"Drowned?" she asked wonderingly.
"No, not drowned; he had been shot."
She shuddered and gripped his hand.
"They did not——" she began brokenly. "They—it was not because he was—escaping?"
"They found him," he said gently. "He was lying in the water—the shot had been fired from behind him."
For a time she sat silent, still holding his hand firmly.
"Where is he now?" she asked presently.
"They brought him in and Durham came across to tell you. Will you——"
"No, no. Oh, no," she interrupted as she shuddered and hid her face in her hands.
Presently she raised her eyes to his.
"It is better so," she said. "They may find out now that he was innocent; they would have condemned him had he been taken alive."
He laid a hand on hers without speaking.
With a quick gesture she raised it to her lips.
"Oh, Fred, what a friend you have been to me!" she murmured.
Late into the night the townsfolk of Waroona stood in knots and groups in the roadway discussing the mystery surrounding the death of Eustace.
Until the closing hour compelled the hotelkeepers to turn their customers out, the bars were crowded and a roaring trade was done, all the loose cash in the place passing into the tills which were full to overflowing.
Everyone had a theory, which differed from that of everyone else, but as one after the other told his particular views on the question and heard them criticised and discussed, and heard also the views of others, there was a rapid falling off in individual opinions and a tendency to concentrate on one or two which withstood the test of criticism the best.
On one point there was unanimity of opinion. Eustace and the man with the yellow beard had been in league. They had robbed the bank together, Eustace having drugged the other inmates so that there should be no chance of the work being disturbed.
Eustace had also participated in the robbery and outrage at Taloona. He it was, the townsmendecided, who had his face hidden by the handkerchief mask. The indifference of his companion whether his face was seen or not suggested to them a stranger, one who was not known in the district, but who had come there for the purpose of carrying out the robbery of the bank.
When the first sum of twenty-five thousand was so successfully secured, Eustace would know that the Bank, for its own protection, would have to hurry forward another similar sum to meet the obligation of its client. He would know that old Dudgeon would refuse to leave it in charge of the Bank, and would decline any police protection even if it were offered. Therefore, the crowd argued, he and his companion had waited until they could make a dash for that second sum.
So far the events as they knew them corroborated their views. There had been the attack on Taloona; the second sum of money had been stolen and the rough treatment meted out both to old Dudgeon and the sub-inspector showed that the two outlaws were men who were prepared to play a desperate game to preserve their liberty and booty.
It was this desperation which gave the most popular clue to the solution of the mystery surrounding the death of Eustace.
The money, fifty thousand pounds in all, had been safely carried off to the hiding-place the robbers had chosen. In addition to the money there were other articles, and over the division of this spoil there had been a quarrel. Eustace had gone down, probably taken unawares, seeing that he had beenshot in the back. Little as anyone sympathised with him in the course he had followed, there was a feeling of resentment against his companion for having obviously taken a mean advantage over the man who had thrown in his lot with him. A quarrel was possible at any time, even so deadly a quarrel as would result fatally for one or other of the combatants; but at least it should have been fairly conducted.
Thereafter the completion of the story was easy.
The victor had emptied his victim's pockets of everything except the incriminating handkerchief—leaving that, perchance, to fasten upon him a part responsibility of the Taloona outrage; had taken the body on his horse and ridden with it to the ford, dropping it in the middle of the stream where it was bound to be discovered by the first person passing that way.
There was a callousness, a cynical indifference to all human instincts in this method of disposing of his victim, which deepened the feeling of resentment against the assassin who everyone held to be the unknown man with the yellow beard. To have left the body where it fell would have been less brutal than to flaunt it in the face of police and public as a taunt and a mockery. Following the outburst of amazement which the discovery had aroused, there came a sense of bitter hostility against the man who had done this, to their minds, needless act of savagery.
As Brennan passed to and fro he was assailed with questions as to what the sub-inspector was goingto do. Volunteers on all sides offered their services to scour the range, where all believed the murderer was hiding, and ride him down. But Brennan would say nothing. The sub-inspector had barely spoken since he returned to the station; but if he wanted help he would not hesitate to appeal for it, Brennan told them, adding that they need not worry—the criminal who could outwit the sleuth-hound of the force was not yet born.
"But the Rider of Waroona is no fool," one of the men remarked.
"Neither is Sub-Inspector Durham," Brennan retorted.
Gale, who was standing in the group listening to the remarks made, but advancing no theory of his own, spoke out for the first time.
"I'm not so sure," he said. "He may be smart enough in following up town robberies, but he hasn't done much here yet. Twice he has come in contact with the pair, and each time they have got ahead of him. He stops everyone else from doing anything. I offered to go out with a dozen men and scour the range, but he wouldn't hear of it—that was before he was cornered at Taloona."
"Don't you worry," Brennan replied. "The sub-inspector knows what he is doing."
He passed away from the group and the men turned to Gale.
"That's what I don't follow," one of them said. "The chap must be hiding somewhere with that white horse of his. Why not scour the range for him?"
"Brennan told me he didn't believe there was a white horse—that it was all a yarn," another exclaimed.
"Well, I saw it," Gale retorted. "I saw it on the Taloona road. I'd have gone after it only I was in a buggy and it vanished into the bush."
"Is the range the only place you'd look, Mr. Gale?" one of the men asked.
"No," Gale replied. "I'd look there first, and then I'd go the other way."
"Taloona way?"
"Well, not far off."
"That's what I think," the man went on. "Old Crotchety takes the loss of his money too quietly to please me. He's a pretty fly old chap and does not stop at a trifle to get his own back."
"Like he did when he fired you out, Davy," someone exclaimed, and there was a general laugh, for the story of how Davy had been sent about his business at a moment's notice by Dudgeon was one of the stock anecdotes of the district.
"Oh, that's as it may be," Davy retorted, "but I know too much about the old man to trust him very far."
"Do you think he's the Rider?" Gale exclaimed.
"No, but he may know who the Rider is—there are plenty of men who'd do the job for a round sum down."
"But how about Eustace?"
"Oh, well, that would be a bit of luck to get him to join. They may have thrown him over when he was no more use to them, and then there may havebeen a row and somebody's gun may have gone off a bit too soon. You never know. But anyhow, I'm with you when you say things look as if they are getting too much for the police to handle."
