
 
 Hoskins gave him the can-opener, and the three sat 
 silent as he opened the meat and skinned an onion, 
 and after some little thought decided to trust to their 
 honesty in the matter of bread. He talked to himself 
 all the time, and they, determined not to notice his 
 smouldering anger, let him mutter threats without 
 interruption. 
 
 * The blasted toffs think they've got Bill Phelan, do 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 281 
 
 they ? Be Gripes, we'll see ! . . . Shake a man's mine, 
 will they? . . . I'll show 'em they've caught a cat- 
 fish when they catch me ! . . . Race 'em to the 
 Warden's in the mornin' I will, be Gripes ! . . . Jew 
 a man out uv his reg'lars, would they ?' 
 
 At last the three sane men wearied of him and talked 
 among themselves, but at intervals the voice of the man 
 of the fixed idea broke in on. them. At last Hoskins 
 rose, kicked the embers together, and said to Phelan : 
 
 ' Go t' hell ! Y' ain't stopped skitin' while we've bin 
 smokin' two pipes.' 
 
 ' T' hell yourself!' He resumed the muttered threats 
 as he spread his blankets. 
 
 ' Turning in early ?' asked Gifford kindly. 
 
 ' Turnin' in when I like,' replied Phelan truculently. 
 ' Free country, ain't it ? A man can do as he likes, eh ?' 
 
 ' Yes, as long as he doesn't do what other people 
 don't hke.' 
 
 ' My troubles what anybody likes. . . . They'd play 
 
 the double on a man, would they ? A lot o' twicers 
 
 — twicers ; that's what they are — a dirty lot o' nine- 
 teeners !' 
 
 He removed his boots, drew a blanket over him, lit 
 his pipe, and looked at the star-sown firmament as if it 
 had offended him. 
 
 The three mates made their beds a dozen yards from 
 him, blessing the night winds and the deep liquid- 
 looking sky that dropped coolness on them, but placing 
 their mosquito-nets handy, in readiness for the stiUing 
 of the wind, which would bring back the mosquitoes 
 ripe for bloodshed. 
 
 They lay there smoking, the night and the tobacco 
 mingling the perfection of animal enjoyment ; and after 
 
282 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 half an hour the fierce prospector brought them out of 
 dreams as he put his pipe safely in the sand. 
 
 ' I'll best 'em !' said he. ' A dirty lot o' twicers ! I'll 
 beat two cart-loads o' water out o' them.' 
 
 With this benign statement he turned over and slept. 
 
 Hoskins listened for a moment, spat, and gave his 
 opinion. 
 
 ' Listen t' him. That '11 show you the man he is. 
 Not a quiet breather, like a pretty woman ; or a snorer, 
 like a man that's a good doer ; but hnzzin away to 
 hisself like a blasted pussy-cat !' 
 
 The three addressed themselves to sleep as the night 
 closed down on them, and the sky seemed to sink to 
 within a foot of their faces. 
 
 But it was a broken sleep for all. The night always 
 brought to Gifford his heart-hunger that now seemed 
 permanent ; the imminence of the homeward track 
 called all Daven's uxoriousness into life ; and Hoskins 
 opened his eyes at every other minute, and looked dully 
 at the nearness of the sky, for his life-forces were at 
 their lowest, and his old habit of uproarious life made 
 the difference the greater. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 An hour before daylight Phelan awoke, listened for a 
 moment, and was satisfied that the three were in deep 
 sleep — deeper than usual by reason of their night having 
 been broken by momentary waking and more than 
 momentary dreams. 
 
 Phelan lay for a minute looking at the sky, arose 
 from his blankets and shook himself like a big dog 
 after a swim, buckled his belt and put his boots on, so 
 making his toilet for the day. He rolled his swag and 
 strapped quart-pot and tomahawk to it, took his saddle 
 and bridle from the projecting scrub, looked at the 
 sleeping men and chuckled, and stepped out briskly on 
 the home track eastward. When the wind began to 
 blow the horses had been hobbled and started to the 
 grass half a mile away. Phelan found them before 
 dawn, caught them all and unhobbled them, saddled 
 his own horse, mounted it, and drove the others before 
 him till they broke from him in the last darkness before 
 daylight. 
 
 The sun was waxing strong when Hoskins stirred and 
 coughed, and so awoke his mates. 
 
 Daveii lay there luxuriously ; for the mosquito-nets, 
 donned half unconsciously in the night, hid them from 
 the attacks of the fly legions — already busy on another 
 depredatory day. 
 
 283 
 
284 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 He and Gifford started into complete consciousness 
 when Hoskins cried : ' Hello ! Where's the lunatic ? 
 Why, he's gorn — no swag, no quart-pot, no saddle. 
 He's gorn.' 
 
 The others laughed. 
 
 ' Plain as Wilson's Promontory,' said Daven. ' He's 
 racing us to the Warden's.' 
 
 ' Just imagine the fool thinking we want a shyster 
 mine like that, Jack.' 
 
 ' Good job he's gone. He's mad.' 
 
 ' Only on this point. Jack. He's an exaggerated 
 optimist.' 
 
 ' That's mad enough. Hell was made for these mad 
 optimists, so they can say to each other : " Good job it's 
 no worse : the temperature's only 212 Fahrenheit." ' 
 
 ' Well, breakfast, boys, and then a week's ride east.' 
 
 While the billy boiled and Hoskins washed himself in 
 shallow water the two healthy men stripped and swam 
 and dived in the big rock pool, to the great fear of the 
 Ten-gun Brig fish, and robbed the flies of their just dues 
 by dressing from head to waist as they stood in waist- 
 deep water. As they returned to the sputtering billy- 
 can they ran and wrestled, forgetting in the joy of 
 manhood and of being alive the wants and memories 
 that had oppressed them in the night. 
 
 Hoskins looked on at the horse-play, and was sorry 
 for himself, thinking of the strength that had once 
 been his, the strength that was his snare. 
 
 ' What sort of a night did you have, Ned ?' asked 
 Gifford kindly, stopping the horse-play, as the wide 
 sympathy that was as searching as a feminine intuition 
 told him that the pride of the strong is the sorrow of 
 the weak. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 285 
 
 ' Me ? A night that was very out and in. Gotta firm 
 sleep about three o'clock.' 
 
 ' Sorry for that, old man.' 
 
 ' I know ; but neither of you was doin' too good 
 yourselves.' 
 
 ' How ?' asked Daven, as guiltily as if he knew the 
 answer to his own question. 
 
 ' Oh-ho ! I got over all them times meself ; but you 
 two — well ' 
 
 ' I wasn't talking, was I ?' said Daven. 
 
 'Ho no ! Not a little bit ! It was a night for me. 
 Just 's I'd be goin' off to sleep I'd hear you sayin', "Luce! 
 Luce !" ' 
 
 Daven blushed violently. 
 
 ' An' you sayin' : " Darlin', forgive me." ' 
 
 Gifford reddened in his turn. 
 
 ' An' no chance for a good camp did I 'ave — Jack 'ere 
 dreamin' o' the wife, an' Giff thinkin' o' the maid.' 
 
 ' I suppose you've done that in your time, too ?' 
 
 Hoskins chuckled conceitedly. ' No fear ! In my 
 time the women used to lie awake, singin' out, " Oh ! 
 Ned, Ned !" ' 
 
 ' And what did you think about last night ?' demanded 
 Daven, in a suspiciously swift attempt to turn the tables. 
 But the sick man answered him without a tremor. 
 
 ' Me ? I was thinkin' o' times — good times — when I 
 was good an' strong ; of tracks I been, an' men I knoo, 
 and the ol' mother I left in Poplar seven-an'-thirty 
 year ago.' 
 
 This was going too far on the road to sentiment, and 
 Gifford, knowing it, put his hand on Hoskins' shoulder, 
 saying : ' We're making east, Ned ! Bring on the 
 breakfast, and we'll get the horses after.' 
 
286 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 The three sat down, ashamed of having been trapped 
 into sentiment, two of them with the additional 
 ignominy of being convicted of talking in their sleep. 
 
 Breakfast over, Gifford and Daven se,t out to look for 
 the horses, and tracked them to where they had been 
 unhobbled by Phelan, whom they impotently cursed, 
 and thence to a gully twelve miles away, so that they 
 did not return to Hoskins till sundown, after a terrible 
 day of rambling longer than the actual distance, and of 
 fly tortures more terrible than usual. The journey had 
 to be deferred till next dawn. They slept that night the 
 sleep of weariness — Hoskins was not awakened by cries 
 for either maid or wife — and at sunrise they were riding 
 eastward. 
 
 It was a long week of distance, and plague of mice, 
 and plague of flies, of suffering an eye-soreness from the 
 assault of myriads of frightened grasshoppers that leaped 
 always to the height of the riders' eyes. On the fifth 
 day Daven, who carried the compass, bore away from 
 the line of their outward journey, saying he could save 
 thereby twenty miles. The others agreed silently for 
 friendship of him, although by this time they were 
 weary of the forced marches he persuaded them to 
 make, the late camps and the early starts that wore 
 Hoskins out. Daven's haste to be with his wife again 
 made him as unsparing of himself as he was cruel to 
 his horses and to his mates. That afternoon they reached 
 great plains of spear-grass, so tall that a man riding 
 ahead — who was always Daven — could not be seen 
 ten feet away. Once Daven dismounted for a moment, 
 and Hoskins, with the crude humour of the Bush, tied 
 the grass over the horse's neck, so that when Daven 
 remounted he was almost scraped out of the saddle by 
 the knotted grass, and had his shirt filled with spears. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 287 
 
 They had ridden so hard that the seven days' journey 
 promised to be done in six, and that night in camp 
 Daven said the promise would be fulfilled. 
 
 ' It's no use protesting against the madness of a love- 
 struck man,' said Gifford, with the suspicion of a sneer. 
 
 ' Quite right, mate — that's a bull's-eye !' said Hoskins, 
 joining forces against the uxorious one. 
 
 ' I knew a love-struck man once,' said Daven, who 
 had felt the sneer, ' and if he'd been as quick getting 
 back to his as I am to mine, it would have been better 
 for him.' 
 
 Then these two blood-ibrothers were cool to one 
 another for quite ten minutes. Hoskins made a diver- 
 sion : as usual, he was always the blessed peacemaker, 
 who would curse men into conciliation, if he failed to 
 persuade them. While the interchange of courtesies 
 had been in the making the three men had been 
 engaged on an occupation that to a man unused to the 
 spear-grass country would have made the half-senti- 
 mental quarrel ludicrous. 
 
 The day's ride had, as usual, filled them with the 
 grass spears ; and they sat around the fire half-naked 
 and picked the spears from everything they had worn 
 that day — hat, shirt, trousers, leggings, and boots ; and 
 as they picked Hoskins talked, 
 
 ' I been countin' these damn grass-seeds, an' I lost 
 count at two million an' two. What d'ye think o' that. 
 Jack ?' 
 
 ' I think I'm sore with 'em from my ears to my feet,' 
 replied Daven a little sulkily. 
 
 ' Well, it's no good cursin' 'em ; 'tain't their fault, 
 it's Nature's. Y' see. Nature says, " Hello ! I remember 
 I ain't got no spear-grass east of Eclipse Corner. 'Ere's 
 these chaps ridin' maybe down's far as Desdermona ; 
 
288 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 they'll most likely stop an' pull the spears out an' throw 
 'em away, an' then nex' season," saysole Missus Nature, 
 " I'll 'ave spear-grass down to Bunderoon." ' 
 
 ' But we're not carrying the seeds to Eclipse Corner 
 — we're chucking 'em away here.' 
 
 ' Ah ! now that's where we're gettin' at Nature. But 
 never you mind ; the ole gal 'uU stick some more into 
 us to-morrow !' 
 
 Daven looked at Gifford and laughed, and Gifford 
 looked back at Daven and laughed, and then Hoskins 
 looked at them both, and the three laughed together. 
 
 Two hours before the dawn Daven awoke them, and 
 Hoskins coughed and Gifford was indignant. 
 
 ' D'ye wan't to kill him. Jack ?' 
 
 ' You know I don't, George ; but I must go — I can't 
 rest. You two follow.' 
 
 He had finished his preparations and was about to 
 mount when Hoskins hailed him. 
 
 ' Wait a bit— I'm comin' !' 
 
 * And so am I,' said Gifford, springing from his 
 blankets. ' Except for a sick man I won't let a mate 
 go alone.' 
 
 ' No — not much !' pursued Hoskins, ' even if the mate 
 is off his chump.' 
 
 He rose, still coughing, walked to a stunted tree, and 
 held it until the fit passed. Daven dismounted and 
 helped them to strap their gear and saddle the horses ; 
 and as Hoskins sang between his recurrent fits of 
 coughing, 
 
 ' Oh ! love it is a very funny thing, 
 An' it 'urts both the young and the old.' 
 
 Daven swore at an unwilling pack-horse, and pretended 
 not to hear. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 289 
 
 They rode sleepily through spear-grass and stunted 
 trees, and broke spider-webs strong as pack-thread ; and 
 just before dawn the spear-grass ended and they crossed 
 a bouldery river, just fordable, although driftwood was 
 packed in the tree-forks fifty feet above. 
 
