"What are you looking at?" Bradby demanded irritably.

"If that's not a bit of a clearing and a hut on the edge of it, I'm a lunatic," Abel Cumshaw said.

"Hell!" ejaculated Bradby, and he in his turn peered through the trees.

"There's no smoke coming from it," Cumshaw said comfortingly. "It looks deserted. I daresay it's been like that for years."

"I don't like this place," Bradby remarked with naive irrelevance. "It fair gives me the creeps. There's spooks about here."

"If you talk that way," said Cumshaw fiercely, "I'll put a bullet through you. That sort of talk's only fit for children. You're not a child. You ought to have more sense. There's things here doubtless that you and I don't understand, but they're quite capable of a rational explanation, so don't go digging up any stuff about ghosts until you find you can't explain them any other way. There's the hut in front of us, and either there's someone in it or there isn't. If there is, we've got to use our wits; if there isn't, the game's ours."

"Have it your own way," said Bradby. "I'm game enough when I know what I'm tackling. I only mentioned I didn't like the feel of the place, and I don't see that that gives you any call to say what you have."

"We'll call it off until we've investigated," Cumshaw replied. "You stay here with the horses, and I'll creep forward a bit and see if anyone's home. All the same, I'm willing to bet that the place's deserted."

"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't," suggested Bradby. "However, you go off as you say and I'll wait here for you."

Abel Cumshaw threw the reins to his companion, slid his revolver holsters round to the front within easy reach, should he need the weapons they contained, and slipped through the trees with the silence of a marauding tom-cat. Bradby watched him with some misgiving. No man could say with certainty just what secret the dilapidated hut held, and Bradby's state of mind was such that he took the gloomier view of the situation. He would not have been very much surprised to see half a dozen troopers issue from the hut. He would have taken it as the inevitable ending of such an adventure. He failed to understand the natural cheerfulness with which Cumshaw faced the situation. He was bright and volatile enough himself when dealing with the ordinary man—his courage was of that average quality that is always at its best when exercised before an admiring or frightened audience—but the abnormal brought home to him his own futility of purpose and his natural helplessness. While realising all this he was not man enough to rise above and overcome the limitations of his spirit.

Cumshaw swung round the corner of the hut and out of sight. Then it was that Bradby began to feel absolutely deserted, and the queer oppressiveness of the place descended on him as one shuts down the lid of a box. He was not the type of man who finds companionship in animals, and the nearness of the horses in nowise mitigated his fear. For he was afraid, unashamedly afraid, though of what he could no more have said than he could fly. He knew without understanding how the knowledge came to him that the valley was filled with the ghosts of dead things, dead trees, dead leaves, and perhaps dead hopes. His nerve was going; the intolerably close atmosphere of the wood brought little beads of perspiration out on him, and when he brushed his forehead with a trembling hand he was surprised to find it wet.

The horses stirred uneasily, and the lame animal gave a low whinny.

Then in the next instant the eternal silence of the valley was broken by a human voice. The suddenness of it startled Bradby, and it wasn't until he saw Cumshaw waving to him that he realised that the sound he had heard was his companion's "Coo-ee." He loosed his hold on the reins, allowing the two horses to wander where they might, and commenced to run towards the hut. Even as he ran his faculties collected themselves, and when he reached the corner of the hut he was almost his own man again.

Cumshaw eyed him curiously as he pulled up. "Startled you a bit, didn't I?" he said.

"I thought something had happened to you when I heard you call," Bradby answered, a trifle untruthfully.

"Don't you worry about me," Cumshaw said with affected unconcern, though something in the man's nervous tone troubled him in a way he could not define. "I've found the old chap who made the marks on the trees," he ran on.

"Where?" Bradby demanded. But he looked towards the hut-door apprehensively.

"He's in there," Cumshaw said, following the other's glance, "but there isn't anything to worry about. He's as dead as a door-nail."

"Dead," Bradby repeated dazedly.

Cumshaw nodded. "This many a day," he said in semi-explanation. "But come in and see what there is to be seen."

As if perfectly sure of his companion's acquiescence he turned and walked into the hut. After a moment's hesitation Bradby followed. The place smelt a trifle musty, and all the air was full of the subtle reek of decay. It was rather dim in the hut, and at first Mr. Bradby could see nothing but some indefinite shapes that might be anything at all. Gradually his eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, and in the farthest corner he spied a rough bed of planks.

"That's him," said Mr. Cumshaw irreverently, and stirred something with his foot.

Mr. Bradby looked a little closer this time. The something that Cumshaw had stirred turned out to be the whitened skeleton of a man. The hideous thing about it was that it was not stretched out on the plank bed; it was propped up, as if the man had died while sitting. A rusted gun lay in line with the thing's left thigh, and Bradby, following the muzzle with a trained eye, saw that it was pointed at the man's head.

"Suicide," said Cumshaw. "Look at his head. He's blown out what little brains he had."

He was right. The frontal bones of the skull were shattered and twisted by the force of the charge; they gave the rest of the face a ghastly, leering look which turned Bradby physically sick. The other man was evidently troubled by no such qualms, for he loosened the gun from the bony hand that had clung to it so desperately through all those years, and tumbled the skeleton itself on to the plank bed.

"I'm going outside," said Mr. Bradby suddenly, and disappeared through the doorway with suspicious alacrity.

Mr. Cumshaw laughed softly. "Weak stomach," he murmured. "Well, someone's got to clear this old chap out, and, as it's certain to be me, I might as well do it first as last."

At that he gathered the white, clean-picked bones up in his arms, carried his burden through the doorway, and deposited it carefully on the grass outside the hut. His eye lighted on Mr. Bradby, who was sitting on the ground some distance away, looking very pale, and having all the appearance of a man who had reluctantly parted with his lunch.

"What the deuce are you doing?" he asked in tones that betrayed a certain amount of trepidation not unmixed with vague horror.

"Evicting the late tenant," Mr. Cumshaw grinned with cheerful inconsequence.

"Why?"

There was more than a question in the quick monosyllable. It contained also a hint of protest.

"Because we're going to camp inside the hut, and two's company and three's more of a crowd than I like. This old chap can stop out here for the night; I don't suppose he'll mind it much. If he's gone to the Abode of the Blessed he'll be above worrying over such mundane matters, and if he's anywhere else he'll be too much occupied to do anything but attend to the burnt spots."

"You shouldn't speak like that of the dead," Bradby said solemnly. "It's not right."

"If we stopped to consider whether a thing was right or wrong before we did it," Cumshaw retorted, "you and I wouldn't be here this evening. If you're wise, you'll leave all that talk till morning. The shadows are closing in, and we'll have the night on us before we know where we are. I'd suggest that we catch the horses while the light's still good. You must remember they've got those saddle-bags on them still. Of course, there's just enough food to make a meal for a pair of small-sized tom-cats, but I fancy we'll manage on it till morning. Who knows what we may find then? Perhaps a kangaroo, or at the worst a native-bear."

Bradby rose reluctantly to his feet, and, with a nervous glance at the remains of the unknown, followed his partner in crime. The horses had not strayed far; they were busily cropping the grass, and seemed quite content with their lot. The two men unloaded the saddle-bags and carried the contents into the hut. Then they hobbled the horses and turned them loose for the night.

The shadows were gathering in by this, and already the trees were full of misty shapes that had no relation to fact. The bulk of the hills shut out the last rays of the sun, though the western sky was still faintly tinged with crimson. Just as they entered the hut Cumshaw paused for a moment and ran his eye over the scene. The place seemed peaceful enough, but he had that queer sense of the bushman, a sense almost amounting to an instinct, that told him that there was trouble ahead. He shook the feeling off almost immediately and entered the hut. Bradby, despite his dislike of the conglomeration of bones on the grass outside, lingered a second or so longer. There was a light in the eastern sky, perhaps a faint reflection of the glow of the dying day, that lit up the hump of the nearest hill. It was practically bare of vegetation; only a solitary tree stood a lone sentinel on its very summit, showing black against the horizon.

The thought that sprung into Bradby's mind at that was that here was a landmark which there could be no possibility of mistaking. Already certain plans were germinating in his brain, and he saw, or fancied he saw, a way of turning this latest discovery to practical use. The bleached bones in front of him, too, became a means to an end, and, with the smile of a man who sees the way suddenly made clear, he too entered the hut in his turn.

Cumshaw was busily engaged in laying a fire in the centre of the hut, taking care, however, that its glow would not show through the open doorway. He looked up as Bradby entered and said, "I think we're safe in starting a fire here. It can't be seen by anyone crossing the hills, though there isn't much likelihood of that, and all the smoke we make won't do us any harm. There's always a certain amount of mist in a place like this, and a man a mile away wouldn't be able to tell the difference."

