Caleb was concentrating on making his way down the meandering path to the creek without placing too much pressure on his injured leg, so he didn’t hear Penrose’s warning shout until too late. Only instinct made him jump back at the very moment a long, dark snake rose up from the path and lunged at him. Something hit his boot.

Penrose rushed forward brandishing a large stick. The snake decided discretion was the better part of valour and slithered off the path, disappearing into the bracken with a flick of its tail.

His heart hammering, Caleb swallowed and forced himself to look at his boot. Mercifully, the animal had struck hard leather, leaving a dribble of milky substance on the brown surface, but it could so easily have been his hand or his exposed forearm.

‘What was that?’ He found his voice at last.

‘A tiger snake, I think. It must have been sunning itself on the path.’

‘Dangerous?’

‘Very. If it had got your leg, you would be dead. They are a devil in the mine workings—they get behind wood stacks or stone piles. There are some nasty spiders too. One of the men up at the Maiden’s Creek Mine got bitten by a red-back spider and was dead by the end of the week.’

Caleb whistled. ‘I thought bears and wolves were a problem.’

‘They probably are, but at least you can see them coming. These beasts can be anywhere. You have to watch where you walk in the bush.’

Caleb looked in the direction the reptile had taken. Now his fright had dissipated, curiosity set in. ‘What do you do if you’re bitten?’

Penrose shrugged. ‘Bowen would tell you the only treatment is the cut-and-suck method.’

Caleb frowned. ‘Wouldn’t you risk swallowing the venom?’

‘I’m an engineer, not a bloody doctor. Get a move on. We haven’t got all day.’

The creek, marked on the map but not named, ran through an unspoiled gully of tree ferns, bracken and tall mountain ash. After the blighted slopes around Maiden’s Creek, Pretty Sally seemed a lovely, peaceful place.

But not without evidence of habitation. There was the beginning of an adit—a horizontal passage cut into rock to access a mine—in the side of the hill. Below it, on the creek bank, they found a well-used campfire and the detritus of human occupation.

Penrose stooped and held a hand over the coals. His eyes widened. ‘Still warm,’ he said.

‘If it’s that bloody Hannigan—’ Caleb began.