"That's all very fine, Davy, but what I'd like to know is why the old man got shot? Did he pay a man to do that?"
"Of course he didn't," Davy exclaimed. "I had a yarn with one of the troopers about that. He told me what the sub-inspector said in his report. Maybe that's something you don't know."
It was, and the attention of the group concentrated on Davy, much to his satisfaction.
"Go on, let's have the yarn," someone said impatiently, and there was a chorus of assent from the others.
"This is what happened," Davy went on. "The Rider and his mate—Eustace, as I believe—came into the hut to settle the sub-inspector. As a blind they put handcuffs on the old man and were going to do the same with Durham when he, finding himself cornered again, made a fight for it. One of the chaps fired, meaning to finish him, but missed and hit the old man instead. Then, in the fight, the lamp was upset and the place in a blaze. Durham got a crack on the head and staggered outside, and before the others could get the old man out of the place the troopers arrived, and they had to bolt to save their own skins. That is pretty much what Conlon told me was in the sub-inspector's report. It was after hearing it I suspected the old chap."
The group was silent as Davy ceased.
"You've got the bulge on us this time," one of them remarked presently. "Why didn't you tell the yarn before?"
"Because it was told to me in confidence—I knew Conlon years ago in the South. But now this other thing's happened it makes all the difference, doesn't it?"
"But how about the money, Davy?" Gale asked. "That had gone, you know; I saw the place where it had been dug up."
"Did you? You saw a hole in the ground; but how do you know the money was ever in it? And how could two chaps carry away a lot of loose bags of money on horseback?"
"That's so," one of the group cried. "I reckon Davy's on the right track this time."
"Anyway, so far as the money is concerned, only those who can afford to lose have been robbed. It won't break the Bank and old Dudgeon can stand it," Gale observed.
"But there's murder in the case now. That counts more than money. It means hanging for someone," Davy replied.
"Or ought to—if the police can catch him," Gale said, as he left the group and went on to Soden's bar, where he found Allnut and Johnson carrying on an animated discussion with the hotelkeeper on the one topic.
"Have you heard the latest?" he inquired as he joined them.
"What's that? A clue? Have the police got a clue?" Soden exclaimed.
"There's a clue—of a sort, but the police haven't got it. Davy Freeman has been giving us a new theory. He says old Dudgeon's at the back of it all."
"I'm not sure he's far wrong, Mr. Gale, to tell you the truth," Soden said in his slow manner. "They say funny things about the old man, especially those who were here in the early days."
"What's Freeman's yarn?" Allnut asked.
By the time Gale had repeated the story his audience had grown, and the waning interest in the subject was revived as the theory was passed from one to the other until it spread through all the groups and was debated and discussed from every possible and impossible standpoint. When the hour arrived for closing the bars the men clustered in the road, still wrestling with the problem.
The night wore on and the young moon was sinking to the west before they began to knock the ashes out of their pipes, preparatory to adjourning the open-air parliament until the following day. One man was still pouring out his views and opinions and the others crowded round him, their own energies spent, but listening listlessly before they separated.
Suddenly the sound of a horse galloping wildly startled them. With one accord they turned towards the direction whence the sound came.
In the faint half-light, right in the middle of the road, racing with maddened speed, charging straight upon them, they saw a white horse with a bearded rider.
To the right and left they scattered to get clear of the flying hoofs as through the midst of them, with a mocking shout and a wave of his hand, there flashed past the man with the yellow beard.
A howl of execration and wrath broke from their lips. Those who had gone to their homes rushed out. Brennan, with Durham at his heels, dashed from the station.
"The Rider! The Rider!" came in a chorus of hoarse shouts. "After him, lads, after him."
There was a scatter and scamper as men fled for their horses. Barebacked, many with the bridle scarcely secure, all without weapons, the men of Waroona raced pell-mell down the road.
Behind them, armed and orderly, Durham and his constable spurred their horses in pursuit.
"The fools! They'll help him to escape," Durham cried as they came in sight of the confused rabble racing along the road.
Ahead of the charging mob the road for a hundred yards showed clear as it topped a slight ascent. A belt of scrub a quarter of a mile through intervened between the mob and the open stretch of road. But from where Durham and Brennan were the view was uninterrupted.
The white horse and its rider were half-way to the top.
Acting with one impulse, both raised their carbines and fired from the saddle. The noise of the reports echoed through the still air and made the men in the scrub below rein in their horses to listen. As the smoke drifted clear Durham and Brennan saw, onthe summit of the rise, the white horse prancing, riderless.
Reloading as they rode, they dug their spurs home and raced through the patch of scrub. The men heard them coming, and waited, the lack of a leader making them undecided how to act. They made way for the two police, closing in behind them and pressing up to learn what had happened.
"He's down. Keep back," Brennan called to them over his shoulder, and they slowed their horses until Durham and the constable rode twenty yards in front.
Through the shadow of the scrub the two galloped side by side, each with his carbine resting on his hip ready for instant use. The road was soft and sandy and the beat of the horses' hoofs was muffled.
With a sharp turn the road was clear of the scrub, and the open stretch rising to the top of the hill lay before them. In the centre one small dark object was on the ground, but there was no sign of the man they expected to see.
Reining in as they came up to the small object, they saw it was an ordinary bushman's slouch hat. In the roadway, close to it, two long furrows were scored, while at irregular intervals up the rise flecks of blood glistened.
Durham leaped from his saddle and picked up the hat. On the lining was stamped the name of the chief Waroona storekeeper, Allnut.
"He's a local man," Durham said quickly. "Keep those fools back."
While Brennan checked the charging crowd, now racing up the slope, Durham went forward alone. On the sandy roadway the marks made by the prancing horse were clearly visible to the top of the hill. The animal had evidently been badly frightened and had reared and plunged from one side of the road to the other, but nowhere was there such a mark as he knew must have been made had the rider fallen. Nor had the horse plunged as a riderless animal, but as one straining against a tight-held rein.
At the top of the hill the marks showed down the other slope until the horse had reached a point where it would no longer be visible from the spot he and Brennan had been when they fired. There the track gradually approached the edge of the road and vanished on to the rough ground.
Durham sprang out of the saddle and bent over the marks where they left the road. The horse had been pulled round and ridden directly into the bush. With the last faint rays of the moon dying away it was hopeless trying to follow the tracks through the sombre shadow; nothing more could be done until daylight to follow where the man had ridden.
