“‘That’s just exactly what we want to do, McAdoo,’ he answered, and it almost seemed as if he was going to pat the ruffian on the shoulder, ‘but we want to take a head or so in return.’ He smiled genially into the wicked face, and actually _turned his back_ upon the man and walked in through the gate as if entering the compound of an old friend. Perhaps something told him that I had a hand on the butt of my revolver.
“Once inside the stockade Lynch pushed matters; in fact, he carried it to the verge of spoiling everything; but, you see, Doctor, if this McAdoo had possessed the wit of a cockroach, or had been a little more lacking in that hereditary feudal instinct which made him uncomfortable in spite of himself in the presence of a gentleman, he might easily have slipped away and arranged our assassination, and this was precisely what Lynch did not intend that he should do. He told me afterwards that, like _Javert_ in ‘Les Miserables,’ he was born with an instinct for a criminal, but I do not credit this particularly, as I myself could deduct that this man McAdoo had more reason than mere surliness of disposition for not wishing us to stop at the mission-house. You see, it had to be a mission; it was either that or a fort; there was nothing there for which to trade.
“All of this had entered my mind, just as it had Lynch’s; but, although apparently careless, Lynch was in reality a painstaking man.
“We had entered the stockade, an enclosure of some size, in the middle of which stood a bungalow, which had once been pretty and which was evidently far older than the structure surrounding it. There was not a soul in sight, yet one had the feeling of furtive eyes peering from behind slanted jalousies. Lynch looked about him critically.
“‘Quite like an Australian ranch-house, is it not, Doctor?’ he remarked; then turned sharply to our host. ‘Have you ever been in Australia, friend McAdoo?’
“One could see the man’s heavy jowl drop a trifle beneath his coarse, red beard; his face looked flaccid—just for the second, and then the blood came pouring back until the veins across the side of his forehead became distended. His pale, little eyes began to dance, just as those of a hog when he is about to make a rush—you know the look.