air of great mystery, and no news whatever.

They fixed old Mac on a shake-down in the Commercial Room, where he'd
have light and some overflow guests on the sofas for company. With a
last whisky in the bar, and a stiff whisky by his side on the floor,
he was understood to chuckle to the effect that he knew he was all
right when he'd won "the keystone o' the brig." Though how a wooden
bridge with a level plank floor could have a keystone I don't
know--and they were too much impressed by the event of the evening to
inquire. And so, with a few cases of hysterics to occupy the
attention of the younger women, some whimpering of frightened children
and comforting or chastened nagging by mothers, some unwonted prayers
muttered secretly and forgettingly, and a good deal of subdued
blasphemy, Cunnamulla sank to its troubled slumbers--some of the
sleepers in the commercial and billiard-rooms and parlours at the
Royal, to start up in a cold sweat, out of their beery and hypnotic
nightmares, to find Harry Chatswood making elaborate and fearsome
passes over them with his long, gaunt arms and hands, and a flaming
red table-cloth tied round his neck.

To be done with old Mac, for the present. He made one or two more
trips, but always by daylight, taking care to pick up a swagman or a
tramp when he had no passenger; but his "conveections" had had too
much of a shaking, so he sold his turnout (privately and at a
distance, for it was beginning to be called "the haunted van") and
returned to his teams--always keeping one of the lads with him for
company. He reckoned it would take the devil's own hypnotism to move
a load of fencingwire, or pull a wool-team of bullocks out of a bog;
and before he invoked the ungodly power, which he let them believe he
could--he'd stick there and starve till he and his bullocks died a