Anyhow, as we heard the quick light tread of the horse pacing in his two-feet-on-one-side way over the sandy, thin-grassed soil, every moment coming nearer and nearer, and this queer dismal-voiced bird hooting its hoarse deep notes out of the dark tree that swished and sighed-like in front of the sand-hill, a queer feeling came over both of us that something unlucky was on the boards for us. We felt quite relieved when the horse’s footsteps stopped. After a minute or so we could see a dark form creeping towards the hut.

CHAPTER XI

Warrigal left his horse at the edge of the timber, for fear he might want him in a hurry, I suppose. He was pretty “fly,” and never threw away a chance as long as he was sober. He could drink a bit, like the rest of us, now and then—not often—but when he did it made a regular devil of him—that is, it brought the devil out that lives low down in most people’s hearts. He was a worse one than usual, Jim said. He saw him once in one of his break-outs, and heard him boast of something he’d done. Jim never liked him afterwards. For the matter of that he hated Jim and me, too. The only living things he cared about were Starlight and the three-cornered weed he rode, that had been a “brumbee,” and wouldn’t let anyone touch him, much less ride him, but himself. How he used to snort if a stranger came near him! He could kick the eye out of a mosquito, and bite, too, if he got the chance.

As for Warrigal, Starlight used to knock him down like a log if he didn’t please him. but he never offered to turn upon him. He seemed to like it, and looked regular put out once when Starlight hurt his knuckles against his hard skull.

Us he didn’t like, as I said before—why, I don’t know—nor we him. Likes and dislikes are curious things. People hardly know the rights of them. But if you take a regular strong down upon a man or woman when you first see ‘em it’s ten to one that you’ll find some day as you’ve good reason for it. We couldn’t say what grounds we had for hating the sight of Warrigal neither, for he was as good a tracker as ever followed man or beasts. He could read all the signs of the bush like a printed book. He could ride any horse in the world, and find his way, day or night, to any place he’d ever once been to in his life.

Sometimes we should have been hard pushed when we were making across country at night only for him. Hour after hour he’d ride ahead through scrub or forest, up hill or down dale, with that brute of a horse of his—he called him “Bilbah”—ambling away, till our horses, except Rainbow, used to shake the lives out of us jogging. I believe he did it on purpose.