"Go ahead," said Mr. Bradby quietly. "You know what you are doing."

The compliment in the last remark was desperately like an insult, but Cumshaw did not seem to notice anything out of the way, for he bent down to his work and whistled cheerfully while he coaxed the fire into a blaze. Presently it was burning brightly, the billy was filled with water from the water-bottle, and tea was in a fair way of being prepared. "Great place, this," Cumshaw said presently.

"Great place," Mr. Bradby assented. "A man can die here without anyone being any the wiser."

Mr. Cumshaw made no reply to that, but the corners of his mouth tightened as if he suspected some hidden meaning beneath that smooth remark.



CHAPTER IV.

WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT.

Just as the first rays of the rising sun slanted into the hut Mr. Bradby stirred uneasily, threw out one arm, rolled over on his side, and in an instant was wide-awake. He sat up abruptly and gazed around. Abel Cumshaw was still sleeping peacefully, his head pillowed on the saddle-bags that contained the plunder. Mr. Bradby smiled grimly at the sight. Softly, without waking his companion, he rose from his rough bed and glided to the open doorway. He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh morning air.

The sun was just coming up behind the solitary tree that had so interested him the previous evening, and he noticed that from his position in the dead-centre of the doorway the sun and the tree were right in line. Again that curious, humorless smile flickered about the corners of his mouth. He stood meditating for a minute or so, then, with an assumption of carelessness that he did not feel, began pacing due east. He had not taken half a dozen strides before he turned at right angles to his previous course, and just as nonchalantly continued his stroll northward. This time he covered about double the distance, then stopped short and scratched a cross on the ground with the toe of his boot.

When he returned to the hut Abel Cumshaw was just getting up.

"Hallo, Jack," he greeted Bradby. "Been stirring long?"

"No," said Bradby shortly. Then, perhaps fancying his tone was a little too abrupt, he continued, "I've just been for a bit of a tour round."

"What do you think of the place?" Cumshaw asked casually. But he did not look up at his mate; he kept his eyes studiously on the ground.

"Just the sort of place we could make our headquarters," said Bradby, with an enthusiasm that even the forced restraint of his tone could not hide.

"I don't think we'll have much need of headquarters once this is over and done with," Cumshaw hinted.

"Maybe not," Bradby replied.

Cumshaw turned to the plank bed and lifted up the saddle-bags, one in each hand. "Don't you think we should get rid of these?" he remarked.

"I'd almost forgotten about them," Bradby answered with an assumed indifference. "Yes, we'll 'tend to them as soon as we've had something to eat."

"While you're talking about something to eat," Cumshaw told him, putting the bags down again, "I'd like to remind you that we're right on the last of the tucker. There's just enough flour for the day."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Bradby said. "There's sure to be plenty of game about in a thickly-wooded country like this."

Cumshaw nodded and dropped on his knees beside the embers of the evening's fire. In a few moments he was busy coaxing them into a blaze. Bradby stood behind him, watching the sweep of his shoulders with calculating eyes. Once his hand strayed almost unconsciously towards his revolver, then, with a gesture, half of horror, half of dismay, at the significance of his action, he twisted on his heel and strode to the door. He turned then, blocking the light with his figure, so that his face was just a black expressionless mask.

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," he suggested, "if I looked about for a likely spot to bury that stuff."

"Go ahead," said Cumshaw coolly, as if it were the most natural suggestion in the world.

Without further parley Bradby walked over to the spot he had marked earlier in the morning. Bending down, he commenced to dig in the soft soil with the point of his sheath-knife. The ground was easily enough worked, and in less than half an hour he had excavated a hole of close on to three feet in depth. He deepened it another six inches or so, and then stood up with a smile of the utmost complacency on his face.

"Nice spot you've chosen," said a voice at his elbow. He started at the sound. He had not heard Cumshaw approach, and the idea that his mate could come and go in such absolute silence filled him with dismay. Already the gold fever had seized hold of him and made him suspicious of every untoward move. Perhaps he fancied that some similar plan to his own was evolving in Cumshaw's brain.

"Yes, it is a nice spot," he answered. "It's easy enough to find once you know where it is, but it isn't the kind of place a stranger would blunder on."

Cumshaw eyed the hole in the ground, and then looked towards the hut, as if taking his bearings. Bradby noticed him and interposed hastily, "I've got the measurement of the place. Have you a piece of paper I can write it down on?"

Cumshaw ran hastily through his pockets. "I haven't a bit," he declared.

"Neither have I," said Bradby. "However, we'll have to keep it in our heads. It's just ten feet from here to the hut-door."

"It doesn't look it," Cumshaw said promptly.

"It doesn't," his mate agreed. "But distance is deceptive here. How's the meal going?"

"Just about ready," Cumshaw told him. "I came to call you."

The two men walked side by side to the hut. At the entrance Cumshaw paused. "Nearer fourteen than ten," he said thoughtfully.

"Very likely," said Bradby indifferently. "What about that meal? I'm as hungry as a hunter."

They were on short commons. Bradby ate heartily, remarking once that there'd be food enough to go round to-morrow. Cumshaw laughed and said he hoped so, but that to-morrow was a day that never came to some people. Bradby absently ignored the challenge in Cumshaw's reply and kept silence for the rest of the time.

After breakfast the two of them took the saddle-bags down to the hole, placed them inside, and then stamped the earth tightly down on top of them.

"Now that's done," said Bradby, with an air of relief, "the sooner we get out of here the better."

"How about old bones over there?" Cumshaw said, pointing to the skeleton.

"Better sling him into the bushes," Bradby suggested, all his superstitious fears vanishing now that it was broad daylight.

"Poor old sinner," said Cumshaw as he lifted up the remains in his strong arms. "It might just as easily be one of us."

"Don't talk like that!" Bradby cried. "It's tempting Providence."

"You and I, Jack, have tempted that same all the days of our lives, and we're likely to keep on until the end, so why growl about this particular incident?"

Bradby muttered something unintelligible, and Cumshaw, who was all for haste now that their work was finished, did not ask him to repeat his remark.

Both horses had cropped their fill of grass, and the lame one seemed slightly better. Its limp was not so pronounced and the swelling had gone down.

"It's out of the question getting them out the way we got them in," Cumshaw said. "I wonder if there's any other way."

"Nothing like having a try," Bradby advised. "That darned old hermit must have come in some way, and I don't reckon it was the way we came in. If I was you I'd try over there towards the west. The hills look low enough."

So they turned off at right angles to their path and presently were edging their way through the wood again. As Bradby had surmised, the ground rose steadily, though it was very rough. Big boulders lay about the ground amongst the trees, which were thinning off. Soon they emerged on to what was open country, and speedily found themselves right under a ledge of rock which rose sheerly above their heads to a height of twenty or thirty feet.

"Blocked!" said Bradby savagely.

"No," said Cumshaw in a tone that implied he refused to acknowledge defeat. "There must be some way out, Jack, and I'm going to look until I find it. Here, you take charge of the horses and I'll fossick out something."

He was gone for ten minutes, ten long minutes that Bradby occupied in cursing the valley in particular and the rest of the world in general. Then there came a cry from the height above him, and, looking up, he saw Abel Cumshaw waving to him. Next instant the man disappeared and a few seconds later swung down through the rocks.

"It's no use," he said. "We can't take the horses out here. We'll just have to leave them. A man can crawl up through a sort of funnel in the wall of the rock, but you'd want a sling to get the horses along."

"Can't we go back and try the way we came in?"

Cumshaw shook his head decisively. "No," he said. "It won't do to risk it. They just tumbled down yesterday when we brought them, but you must remember that we had to cling on with our hands and feet when we went back. We'll have to jettison the horses."

"You said it was murder yesterday when I suggested shooting them," Bradby reminded him.

"We had a chance of saving them then," Cumshaw argued, "but now it's either them or us. If we turn them loose, the police'll find them sooner or later. If we shoot them, it's over and done with, and even if anyone does wander in here by accident he's not going to come this way. If we let them roam about the valley, they naturally go over to the other side where the grass is, and the first fool that blundered in would see them and begin to wonder how they got there. You never want to give the other man food for thought, Jack. Once he starts thinking, it's only a matter of time until he noses out everything."

"Shoot the horses, Abel, and have done with it. I'm sick and tired of talking. It's high time we did something."