 And as the sun rose and struck the little plain that 
 succeeded the river, all the world seemed to burst into 
 scent, and the love of these open-air men for all beauty 
 banished the meanness of the dawn. 
 
 ' Smell that,' said Gifford, as if the scents were coming 
 one after another like sounds. ' That's citrodora.' 
 
 ' Scented gum, y' mean,' interposed Hoskins, half 
 contemptuously. 
 
 ' Same thing, old man ! And that's banksia, and 
 that's — that's everything all at once.' 
 
 ' Lord knows what it all is, George ; but isn't it 
 great ?' 
 
 ' Lord luv a duck ! it's splendid !' said the con- 
 sumptive, arching his chest, opening his nostrils, and 
 coughing. 
 
 ' Now, wasn't it worth while getting up for this, 
 George ?' 
 
 ' Worth ! I should say it was !' 
 
 Hoskins laughed. ' You're a cunnin' bloke. Jack. 
 Bimeby ye'll say yer knew this was here, and you wasn't 
 hurrying, to get home to the missus.' 
 
 Daven laughed nervously, but did not reply. The 
 horses lifted their heads to the sweet smells ; the three 
 men rode along intoxicated. 
 
 ' I'll call this Perfume Plain,' said Gifford decisively, 
 as they left the flat for another crossing of the river. 
 
 ' Perfoom be damned!' said Hoskins. 'You call it 
 what yer like ; I call it Scenty Patch.' 
 
 19 
 
290 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 By nightfall they made Girofla, entered by the horses 
 at a speed born of the belief that here was the end of 
 the journey — a belief replaced by a half-despair when 
 the overridden animals discovered that they must go to 
 Coocooroo, even though the heavens should fall and 
 the moon turn to blood ; for Daven's wife had wearied 
 of the mild excitements of Jimmy Johnson's and the 
 caves, and had left for Coocooroo. 
 
 So to Coocooroo they went, feeling very strangely on 
 the traffic-scarred roads, and knowing long before they 
 saw the town that they were near to many houses, as a 
 savage knows when a stranger has broken a leaf from 
 a tree, or a horse feels fear before he sees a cause. 
 Hoskins, worn out, had stayed at Johnson's, and the 
 two mates rode as hard as the horses would carry them. 
 The Flash, tireless as ever, made the pace for Daven's 
 weary gelding, his ears acock, his beautiful head reach- 
 ing at the bridle, his gleaming teeth feeling for his 
 chain-reins to bite them asunder. 
 
 Outside the town they heard the murmurs of the 
 town in its sleep — the subtle, ever-present susurrence 
 that belongs to any agglomeration of humans; the 
 sound the town-bred man never knows of because he 
 is too used to it, and whose existence would never be 
 suspected but for the evidence of the men of the open 
 air, who can hear the larva moving in its chrysalis and 
 know the desert silences. 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 For Daven, Coocooroo held home and beauty ; for 
 Gifford, loneliness and a new surprise. He was about 
 to call on Stralie for a dismissal absolutely final, when 
 he heard of her engagement to Abbey, and that decided 
 him. In this heightened loneliness all his desires were 
 towards the one friend who wanted him ; for Daven, 
 his one-time David, had he not married a wife — in 
 the kind of marriage that, temporarily at least, takes 
 most of the strength out of friendship ? Gifford had 
 known a man who wrote well before he married, but 
 after marriage wrote not a line, being of a weakness 
 that permitted but one pursuit at a time ; and now he 
 thought of that man much in the same way as he 
 regarded Daven, though less kindly. 
 
 He called at Daven's hotel, and, well knowing the 
 answer, told Daven of the necessity of returning to the 
 open, and asked Daven if he would be of the party. 
 To this the married man replied in great trepidation 
 that he would be glad to go again, only the wife — well, 
 you know — wanted him to stay with her and go back 
 to the South ; and Graham had written there was a 
 certain constituency for him, and a sure thing for 
 Gifford also, if he cared to come. 
 
 Gifford replied that he was very grateful to Graham, 
 but the smash had left him too hard-up for politics, 
 
 291 19 — 2 
 
292 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 and there was Hoskins to be considered, and they 
 might strike something good on the next trip. He 
 wished Daven all good luck, and supposed he might 
 as well saddle up and go away now. So these two 
 friends parted, Daven feeling like a traitor, and regret- 
 ting the wounding of the old friendship by the healing 
 of the new love. 
 
 Gifford's return to Girofla was in such a perfection 
 of road and weather that The Flash was even more 
 joyously mad than usual, and the pride of the horse 
 entered into the rider, so that the centaur forgot the 
 sorrows of the man ; and when he arrived his pleasure 
 in finding a continued improvement in Hoskins still 
 kept care away. 
 
 He inquired of Phelan, and an inquiry was all 
 Johnson wanted to make him talk his hearers to a 
 standstill. 
 
 ' The bloke with the white eye ? Yes, he come here 
 two days afore you did, an' his horse lay down in the 
 paddock as soon as they took the saddle off him, an' 
 didn't get up again till yesterdee. He's gone out again.' 
 
 ' Back to his big mine ?' 
 
 ' Yes, with another bloke, a chap from the South, 
 what wears a heye-glass an' dog-poisoner leggin's — 
 them yeller English things, ye know. He polishes his 
 nails with a little file and a shammy leather after every 
 meal.' 
 
 ' A new chum ?' 
 
 ' Well, what do you think ? Seems that Phelan got 
 this bloke to put up the money for the lease, an' give a 
 bit besides. Then he goes round shoutin' an' makin' a 
 name for himself at the pubs, an' because the people 
 he was shoutin' for didn't make enough o' him he gets 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 293 
 
 obstropulous with a knife ; so the sergeant at Coocooroo 
 puts him on the chain, an' after ,he was chained up 
 a night or so the noo chum tells a tale to the Warden, 
 an' pays his fine. So they left here this mornin'.' 
 
 ' Did you tell the new man our experience ?' 
 
 ' My oath ! An' so did your mate, the — the spitolo- 
 gist bloke.' 
 
 ' Don't say that ; Hoskins will hear you.' 
 
 ' I don't mean no harm to the poor feller — the sick 
 bloke, I mean.' Then, to take any remaining sting 
 from his first words, he added hastily : ' He may be a 
 spitologist, but he ain't no fiblicator. I'd trust that 
 mate o' yours with anything if I had it.' 
 
 'If you had it, Jim!' 
 
 Johnson grinned, wiped his sudoriferous face, grinned 
 again, and said slowly, appreciating his own humour : 
 ' It's bad luck for your mate that all I got's in the old 
 woman's name since that affair o' Brasch's.' 
 
 Gifford sought Hoskins, and found him, though 
 improved, strangely restless. 
 
 ' For Gord's sake, Giff,' said he, ' let's get out o' 
 sight o' houses. I can't get me breath inside four 
 walls, nor near a fence neither.' 
 
 ' All right, old pal. What track this time ? I must 
 go somewhere on the chance of finding something. 
 I'll be on the rocks in a year or so if I don't make 
 a punch at something.' 
 
 ' Well, there's a chap turned up here yesterday, an' 
 he says he saw good country about a 'undred mile 
 nor'-west. I know the track to Sandy Creek, and it's 
 fifty mile a bit west o' north o' that.' 
 
 ' Is the man here ?' 
 
 ' Yes ; let's go and find 'im.' 
 
294 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 They found him easily in the first place of search, 
 which was the natural one — the bar — and the man 
 gave his information, which seemed reliable, because 
 it did not attempt particularizations. 
 
 ' It's good country,' said he ; ' that's all I know. 
 Quartz and iron and that like. Don't know whether 
 there's gold or not in 'em.' 
 
 ' Didn't you stop to try ?' 
 
 ' No ; ye see, it ain't my game. My game's drovin'. 
 I drove some starvers to the Gulf, and after that, damn 
 my shirt if there was anything left to drove ! 'Ave a 
 drink, mister.' 
 
 It was not a request, but a command. 
 
 ' Thanks.' 
 
 ' Here's a thousan' a year ! Drought was bad enough, 
 but the track's hell now. I lost me hat and veil seventy 
 miles back, and since then the flies et me. Something 
 cruel it was. Have another, mister ?' 
 
 ' No ; have one with me.' 
 
 ' All right. I'm that thirsty I'd drink with Nosey 
 Bob the hangman. It doesn't matter a dump who 
 pays. Here's luck !' 
 
 ' And it's fifty miles nor'-west of Sandy Creek ?' 
 
 ' A bit west o' north ; can't miss it. 'Ave another?' 
 
 ' It's up to me now, mates,' said Jim Johnson. ' I'm 
 no dry hash.' 
 
 Gifford and Hoskins drank again and escaped, 
 leaving the drover to the distraction he had so well 
 earned. Before they left next morning Hoskins bought 
 a clothes-line, and with an air of being ashamed of his 
 soft-heartedness, returned from John's stable-yard lead- 
 ing by the clothes-line a lolloping and humorous cattle 
 pup, his hide a fantastic streaking of white and orange. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 295 
 
 with an extra freak of pigmentation in the form of an 
 orange spot that covered one ear and half of one eye. 
 The Prodigal dragged the unwilling pup to where 
 Gifford stood tightening The Flash's girths, and the 
 pup put his head inquisitively askew and looked the 
 incarnation of sly humour. 
 
 ' What are you going to do with him, Ned ?' 
 
 ' Well, yer see, you was away near two days, and the 
 pup cottoned to me, so I'll take him along.' 
 
 ' But why drag him ? If he's cottoned to you, he'll 
 follow.' 
 
 ' No, he won't. He ain't cottoned enough yet, and 
 he's that soft-hearted that he follers the man who gives 
 him the last kind word.' 
 
 ' Just like me when I was young, Ned.' 
 
 'Jus' like me all me blessed life, Giff.' 
 
 The two pack-horses of the procession were driven 
 ahead, and the mates followed, the cattle pup at first 
 objecting, and fighting his tether in a ridiculous way ; 
 but, having been half choked, he made the best of his 
 abduction, and trotted in the horses' tracks, his tongue 
 lolling, his eyes looking in many directions at once, and 
 energy and humour in every hair of him. 
 
 Near a creek they rode under a .big gum, and a 
 jealous magpie darted from the nest and fled at Gifford's 
 head, afraid of no consequences, ready to avenge the 
 insult of the stranger who had come too close to the 
 castle. With whips they beat it off, and by speed 
 distanced it, and Gifford said he had half a mind to 
 return and shoot it. 
 
 Said Hoskins : ' Why would yer do a mean trick like 
 that ? S'posin' you had a little kid o' your own, and 
 a giant two 'undred feet high come too near, an' you 
 
296 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 thought he meant fight, an' you went out an' knocked 
 hell out o' him, and druv him oif, an' nex' day he comes 
 along with a cannon and blows you inter smitherens 
 — eh?' 
 
 ' You're getting very soft-hearted, Ned. You didn't 
 always talk like that.' 
 
 'True, Bill, that is. Seems t' me the stronger a 
 man is, the crueller he is — eh ? I s'pose I'm changin' 
 because my contract's about finished.' 
 
 He was depressed for a moment, but the next he, 
 looking wearily at the cattle pup, saw some joke of the 
 animal's, and laughed until a fit of coughing stopped 
 him. His transitions from gloom to joy were as sudden 
 as they were short-lived ; at night he was depressed to 
 the dust, but while the sun shone he rioted in the 
 skies. 
 
 Gifford watched him with a new fear born of the new 
 friendship, and was afraid and glad by turns. They 
 rode slowly for Hoskins' sake, riding but twenty miles 
 a day, although the man's great heart would have carried 
 his worn-out body double the distance. On the fourth 
 day the cattle pup was released from the ignominy of 
 the clothes-line, and romped along with them, doing 
 twenty miles nor' -west and forty miles off the track to 
 all points of the compass, pursuing mice, and bringing 
 old and seasoned ' goannas ' to bay. They showed such 
 threatening front that he fled from the position without 
 dignity or profit, running blindly under the horses' 
 hoofs, and being trodden on, so that he yelped his great 
 anguish, immediately forgot the accident, and was 
 trodden on again ten minutes later. 
 
 They reached the limit of the rat plague, and found 
 upon a patch of rocks the bodies and skeletons of 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 297 
 
 millions of rats and grasshoppers ; and Gifford, always 
 anxious to amuse his invalid, mentioned the fact. 
 
 ' Curious thing that, Ned. You remember our camp 
 last trip was much west of this ?' 
 
 ' Yes, about a 'undred and fifty miles.' 
 
 ' And the rats came from the east, didn't they ? be- 
 cause they passed the camp when we were there two 
 days.' 
 
 'That's so. Well?' 
 
 ' Well, they're on the way back, and they've died by 
 the ton weight.' 
 
 ' And the grasshoppers, too, Giff.' 
 
 ' And do you notice the flies are not so bad, Ned ?' 
 
 ' I do that. I was jus' goin' to say the same to you.' 
 
