"I once done a man in Victoria," he said, "when I was shepherding; he
found me out taking his fat sheep, and was going to inform on me, so
I done him with an axe, and put him away so as nobody could ever find
him."
The squatter thought that Nosey's story was mostly blowing,
especially that part of it referring to the murder. No man who had
really done such a deed, would be so foolish as to confess it to a
stranger.
Another man was engaged to work at the station. As soon as he saw
Nosey he exclaimed, "Hello, Nosey, is that you?"
"My name is not Nosey."
"All right; a name is nothing. We are old chums, anyway."
That night the two men had a long talk about old times. They had
both served their time in the island, and were, moreover, "townies,"
natives of the same town at home. Nosey began the conversation by
saying to his old friend, "I've been a bad boy since I saw you last
--I done a man in Victoria"; and then he gave the full particulars
of his crime, as already related. But the old chum could not believe
the narrative, any more than did the squatter.
"Well, Nosey," he said, "you can tell that tale to the marines."
In the meantime the runs around Lake Nyalong had been surveyed by the
government and sold. In the Rises the land was being subdivided and
fenced with stone walls, and there was a chance that Baldy's grave
might be discovered if one of the surveyed lines ran near it, for the
stonewallers picked up the rocks as near as possible to the wall they
were building, and usually to about the distance of one chain on each
side of it.
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