The horses were shot then and there as the easiest way out of it, and when the echoes had died away the two men crawled cautiously up the funnel-like opening in the rock. Footholds were precarious enough, but by dint of hanging on by teeth and claw the partners at length forced their way to the top and stood on the ledge that overhung the valley. Across the smoky sea of timber they caught sight of the long line of golden wattle through which they had broken their way the previous evening. It occurred to both in almost the same instant that no man would be very likely to blunder in by chance. The place was securely hidden from view on three sides at least, and on the fourth, the side where they now stood, the approach was so difficult and, as they learnt later, dangerous that a man must have some very good reason for attempting it. Cumshaw it was who first put his thoughts into words.

"I can't help thinking," he said, "that the old chap must have come over from this side. Most likely he was dodging someone."

"I wouldn't be surprised at that," said the other.

"I don't think he'd have found the other way in a month of Sundays. However, let's get along. We'll have to make haste now we're without horses, What's it to be? Riverina or Adelaide?"

"I favor the Riverina," Cumshaw said. "I'm more familiar with the country, and they've got nothing against me up there."

"Riverina it is then," Bradby agreed with a laugh. "All places are the same to me. I've no more liking for one than for another."

So it came about that the valley faded away into the dim distance south of them, and presently they were toiling across the barrier of mountains that cuts Northern Victoria off from the rest of the State.

The tragedy happened that evening. An hour or so before sunset they decided to camp hard by a little creek they had just discovered. Cumshaw, as usual, tended to the fire, and Bradby, after idling about for a while, suggested that he had better go hunting, in the hope of being able to obtain fresh meat for the meal.

"All right," said Cumshaw. "Go ahead. But don't be any longer than you can help."

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Bradby answered, and slipped into the shadows that were already gathering thick and fast. Abel Cumshaw worked away, whistling softly to himself the while. He was so busy doing one thing and another that it was not until darkness fell suddenly and completely on the scene that he realised how quickly time had passed. His first thought then was that Bradby was away much longer than he had any right to be. It occurred to him that Bradby might have gone much further than he intended and by some mischance had lost his way. He decided to wait a while longer, and then, if Bradby did not appear in the meantime, to go in search of him. But the time passed, the fire died away to red hot coals, and the shadows fell thickly on everything; but still Bradby did not come. At last Cumshaw rose swiftly to his feet in the manner of a man who has decided on the course he must take and means to stick to it unswervingly. With quick yet noiseless steps he stole through the trees, occasionally swinging a sharp glance to the left or right. But it was very dark in the woods, and it was impossible to tell shape from shadow. A regiment might have been hiding behind the boles of the trees without him being one whit the wiser. He had profound objections against shouting his whereabouts to his mate—his woods' instinct warned him never to reveal his presence unless there was no other way out—but he saw speedily enough that there was no other course left for him to take.

He made a megaphone of his hands, and sent a long-drawn "Coo-ee" out to wake the echoes. The sound reverberated from the hills and died rumbling away in the hollows. For some seconds after that there was absolute silence, and then somewhere ahead of him he caught a very faint noise as of long grass rustling in the wind. But the air was absolutely devoid of motion. The sound puzzled Cumshaw; the very stealthiness of it convinced him that no animal had made it, yet he could not understand why Bradby should exercise such unnecessary caution.

Then in an instant he knew. The black wall ahead of him was split by a pencil of flame, the silence of the forest crackled into sound, and the whip-like crack of a revolver echoed and re-echoed. A bullet whistled dangerously close to Cumshaw. He swore under his breath and tugged furiously at his own revolver. Bending almost double he sprinted towards the shelter of the nearest tree, while at the same instant the stranger's weapon cracked again. Something stung his ear. He put up his hand, and the warm blood spurted through his fingers.

He compressed himself into the smallest possible space behind the tree and then fired in the direction of the last shot. He allowed a short interval to elapse and then fired again. The other man must have seen the flashes, but he made no attempt to answer them. The moment the first shot was fired Cumshaw realised, in a flash of intuition, that his assailant was none other than Jack Bradby. The knowledge made him extremely angry, for such black treachery was the last thing he had expected to have to contend with. He saw now that it was the old case of thieves falling out over the division of the spoils, and that Jack Bradby was determined to stop at nothing, even murder, in order to gain the whole of the plunder. He continued firing with a savage fury that boded ill for his late mate.

The thing itself happened suddenly. One moment he was peering out into the darkness in an effort to locate his enemy; the next strong sinewy hands were around his throat choking the life out of him. With that clarity of vision that comes to a man perhaps once in a lifetime, he saw, even in the all-pervading darkness, the shadowy face that was pressed close to his own. The eyes that looked into his were dim pools of evil light, faintly phosphorescent like those of a cat, and the face that framed them was contorted into a malignant leer of triumph. That much he saw before the darkness crushed him out of existence and all things earthly faded from his vision.

Bradby felt the man's body go limp in his arms, and he quickly thrust into its holster the revolver with which he had dealt the final blow. There was a steamy smell of blood on the thick, damp air, and when Mr. Bradby drew away his right hand he found it warm and wet.

"Christ!" he said in a tone of fear, "I've killed him!" That was precisely what he had intended to do from the very first, but now his plan had apparently fructified, he felt a vague horror at the result of his handiwork. He opened Cumshaw's shirt and put his hand over the man's heart. He could not detect even the faintest flutter.

Then swiftly, with many glances about him as he moved, he carried the body to the undergrowth and very gently laid it on the ground. But he failed to notice that as he bent down a flat piece of wood had slipped from the pocket of his shirt and had fallen soundlessly into the soft green grass at the side of Abel Cumshaw's body.

Five minutes later silence reigned. Only the heavy scent of the wattle was mingled with another odor—the warm, sickly smell of freshly-shed blood.



CHAPTER V.

EXPIATION.

Unaccountably enough Bradby went no further than the dying embers of the fire. His first act was to build a big blaze, for he was already becoming afraid. He could not define even to himself just what this fear was; it was not so much horror at what he had done as a feeling that his sins would yet find him out. Some strange attraction kept him close to the scene of the tragedy, and all night he sat by the fire with his head in his hands and his eyes staring at the ever-widening ring of white ashes. Towards morning he fell into a doze, but scarcely had the first rays of the sun penetrated through the leafy mantle of the trees than he was wide-awake. There were dark rings under his eyes, and the eyes themselves looked strangely tired and haggard. He glanced at his hands with a faint idea that something had been wrong with them the night before. He was disgusted to find that they were caked with dried blood, and a feeling almost akin to nausea shook his frame. He made all the haste he could to the creek and washed every speck of blood and dirt off, so that when he had finished his hands were clean and spotless.

He shot a parrot for breakfast and made a gruesome meal off the raw flesh. There was nothing else to eat, for the flour had all been finished the previous day. After the morning's meal he brightened up and set off northward with a brisk stride. The money was safe enough in the valley for the present, he decided, and a couple of months in the Riverina would not only not do him any harm, but would allow the hue and cry time to die down. After that he would come back and get the gold, and this time there would be no question of division; it would be his, all of it. Now that the daylight had come he could think of the dark figure suddenly growing limp in his arms and the smell of fresh blood mixing with the scent of the wattles without the slightest misgiving. He had no fear of it; he certainly felt no remorse. The further he got from the scene of the murder, the lighter grew his spirits. He turned the situation over in his mind and found abundant satisfaction in it; his primitive logic told him that there was no evidence against him.

* * * * *

It is doubtful who was the most surprised, the troopers or Bradby when he stumbled unexpectedly into their camp that evening. They were not the men who had been following the bushrangers from the start, but another body, warned by wire and hurriedly sent out from Murtoa. For some unexplained reason the camp-fire had been allowed to die down, and so there was no red glow to warn Bradby of their proximity. He had blundered into the midst of the men before he quite realised what had happened, and, when he made a wild dash for safety, he found that all way of escape had been cut off. He was hemmed in on every side. The troop was in charge of an officer of more than average intelligence, and he instantly jumped to the correct conclusion. Had Bradby not lost his head and endeavored to escape, he might have been able to pass himself off as a prospector or something of the sort, but the mere sight of his all-too-evident anxiety to get away wakened the suspicions of the sergeant. The Grampians and the country surrounding them had hitherto been singularly free from crime, and no malefactors from other parts of the State were known to be at large in that neighbourhood. Obviously this man, who displayed such a disinclination to meet the police, must be a criminal, and just as obviously must he be one of the men wanted for the gold escort robbery. The sergeant decided in one lightning flash on a plan that he hoped would startle the man into betraying himself. The moment Bradby turned to retreat and found himself hemmed in, the other walked over to him, scrutinised him carefully, and in the same instant placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "I arrest you in the Queen's name for the robbery of the Gold Escort on the night of 1st December."