 For an hour they rode over the bones of this retreat 
 from Moscow — Nature's successful attempt to kill the 
 surplus life she had made in the drunkenness of the 
 new rains, excusing her past barrenness with her present 
 excess, and then murdering the excess ruthlessly. 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 They reached the place that the drover had told them 
 of, and found quartz and iron, but no gold, and un- 
 willing to give up the search, went north, and found a 
 great lake of lotus by a creek ; and Hoskins being worn 
 out, and in a depression more than usually prolonged, 
 they camped there to recuperate him. 
 
 In this inaction Gifford found his hell, blaming him- 
 self in almost all his waking minutes for his facile 
 acceptance of Stralie's decision, cursing the mingled 
 pride and despair that had prompted him to make the 
 journey with Phelan, so leaving the way clear for 
 Abbey. 
 
 ' I was a fool !' was the constant burden of his 
 thoughts ; ' and Jack was right. I knew she loved me. 
 I know she does now. I should have taken her in my 
 arms and never given her time to be proud.' 
 
 Their camp was made by one of the horns of the 
 half-mooned lagoon, half covered with the great mag- 
 nolia-green leaves of the lotus. A leaf curled by a fish 
 or a bird showed the brown leathery lining below it. 
 A broken lotus root, some fathoms long, trailed like a 
 drowned snake. The great violet lilies, nearly a foot 
 wide, floated on the glassy water, motionless as painted 
 flowers on a mirror. Pandanus grouped themselves on 
 the banks, and flung leaf-shadows to the lagoon. The 
 
 298 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 299 
 
 sunlight doubled the beauty of everything ; the long 
 sedges were motionless. Near the tree that shaded 
 Hoskins a coloured lizard fascinated a butterfly by 
 pretending to be a flower, and the inquisitive insect 
 fluttered above him on mealy wings. Over a great 
 lotus bloom quivered a splendid dragon-fly, his wings of 
 silken mesh so ethereal that he seemed to be himself a 
 flower suspended. 
 
 Hoskins lay there, and Giiford, having completed the 
 arrangements of the camp, sat by him and smoked. 
 The horses cropped the grass, and looked up now and 
 then at the men who were both destiny and burden to 
 them. The irresponsible cattle pup wandered into the 
 water and out again, and jumped at leaping fish, and 
 half drowned himself, and was caught by the constrict- 
 ing lotus roots. He barked and disturbed water-fowl, 
 and generally acted like the joyous fool he was, and 
 escaped consequence only by reason of his youth. 
 
 ' My word, this is great !' said Hoskins. ' Makes me 
 forget I'm done.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't have let you come a trip like this, 
 Ned.' 
 
 ' Now, who could uv stopped me ? Why, I couldn't 
 live in a town lately, an' I'll take me davy I couldn't 
 die in one, neither.' 
 
 ' You die ? You're all right, Ned.' 
 
 ' I know ! I know ! Lissen to them pigeons— 
 Curukity - coo ! curukity-coo ! curukity-coo! That's 
 why I called them copper shows " Coocooroo," y' 
 know. But I told yer that many a time before. Beg 
 yer pardon.' 
 
 ' It's all right, Ned. Tell it to me fifty times if you 
 like.' 
 
300 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Now, all that there wants is a crane, a big 
 
 white crane, t' come down that little beach — y' see 
 where the reeds are — 'n put 'is toes in the lagoon 's if 
 he was frightened o' water. I like t' see a crane do 
 that. 'E knows yer lookin' at 'im, an' he says, " Ho !" 
 he says, "just you wait till I make that cove believe I 
 don't take baths reg'lar." I seen one do that in Sydney 
 Botanical once ; I watched him more 'n 'arf 'n hour.' 
 
 ' Good old Ned ! Always fond of little things, weren't 
 you, Ned ?' 
 
 ' My oath ! Always fond o' anything that wasn't un- 
 kind to me. . . . I'm fond o' you, Giff. You're a man : 
 I like yer.' 
 
 ' Poor old Ned !' 
 
 'Call me poor, but for Gord's sake, don't call me old!' 
 As he spoke a white heron entered to his cue — tardily, 
 but not enough to hurt, for the little play had gone on 
 without him. 
 
 ' All right, old man. Why, look there ! There's your 
 crane.' 
 
 ' So he is — a beauty, too. But he ain't a crane : 
 'e's a 'eron. Good luck to him. . . . Come back, yer 
 damned Orangeman's dorg ! Ah-h-h-h ! yer cow ! 
 Leave the bird alone.' 
 
 The dog slunk behind a tree and was cast down for 
 almost two seconds. The heron came to the water, 
 dipped his toes in very daintily, curled up one leg, and 
 became lost in profound thought. 
 
 Hoskins laughed. 
 
 ' Didn't I tell yer ? He goes 'arf an inch inter the 
 water, and then thinks about his deposits in the Worm 
 Bank. . . . Ain't it all pretty ?' 
 
 ' Yes, old man.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 301 
 
 The depression swooped like a kite on the sick man. 
 
 ' An' I've got to leave it all, dead-sure. Why in 'ell 
 can't I do it now, an' get it over ?' 
 
 ' You're all right, Ned — you're getting well.' 
 
 ' No fear, mate. . . . But it's too long. Death's as 
 slow as the wrath o' Gord.' 
 
 The cattle pup had been watching his face, and now 
 he felt he was forgiven, and crawled to Hoskins, and 
 grovelled until the sick man's hand petted him into 
 self-respect. And at the feel of the dog under his hand 
 Hoskins became half merry. 
 
 ' When this pup was goin' to chase that 'eron, d'ye 
 know I was lookin' round for a stone to throw at 'im ; 
 an' it reminds me of a chap I knoo in Riverina. There's 
 big plains there, y' know, an' one day a chap bets a 
 cove from Bendigo he couldn't throw a stone over the 
 road. So the cove gets wild and takes it on, an' they 
 'ave a bet o' drinks for the crowd on it. Well, we all 
 goes out, an' the Bendigo cove looks round for a stone 
 to throw, an' o' course he couldn't find one, because 
 there wasn't a stone for twenty mile. My oath ! the 
 Bendigo cove was mad when he had to pay for the 
 drinks. . . . But that's an old one. I told yer that 
 before. Beg yer pardon.' 
 
 ' It's all right, Ned. It's a very good yarn, and I was 
 glad to hear it again.' 
 
 ' Did ye ever hear o' the chap that couldn't find a 
 blade o' grass to clear a pipe with ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Gifford, who had heard the story many 
 times. 
 
 ' Well, a chap, come to Emu Rock in the middle o' 
 the drought, and strikes a camp where Hickey the 
 Blower was. Great skiter, Hickey, but very cunnin'. 
 
302 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 'E'd got his pipe stuffed, and there wasn't a needle or a 
 bit o' wire anywhere. "Nev' mind," says Hickey, "I'll 
 'ave t' smoke it out." " Don't do that," says the other 
 cove, " I'll go an' get a stror." " Bet yer can't !" says 
 Hickey the Blower. Other cove bets 'im three 'arf- 
 crowns. So out 'e goes an' picked up every bit o' dirt 
 on two acres, an' didn't find a stror or a twig or nothing 
 strong enough to clean the pipe. That was a good 'un, 
 wasn't it ?' 
 
 ' Yes, Ned, old chap — very good.' 
 ' I believe y' did 'ear it before. . . . Oh, my Gord ! 
 I'm full up. If I can't get good again, I want t' get 
 under quick !' 
 
 ' Don't talk hke this, Ned— don't think of it. Cheer 
 up ! You'll pull through, and we'll go out on a new 
 track and find something big.' 
 
 ' All my tracks are close up to a perish, Giff — close 
 up.' He shook his head and suddenly brightened. 
 ' But I've had a time — oh, what a time ! I'm forty- 
 seven, an' I've lived a 'undred an' forty. Findin' things, 
 and gettin' tired o' things quick, an' goin' somewhere 
 else.* Ole Rye at Lake Superior, an' Guardienty in 
 Colombia, an' Squareface at Tibooburra, an' Brandy at 
 Rum Jungle. . . . An' always somethin' noo, y' know. 
 Eh ! a shine life. Not much women — never had much 
 time for 'em ; but when I did, my oath ! they didn't for- 
 get me quick. . . . There's a kid o' mine somewhere in 
 Canada — grown man 'e is now, if 'e ain't dead. He'd 
 be a fine-lookin' chap, too. The girl that was his 
 mother — she had hair like — like — well, as thick as them 
 reeds. An' I was a smart young chap, too.' 
 ' I'll bet you were, Ned.' 
 ' You'd win yer money, mate. The girls used t' say 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 303 
 
 so, anyway. I could lift two men in a chair with one 
 'and once. I did it, too. Look at me 'and now.' 
 He held up a brown semi-transparency, with only 
 solidity in the configuration of the bones. ' What do 
 all the girls, an' the noo sights, an' the fightin' matter 
 now ? Nixey, me bo'. When I'm dead, everybody's 
 dead, an' the pig, too.' 
 
 ' You die ! You'll drink many a distillery dry yet, old 
 chap. . . . Not another word. Laugh ! Sing ! I'll 
 get the tea.' 
 
 The sunset turned the sky to blood and gold — the 
 colours of the life of man. The night came upon them 
 as Gifford ate and Hoskins drank a pannikin of canned 
 broth. Gifford made up the fire for the night, and fixed 
 his mate's mosquito-net. The silence of the Bush is peace 
 unto the soul in the day, when the sunlight is on the 
 vast distances ; but at night, when the expanses of the 
 continent seem to be closing in upon the one camp-fire, 
 it is too deep for comfort. It pressed heavily on Hoskins, 
 who had the fear of extinction in him, and on Gifford, 
 already burdened with anxiety for his mate. In that 
 awful stillness the dog crouched on Hoskins' blanket 
 and whimpered, and the hobbled horses came closer to 
 the men, and the men met them with half-suppliant 
 and half-caressing hands. 
 
 Hoskins coughed a great deal that night, and fear 
 gripped Gifford, and he forgot Stralie and all his per- 
 sonal troubles. 
 
 ' I'm the devil's bit, if there is a devil,' said Hoskins ; 
 ' but if there's a Gord, He ought to know what a man 
 is. But it's fifty to one there ain't nothin'. Anyhow, 
 a man gets to think there ain't after he's been in the 
 back country a long time, and only himself to depend on.' 
 
304 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Gifford did not reply, because he had nothing to 
 say. 
 
 ' On'y one thing I'm real sorry for — me poor old 
 mother. Did I ever tell yer about her ?' 
 
 ' No, mate — no, Ned.' 
 
 ' She was all right till the old man died. A good 
 man he was — useter dress us up Sundays an' take us 
 for a walk, an' we'd wake up that clean on Mondays, 
 you know, 'avin'- Sunday's clean clothes on, an' feelin' 
 all new.' 
 
 ' Yes, Ned.' 
 
 ' Well, 'e died — killed off a buildin', and o' course she 
 changed. O' course a kid couldn't know that strugglin', 
 an' bein' father and mother too, 'ud make her sour and 
 snarlin', always with 'er 'and ready t' 'it yer, an' sayin', 
 " Go to bed, y' little devil !" Before 'e died, y' know, 
 she'd kiss me, an' wash me face, an' say " Gentle Jesus," 
 an' tuck me in ; but o' course a kid couldn't know, an' 
 me little brother was on'y a year old when me father 
 hopped the twig. See !' 
 
 ' Don't talk, Ned ; your throat's too bad.' 
 
 ' I'll get it off me chest while I feel like it, Giff. 
 Well, one night she gimme a clout on the ear. I goes 
 to bed an' I lays there bustin' with rage, an' she goes 
 on pattin' the baby to sleep, singin' nothin' at all — you 
 know, like mothers. My mother useter sing "There, 
 there, there, there," an' nothin' else, an' pat the baby, 
 an' the baby 'd buzz like a pussy-cat on a hob, an' go to 
 sleep. An' this night the kid wouldn't go ter sleep for 
 all her pattin' an' singin' " There, there !" an' at last 
 she says, " Oh, baby ! baby ! I'm so tired !" an' bursts 
 into tears ; an' the baby seems to understand, an' stops 
 'owhn' an' coos ; an' she says, " There, there," a bit 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 305 
 
 more, an' the kid goes t' sleep. So I lies there while 
 she's undressin', and at last I says, " Mother, I'll be 
 good, an' I luv yer ;" an' she comes across in her ni'gown 
 and takes me in her arms an' cries again. An' she says, 
 " Oh, Ned, your poor father's gone, an' I'm all alone." 
 And I says, " I'll soon be a man, an' I'll work for yer." 
 So we loved each other that night.' 
 
 A fit of coughing interrupted him, but immediately it 
 was over he began again. 
 
 ' Nex' day damme if she don't clout me again, good 
 an' strong, an' I raged like a tiger, an' cleared.' 
 
 ' But you went back again ?' 
 
 ' In a week, but her an' the baby was gone, left no 
 trace. I looked all I knoo, an' bein' a kid I soon forgot 
 'em. Why, I was in America when I was twelve, an' 
 in Australia when I was sixteen. A good job I didn't 
 grow up in London : I'd a been a little man of about 
 the size o' that there dorg. Then I went away again 
 an' learned a bit o' minin' in America, an' back I come 
 to Australia when I was twenty-three.' 
 
 ' And never a word from the mother ?' 
 
