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On every selection, as it came into Marmot's mind, there was work going on work that made the tanned skins of the workers glisten with the beads of sweat; work that made moving pictures against a background of nature at rest. Inside the selection houses the women did their share, and sometimes outside as well.
It has never been quite settled whether or not the lodger and the landlord agree pleasantly together, but in the absence of any positive evidence they may be given credit for perfect amiability; because nobody has found traces of owl in a dead marmot's interior, nor of marmot in an owl's. But the rattlesnake is another thing.
The unsuspecting whistler fed into the little field, passed behind the rock, and was out of sight for just a second. At that instant the bear came to life, leaped to his feet and dashed toward the den beneath the rock, cutting off the marmot's retreat. Too late the quarry saw the bear. It made a frantic dash for home and shelter, its fat body working desperately, its short legs flying.
Many a hard-working selector, who remembered his parched paddocks and bony stock, thought of throwing in his lot with the men he had formerly referred to as gully-rakers, when he saw the lavish expenditure, not only at the Rest, but at Marmot's, made possible by the gold they had won. Nor were the establishments at either end of the township alone in profiting.
But the fight was won, and when dawn came it only showed the heap of wood ash and twisted sheets of galvanized iron which was all that remained of Marmot's store and streaks of black running out into the paddock beyond and along the fences, with now and again a tree either leafless and charred, or with the leaves brown and scorched, showing where the fire had for a moment obtained a footing and striven to gain a hold, from whence it could spread in every direction, to reap, with its sickles of flame, the rich harvest in a wild, unrestrained orgy and blast, not only Nature's, but man's, handiwork into a dreary sadness of blackened desolation.
He waits till the residence has been made perfectly comfortable, and then comes in himself; not in the friendly capacity of a lodger, but as a sort of unholy writter a scaly man-in-possession. He eats the marmot's family and perhaps the marmot himself: curling himself up comfortably in the best part of the drawing-room.
The Mongols take advantage of the marmot's curiosity in an amusing and even more effective way. With a dogskin tied to his saddle the native rides over the plain until he reaches a marmot colony. He hobbles his pony at a distance of three or four hundred yards, gets down on his hands and knees, and throws the dogskin over his shoulders.
They were off, anywhere and everywhere, as soon as they could get their swags together; and Marmot's fellow-townsmen lavished praise upon him for his astuteness, as they saw the last of the angry crowd depart. Some few stayed. Tony stopped Peters, and Palmer Billy stayed too, arguing vigorously against their tardiness in starting, till he calmed down and understood.
One man went out to see what had caused the stir. He dashed back into the room with a white, scared face and startled eyes. "Marmot's store's afire!" he shouted. Helter-skelter the men rushed out, Tony and his mates in front. On the rise at the end of the township the flames gleamed as they flared from the wooden building, which burned like matchwood.
That was a further irritant, for Tony remembered only too clearly the state of Murray's horse when he and Peters rode up to Marmot's, as well as the uneasiness in Murray's manner when they asked him who he had told of their return.
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