Bradby's jaw dropped and he stared open-mouthed at the other. He could not understand the process of almost instantaneous reasoning by which the officer had arrived at this conclusion, and the swift scrutiny the man had given him convinced him that in some strange and unaccountable way a description of him had been obtained and circulated. The man had recognised him, of that he felt sure.

All round him were staring policemen, watching him intently with eyes that were no less full of astonishment than his own. They could not fathom the reasons that actuated their chief, but they realised, all of them, that the man before them must be in some guilty way connected with the robbery. His very manner told them that.

The chief uttered the usual warning: "It is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be used in evidence——" He got so far when Bradby awoke from his stupor. He gave no warning of his intention, but his doubled fist shot out, caught the other on the point of the jaw and dropped him in a heap on the ground. Then with the swiftness of thought he leaped to one side, pulling his revolver loose at the same instant. He had just the smallest fraction of a second's start of the police, and in the flurry of the moment he actually burst through the cordon that had formed around him. The next instant the carbines of the police commenced to bark. Bradby stumbled, recovered himself, and fired over his shoulder. Several of the troopers were already on horseback, and it was only a matter of riding him down. He saw this himself, and his futile shot was designed to stop one at least of the horses. However, it went wide. He slipped behind a tree and began snap-shooting at the advancing mounted men. They spread out fanwise, thus coming at him from three sides at once. He moved slightly in order to get a better aim, and in doing so unwittingly exposed himself. One of the troopers, who had discarded his carbine in favor of a revolver, took a flying shot. Bradby lurched from behind the tree, clasped his hands to his left side and slipped down on to the grass.

When they reached him the blood was welling out of his side, and they saw that he was mortally wounded. The man who had fired the fatal shot dropped on his knees beside him and lifted up his head. Bradby's face was ashy pale, even in the faint moonlight one could see that, but he was still conscious.

"It's no use," he panted. "I'm done."

"Where is the gold and where are your mates?" the man asked, conscious that a word from the dying bushranger would solve everything. Bradby's frame shook spasmodically, and when the other looked again there was blood on his pale lips.

"Through the lung," muttered one of the others who had some knowledge of medical science.

The first man repeated his question in another form.

Bradby looked at him with a strangely inscrutable face and with eyes that were already darkening with the shadow of death.

"Where's the gold? Where's ... my ... mates?" The last three words were almost whispered.

"Yes," said the trooper eagerly. "Where are they?"

The dying man moved his lips, but no sound issued from them. The other bent down closer to him.

"That," said the bushranger with long and painful pauses between each word, "you ... will ... never ... know."

And with that last taunt on his lips he died.

"Game to the end," the trooper said to his comrades with an admiration he made no effort to hide.

* * * * *

The blow had not killed Abel Cumshaw. He lay unconscious for the better part of the night, and even when the day dawned he was too weak at first to do more than crawl a few paces at the most. His head was throbbing, his mouth was a raging furnace, and all his limbs felt as if they had been racked and twisted. When daylight came at length he lay still for a while, trying to recollect what had happened. But his mind was a perfect blank and he himself was a man without an identity. The blow that had knocked him unconscious had somehow affected his memory, and he knew no more about himself than he did about the man in the moon. Something terrible had happened, something in which he had played a very prominent part, that much he realised; but beyond that simple fact his recollection did not extend. He groped about in the grass in the hope that he might find something that would give him a clue to the situation. His hand fell on his revolver. That at least was tangible, but there was nothing enlightening about it. Further search revealed a small flat piece of wood. He picked it up curiously and stared at it. Two or three sentences had been hurriedly scratched on its smooth surface with the point of a sharp knife, but though they were intelligible enough they did not appear to refer to anything concerning him. The mere fact that he had been lying almost on top of the wood struck him as strange, and in a moment of unusual thoughtfulness he slipped it into his pocket.

It was bright day by then, and the warmth of the sun seemed to revive him to a marvellous extent. He got on his feet more by sheer will-power than by any sudden accession of strength. He found that he could stagger along, though his pace was necessarily slow and his course very erratic. Some uncharted sense, instinct perhaps, led him along the track to the creek where he had pitched his camp the previous evening. There was a dim familiarity about the place that puzzled him. He felt in some absurd way that he should recognise it, and he was both angry and surprised that he could not. He found the remains of the parrot that Bradby had eaten for breakfast, and he wondered vaguely who the man might be who had been so close to him that morning. His wonder was such an impersonal thing that he did not connect his own condition with the fact of the other man's presence. Something had given way inside his head, that something that controlled rational and consecutive memory. He sat down on the bank of the creek and gazed into space. It would be incorrect to say that he was dazed or that he behaved like a man in a dream. Those are stock terms that in themselves are quite inadequate to convey his peculiar state of mind and body. It was something more than lassitude, yet it was not quite fatigue. It was rather as if some integral part of his brain had been removed.

It is impossible to say just how long he remained on the bank of the creek. At last his hunger became so acute that he determined to go off foraging. He had his revolver with him; he was a fair enough shot, and so it was not long before he tumbled a 'possum out of a tree. He made a rough meal of it, and after that set off aimlessly into the bush. Had he kept to his original intention he would have speedily wandered into the Mallee, and would have run a good chance of dying of starvation in that thinly-populated district. But his mind was still in a whirl, and instinct alone guided his footsteps to the east. He was many miles north of the valley and during his travels he moved further north, so that he did not come across it during his journey back.

His subsequent adventures are not very clear. Early in his travels the piece of wood began to trouble him, and he decided that the sooner he got rid of it the better. It is more than likely that he connected it in some way with that blank feeling of inexplicable tragedy which seemed to overshadow him. His instinct, however, led him to hide rather than destroy it. He read the wording very carefully, but it failed to awaken any responsive chords in his memory. As an after-thought, just as he was about to slide the wood into the hole he had scraped out, he took his knife and cut his name below the screed. Then he thrust it into the hole and stamped the earth in on top of it. In this relation it is interesting to notice the connection between the hiding of the money and the burying of the wood that held the key to the position of the former. It seems as if the sub-conscious memory of the one act had its influence on the man in his performance of the other.

Thereafter Mr. Cumshaw simply disappeared off the face of the earth. His son's story is that he went to New South Wales, married there and raised a family, and in the light of subsequent events that seems to be what most likely occurred. It is known, however, that the Cumshaws were in Victoria again somewhere about nineteen hundred and two or three, Albert being at that time seven years old.

With the lapse of years Abel had gradually recovered his memory, and bit by bit most of the incidents of the robbery had stolen out of the shrouded darkness of the past. He appears to have been perfectly contented with his family, and for one reason and another the gold remained undisturbed through the long years. The time was coming when the old play would be staged again and new actors would arise to carry it through.

The tale of the gold robbery and the shooting of Mr. Jack Bradby, as the reader will readily understand, passed into the police records and thus became matters of history. Though no definite statement has been left us, Mr. Bryce must have first come across the story during his researches into Victorian history. He had friends in the Department, and it is quite feasible that he had ready access to many official documents that are usually beyond the reach of the ordinary public. He was not the only one in this enviable position. There were other students of the past who were moving along the same lines, and as he pieced together the puzzle of the robbery he was followed by a pair of agile, unscrupulous brains every whit as clever as he. The police records told Mr. Bryce just this much:—On the first day of December, 1881, there had been a gold robbery, and the robbers had got completely away. They had been followed, and subsequently a man had been killed in the Grampians who had been identified as John Bradby, a noted sheep and cattle-duffer. When dying he refused to tell who his pals were, and had in the same breath stated that the police would never find the gold. That in itself was conclusive, yet the additional fact remained that the whereabouts of the gold was still as big a mystery as ever it had been. The opinion of the police was that the other members of the gang—they seemed to think that it was a fairly large one—had returned when the hue and cry had died away and recovered the plunder. Bryce, reading between the lines of the dry official record, rather thought that they hadn't. At any rate the element of mystery was sufficiently strong to induce him to investigate the matter further. That was really the beginning of the trouble.



CHAPTER VI.

THE HEGIRA OF MR. ABEL CUMSHAW.