 ' Never. About fifteen year ago, you know, when a 
 man gets to be a man an' begins t' think, I tried to find 
 'em. I was sittin' behind a pile o' greed I made at the 
 Towers, an' Gympie an' I goes back to England an' 
 advertises, but never an answer. She must 'a been 
 dead, an' Gord knows what the crool place did to her 
 before she died. Terrible place, England. When I 
 couldn't find her or me brother I 'ad to clear. I seen 
 too many white-faced people, like two lepers I seen at 
 Bundaberg, only with chilblains, too. Terrible place. 
 Y' ought t' see Poplar, an' Lisson Grove. Me poor 
 mother ! I was a dorg.' 
 
 20 
 
3o6 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' It wasn't your fault, Ned ; you were only a kid.' 
 
 ' Jus' you think o' me stinkin' pride keepin' me away 
 a week ! If I'd gone 'ome in two days I might 'a found 
 'em. She might 'a gone to the p'leece ; but I didn't 
 know anybody was paid to find anybody till years after. 
 I was a dorg.' 
 
 ' Don't fret, Ned— don't fret ! It can't be helped.' 
 
 ' I know it can't be 'elped — it's the on'y thing that 
 sticks in me gizzard. If I'd only been decent t' me old 
 mother, I'd blow me light out now dead easy. For 
 I've had a time ! My Gord ! what a time !' 
 
 He lay there exhausted, and Gifford said : ' Have a 
 whisky, old man ?' 
 
 ' I will that — a big un ! Fill the pannikin, an' then 
 I'll go to sleep. . . . That's enough. I'll take the 
 water after. Here's luck, mate ! an' Gord bless yer, 
 an' give yer whatever it is yer want ! For a good mate 
 ye've been — a white man all through.' 
 
 They drank, and lay back in their blankets, and the 
 night and their memories sank upon them. 
 
 At dawn the dog began to whimper, and Gifford, so 
 anxious that he had not really slept, sprang up and 
 went to his mate's side. 
 
 ' I'm all right, mate,' whispered Hoskins. ' Jus' you 
 put the 'ead 'igher.' 
 
 Gifford did so, lifting him as tenderly and as surely 
 as a cat carries her kitten in her mouth, and Hoskins 
 said he felt better. Yet as the mist rose from the 
 lagoon the breath seemed to rise out of the sick man 
 as life leaves a griped horse. 
 
 He lay there motionless for an hour, and glade and 
 lagoon were flooded with light when next he spoke. 
 Looking at Gifford, who returned the gaze with anxious 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 307 
 
 eyes, feeling all a vagrant dog's gratitude to this man 
 who had given him love and responsibility. 
 
 ' Don't bother . . . Giff — I'm good and — strong 
 again.' 
 
 The pink haemorrhage of phthisis welled through his 
 lips and matted his beard. Gifford wiped it away, and 
 the brave optimistic eyes looked out, full of youth and 
 hope for a moment, on the beauty of tree, air, grass, 
 and water. 
 
 ' I'm — right — Giff. I'll be ... as fit ... as a fiddle 
 — to-morrer.' 
 
 The blood gushed again, and the life was torn from 
 him as a gardener tears up a weed. 
 
 The dog stood up, wagged his tail, crouched his fore- 
 quarters till his head was on his paws, barked, and 
 invited all the world to come and play. 
 
 20 — 2 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 ' Let us eat, drink, and be merry ; or to-morrow we die.' 
 
 Delia Mills heard of Stralie's engagement a week 
 before chance took her to Coocooroo, and when they 
 met it was at a church bazaar, one of the hurried 
 dissipations of the town, that, like a strong man slowly 
 dying of an incurable disease, felt its time was short, 
 and forced its pleasures wildly in the attempt to live 
 indeed ere annihilation came. 
 
 Delia hurried conclusions, as was her habit. 
 
 ' You know you care for Mr. Gifford, Miss Field.' 
 
 Stralie looked as if she would like to run away, but 
 she knew that Delia would follow her, and therefore 
 tried to protect herself with evasions. 
 
 ' I can't talk about it at all, Delia.' 
 
 ' Yes, you can. You don't love Mr. Abbey, and 
 you're the only woman Mr. Gifford cares for. It's cruel 
 to make him miserable over nothing — I wouldn't.' 
 
 ' You !' said Stralie half contemptuously, because the 
 truth annoyed her, and she wanted to sneer. 
 
 ' Me ! I wouldn't care what he'd done — I'd forgive 
 him if forty women had been divorced through him.' 
 
 ' No woman was divorced through him. He's not a 
 bad man.' 
 
 ' I know J but I wouldn't have cared if he ha,d been,' 
 308 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 309 
 
 ' You wouldn't ? How dare you ? You're in love 
 with him yourself.' 
 
 ' I know I am. What do I care who knows it ? 
 And I'm better than you are, for I'd forgive him 
 anything.' 
 
 She turned to leave, but Stralie melted suddenly, and 
 cried : ' Oh ! I know you are better than I am. I think 
 I was too hard ; but I can't go back now.' 
 
 ' Why can't you ? Would you rather be unhappy 
 all your life than give up a minute's pride? What 
 does a woman want with pride once she's in love with 
 a man ?' 
 
 ' Oh yes, she does !' 
 
 ' No, she doesn't ! Once she's in love with a man 
 she's got to say he's master.' 
 
 ' Delia, I can't ! I can't ! And Mr. Abbey has been 
 so kind. But you are a good girl, Delia, and I am 
 grateful to you for trying to put us right. Will you 
 shake hands ?' 
 
 ' I will,' said Delia heartily. ' I'll kiss you, if you'll 
 let me.' 
 
 In that moment the two felt like blood-sisters, and 
 kissed like new friends. 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 GiFFORD buried his mate in the place of his death, 
 with the rollicking pup and the meditative heron as 
 principal witnesses, and then he struck camp and 
 drove the three horses before him. He rode to Girofla 
 within two days, the tireless energy of The Flash out- 
 wearing the sober geldings. 
 
 And then he went to Coocooroo, and found the town 
 doomed to removal ; for capital had been exhausted 
 and the mines condemned, and the smelters were to be 
 run down within a few weeks. 
 
 He met Hempel, still as busy with the stoppage of 
 operations as he had been in their initiation. This 
 man, who revelled in work, had no time to be sorry for 
 anything. He met Abbey, and Abbey was constrained 
 and Gifford cold, so that they parted with mutual 
 relief. The hotels were doing a roaring trade ; while 
 the women prepared for their voluntary eviction, the 
 greater energy of the men drove them to seek nepenthe 
 in the forced merriment of a wild spree. 
 
 Gifford left Coocooroo with no definite intention, 
 and rode the raving stallion out to Eclipse Corner, 
 finding there none but the black King of the fireproof- 
 safe insignia, and two lubras, who didn't count, and 
 Delia Mills, who did. 
 
 She was singing over the ironing-board, ironing the 
 310 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 311 
 
 flounces of a muslin dress ; and when he entered her 
 face was flushed by happiness to beauty, as if he had 
 been the rising of the sun after a long night. 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Gifford,' she cried, putting the iron on the 
 ironing-cloth, whence arose a smell of burning flax, 
 and a brown stain spread like spilled treacle. 
 
 They shook hands, and then she saw the damage, 
 rushed to the iron, let fall the iron-pad, took the handle 
 in her naked hand, dropped it, and put her fingers in 
 her mouth. 
 
 ' Poor girl ! What can I do ?' 
 
 She exaggerated the injury, glad of the offer of the 
 ministrations of the beloved. 
 
 ' Salad oil and flour — that's the best. O-o-o-h !' 
 
 ' Good ! Where's the oil ? You sit down ! Yes, 
 you shall ! Here's a chair. Where's the flour ?' 
 
 ' In that biscuit-tin. Thank you, Mr. Gifford. O-o-h !' 
 
 She looked at him from the corners of her eyes, 
 grimaced her pain, and then exaggerated it of malice 
 aforethought. 
 
 'Oh! oh! oh!' 
 
 ' Poor little girl ! Wait a minute. Here we are. 
 Look 1 I've let the oil spill on the clean floor.' 
 
 ' Never mind the floor. Oh !' She looked at him 
 while he dusted the flour on the burn. Her gaze 
 plainly said, ' Burn me again if you like, but stay.' 
 
 ' Now, where's a rag ?' 
 
 'Take one of those handkerchiefs, please.' She 
 finished the sentence with 'dear,' in brackets and 
 under her breath. 
 
 ' Wait a moment. I'll tie the knot on the back of 
 the hand. Is that comfortable ?' 
 
 ' Yes, thank you.' (' You lovely man !') 
 
312 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' And you won't be able to finish the dress ?' 
 
 ' Oh, it's really done. There was only a bit of the 
 bottom flounce, and that '11 do as it is.' 
 
 ' What's the finery for especially ?' 
 
 ' Don't you know that there is a ball at Coocooroo 
 to-morrow night, and a dance, too ?' 
 
 ' What's the difference ?' 
 
 ' Oh, the ball is at the Divisional Hall for the big 
 people (they've brought a string band and a caterer 
 up from the coast), and the dance is at the Mechanic's, 
 for — for us, you know — all the clerks and the store 
 young men. I'm going to the dance.' 
 
 ' But you don't ride over there in that ?' 
 
 ' Oh no. I carry that in a parcel, you know. I 
 ride over in the afternoon. I don't take a habit — just 
 an ordinary walking skirt, and turn the skirt back to 
 front while I'm riding.' 
 
 In her desire for familiarity, she seemed to take a 
 childish pleasure in telling these intimate trivialities. 
 
 ' And when do you come back ?' 
 
 ' Oh, after the dance. I'll have to be away nearly a 
 day, and I'll be lazy next day, so I've done everything 
 for two days ahead : I made bread enough, and fixed 
 up everything.' 
 
 When he thought of his own extravagances, and 
 compared her joyful payment for a little finery and 
 innocent amusement with hard labour, he was filled 
 with shame, although he knew that the shame was 
 baseless, the difference in their conditions making a 
 common judgment impossible. But it is a selfish man 
 that does not worship beautiful youth, with its strong, 
 cheerful, unformulated philosophy, its native unselfish- 
 ness and unconscious courage ; and Gifford worshipped 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 313 
 
 it the more because the losses of his anchor-love and 
 of his guiding friendship now made him seem unto 
 himself very, very old. 
 
 When she spoke again, it was with some constraint, 
 and after an embarrassed silence. ' Mr. Gifford, you 
 don't mind me saying something about Miss Field?' 
 
 ' No, Miss Mills.' 
 
 ' It's because I'm fond of you.' 
 
 'Eh?' 
 
 She corrected herself quickly. ' Fond of you both.' 
 And, in parentheses, ' Oh, you beautiful man ! how 
 could she think you'd be untrue to her ?' 
 
 ' Everybody is fond of her, Delia.' 
 
 At the sound of her own name she vibrated like an 
 overstrained violin string, but did not reply except in 
 an aside : ' She ! She's not good enough to tie your 
 bootlaces !' 
 
 ' What were you going to say of her. Miss Mills ?' 
 
 ' Well, she's engaged to Mr. Abbey. She doesn't 
 love him.' 
 
 He laughed bitterly. ' She'll marry him, though.' 
 
 ' More fool she, then. But she doesn't love him.' 
 
 ' Of what use is that to me, Delia ?' 
 
 She thrilled again, but with less hope. The abandon- 
 ment in his voice showed how incurable was his passion. 
 
 ' It's less good to her, Mr. Gifford. She loves you.' 
 
 ' Why does she send me^away, then ? Why does she 
 engage herself to Abbey ?' 
 
 ' Oh, women are a helpless lot. They must have 
 somebody, and if they can't get the one they love they 
 take the one who loves them.' 
 
 She spoke sadly, as with prescience of her own fate. 
 
 ' But what keeps her from the man she loves, then ?' 
 
314 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Her pride— just her silly pride. They laugh at me 
 for crying over novels, but I'm not silly, anyway. If I 
 loved a man, and he did anything to hurt me, I'd be 
 sorry, but I wouldn't hurt myself more by sending him 
 away.' Her voice shook a little, but she steadied it, 
 and continued : ' And it's always the best men who 
 make fools of themselves. A weak man can't do 
 wrong because he's afraid. But I wouldn't marry a 
 weak man. I'd have the strong man, with all his 
 faults.' 
 
 ' And you think it's only pride, Delia ?' 
 
 ' I'm sure. First pride, and, since her engagement, 
 a little gratitude to Mr. Abbey, and an awful fear of 
 being talked about.' 
 
 ' Well, no modest girl likes to be talked about, Delia.' 
 
 ' Oh, why do you make excuses for her ? I suppose 
 she can't do any wrong at all ?' 
 
 ' She can't, Delia.' 
 
 ' Oh, that isn't possible.' But to herself she said : 
 ' You lovely man !' 
 
 ' I've lost her absolutely, Delia.' 
 
 ' You haven't. If I were you I'd go to her and take 
 her by storm, and never give her a chance to bully 
 you.' 
 
 ' That was Daven's advice long ago.' 
 
 ' It's a pity you didn't take it. Mr. Daven must have 
 known women. And why didn't you take his advice ? 
 You don't look like a man who'd say " Please, dear," 
 and " Do, dear," and "Forgive me, dear," and crawl to 
 a woman. Mr. Abbey does ; you don't.' 
 
