And Langholm stood very still in the dark, for now he knew who this man was, and what manner of evidence he might furnish, and against whom. The missing links in his own secret chain, what if these were about to be given to him by a miracle, who had discovered so much already by sheer chance! It seemed impossible; yet his instinct convinced Langholm of the nature of that which was to come. Without another word he stood until he could trust himself to speak carelessly, while the colonist made traditional comparisons between the old country as he found it and the one which he wished he had never left. "I know you," said Langholm, when he paused. "You're the man I saw 'knocking down your check,' as you called it, at an inn near here called the Packhorse." "I am so!" cried the fellow, with sudden savagery. "And do you know where I got the check to knock down? I believe he's a friend of yours; it's him I've come to talk to you about to-night, and he calls himself Steel!" "Isn't it his real name?" asked Langholm, quickly. "Well, for all I know, it is. If it isn't, it ought to be!" added Abel, bitterly. "You knew him in Australia, then?" "Knew him? I should think I did know him! But who told you he was ever out there? Not him, I'll warrant!" "I happen to know it," said Langholm, "that's all. But do you mean to tell me that it was Mr. Steel to whom you referred in your letter?" "I do so!" cried Abel, and clinched it with an oath. "You said 'they.'" "But I didn't mean anybody else." Langholm lowered his voice. Neither foot nor hoof had passed or even sounded in the distance. There was scarcely a whisper of the trees; an ordinary approach could have been heard for hundreds of yards, a stealthy one for tens. Langholm had heard nothing, though his ears were pricked. And yet he lowered his voice. "Do you actually hint that Mr. Steel has or could have been a gainer by Mr. Minchin's death?" Abel pondered his reply. "What I will say," he declared at length, "is that he might have been a loser by his life!" "You mean if Mr. Minchin had gone on living?" "Yes--amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?" "You are not thinking of--of Mrs. Steel?" queried Langholm, after pausing in his turn. "Bless you, no! She wasn't born or thought of, so far as we was concerned, when we were all three mates up the bush." "Ah, all three!" "Steel, Minchin, and me," nodded Abel, as his cutty glowed. "And you were mates!" "Well, we were and we weren't: that's just it," said Abel, resentfully. "It would be better for some coves now, if we'd all been on the same footin' then. But that we never were. I was overseer at the principal out-station--a good enough billet in its way--and Minchin was overseer in at the homestead. But Steel was the boss, damn him, trust Steel to be the boss!" "But if the station was his?" queried Langholm. "I suppose it was a station?" he added, as a furious shower of sparks came from the cutty.