Early in January, 1919, Mr. Bryce had advanced so far in his investigations that he resolved on taking a trip to the country around the Grampians. He had nothing very definite to go on beyond the facts that the robbery had been committed at one spot and Mr. Bradby had been killed at another, and logically the gold must have been hidden somewhere in between. He had hopes that he might stumble on something that in his capable hands would prove to be a clue to the long-lost hiding-place of the gold. Before he made any preparations he inserted an advertisement in several of the leading dailies. It ran somehow like this:—"Wanted—A capable and intelligent assistant to take part in dangerous expedition to Grampians. Apply," and then followed his name and address. He was convinced in his own mind that someone amongst those who read this notice would have some inkling at least of the events of 1st December, 1881, and he rather fancied that he or they would be on the alert. In that case it was just possible that the persons concerned would either approach him with a guarded offer or would dog his footsteps. In either case there was a chance of Mr. Bryce picking up information that might be to his immediate advantage. He convinced himself that there were still people living who had played an intimate part in the affairs of that memorable night.

The advertisement, however, had two results that were unforeseen by Mr. Bryce. The third day after the insertion of the notice he was informed that a gentleman wanted to see him. He requested that the man be shown into his study. In due course the visitor arrived. He was a man somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty, but, save for a slight greying of the hair about his temples, he showed little outward signs of his age. His eyes, which were of a deep, unfathomable black, were very alert and followed Mr. Bryce's every movement with a glittering serenity, if one can use the expression, that was very disturbing.

"Sit down," said Mr. Bryce, and he waved his visitor to a chair.

The man sat down in the chair indicated, looked Mr. Bryce up and down, without, however, the least sign of offensiveness in his gaze, and said without any further preliminary, "I've come to see you about that advertisement."

"Um!" said Mr. Bryce non-committally. "Yes, that ad. What about it?"

"I think," said the other with his eyes fixed intently on Mr. Bryce, "I think I am the best man for the job."

"I haven't told you yet what the job is," Mr. Bryce objected.

"That's so," the other admitted. "Beyond saying that it was dangerous, you did not attempt to describe it. It doesn't matter what you want in the Grampians. I'm the man to take. I know the place well."

"It's changed vastly in thirty years," Bryce said suddenly.

The other must have been expecting something like this, for he never turned a hair. As far as he was concerned Mr. Bryce's observation might have been the most casual remark in the world. He ignored it. Perhaps it would have been better had he commented on it and asked what association to-day's expedition had with what had happened during thirty odd years. He passed the matter over in silence, and in that instant Bryce guessed that the man knew as much, if not more, than he did.

"Do you know why I advertised that expedition as dangerous?" Bryce asked, seeing that the other made no attempt to reply.

The man shook his head. "No, I don't," he said distinctly.

"I'll tell you," said Bryce, and he leaned forward in simulated confidence. "I'm fat and I wheeze. My bellows are all to blazes and the doctors won't give a rap for my heart. I might go out any minute, more especially if there's any extra exertion. Now I want a man who won't ask questions, who will do the exertions for two, and take what's coming with a grin."

"That sounds simple enough," the man remarked. "May I ask what we are after?"

"I'm searching for gold," said Bryce with a startling clearness.

The other shifted in his seat, looked at Bryce as if to measure the possibilities of his next remark, and then said, "There's no gold there."

"You mean," said Bryce, "that none's ever been discovered there; quite a different thing. I hope to discover some before I'm done."

"It's too far west for mines," the other asserted.

Mr. Bryce passed over the man's statement in a way that showed that as far as he was concerned that aspect of the matter was over and done with. The obvious answer for him to make would have been, "Gold comes in other ways than out of mines," but he was cautious enough not to air all his knowledge at once.

"What's your name?" he demanded.

"Abel Cumshaw," the other answered, and saw by the way Bryce screwed up his brows that it conveyed nothing to him.

"Well, Mr. Cumshaw, would you care to take this job on?"

"How long would we be away?"

"Six weeks or two months. I'm not certain of that."

"When do we start?"

"This is Monday. Be here Friday and we'll get right away. Friday morning, mind, at ten-thirty sharp. That's all, I think. Good-day."

After Mr. Cumshaw had gone Bryce slipped back in his chair and laughed till his whole face creased up in rolls of quivering fat. "That's a good one on him," he murmured. "He didn't ask what screw he was to get, and I didn't tell him because I wanted to see if he'd ask. But he didn't, so he must have been thinking of something else. He's anxious to get to the Grampians, darned anxious. From the way he went on he seems to know a bit about the place too. I wonder has he any suspicion?... Good Lord! wouldn't it be a streak of luck if he knew! Yes, I did the right thing in sending in that ad. One man's bitten at any rate."

He went about the house all day chuckling away to himself.

* * * * *

The second incident which occurred that same day was of even a more disturbing nature. Late that afternoon the telephone bell rang, and when Bryce answered it a voice asked if he was the Mr. Bryce who had advertised for an assistant in an expedition to the Grampians.

"That's me," said Bryce. "But I'm sorry to say that the position's filled."

"Why are you sorry?" the voice asked disconcertingly.

"Um!" said Mr. Bryce. "Aren't you after it?"

"No chance," said the voice. "As a matter of fact, I was on the point of writing out a similar one myself, when I saw yours and guessed I'd let you do the work."

"Who are you?" Bryce demanded with a trace of sharpness in his voice.

The man at the other end of the wire laughed cheerfully. "Never you mind," he said. "You'll know soon enough, as soon as you've landed Jack Bradby's plunder. Now, I want to put up a sporting proposition to you. We'll retire gracefully, if you'll split fifty-fifty."

"We!" Bryce repeated. "So there's more than one of you?"

"There's lots of us, and we've got the whip hand of you because, you see, you don't know who we are. We know you; we've been following a couple of jumps behind you right through all the records, and we guess it's high time we cashed in."

"I'll see you in Hell first!" said Bryce angrily.

"Probably you will," said the voice with a chuckle. "If you won't treat with us, we'll get what we want in other ways."

"No, by thunder, you won't!" said Bryce shortly. "I'll warn you that I'll shoot on sight."

"So do we," the other laughed. "I hope, for your sake, you recognise us first, though I don't think it likely."

"If I catch you monkeying around I'll fill you so full of holes that your own mother won't know you from a colander," Bryce threatened; but the voice laughed irritatingly, and when Bryce tried to get a reply he found that the other had rung off.

He flickered the hook with his finger. "Exchange," he said, giving his number, "can you tell me who was speaking just now?"

"Box three, G. P. O. public 'phones," said the girl wearily.

"Oh, hell!" said Bryce in disgust, and hung up the receiver.

* * * * *

The rest of the week passed without incident of any sort, and, despite the warning he had received. Bryce went on calmly with his preparations. For all the fat flabbiness of him he was grit through and through, and it took more than a warning over the telephone to turn him aside once he had made up his mind to take a certain course. He went on quietly and silently; his only sign of perturbation was that first thing on Tuesday he slipped down town and bought a big calibre revolver.

Friday morning came, and at ten-thirty exactly, not a minute before or after, Mr. Abel Cumshaw knocked at the front door and was admitted. He was shown at once into Mr. Bryce's study, where that gentleman awaited him, watch in hand.

"On time to the tick," he said affably as Cumshaw entered the room. "Everything's ready for an immediate start. I suppose you've got all you want."

"I'm always ready at a moment's notice," Cumshaw said. "I travel light. I'm an old campaigner."

"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," Bryce said breezily. "We'll be going in my car as far as we can. After that we'll have to walk, and I'm not a very good hand at that. There's some rough spots up there, they tell me," he said off-handedly. For all his seeming nonchalance he was watching Cumshaw intently, and he saw him give an almost imperceptible start. It flashed across Bryce's mind that perhaps Cumshaw was in the pay of the people who had gone to such pains to 'phone him. A second look at the man convinced him that such was not the case. Cumshaw's eyes were frank and clear, and met his unswervingly. They were not the eyes of a man who was playing a double game.

There was something in them that Bryce did not quite understand. It was the animation of newly-resurrected hope, such a light as might have shone in the eyes of the men who rode to find the Holy Grail. Bryce knew nothing of him or his history, and his only thought was that in some queer way the man had a vital interest in the Grampians. It must be remembered that, as far as known facts were concerned, Bryce knew nothing more than the police records had told him. True, his reasoning faculties, which were none of the densest, carried him a little further, but he would have been the very first to admit his fallibility. Nothing had occurred as yet to connect Cumshaw with Mr. Jack Bradby. He recognised that the man had a definite object in view in going to the Grampians—that was plain enough—but it might after all be merely coincidence. Such things have happened. Mr. Cumshaw, on the other hand, was alert and suspicious. He suspected everybody and everything, and he had answered the advertisement solely because he believed, or affected to believe, that an expedition to the hill country could have no other object that the recovery of the gold. Doubtless it will appear strange that Mr. Cumshaw had allowed so many years to elapse without attempting to secure it for himself, but, as he told Bryce later on, there were reasons even for that.