 ' Delia, I never was that kind of man. I got her by 
 storm in the first place, but when the exposure happened 
 my conscience told me I was wrong and that Stralie 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 315 
 
 was right, and I couldn't take her again by storm after 
 I had lost her.' 
 
 ' You never lost her. And your conscience ! People 
 don't love with their consciences ; they love with their 
 hearts.' 
 
 ' Delia, you're a good friend.' 
 
 He seized her hand, and she leaned to him as a tree 
 from the wind, so vibrant and overfilled with sensation 
 that she felt as if she were dying, and hoped she were. 
 
 ' I'll think over the advice, and if I think it's good I'll 
 go to her for the last time.' 
 
 He dropped her hand, and she shivered and came 
 back to consciousness again, as Mrs. Dunphy with her 
 beloved and overfed heir entered the kitchen. 
 
 Next morning Gifford left early, and Delia, having 
 prepared his breakfast, hid in her room while he looked 
 for her to say good-bye. Finally he made his farewells 
 by proxy of Mrs. Dunphy, and rode off puzzled and 
 disappointed. And Delia watched his every movement 
 from her little window until a belt of trees at a bend of 
 the track hid him from her sight. She did her work 
 that day with more than her usual energy, but not once 
 did she sing. 
 
 Gifford stopped at Tom Locky's camp all day, and 
 heard a wonderful account of the collapse of the 
 English company, that, unable to come to decision 
 while it had funds, and having spent all its sixty 
 thousand pounds in sinking shafts in limestone, had now 
 been brought to a decision by the exhaustion of its 
 capital'. 
 
 Gifford listened to the story as a weary man hears the 
 sound of distant water, his mind revolving the advice of 
 Delia Mills. 
 
316 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Locky rode to Coocooroo for the dance early in the 
 afternoon, and Gifford stayed at the accountant's camp. 
 Finally, without decision, irresistible inclination pushed 
 him on the road to Coocooroo. He bade the accountant 
 good-bye, and rode away on the half-darkened road, 
 restraining The Flash to a walk by a curb, so tightened 
 that it crushed the stallion's lower jaw. 
 
 He would no longer be the play of her suicidal pride. 
 She must be changeable as a woman should be, full of 
 a woman's mobile wants and senses ; she must be done 
 with this unmaidenly inflexibility — more like the per- 
 sistence of a man in revenge on an enemy than the 
 resentment of a girl chastising a recreant lover. 
 
 She should be given this one chance of making happy 
 the lives of both of them. In any event he would see 
 her again, hold her in his arms whether she would or 
 no, and crush anything that came between them — 
 friend, foe, man, god, woman, or devil. His soul was 
 filled up with fierceness ; then he grew suddenly calm, 
 being decided, and loosed the curb. The Flash reefed 
 and galloped. 
 
CHAPTER XLV 
 
 'Thou earnest, thine hair flashing with gold as I let fall the 
 crocus petals, gleaming gold back again into my robe at my 
 bosom.' 
 
 ' All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia ; out of the 
 ivory palaces, whereby thou hast made me glad.' 
 
 CoocooROO sang its swan-song loudly. The dance at 
 the Institute was very mixed : miners and stockmen, 
 and barmaids and selectors' daughters, and the Copper- 
 tails of the township. Jim Johnson talked loudly of 
 the old days, to the discomfiture of the two discordant 
 accordions and the independable banjo. 
 
 At the ball in the Divisional Hall the warden and 
 the lawyers, the mining agents, and other Silvertails 
 danced and chatted, and accepted the inevitable closing 
 down of the mines and the township very philoso- 
 phically, being always prepared for such things. 
 
 Tom Locky, ranking as a mine manager, ranked 
 also as a Silvertail ; Charley Byers, being merely a 
 clerk, danced at the Mechanics' Institute with the 
 Coppertails ; and Annie Johns accepted love, the 
 leveller of rank, as sufficient reason for abandoning 
 social preferment, and danced with Charley Byers 
 aforesaid, her feet as light as her heart that night. 
 
 The air, moist and generant still from the break-up 
 of the drought, was made crepuscular by millions of 
 
 317 
 
3i8 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 stars, and called the seed in every garden. Under the 
 ponciana-trees a girl, weary for the moment of dancing, 
 swung in a hammock, listening to the sobbing flats of 
 an erotic waltz. The air was full of frangipani scent ; 
 in the lamp-light tecoma and poinsettia flamed rivalry. 
 The Silvertails accepted their pleasure quietly, half- 
 sadly. Over in the Mechanics' Institute Jim Johnson 
 danced marvellous jigs of his own invention whenever 
 the floor was vacant. The dancers called each other 
 out to sing, applauding everybody very violently. 
 Annie Johns, for instance, had to sing twice over a 
 melancholy and bathetic song, which these humorless 
 people enjoyed as the humorous enjoy humour : 
 
 ' There on the bed 
 Baby lies dead, 
 While the dance goes on.' 
 
 They roared the chorus bull fashion in a manner that 
 threatened to awake any baby who had not been dead 
 too long ; they danced after it, and applauded Jim 
 Johnson's jig again. Annie was pressed to sing the 
 bathetic song yet again, and while she sang all the 
 engaged girls sat with their hands sadly self-clasped in 
 their laps and looking very self-conscious, as if court- 
 ship were over and marriage and maternity come ; and 
 in all simplicity mentally shedding quiet tears while the 
 men roared of the baby who lay dead on the bed while 
 the dance went on. 
 
 At ten o'clock came Abbey to the Divisional Hall, 
 and with him Australia Field. A mirificent vision of 
 beauty she was that night, moving with the carriage of 
 a happy queen. She overpowered Abbey so that his 
 arm trembled under her hand. Her dress was that 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 319 
 
 ivory silk whose hue Annie Johns had said was made 
 for her, a little deeper in tone than her skin. Had the 
 dress been slightly yellower, she might have been called 
 quite truly ' the crocus woman,' as the newest assayer, 
 only six months out from England, called her with a 
 fervour that made the worshipping Abbey to frown. 
 
 She had not one ornament of price, but there was a 
 frangipani cluster in her hair and another in her 
 corsage, masking the break of her breasts. 
 
 A little crowd surrounded her, and Abbey wandered 
 disconsolately on its outer edge ; but after a few 
 minutes' chatter she saw him there, and his handsome 
 face that had been clouded changed to sunshine again 
 as she smiled upon him, while he trembled anew to her 
 touch. They moved off to the music of the waltz, she 
 unheeding even the clasp of his arms. 
 
 The motion quickened her blood only a little, but 
 not to intoxication, for he was not quite the right man ; 
 his veins were stirred as if by bells and trumpets, for 
 she was the right woman. Then the sensuousness of 
 the lights, the music, the night calling to the poor old 
 drought-scarred earth to be young again, and order its 
 most sapless plant and dust-dry seed to ingeminate 
 itself and rise from slime to starlight ; the subtle scent 
 of the frangipani, made her forget all but the waltz, 
 to move in a dream that was but half-perfection, 
 because it had only herself in it. 
 
 At midnight Gifford rode into Coocooroo on the great 
 black stallion, the glossy animal with the skin of satin, 
 the pride of an insulted virgin, and the blazing star on 
 his forehead like unto the star of the sacred horse of 
 Solomon. The Flash felt the beauty of the night and 
 the beauty of his own strength, and pannaded from 
 
320 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 wheel-rut to bridle-track ; and Gifford, whose thoughts 
 were set to funeral measure, tried to pull him to a walk, 
 and only succeeded in making the pace gestic. 
 
 And ahead flamed the Cross, the two pointers appar- 
 ently close and companionable as lovers, though they are 
 separated by the distance of half a world. Gifford felt 
 the absoluteness of his loneliness as he entered the town 
 at the end where lived the married miners, who knew 
 not dancing, whether with Silvertails or Coppertails, but 
 smacked their children in due season and went to bed 
 early. Here was silence, and yet not silence ; the air 
 pulsated to the breath of all those horizontal hundreds 
 forgetting in sleep the soreness of their eviction that 
 was to come to-morrow. All the voices of the night 
 were hushed on this high ground ; the huts lightless ; 
 a sigh seemed to rise from this unconscious humanity 
 that had to trek, calling to the sky to avenge its lost 
 effort and its unavailing sweat. 
 
 On the flat there was a light in Tommy the Dog's 
 shanty, where Tommy the Dog and the Frenchman 
 competed in a waltzing match without an audience, the 
 music being provided by a sleepy youth who played a 
 tin whistle, and had no regard for time, or place, or 
 tune, or anything of rule ; away on the hill near the 
 creek, rushing turbulently through its channel of living 
 marble, the smelters, that were to be blown out to- 
 morrow, flung their ribbons of red and molten slag. 
 Gifford looked at it all for a moment, sighed, and 
 rode on. 
 
 In the yard of the Mechanics' Institute the tethered 
 horses of the dancers jostled and squealed; twenty 
 peaceable geldings being incited thereto by the amorette 
 of a cart-horse, who held his great foolish roman-nosed 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 321 
 
 head over the fence, and neighed to a randomly-biting 
 mare. 
 
 In the Institute itself, Delia Mills, who had ridden the 
 twenty miles from Eclipse Corner that afternoon with 
 her dress turned back to front for a habit, and who 
 would ride the twenty miles home through lime-rock 
 and gum and cotton tree before the dawn, sang to a 
 larrikin vamp of the tortured piano : 
 
 ' Yes, it's down where I was born, 
 In the yaller, yaller corn.' 
 
 And as Gifford idly stopped to listen, the bull-voiced 
 chorus broke out again. The Flash neighed suddenly 
 and reared, so that his rider had to cut deep into his 
 lower lip with the curb-chain before he would consent 
 to become a sober horse again. 
 
 When he reached the Divisional Hall the moon had 
 risen, showing the hammock swinging empty under the 
 poncianas to the newborn wind of midnight. The 
 dancers were silent. Gifford heard only the dearest 
 voice in all the world singing something with ' Good- 
 bye ' in it. A wailing 'cello seemed to make the heart- 
 break in the voice complete. 
 
 While Stralie sang Gifford stayed there, hearing with 
 only an inward ear, for every mood of her voice struck 
 a new memory in him : Jack Daven lost in matrimony; 
 Hoskins choked at the crescent lagoon; Gifford him- 
 self, the old clean, impulsive, unweary Gifford, dead 
 also, replaced by a weary man. 
 
 The Flash pawed impatiently, and the light breeze 
 changed, and brought the undescribable mingling of the 
 sulphur fumes from the smelters with the scent of 
 citrodora. 
 
 21 
 
322 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 The orchestra broke into a waltz of Gungl's that he 
 knew well ; the silence was replaced by the threshing, 
 sandy sound of dancing. He remembered a night on 
 the gum-treed heights above the starlit Yarra, when 
 Stralie had come to him in the light dinner-dress he 
 had objected to, as being unseasonably thin — the night 
 she had utterly softened to him, accumbent in his 
 embrace, and returning his kisses. 
 
 He knew that he had lost her, and he loved her all 
 the more. His affections had never been reasonable, 
 or ceased because there was no cause for continuance. 
 He loved her as unaccountably as trees fall in the 
 night. 
 
 He broke the skin of The Flash with his rarely-used 
 spur, and the horse became mad and bolted for a dozen 
 yards, fighting for his head all the way. Gifford reined 
 him and turned him, and the big black stallion raved 
 back to the hall-door. And there Gifford saw the 
 wonder Australia was that night, and stopped The 
 Flash in one saccade. 
 
 He dismounted and looped the reins to his shoulder, 
 and they mutually advanced, and their hands — his hot 
 as the raving horse, hers cool as the midnight wind — 
 met and held. He drew her half-resistingly out of ear- 
 shot and under the poncianas. The Flash going deli- 
 cately on two feet, and pretending the fear of the hare 
 at every leaf-ruffle. 
 
 Gifford held her hand, and she said in great distress, 
 all her resolutions vanished, leaving her for protection 
 only the shield of a strange new timidity and no sword 
 of pride : 
 
 ' Oh, George !' 
 
 'You saw me, Stralie ?' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 323 
 
 ' Not till the horse turned. . . . George, this is wrong. 
 I must go back.' 
 
 She said it in a tone that implied that, though she must, 
 she would not ; absence could not have made her heart 
 fonder, but it made her judgment softer. She wondered 
 if his strayings with Mrs. Millenet, even if his treason 
 had been absolute, were sufficient reason for her own 
 partial life-wreck. 
 
 And while she thought this and repeated to herself 
 that now she must really return, that any paltering 
 with Gifford were disloyalty to Abbey, Gifford had 
 drawn her on past the poncianas to the obscurity of a 
 shealing wall covered with passion-fruit, passion-bud, 
 and passion-flower — three generations all lusty on the 
 one vine. 
 
 And then he took her in his arms, and she resisted 
 faintly — her pride, her modesty, her truthfulness, re- 
 volting against this tacit lie, although the lie was 
 Nature's. Stralie struggled against it with the little 
 strength derived from a long habit of the convention- 
 alities we use to excuse the weakness we have and 
 to condemn the strength we have not, and, as usual. 
 Nature won. 
 