He had remounted and was riding back when the remainder of the men came up with Brennan.
"The track runs into the bush; there's no hope of following it to-night," he cried.
No hope? A dozen voices answered him with a flat contradiction, and past him there was a rush ofbarebacked riders hot on the trail. They scattered in a wide-spreading line, riding straight ahead and watching only for a gleam of the white horse amid the shadows of the bush.
Durham stood up in his stirrups and shouted to them to come back, but he might as well have called to the wind. The fever of the chase was in their veins, the reckless dash of the hunter fired by the excitement of the greatest of all pursuits, a man-hunt. While this held them, they raced, aimlessly, uselessly, but persistently.
Those with cooler heads and better judgment reined in their horses. Gale found himself in the midst of an excited throng with whom he was carried forward for some distance before he could get free.
"He's right, lads, he's right," he shouted. "There's no chance to follow the track till it's daylight. Don't smother it. Come back."
"Chase him to the range, boys, chase him to the range. We'll catch him at the rise," yelled one of the men in the lead, and with an answering cheer the galloping crowd held on.
Those who had remained on the road were starting to return to the township when Gale rode back. Hearing him coming, they waited to see who it was.
"They're mad," he cried, as he came up. "If they get near him, he'll shoot them as they come, and they'll destroy every sign of his tracks."
"It's done now," Durham exclaimed impatiently. "We'll have to leave them; it's no use going after them now."
He turned his horse's head and set off for the township with Brennan at his side and the rest trailing after him. At the station he and Brennan wheeled their horses into the yard while the others went on to their homes.
"I shall be away with the dawn," Durham said, as soon as the horses were stabled and they were in their quarters. "It's the old story. That fellow has had so much luck up to the present he's lost his head. He wants to show us how clever he really is."
"There's not much sense in what he did to-night; anyone in the crowd might have had a rifle, and there was no doubt who he was—he carried his life in his hands for nothing, it seems to me."
"They always do sooner or later. He's an old hand at the game, or he wouldn't be so anxious to let us know he's still in the neighbourhood."
While he was speaking, the door opened and Soden, the hotelkeeper, excitedly entered the room.
"Here, come across the road, quick. Come and have a look at it. Hang me if this doesn't beat cock-fighting. They've stuck up the pub and cleared off with the till and all the takings," he exclaimed.
He led the way to his hotel, the front door of which was open.
"As I found it," he said as he pulled it to until it was ajar. "When we closed for the night it was locked and bolted. Look at it."
Durham carefully examined it.
"Opened by an expert burglar," he said quietly.
"No one but a master of the craft could have done it so neatly. Show me the till."
Soden led them into the bar. The till, empty, was on the floor; every cupboard door was forced and the place in chaos.
As they stood looking at the wreck, voices sounded outside and other men trooped in.
"Here, I say," the first-comer cried. "Here's a pretty go. Someone has been in my place and cleared every pennypiece out of it and—hullo!" he exclaimed as he looked at the state of Soden's bar, one of the show places of the town under ordinary conditions. "You seem to have had them too, and there's a mob outside, all with the same story."
There was no gainsaying what had happened. While the men of the town were out careering after the mysterious Rider, their homes had been rifled of everything of value. The town was stripped as clean as though a tribe of human locusts had swept through it. Two places only were unvisited, the bank and Mrs. Eustace's cottage, in both of which places lights had been burning.
Not even the police-station escaped, though not until Durham and Brennan returned to it did they realise the fact. What money there was in the place had vanished; a watch Brennan had left hanging over his bunk had disappeared and, as if to emphasise the visit, the pages of the record book were smeared with ink and defaced.
Brennan glanced covertly at his superior who,with a heavy frown on his brow, stood scowling at the defaced book.
"Have the revolvers gone?" he asked suddenly.
Brennan turned to the locker where they were kept.
"No, sir, they are here all right. I fancy he must have been disturbed before he could finish his work here. None of the cupboards have been touched."
"Whom do you suspect?" Durham asked sharply.
Brennan scratched his head and screwed up his face.
"Well, to tell you the plain, honest truth, sir, I'm bothered if I know who to suspect. What gets over me is that white horse. No one believed the yarn about the buggy and pair of white horses, and no one believed the yarn about the men on white horses being seen on the Taloona road. But here the chap comes clean through the township riding a horse of a colour that isn't known in the district. You can't put a white horse out of sight like you can a stray cat, sir. But where do they go when the Riders are not on the road? It gets me, sir, I'm free to admit."
"That hat I picked up was bought at the store in the town. That suggests someone who has been about the place."
"Well, he might have stolen it. He might have taken it from the bank, or Taloona, or it might have been that other poor chap's—out there, I mean," he added, nodding towards the shed where Eustace lay.
"He's no bushman," Durham said.
"He rides well enough for one."
"Oh, yes, I admit he rides well enough for one, but many men ride besides bushmen. I know neither he nor his partner have any practical bush experience. I know that. Just as I know the man who went through the town to-night is a burglar who learned his craft in one of the big cities of the world. The way that hotel door was opened was one of the finest pieces of expert burglary I've ever seen, and there are some pretty smart men at the game in our cities."
"He's a pretty daring chap," Brennan remarked, with a touch of admiration in his voice.
"He's too daring. That is what puzzles me. With fifty thousand pounds in gold and the valuables stolen from the bank, what sense is there in dashing through the place as he did to-night and then taking a bigger risk by doubling back past us and stealing what at the most can barely have been a hundred pounds in all?"
"Do you think he doubled back, sir? Don't you think the dash through the town was a trick to draw everyone away so as to leave the way clear for a second man to do the burgling?"
"I don't see who the second man could be. The handkerchief shows Eustace was the man who was with him at Taloona. I don't think he has another man with him now. He is doing it single-handed and seems to be enjoying it, too."
"We ought to be able to pick up his tracks in the morning, if he doubled back."
"Yes, if those fools have not smothered them. I'll see to that. I'll be away with the dawn. Mind you, no one is to know."
"You can be sure of that, sir," Brennan answered.
In the grey half light which is neither night nor day, Durham saddled his horse in the station yard.
No one was stirring in the township as he passed slowly along the road, but lest there should happen to be anyone who might see him, he turned into the bush at the first opening he came to. Only then did he set his horse at a faster pace, riding direct for the range to pick up the track leading to the hidden pool.
The air was soft and cool, with filmy streaks of vapour floating amid the trees. As he cantered along, the mist rose and formed a pearly haze overhead into which there came a tinge of pink, dissipating it, before the colour could grow into a deeper tone, to reveal the clear sky, blue as a sapphire and bright with the first rays of the rising sun.
In long swinging strides his horse carried him easily, and his spirits rose above the gloom which had weighed upon him since the evening before when, for the third time, he had been foiled by the mysterious Rider.
There had been little sleep for him during the night. Had the discovery of Eustace and the raid of the town been the only events of the day hemight have succeeded in banishing them from his mind sufficiently to allow himself to sleep. But there was more than these, disquieting as they were, to fill him with restlessness. The way in which Mrs. Burke had rebuffed him on the previous evening, the hostility of manner she had displayed towards him up to the time he and Brennan left Waroona Downs, weighed upon him.
He could not account for the change which had come over her. From the time he arrived from Taloona she had always shown kindliness and gentleness towards him, even when, during the early days of his convalescence, he had been impatient and exacting. Nor could he find a reason for the change in the brief profession he had made of his love for her. Had that been the cause she would, he argued, have shown it the morning after; but she had met him then with the same light-hearted raillery with which she had greeted him every morning he had been in her house. Only when Brennan arrived on the scene had she suddenly developed antagonism.
There must be some other reason for her anger than his declaration of love. For hours he had sought for it, cudgelling his brain to discover an explanation; but only now, as he cantered along through the bush with his spirits rising in harmony with the glories of an Australian dawn, did illumination come to him.
"Oh, my love, why have you come so late to me!"
Through the sombre shade of his brooding thereflashed the memory of the scene when he had heard those words spoken. Like the touch of a magic wand the memory changed gloom to sunshine, shadow into light.
It was not because he had professed his love for her that she had been displeased; it was because he was going from her, leaving her house, parting with her perhaps for all time.
What a fool he had been not to know that earlier. Of course, she had repelled him when he had spoken on the previous evening, repelled him, not because she resented, but because she, like all of her sex, could not yield the truth at the first asking.
Yet why should he have doubted with the memory of that earlier scene in his mind? He asked himself the question and answered it frankly.
He doubted for the reason that still he did not know whether that memory was of a real scene, or was merely a figment of a delirium-haunted brain. If he could be sure, then no more need he doubt; but how was he to be sure? There was only one way—only one person in all the world who could tell him whether he was right or not—Nora Burke alone could say whether he had been dreaming.
Some day he would ask her to tell him, some day, after he had asked and compelled her to answer that other question which had now become insistent. For the time the mystery of the Rider occupied a second place in his thoughts; yet the trend of his mind unconsciously brought it again to the front.
The mission on which he had set out was onewhich might clear away the initial obstacle in the pathway of his love; he might locate the hiding-place of the Rider; might secure a clue to his identity; might, by great good fortune, discover the stolen money.
If he could only do that, if he could only go back to the bank with the news that he had recovered the stolen gold, five thousand pounds would be his. Then he would be able to go to Mrs. Burke without the feeling, unbearable to a man of his temperament, that he, a poor man, was aspiring to one who had money, and who might attribute to that money the secret of his fascination.
By the time the sun showed above the trees, he was up to the outlying spurs of the range and nearing the ridge along which he had previously followed the tracks of the two horsemen. With the knowledge he had gained how the track turned and twisted, he set his horse to the rising ground, and rode steadily and cautiously until he arrived at the summit of the steep immediately above where the creek entered the pool.
Below him was the narrow sandy strip running round the edge of the water, and even from where he was he could see the marks of the horses' hoofs upon it. His glance wandered from the shore over the surface of the pool. It was a long sheet of water, more an exaggerated reach in a stream than a lake, for except along the sandy margin below him, the water everywhere rippled right up to the dense verdure-clad slopes of the hills.
A curious discolouration appeared in a streakacross the pool at the far end. The otherwise clear water was marred by a ledge of rock which stretched from one side of the pool to the other and came so near the surface as to give a suggestion of muddiness to the water.
Dismounting, he led his horse to a sheltered gully, and securely tethered him to a tree. Then, with his carbine on his arm and his revolver pouch unfastened, he walked down to the dry bed of the creek and followed it to the mouth.
Fresh marks were on the soft ground near the water, coming from the end of the pool where the streak of muddy water showed, and passing onwards round the pool. He decided to go in the same direction, and for a few yards walked along the level before he discovered other hoof-prints, equally clear, going the opposite way. The horseman, whoever he might be, had both come and gone within the past few hours, but Durham was uncertain which way had been the last.
Leaving the level ground he forced a way through the thick herbage growing on the bank above and crept forward. As he went he obtained through the foliage an occasional glimpse of the track below, until the bank rose so steeply and the vegetation became so dense that he had to climb higher to move along at all. Presently he came to an easier grade, and was able to see once more the margin of the pool, but he was surprised to discover that all marks of the horses had ceased.
He crept down to the water. Looking back, he saw that the bank, on the top of which he had been,ran out to the water's edge, forming a barrier across the track and terminating in a steep bluff jutting out into the pool.
Crouching almost to the ground, Durham crawled through the undergrowth until he reached the summit of the bluff, and was able to see once more the narrow sandy strip which skirted the bank and formed the margin of the shore.
Peering through the low-growing shrubs he saw how the bluff fell away in a precipitous descent on the other side down to where the narrow strip widened out into a level space screened by a clump of bushes reaching from the high bank to the water. The whole of this space was trampled upon, and it was evident that horsemen had been there frequently and recently.
A step forward showed him something more. Right under the bank a dark patch showed. It was the mouth of a cave.
He listened intently, but no sound came to him, and he again crept forward until he was able to see into the cave. It was low-roofed, and formed by rocks which had fallen loosely together, and over which vegetable soil had accumulated.
Satisfied it was empty, he advanced boldly towards it. As he pushed between the shrubs which grew close up to it, he caught sight of what, in the shadow, looked like a crouching man. In a moment his carbine was thrown forward and he was about to challenge, when he realised he was aiming at a heap of clothes.