* * * * *

They stopped at Ballarat for lunch; Bryce refilled the petrol tank, and then they set out on the long stretch to Ararat. Though no definite statement exists, they passed the night at the latter town, for Cumshaw afterwards told his son that they reached Landsborough about 10.30 the following morning. Beyond Landsborough the track became very trying for the car, and somewhere towards the evening of the second day the machine was hidden away securely in one of the many gullies that abounded in the neighbourhood. Then the hardest part of the journey began. Child's play though it might have been to Cumshaw, who, for all his years, had a constitution such as it is given to a few men to possess, it certainly must have been a matter of infinite torture to Bryce, handicapped as he was with his weak-heart and his wheezy lungs.

They spent the next few days in working across to the spot where Bradby had been killed thirty odd years before. As they drew near to the place Cumshaw became more self-contained and uncommunicative than ever. The sight of the old scene seemed to have depressed him marvellously. Bryce watched him with increasing attentiveness; he noticed that he picked out the road as if he had been used to it from childhood. There were times when Bryce turned suddenly on him and caught a glimpse of a hard-set jaw and a mouth about which strong lines of determination had woven themselves. Yet, as soon as Cumshaw fancied he was observed, the mask of his face melted into a smile, and the sombre eyes sparkled with a humor that somehow seemed too real to be assumed.

"You seem very familiar with the place, Cumshaw," Bryce remarked one morning.

"I told you I was," Cumshaw answered, his unfathomable eyes searching his employer's face.

"How long is it since you were here last?" Bryce asked.

At the question all expression vanished from the other's face, leaving it as immobile as a carven image of stone. "I have been here many times," he said evasively.

"Um!" said Bryce in that peculiar way of his, and he looked the other up and down contemplatively. "I didn't think anyone had been here since Bradby was shot."

Bryce made the remark in the most casual and innocent way; he hadn't the faintest notion in the world that what he had said was like a bombshell bursting beneath the structure of Mr. Cumshaw's composure. He was intelligent enough to realise that it was more than probable that Cumshaw possessed knowledge of that almost forgotten episode which was not shared with anyone else, but he had not the least suspicion that his casual utterance would hit home so shrewdly as it did.

Mr. Cumshaw stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. For once he made no attempt to disguise his emotions beneath the mask of stoicism. He saw laughter in the other's eyes, the jovial laughter of a man who has always known the sweets of victory, and he jumped to the natural though erroneous conclusion that Bryce had fathomed his connection with the late Mr. Bradby. For all that he did not abandon his defences without some show of resistance.

"What do you mean?" he demanded in the belligerent attitude of a man who is fighting a desperate though losing fight.

"Just what I said, Mr. Cumshaw," Bryce smiled. "What else did you think I meant?"

The quiet question was put in such an unexpectedly mild tone that Cumshaw was left wordless for the nonce, though his face showed in all their fulness the emotions that were stirring within him. Doubt, indecision, fear of a kind.

"I thought——," he said and then stopped short.

"You thought," Bryce repeated with a gentle persuasiveness in his voice. "What was it you thought, Cumshaw?"

They were both fencing, in sporting parlance "sparring for wind," each of them with the Big Idea almost within reach, and each not daring yet to put it into words. For the space of a heart-beat they stared into each other's eyes, seeking to read the other's thoughts. In the end it was Cumshaw who gave in first. He tore his eyes away from that fixed yet kindly gaze that seemed to search and read his very soul.

"I see," said Bryce, with a sudden intake of breath that lent a sibilant quality to his speech, "I see that we are on the same track. Mr. Cumshaw, place your cards on the table. You are after the gold that Bradby hid; so am I. Our aims are the same. Let us be partners, instead of employer and assistant. What do you know that I do not? What do I know that you do not?"

Like most fat and comfortable people Bryce was the soul of generosity, and his offer was dictated not so much by expediency as by a sense of the pity that he felt for this man, who seemed to have aged years in the last few minutes. He, too, in his time had known what it meant to have the prize within a hand's touch and then at the last moment lose it after all.

"You know nothing about me," Cumshaw said impulsively. "You don't know who I am or what I've been. You haven't an idea...."

Bryce cut him short with a sweeping gesture of his chubby hands. "My dear man," he said, "what you've been doesn't matter a tinker's curse to me. It's what you are that counts."

"You don't even know that," the other answered, his lips curling in a wry smile.

"I'll know as soon as you tell me," Bryce hinted.

It is a difficult matter for a man, who all his life has held a close secret, to divulge it at a moment's notice, in a sudden fit of warm friendliness, to a comparative stranger, and so Abel Cumshaw found it. It is even harder to surrender one's hopes and ambitions in favor of a potential rival, honest and all as that rival may appear to be. For one brief moment Cumshaw paused on the brink of revelation, the while he weighed the matter in his mind. In some strange way Bryce had guessed that he was after the gold, but did he know why and how? Cumshaw rather fancied he didn't. He was so sure of it that he decided that he would gain nothing by divulging the connection between himself and the late Mr. Bradby. So the mouth which was opening to speak shut up again like a steel trap, and the dark eyes turned bleak and cold. He looked Bryce steadily and calmly in the face.

"There is nothing to tell," he said, and turned on his heel.

* * * * *

Black night had descended on the forest many hours before, so many in fact that the camp fire had sunk to a feeble red glow, and the dying embers were already circled by a ring of dead white ash. The breeze was crooning softly through the branches of the trees, singing weird chanties to itself. In between the murmurs of the wind there came another sound, the indistinct sound of a sleepy man mumbling to himself. Bryce half-raised himself on one elbow and listened. Half a dozen feet away from him Cumshaw lay tightly rolled in his blankets. He tossed restlessly and once all but sat up. Bryce dropped quickly but soundlessly back into a prone position. But the alarm had been a false one, and presently he quietly raised himself again. The indistinct mumbling went on as before, and he strained his ears to catch some intelligible word.

"Kill me, would you?" he heard the other say.

His voice sank again, and for a time he mumbled and mouthed his words so that Bryce missed most of what he said. He was just on the point of settling down again when Cumshaw suddenly sat up.

"I'll beat you yet, Bradby!" he cried with startling distinctness. "You're dead now and the gold's mine."

His eyes opened and he stared dazedly around him. Bryce was lying prone and snoring away hoggishly. He was fast asleep; there was not the slightest doubt in the mind of the man who watched him so closely.

"I must have dreamt I said it," Cumshaw murmured to himself. "If I'd spoken the way I thought I had he'd have been wide-awake." And then he in his turn composed himself to slumber.

* * * * *

They were very quiet at breakfast. Bryce was turning the situation over in his mind, viewing it from all possible angles and seeking some method of getting Cumshaw to speak without in any way antagonising him. Cumshaw himself was troubled by lingering doubts. It was quite possible after all that Bryce had heard him, supposing he had spoken aloud, and was quietly dissembling for some purpose of his own. His very thoughtfulness seemed to lend color to that idea. He looked at Bryce across the carpet of grass and at the same instant Bryce raised his eyes. They stared at each other with the breathless intensity of two men who know that in all things they are evenly matched. Each was striving to the last atom of his will-power to break down the resistance of the other and force him in some way to take the initiative. At last it was Bryce who dropped his eyes a fraction and Cumshaw who breathed a sigh of relief. But his relief was short-lived, for in the last half-second his guard had relaxed. Bryce said:

"Why did Bradby want to kill you, Mr. Cumshaw?"

The quick yet calm question, covering as it did the one episode of which nobody but the two participants could possibly have any knowledge, startled Cumshaw. For once his impassive face showed signs of fear, and his eyes became those of a hunted man. He half-rose to his feet and then dropped back again, as if aware of the uselessness of flight. He tried to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. In one short sentence Bryce had shattered all his hopes and pulled his airy castles to the ground. Did this man but like to speak he would be once again Cumshaw the bushranger, the man who had been hand in glove with Bradby, and who, through some miracle of mischance, had not been bracketed with his dead colleague. Bryce knew all apparently, and a word from him——. Cumshaw shivered.

"You can trust me," Bryce said softly. "I guess I know your secret now. You and Bradby carried out that robbery between you. You hid the gold, and for one reason and another you've never retrieved it. Isn't that it?"

Cumshaw nodded. It was too late now to deny anything, even if he had so felt inclined. Nemesis in the shape of this laughing-eyed, gross-bodied man, had come upon him in his old age, and there was nothing for it but to take what was coming with as good a grace as he could muster.