 She tried to put him from her, murmuring, ' Oh, 
 this is madness !' but he held her fast, if tenderly. His 
 eyes burned down on hers in a gaze clement but 
 clamant, and she half acknowledged to herself that the 
 madness was very wise. He kissed her, reading per- 
 mission in her eyes ; her dark head, anademmed with its 
 flowers of chrome and ivory, sank on his shoulder. 
 
 She half sobbed in her passion and her shame : ' Oh, 
 go away, George — go away ! We are both mad.' 
 
 The Flash neighed. Stralie found a new strength 
 
 21 — 2 
 
324 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 and slipped from him, and was cold again, though still 
 shaken. 
 
 ' You must go at once, Mr. Gifford.' 
 
 He said, as passionlessly as herself, that he supposed 
 he must ; and they shook hands, and were ridiculously 
 polite over it. He climbed slowly into the saddle as if 
 he were an old man, and became young again as he felt 
 between his knees the boundless energy of the great 
 brute beneath him. 
 
 ' You'll kiss me once, Stralie ?' he asked, bending to 
 that virginal figure framed as with mobile silver by the 
 moonlight. 
 
 Her soul went out to him in pity. ' Yes, George,' 
 she said very softly, coming close to his stirrup, while 
 he restrained The Flash for an instant with the pinching, 
 agonizing curb. 
 
 He stooped and she tiptoed, and they kissed again 
 and again, and she tried to say, ' Only once,' and was 
 glad he did not hear her ; and he lifted her by the waist, 
 and The Flash got out of hand. 
 
 It seemed as if Gifford would suffocate her. The scent 
 of the frangipani made him drunk, strong, daring as 
 a baresark. 
 
 Abbey's voice sounded from the hall-door : ' Stralie, 
 Stralie ! Mrs. Hempel's going home.' 
 
 ' Quick !' said Gifford ; ' I can't hold the horse. Put 
 your foot in my stirrup.' He released the iron as he 
 spoke. 
 
 The horse snorted and raved. She felt half afraid 
 that she would be dragged by the brute as his pace 
 increased. A look into Gifford's eyes had shown them 
 cruel with excitement. She knew he would not loose 
 hold of her, and she was ashamed that Abbey should 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 325 
 
 find her with Gifford, and greatly afraid that the temper 
 of the one-time friends would break disgracefully under 
 the strain of that suspicious meeting. 
 
 She murmured that, after this, he must never speak 
 to her again, lifted the dress of Annie John's admiration, 
 put her foot on Gifford's, and was hoisted into Gifford's 
 arms and drawn across the pommel at the moment that 
 The Flash, triumphantly securing a free rein from the 
 relaxed grasp of the lover, reared once, sprang from the 
 earth on all four feet, and had found his stride in an 
 instant. 
 
 Gifford let him go for half a mile, perforce ; but once 
 outside the town he steadied him to a regular gallop. 
 The Flash, despite his double burthen and the mile or 
 so of heavy sand, kept both ears cocked as he galloped. 
 Then the hill that hid the furnaces was rounded ; the 
 flammivomous smelters blooded the silver night for the 
 last time; the moonlight ebbed and flowed upon the 
 lime-cliffs. Gifford drew Stralie tightly into his em- 
 brace, and she went unresistingly, betrayed by the 
 night, by the motion through the illimitable spaces, and 
 by the nearness of her lover. 
 
 The reins slackened, and The Flash fought again ; 
 a metallic, musical tinkling sounded on one of the flat 
 runs of marble that in places pierced the hard alluvium 
 of the track. The horse felt joyfully that he had lost his 
 curb-chain, increased his gallop, and surged into the 
 main road that ran, level as a dead sea, between the 
 lime-cliffs for a dozen miles — the straight track to 
 Girofla. 
 
 Gifford did not feel the increase of speed. The 
 frangipani at Stralie's breast and head fell petal by 
 petal, leaving a track of scent as it descended through 
 
326 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the thick air; mystery of bud and bloom fell on his 
 breast and shoulder. They kissed again, she mur- 
 muring : 
 
 ' Oh, what madness ! What can I say to Frank ?' 
 
 And Gifford replied, intoxicated by the scent of her 
 hair : ' You smell sweet, like the Bush.' 
 
 It was a night full of light that seemed to be profluent 
 only to these two ; a night for action and for dreams ; 
 the wind alive with electric fragrance ; the moon over- 
 flowing the sky; the lime-range weathered black and 
 outlined argent ; the earth lying Danae-naked to the 
 firmament ; a night of clamant serenade and bloody 
 reive ; a night of dalliance and a night of spurs. 
 Stralie had the reverie, as physical as an opium dream ; 
 Gifford the half-sensible intoxication of her presence ; 
 and the white-starred stallion felt the joy of a brave 
 animal in his own speed, and his hoofs drummed on the 
 decomposed lime and alluvium as if it had been asphalt 
 on a bridge of steel. 
 
 Her head nuzzled to Gilford's breast again ; the light 
 wrap she wore about her shoulders streamed behind 
 their speed as a banderol on a high tower in a gale ; the 
 frangipani torn from her corsage exposed her beauty 
 still more to the searching moonlight, and Gifford 
 became quite mad. 
 
 He covered her face and bosom with kisses, till at 
 last, wakened from dreaming by fear, she forced herself 
 to the outer limit of his arm, and cried : 
 
 ' Take me back ! How dare you ! Take me back !' 
 
 He was all humility again, saying : ' Forgive me, 
 dear ; I'll stop him now.' 
 
 He pulled at the bridle, and The Flash shook his 
 head and increased his speed still further. What was 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 327 
 
 a bit to a horse used to fighting a stallion-bar ? Gifford 
 brought one rein round Stralie's waist, and pulled with 
 both hands and all his weight, and the gigantic stallion 
 set his jaw, took a full neck-length of rein, and thundered 
 on, resurgently thrilling. 
 
 ' Why don't you stop — oh, why don't you stop !' she 
 cried, and began to weep, knowing that if anything 
 could persuade him tears would. 
 
 Gifford pulled again, with less result than before. 
 
 ' I can't stop him,' he said. ' He's got rid of his curb- 
 chain, and I can't hold him.' 
 
 ' Then he's bolted ?' 
 
 'Ye-e-s. But don't fear, dear — don't fear. It's a 
 good road, and he has no vice. He'll run only till he's 
 tired.' 
 
 ' But I can't be back to-night. Oh, what shall I do ?' 
 
 ' It will be all right. Put your head down again. 
 All right, sweetheart, and I'll never trouble you again. 
 I'll go out back, down to the islands, over to the terri- 
 tory — anywhere, anything ; but for the love of God don't 
 cry, dear girl — don't cry !' 
 
 The joy of holding her, the intoxication of the night, 
 the great horse pulsating between his knees, took pos- 
 session of him. Moonlight, scented gale, the beloved, 
 a good track, and the stallion splendid ! Her breath 
 fluttered at his throat ; the hoof-beats drummed 
 musically. Wind ! light ! scent ! racket ! speed ! 
 strength ! ripple and swing ! 
 
CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 ' From a find to a check, from a check to a view, 
 From a view to a death in the morning.' 
 
 Under the poncianas and by the shealing of the 
 passion-vine Abbey called loudly for Stralie, and then 
 cooeed in perplexity. He naturally did not connect the 
 neigh and the hoof-noises of a dancing stallion with 
 Stralie's disappearance. At last he returned to Mrs. 
 Hempel, and that lady spoke of the disappearance in 
 excited tones that reached the ears of two slag-wheelers, 
 just off shift, who stopped at the door of the Divisional 
 Hall open-mouthed, looking at the bare-shouldered 
 women in a furtive downhill sort of way, as if the very 
 mild ball-dresses were indecent. 
 
 One of the slag-wheelers shifted awkwardly from one 
 foot to the other, and said : 
 
 ' There's a lady in white just got on a big black horse 
 with a man.' 
 
 ' A stallion with a white star ?' 
 
 ' Yes, mister, that's dead right. I saw his head plain.' 
 
 The Saxon phlegm of Abbey was lost in an energetic 
 madness that might have been native to Gifford. 
 
 ' That hound !' he said to Mrs. Hempel ; ' it must be 
 Gifford. The black horse is The Flash.' 
 
 ' Bring her back to-night, or she'll be scandalized out 
 of the north to-morrow.' 
 
 328 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 329 
 
 ' I will — I will, or I'll break my neck !' 
 
 He ran to where Charley Byers was replacing the bit 
 in his horse's mouth, talking affectionately to him the 
 while, calling the animal ' mate ' and ' old man.' The 
 Coppertails' dance was over, the lights out, most of the 
 dancers departed. Jim Johnson's voice was heard from 
 far muttering to the night of the glory of the old days ; 
 Annie Johns and Delia Mills, already mounted, waited 
 for Charley Byers; and Abbey put a hand on the 
 beautiful head of Charley Byers' bay, and said : 
 
 ' Charley, let me have your horse.' 
 
 ' Have my horse ? Sorry ; can't do it.' 
 
 ' I won't hurt him ; I'll take him easy ; I'll pay.' 
 
 ' He cost me seven quid, with a saddle and bridle thrown 
 in, and you can't have him for seven hundred pounds.' 
 
 ' Man, man, don't keep me waiting ; it's a matter of 
 life and death.' 
 
 ' Death for my horse.' 
 
 ' A fiver for him for the night.' 
 
 ' Not to my father !' 
 
 ' Give it to him, Charl,' said Annie. 
 
 ' Not much ; just as soon give him you.' 
 
 ' It's for his girl, Charley.' 
 
 ' His girl and my horse. No fear ! not for all the rice 
 in China.' 
 
 ' Good God ! I must have a horse. It's a matter of 
 life and death for a lady.' 
 
 Annie slipped from her saddle. 
 
 'Take mine, Mr. Abbey. I'll borrow one at the 
 Two Mile.' 
 
 ' Off with the saddle, Mr. Abbey,' said Byers, un- 
 buckling the girth and surcingle of his own saddle. 
 ' Take my saddle, and I'll go bareback.' 
 
330 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 They made the exchange with feverish hurry. 
 
 ' Better take your coat off, Mr. Abbey ; you can't ride 
 easy with those tails,' advised Annie Johns, while Abbey 
 buckled the girths, split a thumb-nail, and cursed at the 
 delay. 
 
 ' You'll look funny riding in that boiled shirt,' said 
 Delia Mills, laughing, with a suspicion of an unusual 
 malevolence in it — that beautifully soft and nervous 
 laugh of hers, as of a woman checking her lover in 
 the dark. 
 
 As he prepared to mount, Annie Johns became 
 business-like, lifted her left foot, and unstrapped the 
 spur, and gave it to him. 
 
 'You'll want it; that horse is a packer. She's as 
 lazy as a pig till you give her the hooks.' 
 
 He thanked her and the others in the one breath, 
 took off his coat, mounted, drove the little spur home, 
 and Charley Byers gave him a lithe gum-sucker as he 
 passed. 
 
 Annie Johns called to him again : 
 
 ' She's got no pace. She'll shake your brains up 
 when she gets going.' 
 
 The mare was so surprised that she pig-jumped a 
 little ; broke into a clumsy gallop, that seemed to shake 
 every hair on Abbey's head in a different direction ; 
 tried to run off the track ; and, balked in that, galloped 
 with her head at right angles to her body. As they 
 passed the Divisional Hall, where Mrs. Hempel stood 
 as if paralyzed, Abbey threw his coat to her, and at that 
 she recovered to the extent and ability to shriek at him 
 hysterical incoherencies, which he neither heard nor 
 understood. 
 
 Through the sand he nursed the clumsy gray — a very 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 331 
 
 circus horse in appearance — the mane and tail dyed a 
 deep orange by the dust of the long drought, a dye 
 that water would never remove — and a torture in motion. 
 She had no pace ; she could not trot nor gallop, nor 
 walk; her best pace was half the jog-trot of an old 
 stock-horse spoiled by black boys— half the pig-jump- 
 ing of a lazy packer suddenly surprised by a stock- 
 whip. 
 
 Once out of the heavy sand. Abbey surprised the 
 Orangeman — so called for her colour, and without 
 regard to sex — still more with spur and gum-sucker, 
 flogged her into an agonizing camel-like gallop, and 
 kept her so, anger serving to make him tireless. 
 
 He remembered Gifford's casual explanation of his 
 patience and self-effacement. 
 
 ' Good old Frank Abbey !' Gifford had said to Stralie, 
 ' always taking the back seat.' 
 
 ' He thinks I'm a worm,' said Abbey to himself, ' does 
 he. If I'm a worm, here goes for turning !' 
 
 He sent the spur home again, and the mare grunted 
 her pangs, and wished she could fall dead. 
 
 ' Get up ! . . , What ! you'll break, will you ? On 
 with you, you ginger-tailed cow !' 
 
 The moonlight had become less intense. The mare 
 galloped shudderingly, her wind coming in sobs, her 
 sweat blinding her ; but Abbey, usually very kindly to 
 all living things, beat her to the speed, and forced her 
 clumsy pace with the little spur. 
 
