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He has carried himself that high they won't stand him. Who's Heathcote?" "Name some who are his enemies." "There's the Brownbies." "Oh, the Brownbies. Well, it's a bad thing to have enemies." After that he left the sugar-house and went across to the cottage. Two days and two nights passed without fear of fire, and then Harry Heathcote was again on the alert.
A fire that should have passed for a mile or so across the pastures outside and beyond his own farm would be altogether unextinguishable by the time that it had reached his paddock. The Brownbies, as he knew well, would care nothing for burning a patch of their own grass. Their stock, if they had any at the present moment, were much too few in number to be affected by such a loss.
"I'll take my chance of that," said Harry, turning to his work again. "No, I'm blessed if you do. Ride over him, Bos, while I stop these other fellows." The Brownbies had been aware that Harry's two boundary riders were with him, but had not heard of the arrival of Medlicot and the other man.
Of some such it might be said, that though they were above the arts by which the Brownbies lived, they were not very scrupulous themselves; and it perhaps served them to have within their ken neighbours whose morality was lower even than their own. But to such a one as Harry Heathcote the Brownbies were utterly abominable. He was for the law and justice at any cost.
The Brownbies had not a yard of fencing to be burned; and a fire, if once it got a hold on the edge of their run, would pass on away from them, right across Harry's pastures and Harry's fences. If such were the case, he would have quite enough to do to drive his sheep from the fire, and it might be that many of them also would perish in the flames.
If he could have but one true friend, he thought that he could bear the enmity of all the Brownbies. Hitherto he had been entirely alone in his anxiety. It was between three and four when he reached Gangoil, and he found that the party of horsemen had just entered the yard before him. The sugar planter was so weak that he could hardly get off his horse.
As has been before said, Medlicot's plantation was about fourteen miles distant from the house at Boolabong, and the distance from the Gangoil house to that of the Brownbies was about the same. The oppressiveness of the day was owing more to the hot wind than to the sun itself. This wind, coming from the arid plains of the interior, brought with it a dry, suffocating heat.
After Heathcote's departure it had occurred to Sergeant Forrest of the police and the suggestion, having been transferred from the sergeant to the stipendiary magistrate, was now produced with magisterial sanction that, after all, there was no evidence against the Brownbies.
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