"Not after that letter? There can be no doubt after that. He must have had it with him when he was at Taloona, and dropped it."

"But it was opened, torn open, when the trooper found it. If Eustace had dropped it, surely it would have been sealed up."

She glanced at him quickly.

"Do you still suspect me?" she exclaimed.

"I should not be here if I did," he answered quietly.

"Oh, I don't know what to think," she said. "I would rather you had come to tell me he was dead than to show me that hideous thing. Better if he were dead, far, far better, than that he should live to end his days on the gallows or in gaol."

She was voicing his own thought, a thought which had been with him for many days.

"It was because something of this kind might happen I wanted you to go away," he said.

"I know. I understand that. But I told you—told you why I could not go."

She spoke scarcely above a whisper, with her head bent over her clasped hands as though she feared he might see her face.

"But the reason you gave no longer exists. Will you go now? Will you go and leave all this wretched strain and worry behind you?"

"I dare not. It would drive me to perdition. You don't know how a woman thinks. So long as she has someone near her whom she knows has respect for her, she will fight against the temptation to drown all her sorrows in one reckless plunge. When that one is no longer near her, no longer her stronghold, then—what has she to live for?"

"You have the respect of all who know you."

She pressed her clasped hands to her lips to stop their quivering.

"No, Fred, no. I must stay. I could not bear to go. A man can think for the future; a woman lives only in the present. You, a man, cannot understand that. You would say I should go away, and in a few months or a year or so everything would have blown over. That would be all right for a man, but not for a woman. It is while the affair is blowing over that she is in the greatest danger. It is then she wants sustaining. She is only conscious of the precipice at her feet. Left to herself she must lean over, nearer and nearer to the edge until she falls.

"That is the road to ruin thousands of women tread," she went on. "It would have been the road I should have gone but for you. The knowledge that despite all I have done to merit your scorn, you still hold to the love you gave me in the happier days, is the rock to which I have clung. Had you acted differently, I should have gone—gone from here, gone from everything, gone out into the world and lost myself under the weight of the disgrace which had come upon me. People would say I have no right to tell you this, that I am false to my sex in doing so. They don't know. It is easy to theorise when one is not in danger. I tell you because I trust you and know I can trust you. It is such men as you who save women, save them from themselves, as it is such men as Charlie who ruin them—as he ruined me."

With her face still averted from him she ceased, and he also was silent, not trusting himself to speak.

"That is why I must stay here. The mere fact of being near you gives me strength. If you are going away, then I will go also, for Waroona would then be impossible for me. But not till then, Fred, not till then. I only want to know you are here, only to see you sometimes. Do not deny me that."

"You know I will not deny you anything that will help you in facing your difficulties, Jess," he answered.

"Yes, I know," she said. "I could never have come through what I have if I had not always known it.

"Will you have to go when the new manager comes?" she asked presently.

"The new manager is here," he answered.

"Here? Why, when did he arrive? I did not hear of it. Did they keep it from me on purpose? Mr. Gale was in this morning, but he said nothing about it."

"He probably did not know at the time. I told him this afternoon."

"What is his name? Is it anyone I know, or who knew Charlie?"

"Yes."

She faced round quickly.

"Fred—you?"

"Yes," he answered.

"Oh, I am pleased," she began impulsively. Then she stopped. "That was why you did not come sooner," she added.

"Yes," he replied. "Mr. Wallace told me three days ago it was to be, and I thought it better not to call immediately you returned."

She had risen with her hand outstretched to him, but, before she could speak, a knock at the front door interrupted her.

"Is Mr. Harding here?" they heard Durham's voice ask when Bessie went to the door.

"Tell him I wish to see him at once," he added.

She went to the door of the room.

"Ask Mr. Durham to come in," she called out. "I am glad to see you out again," she added as Durham came forward. "Mr. Harding is in here. Will you come in?"

He followed her into the room without speaking, his face so stern that a tremor of fear ran through her.

"Will you give me a few minutes alone with Mr. Harding, please, Mrs. Eustace?" he began, when his keen eyes caught sight of the open letter lying on the table.

He sprang forward and picked it up.

"How did this come here?" he cried, looking from one to the other.

"I brought it," Harding answered. "One of the troopers found it at Taloona and thought Mrs. Eustace or I had dropped it when attending to you."

"It must have fallen from my pocket," Durham said as he folded it up.

Mrs. Eustace was looking at him with anxious eyes.

"Will you tell me—where you—got it?" she asked hesitatingly.

"I found it—in the bush, lying unopened on the ground. By the marks on the ground someone had evidently been thrown from his horse, and this, I assume, had fallen from his pocket."

"Was it—near the bank?"

"No, Mrs. Eustace, it was in the bush miles away."

She gave a deep sigh of relief.

"Will you leave us for a few minutes now, if you please?" he repeated.

She inclined her head and went from the room.

As soon as the door was closed, Durham turned to Harding.

"I went to the bank for you," he said, "to ask you to come here. I am glad you are here already. I have an unpleasant task to perform. Will you give me your assistance?"

"Certainly," Harding answered. "What is it you wish me to do?"

"I wish you would do it altogether. It will be easier for her if you tell her, than if I do."

"Eustace is arrested?" Harding exclaimed in an excited whisper.

"Eustace is dead," Durham replied in the same tone.

Harding started as though he had been struck.

"How? When?" he exclaimed.

"Brennan and I found him, as we were returning from Waroona Downs this evening. He was lying on his face in the creek where it crosses the road in the range. He was drenched with water from head to foot, but the water at the ford is barely six inches deep. There were no footprints on the track either side of the ford to show how he had entered the water. He was shot in the back, the bullet having passed through his right lung, coming out at his chest. His wrists were bruised and chafed as though he had been tightly bound and had struggled to escape. The only thing found on him was this."

He produced a handkerchief with two round holes burned in the centre.

"It was such a handkerchief one of the men who stuck up Taloona was wearing," he added.

"Where is he now?" Harding asked.

"We brought him in and took him over to the police-station. It is for Mrs. Eustace, of course, to say what is to be done about the funeral. Will you break the news to her by yourself, or shall I do it?"

"You have told Mr. Wallace?"

"Yes. He suggested I should see you. The news upset him very much."

"It will be better if I see her alone, I think."

"I think so too. Not that I want to put the burden upon you, but coming from me——" he shrugged his shoulders. "I will leave you then, and ask her to come in."

Harding met her at the door. Closing it behind her, he took her hand and led her to the chair where she had been sitting before Durham arrived.

"Jess," he said softly, as he stood by her, still holding her hand, "I have sad news to tell you."

Her fingers closed tighter upon his, but beyond that she made no sign.

"Durham asked me to tell you."

"Charlie," she said in a tense whisper. "It is about him. He is——"

A shudder went through her and her voice broke.

He placed his other hand upon hers gently.

"He is gone, Jess."

She rose to her feet with a gasp, clutching his arm.

"Not dead!"

"Yes, Jess."

Her hands fell to her sides, limply, nervelessly; her lips parted, but no sound came from them; for a second she stood motionless.

He took her hand again and rested his arm upon her shoulder, fearing she would fall.

"Dead!"

The word came in a low whisper, but the parted lips did not move nor the staring eyes change.

"My poor, poor Jess," he whispered.

"Oh, Fred!"

A great wavering sigh escaped her, a sigh that ended in a sob, plaintive, wailing, sad. But still her eyes stared blankly.

"Sit down, Jess," he said softly.

"No, no. Let me stand. Let me—I want to face it. Don't leave me, Fred, don't leave me."

She swayed, and the staring eyes closed. He slipped his arm round her waist to support her and at the touch she came forward, flinging her arms round him as her head drooped upon his shoulder and she burst into a fit of wild, tempestuous weeping.

So he held her, his head bent upon hers, his arms supporting her. Not until the storm of sobs had abated did he speak.

"Sit down, now, Jess. You will be better resting," he whispered.

"No, no," she answered. "No, no. Let me stay—a moment."

A hum of voices came from the road outside, for the news, flying through the town, brought everybody out to tell and hear.

With one accord they gathered round the police-station, which was almost opposite the cottage, and stood in the road discussing the latest phase of the mystery, the phase which brought into it the note of tragedy. Then someone remembered the cottage and who was in it, and passed the word along. The loud voices were hushed as the men, actuated by the rough sympathy of the bush, quietly moved away so that the sound of their voices should not reach the woman on whom a fresh blow had fallen.

Bessie, hearing the noise, went out to ascertain the cause. Hearing what the news was, she rushed back into the cottage and precipitately burst into the sitting-room. As she opened the door, Harding signed to her to keep quiet.

"Here is Bessie, Jess. Will you stay with her?" he said.

She drew away from him slowly.

"No, don't go yet," she answered. "Tell me everything. I can hear it now."

Bessie slipped out of the room and softly closed the door after her.

Mrs. Eustace took the chair Harding placed for her and he sat down by her.

"Who—did it?" she asked.

"No one knows yet," he answered.

She looked at him quickly.

"Do they think—it was—himself?"

"No; it could not have been."

"I am glad of that," she said. "I have always feared he would. Then there could have been no doubt. Was he found?"

"Yes. Durham was driving in from Waroona Downs with Brennan. They found him in the water where the creek crosses the road in the range."

"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.



CHAPTER XV

THE RIDER'S SCORN

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 townsmen decided, 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 been shot 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 going to 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 have been 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, on the 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 of barebacked 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.



CHAPTER XVI

LOVE'S CONQUEST

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 he might 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 there flashed 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 one which 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 streak across 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 a carelessly 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 trampled upon 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 she had 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 from my 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 thing that 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, occasionally waving 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 ask you."

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 that capture. 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.



CHAPTER XVII

DUDGEON PROPOSES

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 only avoiding 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?"

"There is no limit to the good it may be if it is properly applied, Mr. Dudgeon."

"Where will it do good?" he exclaimed. "That's just what I want to know. Tell me."

"There are hospitals," she said. "And schools. You might found scholarships for poor students to——"

"And chapels and missions and dogs' homes—go on, trot out the whole list," he interrupted. "None of them will ever get a pennypiece out of me. More than half the money given to them goes to keep a lot of lazy, patronising officials in luxury—I know—I've come in contact with them when they have been cadging after me for subscriptions. They cringe till they find out there's nothing for them, and then they snarl. I've no time for that sort of people, no time nor money either."

"Then I hardly know what to suggest," she said, "unless——"

"Unless what?"

"You helped Mrs. O'Guire and her children, if she has any."

His mouth went into its old hard lines, and he sat silent for a time.

"It's no good talking about that," he said presently. "The best thing I can do for them is not to think about them—I'd be after them again if I do—if I could find them. Help them? No. I'd rather give the money to the Government to build gaols. Can't you think of anything else?"

"I'm afraid I cannot," she answered. "But I am still sure your money will do good if it is properly applied."

"Ah, that's it. If it's properly applied. I'm an old man now. How am I to apply it? There's only one way that I can see, and that is what I am going to do with it. I'm going to give it away. What do you think of that?"

"If you give it away where it will do good I think it is a very excellent idea," she answered.

"You know that youngster at the bank, don't you? Young Harding, I mean."

"Yes," she replied.

"Do you think he is a man to be trusted?"

"I know he is, Mr. Dudgeon."

"I'll take your word for it," he said as he stood up. "I'll get along and see him. You can let him know if you want anything and he'll send on word to me. I'll look in again next time I'm passing. Good-bye."

He held out his hand, hard, knotted, and roughened with toil, and she placed hers in it. His fingers closed on hers, and he stood looking into her eyes till she grew uncomfortable under the scrutiny.

"I'd give everything I've got in the world," he said hoarsely, "for a daughter like you."

He dropped her hand and limped quickly to the door, opening it and going out without looking back.

Through the window she saw him pass along the road towards the bank, his head up in the old defiant way, the limp robbing his stride of much of its sturdiness. Without a glance at the cottage he passed out of sight.

Right through the town he walked until he came to the bank.

Harding, looking up at the sound of footsteps, was surprised to see him limping to the counter.

"Good day, Mr. Dudgeon," he exclaimed.

"Do you know how to make a will?" the old man asked, without replying to the greeting.

"That is more the work of a solicitor than a banker, Mr. Dudgeon."

"Oh, I know all about that. If it's going to be a long, muddled, complicated affair a solicitor's the man to go to. But that's not what I want. I want to make a will leaving everything I possess to just one person. I'm no hand with a pen, so I thought you might be able to do it for me."

"Mr. Wallace is inside; perhaps he could advise you better."

"Well, I'll see him."

Remembering his last interview with the crotchety old man, Wallace was particularly circumspect when he met him.

"What I want is this," Dudgeon exclaimed. "I want to say it in such a manner that there can be no questioning the thing afterwards, that is when I'm gone, you understand?"

"I understand," Wallace replied.

"I want to leave everything I possess to one person. If that is written on a sheet of paper and I sign it, isn't that enough?"

"If your signature is witnessed by two persons."

"Then go ahead. Write it out for me. You and this young man can be witnesses."