 Anger seemed to leave him, and be replaced by the 
 excitement of the chase — the desire to kill the game 
 when caught. When these ecstasies held him, he 
 spurred the mare raw; blood covered his boot-heel 
 and dripped from the rowel. 
 
332 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 The mare broke again and again, indifferent to the 
 spur or the whip on her flank, so that to keep her at a 
 fair pace Abbey whipped her on the head, curHng the 
 lithe gum-sucker around her nose till she sobbed at 
 every yard. 
 
 Then, from very fear that his mount would not last 
 out the long pursuit, he steadied her for half an hour, 
 and as the moon paled toward its setting, he heard the 
 noise of many hoofs before, thought he had caught the 
 impudent Roman and the beloved Sabine, called to the 
 mare joyfully, and spurred her to madness. 
 
 All the long habit of ambling through the days with a 
 hundredweight of tin oxide on either side of the pack- 
 saddle were forgotten ; the mare wrenched her head 
 low ; the black of her nostrils had disappeared in 
 lung-red. She tore down on the place of the hoof- 
 noises, and found a dozen team-horses that had been 
 playing elephantinely and running away from nothing 
 in the moonlight, gazing at her in stupid fear. 
 
 They did not look for long: the timidity of cats 
 assailed them ; they turned and thundered down the 
 road to Girofla, and the gray pursued them at an 
 incredible speed. 
 
 The cart-horses were too stupid to leave the track ; 
 they galloped clumsily only a few lengths ahead of 
 the nearly-spent Orangeman, biting each other in their 
 jostling, until at where the hill sweeps down to Girofla 
 and Opera Greek goes away south the exhausted draught 
 horses turned heart-brokenly into the lime-rocks, so 
 spent that destruction was preferable to another yard of 
 galloping. 
 
 Abbey swept on to Girofla and dismounted at John- 
 son's hotel. The mare, with her neck extended, and 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 333 
 
 breathing sparks, stood for a moment, shivered, and 
 then crashed down upon her side. 
 
 The township was in darkness, and Abbey was hope- 
 lessly at fault. He cursed the delay, and yet had to 
 bear it patiently — the hardest task of an active man in 
 time of stress. But daylight, which he thought would 
 never come — as if a miracle were to be ordained to balk 
 him — came at last, and he found a fresh horse and 
 picked up the tracks of those two-barred shoes he knew 
 the big stallion wore, and noted that where any shadow 
 had fallen on the track or a water-mark crossed it The 
 Flash had leaped like a kangaroo. 
 
 He traced the tracks to a rift in the lime range, past 
 the slaughter-yards, where the early crows were busy ; 
 put his. horse into a trot, and followed the track easily. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII 
 
 ' The fly that bites the tortoise breaks its beak.' 
 
 The Flash galloped on. As they descended the hill 
 into Girofla, silent, deserted, and dark, Gifford tried to 
 pull him again ; and the stallion, seeing a shadow in the 
 track, sprang like a greyhound over it, and partially 
 unseated his riders ; and so got all the rein for himself 
 again. 
 
 Gifford sat his mount with some knowledge now ; the 
 long tension and his anxiety for Stralie made him forget 
 that she was in his arms ; he was so devoted to the danger 
 that he almost forgot to hold her ; and she, now seeing 
 that there was more than the danger of scandal, made 
 up her mind, but almost unconsciously, that as she was 
 to have the blame she would have the price. She sank 
 into the angle of his protecting arm, sighed, gave her- 
 self up to the intoxication of his presence, but dully, as 
 if the anxiety and the danger were narcotics. 
 
 The Flash almost unseated them for the third time 
 as he suddenly left the main track, bending inward to 
 the cliifs that broke here into a narrow gap. There 
 was the town slaughter-yard ; the arms of the gallows, 
 black and threatening, a night-bird on the cross-bar 
 and another fluttering in the act of alighting. 
 
 334 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 335 
 
 The horse struck into a little plain of ant-hills— clay 
 agglomerations fifteen feet high, barring the moonlight 
 like monoliths. Beyond the plain they entered a long 
 stretch of spear-grass, and in it the campestral track 
 lay coiled and almost lost. 
 
 The nodding spear-grass bent its ten feet of stalk 
 under that irresistible surge, flogged the hands and 
 faces of the unlucky two, and wounded Gilford's head 
 and Stralie's neck and bosom with every biting awn ; the 
 horse was pricked to a new madness by every little 
 spear that struck him. Where the infrequent trees 
 were less than twenty feet apart the great yellow 
 spider had spun his tough web, thick and strong, and 
 yellow as skeins of raw silk, from trunk to trunk. They 
 raced between these bush-fire blackened trees as if they 
 were open gates leading to new prairies of spears ; and 
 when they raced so they tore the clammy web from the 
 trees and felt its sickening embraces on hands and face, 
 and the nauseating fear-bloated spiders scuttled over 
 them into the grass. 
 
 They skirted a long swamp, and near its end the 
 spear-grass and the ant-hills disappeared, and great 
 black outcrops of weathered limestone, grown about by 
 salt-bush, replaced them. Either a spider had stayed by 
 the horse or the spear-grass awns under the saddle 
 maddened him to despair; for he became blind and 
 suicidal, rushing up an outcrop — providentially almost 
 flat — and down again. Another and a greater outcrop 
 was directly in his track, but he seemed not to see it. 
 Gifford tried to wrench him, so that the fall that must 
 come would be in the soft swamp ; but the horse bored 
 to his old track, saw the great rock too late, tried to 
 leap it, struck it with his fore-feet, and crashed down on 
 
336 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 Gifford ; broke his own leg, and rolled on his rider in his 
 agony, Gifford had at the last moment of conscious- 
 ness thrown Stralie clear of danger; she lay in the 
 sedge grasses, wet to the skin by bog and dews. The 
 Flash rolled clear of Gifford, rose with one fore-leg 
 dangling, hopped to the drenched grasses by the 
 swamp, groaned, and fell down with his nostrils close to 
 the bog, sucking up the scent of the water he was too 
 spent to swallow. 
 
 In half-unconsciousness Stralie rose and tottered to 
 the limestone, where Gifford lay insensible. She felt 
 his brow — it was very cold — and then his head, but 
 could find no wound. 
 
 Suddenly he spoke. 
 
 ' I can't move, but I don't feel any pain, dear — I'm 
 numb.' 
 
 ' Oh, George ! You speak so strangely !' 
 
 She burst into tears, but recovered self-control 
 quickly. 
 
 ' Stralie, find whether there's a sharp rock under 
 me or not. I think I felt it when we first fell.' 
 
 She felt under him and found a sharp lime-rock, 
 tilted somehow and set on edge, so that the force of the 
 fall had made it as murderous as a poleaxe. And then 
 she knew that the mad lover of an hour ago had come 
 to wreck. 
 
 ' I thought so, dear. Don't grieve. I've been riding 
 for a fall all my life, Stralie. Kiss me, sweetheart.' 
 
 She stooped and kissed him, and said very com- 
 posedly : ' Let me make you comfortable.' 
 
 And at the wish he smiled. 
 
 She tore up the salt-bush and spread it, lifted him 
 from the wrecker rock with a strength that was new to 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 337 
 
 her, seated herself behind him, and drew his head to her 
 breast, and as she did so the silken ivory was blotted 
 crimson. She uttered a cry of love and pity. 
 
 ' Don't fret, dear. The cut in the head is less than it 
 looks, but the other has fixed me. I'm sent for.' 
 
 They lay silent while the moon foundered behind the 
 distant shadowy lime-range, and the night changed to a 
 new beauty of starlight. They heard the fugue of a 
 little runnel in the lime-rock suddenly brought to sound 
 by the giving way of a leafy barrage at the miniature 
 falls, the indescribable movement of great aggregations 
 of infinitely small life in the air, the grasses, and the 
 swamp. It was of many sounds, yet unisonant, even to 
 the batrachian stridor of the marsh. 
 
 Gifford lay quietly listening to all the sounds of life 
 at its weakest — the life he had so loved in all its 
 expressions — its highest, or its meanest ; and Stralie, 
 feeling by instinct all he thought, kissed him whenever 
 he stirred. 
 
 ' Stralie, I'm going to die.' 
 
 ' Oh, my dear — my dear ! don't talk so.' 
 
 ' I'm going to die, Stralie, and I don't think I'm 
 sorry.' 
 
 ' Now, I know you're going to be well. . . . And you 
 love life so, George.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know I did ! I do, for that matter. Life is 
 sweet to all, dear.' 
 
 ' Yes, my poor George.' 
 
 ' Do you remember what they say of the Volsung, 
 Ath's thrall !' 
 
 ' No, dear ; I don't think I ever knew it.' 
 
 ' He loved life, although his life was the meanest 
 slave's. When they forced him to the wars and 
 
338 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 promised him glory or death, he only wept at being 
 stolen from his beautiful life of herding swine.' 
 
 ' Life is sweet, and it was so sweet even last night. I 
 didn't think I'd ever see you again, George ; but I was 
 nearly happy.' 
 
 ' I could never have been " nearly happy " without 
 you, Stralie.' 
 
 She broke into weeping. 
 
 ' I was wrong. I thought too much of pride and 
 called it honour.' 
 
 * You were right, dear ; you were always right. I was 
 substantially guilty.' 
 
 'You weren't — you weren't. And if you had been 
 really guilty I had no right to break both our lives for 
 that. Women are always extreme, and I have lost my 
 chance for a silly ideal.' 
 
 'You mustn't talk against your nature, sweet- 
 heart.' 
 
 ' I was wrong, George. Girls expect too much from 
 men. They see very bad men like my father, and think 
 that the good men are just as extreme.' 
 
 ' You were right, Stralie — ^just right, always right ; 
 and I was always wrong.' 
 
 ' Oh, George, don't belittle yourself. You were the 
 only man for me, and I knew it ; but I was like the 
 other women — I had to guide myself by what some dead 
 women had done before me. Everybody I knew, 
 everything I read, told me that men were gods like you 
 or devils like my father. Nobody ever told me that 
 men were only men — not so constant as women, but 
 better than women might be if they had the man's 
 temptations.' 
 
 ' Don't, Stralie ! Let everything rest now.' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 339 
 
 ' I'm a selfish wretch, George. I won't talk like that 
 again.' 
 
 ' Let me kiss you, Stralie.' 
 
 She bent to him, and they kissed long and silently, 
 but without passion : passion had left them both, as if 
 that long night-gallop had exhausted their youth. 
 
 He laughed suddenly. 
 
 ' What is it, George ?' 
 
 ' To think of all the men I've seen go under, and I 
 lie here at last. There were a lot at Nigger Creek one 
 night. It was a cold night ; we all mulled our grog 
 with a red-hot dray-axle. Billy Matthews was there — 
 he's gone ; Ned the Prodigal was there — he's gone ; 
 John Sampson — he's gone ; and they all loved life so 
 much they used to grumble like babies about going to 
 bed and missing a little of it.' 
 
 ' Poor fellows ! Poor George ! Oh, why should 
 death be for the strong ?' 
 
 Her eyes showed as misty stars to the starlight ; she 
 saw Gilford's quiet smile through her own tears. 
 
 ' Because life is only for the strong. Do you think 
 the weak ever really live ? It's unjust enough to them 
 as it is, poor beggars !' 
 
 ' George, you'll get well. See how strong your 
 voice is ?' 
 
 ' I'm dying all the time, dear. There's no chance, 
 Stralie ! I knew it when we fell. . . . Don't fret ! 
 If I ever thought of death, I thought of it like this — to 
 die strong ! Poor Billy Matthews ! he died so weak 
 that he said he'd have been glad to roll off a cliff into 
 the sea, only that he hadn't the strength to roll. And 
 John Sampson died slowly of cancer — choked by cancer 
 in a hospital ; and he wanted to die clean and in the 
 
 22 — 2 
 
340 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 open, as Ned the Prodigal did. And here it all is — 
 clean starlight and clean dawn. It isn't kangaroo- 
 grass by a river, but it's a salt-bush cushion near a 
 swamp, and that's good.' 
 
 ' Oh, my George !' 
 
 Venus came, beckoning the sun, teasing the dawn 
 as a woman her lover with little flashing glimpses of 
 herself ; the Cross blazed brighter to show that it was 
 about to be withdrawn, its further pointer, Beta, 
 Centauri, ten thousand million worlds in size, blazing 
 for a moment like Arcturus, Canopus, and Antares all 
 in one. Gifford began to quote : 
 
 ' " The god Thor, sitting naked as a child, seven 
 
 stars in his right hand, and Charles's Wain " Kiss 
 
 me, Stralie.' 
 
 The marvellous stars moved as if they were in a stage 
 sky — the Cross was jerked below the horizon, and the 
 stars were taken away as if they had been suddenly 
 unhooked by a man in a hurry behind the scenes. 
 
 The light came, flushing all the east. A worker 
 bullock rang his bell among the ant-hills, came to the 
 lagoon, and drank ; another bell sounded afar off, and 
 the first bullock bellowed, telling his mate in yoke and 
 gyve the way to the water. 
 