"What happened thirty years or more ago is over and done with," Bryce ran on, "and I'm not the sort to bring it into the light of day again. I'm after that gold, and, in order to get it, I'm quite ready to repeat my previous offer. We each seem to have something that the other lacks. You can tell me many things I don't know. Of that I'm sure."

"There's a lot of things you seem sure of," Cumshaw said with a half-defiant air.

"I'm as sure that you're the man who was with Bradby as if I'd seen it all myself," Bryce stated. "Remember, before you refuse, that it's always better to compromise than fight. Furthermore, if you have to fight, it's much better to have an ally you can rely on."

"What's that?" Cumshaw demanded with a show of interest. "What do you mean?"

"Only this," Bryce said slowly. "There's another crowd on the track, and they've already warned me that they'll make the going heavy. If you've got to be up against them, why not throw in your lot with me? It's fifty-fifty with us; if you stand out on your own, you'll probably lose it all."

"I think you've got me in a cleft stick," Cumshaw said a trifle ruefully. "I can't see that I can refuse. Now how much do you know?"

Said Mr. Bryce untruthfully, "I know everything except where you've hidden the gold."

"And even I couldn't swear to that," Cumshaw said.

"It seems to me," said Bryce dryly, "that the best thing you can do is to tell me the whole story."

He listened eagerly to the tale, occasionally stopping the other to question him on some obscure point, sometimes helping him along with a comment that threw unexpected light in the dark corners of the story.

"It amounts to this," he said when Cumshaw had finished. "Bradby buried the gold in this hidden valley of yours. It's so hidden—the valley, I mean—that you only came on it by accident, and you have no definite idea as to its whereabouts. It's three or four days' journey into the mountains, that's all you can say. There's no way of recognising it from the outside that you know of. Well, I'll tell you this, Mr. Cumshaw. It's my frank opinion that your clever murderous friend had some way of finding it again, or he wouldn't have been in such haste to make away with you. He knew what he was doing, you can depend on it. Now I wonder if he left any clue?"

"I've got a hazy memory that he left directions somewhere and that I had them," Cumshaw said despondently, "but I can't say what happened to them. You must remember that I was wandering about half-delirious for a long while after I got knocked, and it was years before I got really right again. I might have lost any note he made; I might have done anything with it."

"You might have and that's a fact," Mr. Bryce agreed. "Now you say you've hunted for this valley many times during the last ten years or so."

Cumshaw nodded. "It seems funny," he said, "but I've never been able to find it."

"There's nothing funny about it," Bryce told him. "History and fiction abound with instances of similar miscalculations. I'll guarantee that there are scores of such places in every continent in the world. Australia's got just as many as any other place. What made you want to hunt it up again after all those years?"

"Old associations, I suppose," Cumshaw said half-ashamedly. "While I was in New South Wales—I went there, you understand, until things blew over a bit—and my wife was alive, I didn't want anything else but to be near her. When she died and things began to go wrong with me, I drifted back here. Money was short. I was living as best I could, and there were the children to look after, and the sight of the old places brought things back to my mind. I was beginning to dig bits up from the memory of the past—the doctors have some fancy name for lapses like mine, though I could never remember what it was—and then one day I asked myself why shouldn't I go after the gold? It was as much mine as anyone else's, now that Bradby was dead, and the Bank that originally owned it had gone smash about the Land Boom time from what I could gather. I went, but I missed the place somehow. I went time and again, but it was always like that 'Lost Mountain' story of Mayne Reid's, though a valley's harder to find than a mountain you'd think. I couldn't find it anyhow, and that's about all there is to it."

"Um!" said Mr. Bryce, and he ran his hand softly across his chin. "We are up against a bigger thing than I thought. I'm hanged if I can see a glimmer of light anywhere. Is there anything you can suggest?"

Cumshaw did not reply. He was staring straight ahead of him, staring intently, and little furrows of anxiety marred the serenity of his forehead. He was peering into the shadows of the trees as if his eyes were twin searchlights that could cut substance from the gloom. He was staring so intently that Bryce whirled round, fully convinced that his friends of the telephone were upon them.

"What's wrong?" he queried in a hoarse whisper. "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing," said Cumshaw. "I thought I heard something moving, that's all."

Bryce in his turn peered intently in between the tree-boles, but the shadows lay thick upon the grass between, and it was difficult to define even the shapes of the more distant timber. The place was still and gloomy, full of grim forebodings, like a summer sky in which a storm is gathering.

"We must have been mistaken," Bryce remarked in his embracing way. "There doesn't seem to be anyone about."

"Hands up!" snapped a crisp voice, and in the surprise of the moment Bryce obeyed. Cumshaw had no such intention. He dropped suddenly on to the ground even as a shot rang out, and a bullet whistled close above his head. The next instant he was crashing swiftly through the bushes, spinning down into the gully like a human projectile.



CHAPTER VIII.

THE GATHERING OF THE EAGLES.

At first Bryce could see nothing but the dull gleam of unpolished metal from the barrel of a revolver which protruded from behind a tree, but a further scrutiny showed him the dim outlines of a man's figure standing in that place of gloom and ghosts. The man stepped out from his hiding-place, even as Bryce watched him, and was followed almost instantly by another man. They were both somewhere about the same height, in the neighbourhood of five feet ten. Their features were not visible, for each of them wore a handkerchief about his face in the time-honored fashion of the men of the road, and a hat pulled well down over the eyes completed the disguise.

"Well, Mr. Bryce," said the man in front, "what have you got to say for yourself?"

"It's a funny thing," remarked Bryce, with the adventures of Mr. Cumshaw and the late Mr. Bradby in his mind, "it's funny how history repeats itself."

The leader made a step forward and stared intently at Bryce. "You're the man right enough," he said. "Where's your pal?"

"Ask me something easy," sneered Bryce, "and I'd be obliged if you'd let me drop my hands awhile. This is getting fairly tiresome."

"You should have thought of that before you started that business," the other one reminded him. "It's rather late now to be finding out the flaws in your plans."

The sneering smile on Mr. Bryce's face broadened into a grin of triumph. "Didn't you ever hear the proverb about glass-houses and the people who live in them?" he enquired blandly.

The first speaker stared at him, but the other one said impatiently, "Finish him off, Alick, and let's get it over."

The man called Alick answered in a subdued voice. Bryce did not catch what he said, but supposed it to be a counsel of caution. His smile grew in intensity, so much so that Alick snapped at him. "What the deuce are you grinning at, you fat fool?" he demanded.

"You'll know soon enough," Bryce said with a chuckle. He looked right past them into the shadows of the trees, on his face the joyful expression of a man who sees the long-locked gates of his prison swing open before him. Both men whirled round with a chorus of oaths. They were quite positive that Bryce's mate had stolen a march on them and crept up behind their backs. They had their heads turned away but for the fraction of a second, but the time, short though it was, was plenty long enough for Mr. Bryce. With an agility, remarkable in a man of his weight and state of health, he faded into the landscape like some fat fairy.

"Fooled!" said Alick's companion, and he whipped round to face his prisoner, only to find that the keen-brained Mr. Bryce had vanished as completely as if he had been blown off the face of the earth.

"Nice pair of goats we are," remarked Alick disgustedly.

The other said nothing, but stood for a moment in a state of indecision. At that precise instant a pencil of flame shot out from one of the trees immediately in front of them, and Alick dropped his revolver with a howl of pain.

"He's winged me," he said, and applied to Mr. Bryce an epithet not usually heard in polite society.

His mate fired at the tree from which the shot had evidently come, but the bullet did nothing more than flatten itself against the trunk in a shower of dust and dry bark. Mr. Bryce's revolver spoke once again. This time he failed to register.

"The sooner we get out of this the better," said Alick, with one hand clasped to his injured shoulder. "The beggar'll riddle us both if we stop here."

The other man grunted his approval of the suggestion and proceeded to carry it into effect at once.

"Better look where you are going," Alick advised. "That other chap's about somewhere, perhaps waiting for us."

The other consigned both Bryce and his assistant to a place more noted for its warmth than its comfort. Despite their forebodings Mr. Cumshaw did not put in an appearance, and they gained the shelter of the thick timber in safety.

Once he was sure that they had really departed Mr. Bryce stepped out from behind his tree, first, however, with commendable caution reloading the heavy revolver he carried. The smile was still flickering about the corners of his mouth, but there was a little wrinkle of anxiety across his forehead.

"I wonder where the devil Cumshaw's gone?" he remarked to the unresponsive trees. "He went off like a scared rabbit. I'd better hunt for him. I can't get on without him now."

With the laudable intention of finding Mr. Cumshaw as soon as possible he began to scour the neighbourhood.

When Mr. Cumshaw disappeared so precipitately it was with the idea that he must maintain his freedom at any cost. True, Bryce might be captured, but by the same token he could be rescued just as easily. Though his intentions were right enough he was prevented in the simplest manner possible from carrying them into effect. He went crashing through the bushes as has already been related, and found himself on the edge of what was nothing more or less than a blind creek. The sides were covered with matted brushwood and were as slippery as glass. His momentum was such that he could not stop himself in time, and he went head over heels down the side of the gully, and spun on to the boulder-covered bottom like some new and monstrous kind of Catherine wheel. He collided with the rounded surface of one of the big weather-worn rocks which lay strewn about the gully floor like the tremendous marbles of a giant.

The world spun round him in a blaze of colored lights, and his head felt as if it were filled with fireworks. Then in an instant all sensation ceased as though cut off with the clean sweep of a naked sword. Mr. Cumshaw lay still and lifeless under the shadow of the brushwood-covered gully.

Some half an hour later, when Bryce happened on this very spot, he pulled the bushes aside cautiously and peered down almost between his toes; but the shadows lay thick beneath him, and the edge of the gully so projected that he could not see the body of the man for whom he was searching. Slowly he retraced his steps. He was deeply puzzled by this new aspect of the affair. It seemed impossible that Cumshaw could have completely disappeared in so short a space of time, yet the fact that he could not be found was in itself proof conclusive. Had Bryce lingered a couple of seconds longer he would have seen the rapidly-recovering Cumshaw turn over on his side, raise one hand to his head, and present a startled face to the scanty rays of light that filtered down to him. In a sense his revival was something more than a recovery; it was a resurrection. The years rolled away in an instant, and he ceased to be the Abel Cumshaw who had fallen down the side of the gully and cracked his head against an extra-large sized boulder; he became the Abel Cumshaw who had just been knocked into unconsciousness by the butt of Mr. Bradby's revolver, and whose head still throbbed with the force of the blow.

He stared uncomprehendingly at the steep sides of the gully; they had no place in his gallery of mental pictures. He had a vague idea that there should be a creek somewhere close at hand. His head was throbbing, pulsing as if some mighty engine were working inside it. He rose unsteadily to his feet and regarded the steep declivities which formed the sides of the gully with a contemplative eye. He decided that they were climbable, but that he must wait awhile before he made the attempt. He was weak yet; one does not recover instantaneously from a crack on the head. He moved very carefully when he moved at all, and he kept well within the shadows of the overhanging banks. Mr. Bradby was somewhere handy, he argued, extremely ready and willing to finish him off, and it would never do to give him another chance. He had no idea that Mr. Bradby had died long years ago. Time had telescoped and he was back again in the early eighties. With the addled craftiness of a half-witted creature he set about escaping from the imprisoning walls of the gully-dungeon. Had it been anything else than a blind creek he would have found an exit by following the dry bed, and thus have disappeared entirely from this story. But it was fated otherwise. The one idea that gained any sort of prominence in his mind was that he must climb the side of the gully.

He found a pool of clear rainwater in a little cavity in the dry bed of the creek, and bathed his head in it and drank a little. Its refreshing coolness acted on his jaded body like the sting of a spur on the flank of a lazy horse. He crept cautiously in under the overhang of the bank and searched about for a foothold. Such was not hard to find, and, in less time than it takes to write of it, he was swinging up the side of the bank, clinging to projecting ledges of rock with hands and feet that seemed to possess all the prehensile quality of a monkey's. Once on the top of the bank he burrowed into the mass of vegetation like some primeval creature taking to earth, a pitiful caricature of the sane, strong man he had been a few short hours before. Cautious and all as he was, his flight was not absolutely noiseless, and so it came about that presently Bryce heard him, and circled round the spot from which the sound came like a wolf heading off a herd of deer.

Cumshaw crashed through the bushes and emerged into the open a hundred yards or so ahead of Bryce. The latter caught sight of him at the moment of his emergence and called out to him to stop.

"Cumshaw," he called. "Come here!"

The other heard the call and caught his own name, but instead of slackening he accelerated his pace. He did not look round; he was convinced in his own warped mind that his pursuer was none other than the late Mr. Bradby. Accordingly he swung along at such a rate that Bryce soon dropped behind, breathless and dispirited. He sat down on a convenient log and mopped his damp face with a large-sized handkerchief. Presently his breathing became normal again, and his agitated heart ceased fluttering like a caged bird. He fell to reviewing the position. The more he thought of it, the less hopeless it appeared to be. His unrecognisable and nameless antagonists had temporarily withdrawn from the fight, whether to consolidate their forces and plan some new form of attack, or because they had received a very salutary lesson, he could not say. Also it did not worry him over much. His ideas were centred mainly on Mr. Cumshaw. True, that gentleman had disappeared over the horizon with every mark of unseemly haste, and already he must be well advanced on whatever road he was taking. Not so very far away the car awaited Bryce, and he was sure that, once he reached it, it would be merely a matter of a day or so until he rediscovered Mr. Cumshaw. He repeated the verb. "Re-discovered" struck a distinctive note. One could not convey the same meaning with any form of the verb "to overtake;" Mr. Cumshaw had disappeared, not simply gone on ahead. He chuckled softly at his own quaint conceit, and at that his spirits began to rise again.

Feeling now fully rested, he rose to his feet and swung out on the track with that long slow stride which was all that remained of his athletic form of the old New Guinea days. Of late years he had walked, when he had walked at all, with the quick nervous step of the city-bred man, and it heartened him immensely to know that he was recovering without any effort of his volition the old easy pioneer stride.

It is not within the scope of this tale to relate how Mr. Bryce at length reached his car and set out on what he believed to be Abel Cumshaw's trail. Suffice it to state that he reached his machine without any untoward incident, the two gentlemen who had so rudely disturbed the serenity of his nature having seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. Once he passed a drover and elicited from him that a man answering Cumshaw's description had passed him on the road the previous morning. Evidently then the missing man was keeping away from the towns, taking instead a trail that would inevitably lead him further into the bush. He was rather pleased at this. Abel Cumshaw in the city would be as hard to find as the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay, but in the bush it would be much easier to locate him, Bryce considered. So he drove the car along at a low speed, keeping all the time a watchful eye out for any signs of the truant. As he progressed he was surprised and not a little pleased to find that his New Guinea woodcraft was coming back to him by degrees. The joy of the chase was his, and he experienced again the same keen and primitive emotions that had thrilled him in the days when the elder Carstairs and he had trodden the unexplored wilds of Papua.

* * * * *

He came upon Cumshaw very suddenly. The car was creeping through the trees at a snail's pace—there was no clearly defined track in that part of the bush, and Bryce was taking no unnecessary risks—when he caught sight of a figure that might or might not be the missing Mr. Cumshaw. He stopped the car at once and descended to the ground. As has already been noted earlier in these memoirs, Mr. Bryce, when occasion required it, for all his huge bulk, could move as agilely and noiselessly as that pre-eminently silent animal, the domestic cat. He had been so keyed up by the emotional stresses of the last few days that he threw himself into the adventure with all the zest of a schoolboy just being introduced into romance. The man was dodging through the trees a hundred yards or so ahead, and there was something so furtive about his movements that Bryce approached with more than his usual caution.

The man halted and glanced swiftly around. Bryce flattened himself against a handy tree, and fervently hoped that the shadow was thick enough to conceal him. The other patently had no idea that he was being followed, for, apparently quite satisfied with his hasty scrutiny, he dropped on his knees and commenced scraping the earth away with the point of a knife that had appeared in his hand with the magical suddenness of a conjuring trick. As the man worked away Bryce peeped out from his hiding-place and saw then that it was indeed Cumshaw. He watched fascinated. His heart was thumping away like the piston of a steam-engine, and some queer unnamed instinct told him that the chase was drawing to a close. Cumshaw was digging up something of vital importance; it might be the treasure itself or perhaps the key to it. But why should Cumshaw have gone so stealthily to work unless—? "Unless he is going to cut me out of it," said Bryce to himself.

Abruptly the other straightened up and hugged something to his breast. It was covered with black loam, and at the distance Bryce could not tell what it was. He slipped stealthily from tree to tree until he had wormed his noiseless way right up to Cumshaw. Then, seeing that he had his man cut off should he attempt to escape, he stepped out into the open and laid a kindly hand on the fugitive's shoulder. Cumshaw turned in a flash, and, in the excitement of the moment, the earth-covered object slipped out of his hands and fell on the grass at his feet.