He stepped into the cave. The clothes lay in acarelessly thrown heap, and with them, half hidden, was a false beard of long yellow hair.
Picking it up, he held it at arm's length. So the Rider was disguised after all!
The flimsy thing brought clearly back to him the features of the man as he had twice seen him. The close-clipped fair hair, the light sandy eyebrows, the peculiarly light lashes which gave so sinister an expression to the eyes, were distinct; but when he tried to reconstruct the face as it would be without the beard, he was baffled. The form of the nose, the moulding of the chin, the shape of the mouth, had been hidden by the disguise, and without a knowledge of them Durham could not grasp fully what the man was like. As Harding had expressed himself, when describing the face he had seen at the window of the bank, it was the impression of a familiar face disguised, and yet a familiar face which could not be located.
Beyond that he could not go.
He picked up the clothes and examined them. They were of nondescript grey, such as can be bought by the hundred at any bush store in Australia, and were similar to what the man was wearing the night he visited Waroona Downs. The hat was missing, as Durham expected it would be. The pockets were empty.
Replacing the articles as nearly as possible in the position in which he found them, Durham turned his attention to the cave itself.
The floor was rough and uneven. What sand clustered in the hollows was too much trampledupon to reveal any detail of the feet that had walked upon it.
There were innumerable nooks and crannies where articles could be stored, but in every instance they contained nothing. Nowhere could he find anything more than the clothes.
He went to the mouth and stood peering round to see if there was another similar cave near, but everywhere else the ground rose solid and unbroken.
In the open space under the shelter of the bluff where the ground had been so much trampled by horses, the wheel-marks of a vehicle also showed. He walked over and examined them carefully.
They were the marks of what was evidently an old and rackety conveyance. One of the wheels was loose and askew on the axle, with the result that it made a wobbly mark on the ground, while the tyres on all the wheels were uneven in width and badly worn.
"Almost as ancient as old Dudgeon's rattle-trap," Durham said to himself as he looked at the marks.
The story, fanciful as he had regarded it at the time, of the buggy driven by two men with a pair of white horses, the story told by the travelling bushmen the day the bank robbery was discovered, recurred to him. If this was the vehicle in which the gold had been carried off, and the wheel-marks he was looking at had been made by it, then that gold was probably secreted somewhere in his immediate vicinity.
The thick-growing shrubs and stunted gums made it difficult for him to see far from where he stood.The level stretch along the margin of the pool showed clear enough, but around him the vegetation was so dense that, unless he had some clue to guide him, to prosecute a search within it was like trying the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.
During the time that had elapsed since those wheel-marks had been made they had been greatly obliterated, but it was still possible to distinguish where the vehicle had been stopped, for the horses had turned suddenly, and the wheels cut deep as they came round. He stepped to the spot. Later tramplings had removed all clear traces of footmarks. Nothing was now to be learned from that source.
His eyes swept along the line of shrubs which fringed the open space. A twig, snapped near the stem, dangled, its leaves brown and withered. It was a finger pointing where someone had forced a way through.
Durham went down on his knees beside the shrub. Near the root the bark had been stripped for a couple of inches, the scar showing brown, while in the soil the impression of a heavy boot was just distinguishable.
On hands and knees he pushed his way between the stems. Other footmarks, old and faint, showed, and he crept along with his eyes on them. Some weeks before there had evidently been much coming and going through the scrub at this point. Looking straight ahead he saw the grey sheen of a sun-dried log. He stood up. The thick undergrowth reached to his armpits, but through it, a couple of yards from where he stood, and ten from the spot where the wheel-marks turned, was the fallen trunk of an old dead tree.
Such a log, hollow for the greater part of its length and absolutely hidden by the shrubs growing round it, was exactly the place where anything could be secreted, and remain secreted, for an indefinite period.
Pushing his way carefully through the tangle of shrubs he came upon it at the root end. It had evidently fallen in some bygone bush-fire, the jagged charred fragments showing where it had snapped off close to the ground. The fire had eaten its way into the heart of the timber and there was space enough in the cavity for a man to crouch.
Stooping down, Durham peered into it. At the far end he saw, indistinctly, a confused mass, pushed up closely. He reached in, but could not touch it, without creeping into the opening.
He looked round for something that would serve as a rake to pull the articles out, but there was no loose stick sufficiently long near to hand, and he did not want to cut one. Higher up the bank he saw one that would suit his purpose and went to get it.
As he returned with it in his hand he saw, at the other end of the log, a patch of white on the ground. Going over to it he found it was caused by a chalky powder which clustered thickly near the tree.
This end of the log was also hollow, and in the cavity were a couple of bags which, when he pulled them out, he found to be full of the chalky powder.
The white horses flashed into his mind as he looked at it.
"The cunning scoundrel!" he exclaimed. "Even the horses were disguised."
He replaced the bags, and went to the root end of the tree. With his stick he was able to reach the objects stored in the hole, and pulled one out.
By the weight he knew what he had found, before he opened it—the bag was full of gold.
Slowly he drew everything out of the place. All the gold taken from the bank and from Taloona lay at his feet, together with a miscellaneous collection of jewellery wrapped up in a small square of canvas. But there was no sign either of papers or bank-notes.
It was out of the question for him to attempt to remove the treasure to the bank there and then. All he could do was to make it as secure as possible until, at a later day, he could return with a conveyance and carry it back to the town.
On the far side of the bluff he discovered a crevice formed by an overhanging ledge. It was a place even more difficult to trace than the fallen tree, and here he placed everything, keeping only a gold watch which bore Harding's name. Then, having obliterated, as nearly as he could, every mark which would be likely to reveal the hiding-place, he made his way back to his horse.
He rode to the margin of the pool, and walked along the track until he was opposite the streak of mud stain in the water. The horse and wheel-tracks turned towards it and, standing up in his stirrups,Durham saw that the water shoaled with a wide ledge of rock running directly into the pool.
Putting his horse to it, the water was barely a foot deep on the rock all the way across to the opposite bank. Here the horse and wheel-tracks reappeared, turning sharp to the left through the bush, and passing over a dwarf ridge from the summit of which he caught sight of the mountain road where it turned down to the ford.
Still following the tracks, they led him once more to the water's edge. He entered it, and continued close to the shore until he suddenly emerged on to the rock which formed the break in the road over which the stream rippled.
He rode on to the road and reined in his horse near the spot where he had first seen the pool the night he was on his way to Waroona Downs. Had he not just ridden along the track round the edge of the water, he would not have believed it was there, so absolutely was it hidden from the roadway.
For a moment he hesitated whether to go on to Waroona Downs or return to the township at once, and arrange for the treasure to be removed. But the anxiety gnawing at his heart decided for him and he wheeled his horse and set off at a canter for the station.
As he came out to the level road he saw, riding towards him, the object of his regard. Mounted on a fine dark chestnut she was coming along at a hand gallop. She waved her hand as she caught sight of him, and he pulled up to wait for her, watching, with more than admiration, the magnificent seat shehad and the easy grace with which she managed her horse.
"Oh, Mr. Durham, I'm so glad to see you," she cried as she came up. "I am in such trouble about that old reprobate. Sure he's gone and I'm just after riding into town to see if he is getting more of the wretched drink. If I find him——"
"Brennan will have him if he is in there, Mrs. Burke. You need not be uneasy. I'll inquire as soon as I return. I am on my way——"
"Oh, but I can't," she interrupted. "What would they say if ever it got to Ireland that I let the old fool fall into the hands of the police over a trifle like this—for it's only a trifle they would call it in Ireland, Mr. Durham. Sure if it were known there, and you may be certain he'd leave no stone unturned to make it public, they'd boycott me and all my belongings, if they didn't do something worse."
"Then it would be better for you not to go back there," he said, smiling at her.
She gave him a sidelong glance with her head on one side.
"Not go back there? And what should I be doing anywhere else with all my responsibilities waiting over there for me?" she asked coquettishly.
"You may have responsibilities over here as well, some which would——"
"Oh, now, you're making fun of me, Mr. Durham," she exclaimed. "What's a bit of a place like this with never even a single pig on it, let alone all the sheep and cattle it ought to have, to keep me frommy own home? When I get stock on the place it might keep me here, but sure where's the money to come from to buy the creatures if I don't go back and sell everything I possess to pay for them?"
"Won't you turn back, Mrs. Burke? I was riding out to see you. I want to—ask you something."
"Ask me something? What, more police questions? No, no thanks, Mr. Durham. They don't agree with my constitution—nor my temper."
"It is not a police question," he said seriously. "It is to do—with—with yourself."
A merry peal of mocking laughter answered him.
"Come along now, come to the township with me before they get poor old Patsy where it would break his honest old heart to be."
She started her horse.
"Come along now," she called over her shoulder, flashing a mischievous glance back at him.
He had no alternative but to follow, and he cantered to her side.
"It would teach him a good lesson, Mrs. Burke, if you let him spend a few days in the lock-up," he said. "It would give him a chance to get really sober, whereas, if he keeps on getting drink, you will have him out of his mind."
"Now you're trying to frighten me, Mr. Durham. Sure, what sort of a man is it I've met this morning? I believe you'd like to see old Patsy inside a cell, and then maybe you'd be after me too."
"I might be," he answered.
"What would you give me? Six months hard or just a caution?"
"I should offer you something entirely different," he said in a serious tone of voice. "I should offer you——"
"Oh, yes, it's a lot you police people offer folk. Sure they have to take what is given them, whether they like it, or want it, or not."
"I may not always be one of the police people, as you term us," he said.
"Are you thinking of joining the ministry?" she exclaimed. "I'd like to hear you preach your first sermon, Mr. Durham. I'd come twenty miles in the rain for it."
The mockery in her voice irritated him, and his face showed it.
"Oh, now, Mr. Durham, don't talk nonsense. What would become of the place if you left the force of which you are such an ornament? It's fairy tales you are telling me. And you have never said a word yet about your journey. What news did you hear when you reached Waroona?"
"I suppose you have not heard about Eustace?" he asked.
"Eustace? What's the matter with Eustace now?"
"He was found yesterday."
The jerk she gave the bridle brought her horse back on his haunches, and Durham was a couple of lengths past her before he could bring his horse round. When he turned she was allowing her horse to walk, the bridle hanging loose.
"Eustace was found yesterday?" she asked in a dazed tone as she came up to him. "Found yesterday? Is that the news you had to give me?"
"It was not to tell you of that I was on my way to Waroona Downs," he replied. "Though I should probably have mentioned it."
"Where was he found, Mr. Durham? I suppose he is arrested now?"
All the raillery had gone from her voice, which had grown so sorrowful that he looked at her wonderingly.
"He was not alive when he was found," he said quietly, still watching her.
Her hands convulsively clutched the bridle, and her mouth twitched.
"Oh, Mr. Durham, how awful! What a terrible thing! Oh, poor Mrs. Eustace! Sure I'm glad I'm going into the town, for I'll be able to see the poor thing. Is she much upset? But she is sure to be."
"It is a great trial for her. She will be very glad to see you, I should think," he answered.
"Oh, well, well; what a funny thing life is, Mr. Durham. One never knows. It's all a muddled-up sort of affair at the best. If only people could do what is in them to do, instead of being placed in positions where there is only sadness and trouble crowding in on them and crushing them out of existence! It's a weary world, very, very weary."
"We can only take it as we find it, and make the best of it," he said. "You must not allow this to worry you. Perhaps, after all, it is the best thingthat could have happened for him. There are worse things than death. Think what it would have been for Mrs. Eustace had he been captured and sent to penal servitude. Her whole life would have been ruined. We see so much of that in cases where the husband gives way. It is the wife who suffers most, Mrs. Burke."
"Oh, I know, I know," she exclaimed in a tone so full of sadness that he feared he had touched on some secret grief.
He rode beside her in silence, not knowing what to say lest he added to her distress, but yet tormented by the idea that he should speak out what was in his heart and learn, once and for all, whether his hopes were to be realised or shattered. Keeping slightly behind her, he was able to watch her without her knowing it. She was staring between her horse's ears, her lips tightly closed, her head erect, and her cheeks pale. Lost, apparently, in the reverie his words had called up, she seemed to have forgotten his presence as a mile went by without her turning her head or opening her lips.
But she had not forgotten he was there. At a turn in the road she uttered a sharp exclamation and held out her hand, pointing.
"Oh, it is too bad," she exclaimed bitterly. "It is too much for anyone to bear. Look at that!"
Away down the road Durham saw a horse and rider. The horse was making its own way, the rider having as much as he could do to keep in the saddle. He was swaying from side to side, occasionallywaving his arms in the air and howling out a tuneless ditty in a strident cracked voice.
"Old Patsy," Durham said shortly.
"Oh, what will I do?" she exclaimed.
"Better let me take him back and give him a few days where he will have time to recover his senses, I think," he said.
She flashed a furious glance at him.
"I shall do no such thing," she snapped. "The best thing you can do is to get out of sight before he sees you. He hates you, Mr. Durham. Irishmen of his class always hate the police. The sight of you will only aggravate him in his present state."
"He is not in a fit state to return with you," Durham said.
"Oh, I can manage him if I'm left alone with him," she replied.
"But I shall not leave you with him," he said firmly.
"You must; you must," she exclaimed sharply. Then, as though a mask had fallen from her, the expression of her face changed and she leaned towards him, laying her hand on his bridle arm. "Oh, yes, please, for my sake. For the sake of—of what I said you—you were not to mention again—will you—please will you do this?"
Her wonderful eyes, soft and melting with a look of appeal, were turned full upon his; her red lips pouted and her voice thrilled with a winning gentleness.
"Please, please do this for me. I would not ask it, only I know—I know—I can askyou."
Her voice sank to a whisper, more alluring, more devastating upon him than when she spoke before. So taken aback, and yet so elated was he at her change of manner, that he could not answer her at once.
"You were coming to tell me again—I read it in your face. Oh, do this for me now. Leave me alone with him. Come and see me to-morrow. Come and tell me then—tell me—what I want to hear."
"Nora!"
The word escaped him in a gasp. What she wanted to hear! Were his ears playing him false? Was he dreaming? He had his hands on hers, holding it with a grip of a strong man stirred to the depths, crushing the fingers one on the other, but there was no waver in the eyes that looked with so much entreaty into his.
"Leave me now before he sees you, before he gets here. I can manage him best alone. Look, he is hastening. Oh, don't wait. Ride away into the bush. I appeal to you—in the name of my love for you. Dearest—go!"
The tumult surged up and over him; had she bidden him at that moment to ride into the jaws of death, he would have galloped, shouting his delight. Nothing else counted with him then, nothing but her wish. Bending down he pressed her hand to his lips.
"Go—go—quickly—dearest!" he heard.
"Till to-morrow, Beloved, till to-morrow," he answered, as, pulling his horse's head round, he drove his spurs home and plunged into the bush, racing in the wild abandon of his joy.
What did it matter that a drunken old Irishman was saved from arrest? He would probably have contented himself with warning the old reprobate to get home as quickly and as quietly as he could. But she did not know that. All she could do was to think how to save her foolish servant from the penalty of his folly—how like her that was, how like the great warm-hearted noble creature she was! Pride in her, pride, love, adoration, welled up in his heart. The yearning of his soul was satisfied, the longing of his being set at rest.
Her love was his! In that knowledge all the contradictions of her attitude became clear. She had only sought to hide the truth from him lest he should think her too easily won. He laughed aloud as he galloped.
Too easily?
No matter how great the sacrifice he had been called upon to make, it would have ranked as nothing if, at the end of it, her open arms were waiting to enfold him. But there was no sacrifice, no toll to be exacted from him. Of her own initiative she had sounded the note which called him to her and made her his. To-morrow he would ride out to her, not alone to give her the pledge of his affections, but to carry to her the tidings of his discovery. Although he had not yet recovered her papers, he would be able to assure her that he would have them as soon as he captured the man who stole them, the man who had murdered Eustace, the Rider whose hiding-place he had discovered.
For there was no doubt in his mind about thatcapture. Once let the gold be safely removed to the bank, he would return to the cave and wait till, as he was certain would happen sooner or later, the Rider came for his disguise.
Then Nora Burke should have her papers returned in safety, and he would have won more than the promised five thousand pounds reward.
For the first time since the outrage at Taloona, Dudgeon visited Waroona.
He drove up to Soden's hotel in the old rackety buggy at a crawl, for his horse had gone dead lame on the way. At the time he arrived Patsy was making ineffectual attempts to mount his horse for the ride which led to so dramatic a turning in Durham's romance, having just staggered out of the bar highly indignant because Soden had refused to allow him to have anything more to drink on the premises.
"Have you a horse I can borrow from you, Soden? My old crock has gone in the off hind-leg and wants a rest. Can you let me have one to get back?" Dudgeon called out.
"I'll have to send out to the paddock, Mr. Dudgeon, but I'll have one in by four this afternoon, if that will suit you."
"It'll have to suit, I suppose," Dudgeon replied. "I didn't want to hang about the place so long, but if you'll have it in by four I'll be here ready to start. I'll leave the buggy with you."
While they were talking Patsy and his horse were slowly going round and round, the old man missing the stirrup every time he put his foot up, and onlyavoiding a fall by hanging on to the bridle so firmly that he pulled the horse round at each ineffectual attempt to mount.
"Give him a leg up, Jim," Soden said to his barman.
Old Patsy, with the help of the barman, managed to clamber into the saddle, where he sat for a few minutes swaying unsteadily before he started to ride off through the town.
"Where's he from?" Dudgeon asked, looking after him.
"Oh, that's Mrs. Burke's Irish body-guard," Soden said. "Says he should never have left Ireland, and I agree with him. There'll be trouble out at the Downs some of these days, if she doesn't clear him out or he gives over drinking. Don't you serve him any more, do you hear, Jim? Hand him over to Brennan if he comes in again," he added to his barman.
"Well, what's the news?" Dudgeon exclaimed as he got out of his buggy and limped over to Soden.
"The leg's not all right yet, I see?" Soden said.
"Oh, that's getting on. Anything fresh about the bank?"
"Why, haven't you heard?" Soden cried. "They've found Eustace, found him with a bullet through him, lying in the water at the ford in the range. He's over there now," he added, jerking his head towards the police-station.
"What's that you say?" Dudgeon exclaimed, open-eyed and open-mouthed.
"They found him only yesterday—the sub-inspector and the constable. And last night, what do you think? His mate, the man with the beard who stuck your place up, galloped through the town here, and afterwards, when we were all out chasing him, doubled back on us and stole everything he could lay his hands on."
Dudgeon still stood staring open-mouthed and open-eyed.
"There were only two places he missed, the bank and the cottage down the road—Smart's place—where Mrs. Eustace is living."
"Ah! Then that poor thing's a widow?"
"That's so," Soden replied. "But, between you and me, I don't think for long. You know she and Harding—he's our new bank manager, by the way—are old friends, Mr. Dudgeon, and from what I hear from Jim, my barman, who's got his eye on the girl Mrs. Eustace has, they're pretty good friends now, if not a bit more. I shouldn't be surprised, speaking as between man and man, to see her back at the bank again before many years are over, that is, if young Harding stays on here."
"Oh!" Dudgeon exclaimed. "Oh!"
"He's a fine young fellow, Mr. Dudgeon, and you ought to be interested in him, for he was the first to look after you when you were knocked over. But, here, won't you come in for a bit? You're in no-hurry."
"Yes, I am," Dudgeon replied. "I'm in town on business, and when I have business to do, Mr. Soden, I do it. See?"
"It's a good plan."
"Yes, it's a very good plan. So I'll move along. Don't forget to have that horse in sharp at four—I don't like waiting."
He limped away down the road and Soden turned back into his house.
"Old Dudgeon don't seem to have lost much of his sourness since he was laid out," he said to his barman as he passed. "He's never been inside this door since I've been here, and they say he hadn't been in for years before then. Queer old chap he is. I wonder if he is mixed up with the Rider?"
Limping along, Dudgeon made straight for Smart's cottage and knocked at the door.
"I've come to see Mrs. Eustace," he said gruffly when Bessie answered.
"I'm sorry, sir, but Mrs. Eustace can't see anyone to-day. It's——"
"You go and tell her it's me, do you hear? Mr. Dudgeon of Taloona. I'll come in and sit down till she's ready."
He pushed the door wide open and stepped inside.
"But Mrs. Eustace, sir——" Bessie began.
"Did I speak loud enough for you to hear, or didn't I?"
"Yes, sir, but——"
"Then go and tell Mrs. Eustace I'm here."
He was nearly at the door of the sitting-room when Mrs. Eustace, having heard his voice, reached the passage.
"Ah," he exclaimed. "I want to talk to you. Just come in here, will you?"
He held the door open for her and waited till she passed in. Then he followed and closed the door.
"Just excuse me one minute," he said as he remained standing by the door which he suddenly flung open again.
"I thought so," he cried, as he saw Bessie in the passage. "You clear out of it. What I've got to say to Mrs. Eustace don't concern you, nor Jim the barman. Do you hear?"
Bessie heard, and scurried.
"It's only fair to tell you," he said, turning to Mrs. Eustace, "that what that girl sees and hears here goes to Jim the barman who, if you don't know it, tells Soden, and Soden tells the town. You understand?"
He limped across the room and sat down.
"I've come in to tell you something," he went on. "When I got here I heard the news. But that makes no difference to what I had to tell you. I can still tell you. But I must say something else first. You wouldn't stay on at Taloona when I asked you, but that was your business. Now this has come to you. I'm no hand at talking sympathy, but if you want anything that I can get for you it's yours—you understand?"
He leaned forward, with his hands on his knees, looking her steadily in the face.
"Thank you, Mr. Dudgeon, I—I understand," she said haltingly.
"That's what I thought you'd say," he remarked as he sat back. "I know it's a sad business for you,as it stands, and I'd rather you never had it. You're the first woman I've felt that way about for more years than you've lived. But I'm sorry for you, hang me if I'm not."
"It is—good of you to say so," she murmured.
"Still, you're young, and there are many years before you which won't be all sad, you may be sure. But now you're a widow will you come to Taloona?"
She looked up quickly without replying.
"I don't care how it is. You can make it your home as a guest, or you can come as Mrs. Dudgeon."
"Oh, please, Mr. Dudgeon," she exclaimed as she stood up. "You—I know you don't mean to hurt me, but——"
She broke off and turned away.
"It wasn't said to hurt you," he said. "It was only to show you what I'd do for you. Seemed to me it was the best way to put it. I only want you to understand I'm with you whatever comes along. Will you take it that way?"
"I know," she exclaimed impulsively, as she crossed over to him and laid her hand on his shoulder. "I know how you mean it, Mr. Dudgeon, and I appreciate it more than I can say. It was the——"
"The clumsy way I put it," he said, as she hesitated. "That's all right. Don't mind speaking out your mind to me—you used to pretty well when I shied at that physic you poured into me a few weeks back."
"I should have asked how the leg is," she said leaping at the opening to change the subject. "Is it still very painful?"
"Oh, it comes and goes," he replied. "Mostly goes."
"Don't you think it would be a good thing if you took the doctor's advice now and went away for a change and a rest? It would make you all right again in a few months. The hard, rough life you lead at Taloona makes it very difficult for you to get up your strength after the experience you have had."
He smiled grimly—his facial muscles had been so long strangers to anything approaching tokens of mirth or pleasure that they did not move easily.
"I suppose it is a bit rough out there," he said. "But then, you see, I'm used to a rough life—I've had it all my days. Is that why you wouldn't stay? Was it too rough for you?"
He looked round the little sitting-room in which she had the furniture and nicknacks from her room at the bank.
"There's a bit of a difference I will say," he went on as she did not reply. "It's a flower-garden to a stock-yard to compare this room with the hut you had out at Taloona. Look here. I'll build a new house, build it as big as you like or as little as you like, and you shall furnish it and fit it up just as you fancy—if you'll only make it a home for yourself."
She shook her head.
"No, Mr. Dudgeon, I am afraid that is impossible,"she said. "At the same time, I want to thank you very much for what you say."
"Look here," he exclaimed. "I don't want thanks. You know what my life has been—I told you the story often enough when I was lying sick and you were waiting on me like an angel—oh, I mean it," he added, as she looked up. "Just let me say what I've got to say. When you came back here, and I was by myself again, I began to think. Somehow the old views didn't seem quite to fit together. There was something wrong somewhere and I reckon that somewhere was me. I've put a wrong twist on things. It never struck me there was more than one woman in the world who could do anything to make me contented. So I set out to make money. I made it, made it by the ton. And now I've got it what's the good of it to me?"