 The dew stopped falling as suddenly as if a man had 
 turned off the tap that fed it. The half darkness 
 became dissilient ; the first beam of sunlight showed to 
 Gifford and Stralie, growing out of the lime-crop that 
 had shattered him, the reflorescent cotton-trees, whose 
 blood the sudden breaking of the drought had startled 
 into two blowths in the one year. Zamias fringed the 
 distant edge of the lagoon with crowns of deep Noah's 
 Ark pine-green; a hibiscus, growing bravely from a 
 rift in the lime, flamed by the stricken man. 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 341 
 
 Gifford looked at it, and sighed for the first time. 
 ' My blood used to burn like that, Stralie.' 
 
 A sorrow more poignant than before smote her for 
 this man, who had been spoiled by his own strength 
 and the luck that attended him, making the god-like 
 bound to the summit of happiness so often, but falling 
 to the abysm at last. 
 
 Words were useless. She held his head closer to her 
 naked breast, and shivered a little as the morning wind 
 struck her, though to that time grief and excitement 
 had prevented her feeling cold. Her dress was torn 
 and draggled, its corsage ripped to the waist ; and, 
 feeling the light on her, she tried to cover herself, but 
 without disturbing him. Failing other covering, she 
 drew the few pins which had not been lost, and her 
 hair fell about him like a perfumed night. 
 
 The sun grew into strength, warming their blood 
 again, and the stricken horse by the lagoon suddenly 
 lifted his head, looked back on their tracks through the 
 spear-grass, and neighed bravely to the mare. 
 
 ' It's Abbey,' said Gifford calmly. ' I'd like to stand 
 up to meet him.' 
 
 ' It isn't he, George. How could you know ?' 
 
 ' If I were he, Stralie, it would be I.' 
 
 The distant spear-grass parted, and Abbey rode out 
 of it, looking from side to side for the horse that 
 neighed. 
 
 ' Stand up, Stralie, and direct him.' 
 
 ' No, George. I'll meet him like this — I'm not a 
 coward.' 
 
 Her arms clasped him closer ; her face rose proudly. 
 
 ' Good girl ! Let me kiss you for the last time.' 
 
 She bent to him ; he kissed her on the lips, and as 
 she lifted her head again the old passion flickered in 
 
342 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 him, and he kissed the areola of her breast. She 
 drew away quickly with a half-exclamation, and then 
 schooled herself to sit calmly with the broken reiver 
 in her arms, while her orthodox lover galloped to 
 them across country, to the imminent danger of his 
 own neck. He had seen the woman bend over the 
 man, kissing him of her own will — an act that Abbey 
 knew had never been voluntary during their engage- 
 ment — and the sight maddened him. 
 
 They waited his coming quietly. Queachy with rage, 
 he threw himself from the saddle, almost before he had 
 stopped his horse. 
 
 ' You dog ! You dirty thief of other men's wives ! 
 Eh ! you think I'm Abbey the worm, don't you ?' 
 
 Stralie stopped him. ' Frank, George is dying : The 
 Flash rolled on him.' 
 
 ' And a good job too. . . . Yes, I know it's brutal. 
 Am I to be the only man in the world who smiles when 
 he's hurt ?' 
 
 ' Frank ! It was all unforeseen — and he's dying.' 
 
 ' Not yet,' said Gifford ; ' I'll take a long time to die. 
 Will you do me a favour, Frank ?' 
 
 ' I was going to do you the favour of a revolver shot.' 
 
 ' Will you give it to the horse ? He'll never be any 
 good again.' 
 
 Abbey drew the revolver and walked to The Flash, 
 whose ears cocked as his executioner approached. 
 
 ' Turn my head away, for God's sake !' said Giiford ; 
 and Stralie hid his face. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII 
 
 ' And carve on my breast a turtle-dove, 
 To signify that I died of love.' 
 
 In the little hospital at Girofla there was but one 
 patient for a month, and that patient Gifford. It had 
 to come so slowly ; his vitality fought it every inch of 
 the way, whether he would or no, so that the first 
 resignation passed, and was succeeded by a fierce 
 impatience to take this new track that offered — to say 
 the last good-byes, and buckle the last strap, and ride 
 outward to find the new. 
 
 Then, as he thought of Stralie, he was shaken by a 
 burning desire to live ; he begged the surgeon to patch 
 him, to build a new man, to make any experiment on 
 his broken body — he was ready for any risk. 
 
 Then that passed, and he knew that, not only was 
 the bitter track ready for his feet, but that the sweets 
 of independent action were for ever gone ; another 
 force and not he himself — his own brain and desire — 
 something even more foreign than his vagrom impulses 
 would tell him when to go and how to address himself 
 to sleep. 
 
 In the last days Red Mick had come there for treat- 
 ment — a man pain-twisted, but merry still. 
 
 ' What's the matter ?' asked Gifford, speaking from 
 his bed to his one neighbour. 
 
 343 
 
344 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Foolishness — strained me inside.' 
 ' How ?' 
 
 Red Mick blushed. ' Oh ! Well, there was a flash 
 bloke jumpin' off a box with a two-hundred-pound bag 
 o' flour, an' somebody said I was the strongest man, 
 an' we had a quid on it that I could jump with a two- 
 hundred-pound bag up from my waggon on to another 
 one, 'bout four feet away. So I did it, but I strained 
 me back.' 
 
 Gifford smiled. ' Now, just imagine you doing a 
 flash thing like that.' 
 
 ' Well, yer see, it wasn't flashness. Deelyer was 
 lookin' on.' 
 'Oh!' 
 
 * Yes — standin' on the veranda of Bunnie's pub.' 
 ' And did she take any notice of it ?' 
 The Red Man flushed again. ' Yes ; she nursed me 
 for two days till I come here.' 
 ' Good girl.' 
 
 ' My word! she is. And when I come out I'm goin' 
 to sling the old game. I've got a nice bit, and we'll go 
 homestead-le asin'. ' 
 ' Good man. You'll get on, too. 
 ' I hope so. Wouldn't like her to be hard up, and 
 get ugly and sun-dried, like some o' the lizards o' women 
 y' see between here an' the coast.' 
 
 Daven came from the South as fast as steam could 
 carry him the two thousand five hundred miles, and 
 brought Gifford's mother with him, and forgot the wife 
 he had left behind in his sorrow for his friend. In the 
 grief of the knowledge that there was to be no more a 
 David, but only a lonely Jonathan, his wife was as if she 
 had never been. He blamed himself for his friend's 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 345 
 
 wreck. ' If I had been here I'd have held him in and 
 saved him,' said he. 
 
 And Delia Mills came to the hospital day after day 
 till Red Mick was discharged with a bewildering number 
 of cautions, and saw Gifford, and looked at him as if 
 she wished to know his face so well that she could never 
 forget him ; but said little. The day after the Red 
 One's discharge she came alone and asked the nurse to 
 leave them together, and with as little self-consciousness 
 as if she were confessing to herself, told him all and 
 plainly that which she had only hinted at Eclipse 
 Corner. He said, 'Poor Delia!' without any trace of 
 pity for his own ending. Then she lost control of her- 
 self for a moment, and kissed him, and left in confusion, 
 saying she would come again to-morrow. But there 
 was to be no to-morrow. Daven came, and knew it 
 with the intuition of affection. 
 
 ' See you to-morrow, George,' he said at parting. 
 
 ' I hope so. Jack, but I'm as weak as water to-day. 
 I think it's dead finish.' 
 
 Then Daven looked around to see if there were any 
 witnesses — for he had a Red Indian's shame of showing 
 emotion — and seeing none, stooped and kissed his mate 
 for the first time and the last. 
 
 Stralie had stayed by him late that evening, repeating 
 that she would never leave him again. 
 
 ' You must go, dear.' 
 
 ' I won't ! Oh ! what a fool I was not to forgive 
 anything ! Oh, George ! George !' 
 
 ' You must go, dearest. There ! there ! Don't fret, 
 sweetheart.' 
 
 Then Abbey came in and took Gifford's hand. 
 
 ' Take her away, Frank. . . . Yes, come to-morrow, 
 both of you — in the afternoon.' 
 
346 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 ' Won't they come in the morning, Mr. Gifford ?' 
 asked the nurse. 
 
 ' No ; I said the afternoon purposely. I'll be dead at 
 sunrise, nurse.' 
 
 'You,' said the nurse — 'you're worth a dozen dead 
 men yet.' 
 
 She might have told him with equal assurance that 
 he was worth a million dead men, who are worth just 
 nothing. 
 
 But next dawn — at that moment when the painted 
 finches began their day of flash, colour, and shriek in 
 the cotton-trees, and the hawks sprang to the blue and 
 hung there with wings half-furled and eyes greedy of 
 prey — the night-nurse and Gifford's mother saw the 
 change on the face of the waking man. The nurse 
 called the wardsman. 
 
 ' Bring the screen, Dobson.' 
 
 Gifford woke, and smiled at them. Then he saw the 
 screen of death opening its leaves, and his lip trembled 
 and his eyelids quivered. He loved it all, even yet. 
 The wardsman stopped, irresolute. 
 
 The time for the last track had come. He knew it ; 
 while he died in his heart, his brain was good for a 
 minute after that. 
 
 ' Open the screen, Dobson,' said the night-nurse ; 
 ' Mr. Gifford won't hear you.' 
 
 But Gifford did hear. He tried to open his eyes 
 again, and could only flutter them. Fate had buckled 
 the last strap. He revolted for an instant, and then 
 obeyed for the first time, going down the new track to 
 fight his giant in the dark, to the true hell, which is 
 the grave — the hidden place, the trench filled by forget- 
 fulness with the forgotten. 
 
CHAPTER XLIX 
 
 ' Surely love is cruel. He sucked a wolf's paps, and in a thicket 
 his mother reared him.' 
 
 Stralie had stayed at Emu Rock while her friend 
 wS-ited her husband's completion of the few months' 
 work after the general eviction necessary to complete 
 the failure of Coocooroo, and Abbey had stayed also, 
 constant as a shadow. Her own loneliness and her pity 
 for Abbey had made her capitulate. The race was to 
 the slow : Abbey was to be her husband after all. He 
 looked at her, knowing that though she was content to 
 marry him, she could never love him as she had loved 
 Gifford; that in the days to come, when she had 
 mothered children, she would love him in the calm 
 fashion of the middle-aged, while they were both yet 
 young. He knew that this very human jealousy of his 
 against the dead would blaze and flicker and smoulder 
 by turns all their lives ; that all his devotion and single- 
 heartedness would be slow to destroy her yearning 
 memories of the man whose carelessness had led him 
 away from happiness, and to his death. 
 
 They were seated on the veranda at Hempel's house 
 at Emu Rock ; not together like lovers, but separated by 
 the bulging mass of the starlit night. There were fireflies 
 in the oranges ; the scent of the frangipani came up from 
 
 347 
 
348 THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 
 
 the moist earth and smote StraHe back to the memory 
 of that mad gallop in the lime, and made her forgetful of 
 Abbey just as she was softening to him. And at the 
 returned memory she sat back in her chair, and wondered 
 if that perfume would always bring to her dreams of the 
 presence of the mad galloper. She could feel again the 
 broken petals and volutes falling from her hair as he had 
 clasped her to him, while the big black horse surged 
 beneath them like an angry sea. She felt that wild kiss 
 still burning on her breast. 
 
 And then down the road came Charley Byers and 
 Annie Johns, quarrelling, and making it up again, as 
 usual. They had had their third quarrel that night as 
 they passed the house by Emu Rock, and now they 
 were making up in a hurry, being too near home and 
 separation to prolong it to luxury. 
 
 ' You'll always love me, won't you, Charl ?' 
 
 ' Always, pet.' 
 
 ' We won't quarrel any more ?' 
 
 ' No more, pet.' 
 
 ' You always say that. I s'pose when you say you 
 love me you don't mean it any more than the other ?' 
 
 * Yes, I do, Annie. Give us a kiss.' 
 
 ' I won't. All you men are alike. Mother says her 
 husband always told her he loved her before they 
 married, but after — oh, he treated her dreadful !' 
 
 'Which husband?' 
 
 ' Both of 'em : my father and this one — ^Jimmy.' 
 
 ' I'm not like them, Annie. Give us a kiss.' 
 
 ' Sure you won't treat me badly ?' 
 
 ' Course I won't. Why, I couldn't treat you badly. 
 I love you.' 
 
 ' Do you, really ?' 
 
THE SNARE OF STRENGTH 349 
 
 ' Of course. Give us a kiss.' 
 
 ' Well, I suppose you do. And these unhappy couples 
 couldn't have loved really.' 
 
 ' Course they didn't. We do, though. Give us a kiss.' 
 
 They kissed — standing not thirty feet from Abbey and 
 Stralie, who were hidden in the gloom of the veranda 
 — and kissed again, satisfied they were the only two who 
 had ever known, or would know, love, which they rather 
 believed they had invented, whereas, indeed, love had 
 invented them. 
 
 ' There ! Don't squeeze too hard, Charl. • . . There, 
 that '11 do. . . . Come on. . . . Mother '11 be wait- 
 ing. . . . Oh, COME ON !' 
 
 Cupid pulled the strings of his two most recent 
 puppets, and they danced a school-girl's toe-trip down 
 the road to Girofla. 
 
 THE END 
 
 BILLING ANU SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILCFORD