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.