"It is an unusual thing for the Bank to do, Mr. Dudgeon; but if you really wish it, of course we shall be only too happy to oblige you. Don't you think Mr. Gale——"

"No," the old man snapped. "I've finished with Gale."

"Then will you come into my room and we will do the best we can for you."

Wallace drew up a simple form of a will and read it through aloud.

"I have left the name blank," he said. "If this expresses what you wish, you can fill in the name and sign it, either before Harding and myself or two other people."

Dudgeon took it and read it through again.

"That'll do," he said. He put it on the table in front of Harding. "Fill in Mrs. Eustace's name—I don't know it," he added.

Harding wrote the name in the blank space, the name of one who, in another minute, would rank amongst the greatest heiresses of the world.

"That is the full name," he said as he handed back the document to Dudgeon.

He looked at it.

"Jessie, is it?" he said. "Jessie Eustace, nee Spence. There is no chance of a mistake being made, is there? Hadn't you better add whose wife she was?"

"If you wish it."

"And say where she is living now, and where she came from before she came here. I don't want this to go wrong. I want to make sure she will get everything."

When the additions were made he read the whole document through once more.

"Yes, that seems to fix it," he said. "Give me a pen."

The signature affixed, and witnessed, he looked from one to the other.

"I'll take your word to keep the matter secret till I'm gone," he said. "I don't feel like dying just yet, but one never knows, and, in the meantime, I don't want this known. She don't know, and if she does, it will only be through one of you two talking."

"You may rest assured, Mr. Dudgeon, that both Mr. Harding and myself will respect your confidence and hold the matter absolutely secret," Wallace replied.

"That's good enough," he said.

Turning to Harding, he added, "I'll leave this in your charge. If I go, see that she gets it. Good day."

He was at the door when Wallace spoke.

"Will you not stay and have some refreshment, after your long drive in?" he said.

Dudgeon looked over his shoulder, with his hand on the door-handle.

"That's all I want from you," he replied.

"There is one other matter," Harding exclaimed. "If this will ever has to be used, we have no information what property you are leaving."

Dudgeon let go the handle and faced round.

"Young man," he said, "you've got a head on you. Just sit down and I'll tell you, and you can write them down."

Leaving the two together, Wallace went to the outer office.

"I am glad he's gone," Dudgeon remarked. "This don't concern him."

Then he reeled off a list of properties, securities, cash deposits, and other possessions, dazzling in their value and variety.

The name of a firm of lawyers in a southern city was added.

"That's the lot," he said unconcernedly. "I needn't tell you to see she has her rights. Give me your hand, my lad. I hope she shares it with you."

Without another word he was gone.

Harding was still running his eye over the list of properties Dudgeon had dictated when he heard Wallace call.

"All right. We'll come in," Wallace added, and appeared with Durham at his heels.

"Do you know this?" Durham asked, as he held out his hand.

"My watch! Where on earth did you find it?" Harding cried.

"It is yours?"

"It's the one which disappeared from under my pillow the night the bank was robbed."

"I thought so."

"Have you found anything more?" Wallace asked breathlessly.

"All the money and a lot of jewellery. I would like Mr. Harding to come along with me to-night to the place where I have it hidden. We can bring it in quietly without anyone knowing. But till then, don't let this be seen, and don't breathe a word of what I have told you. Now I've got the money I want to make sure of the man."

Wallace slapped him warmly on the back.

"You're a marvel, Durham. I knew you'd do it somehow, but I'm bothered if I could see how. May I wire to head office?"

"Not till to-night, Mr. Wallace. When the stuff is handed over to you will be time enough."

"How about Mr. Dudgeon's money?"

"It's there, too."

"He's in town. Will you tell him?"

"Not a word, Mr. Wallace. You are the only people I mention it to; not even Brennan will be told about it till it's here."

"Well, you know more about these things than I do, so your word's law. But I shall be glad to let the head office know—I want to have the general manager's authority to do what I told you was going to be done."

Durham smiled in answer. So did he want the general manager to authorise what was to be the news he wished to give Mrs. Burke on the morrow. With five thousand pounds behind him he anticipated less difficulty in persuading her to postpone her intended return to Ireland, postpone it long enough, at all events, for her to go, not as Mrs. Burke, but as Mrs. Durham.

He stood at the door chatting to Wallace before going on to the station, when Dudgeon rattled past in his old buggy drawn by a borrowed horse.

He did not look towards the bank as he passed.

"If I told him I suppose he'd scowl at me and say, 'Oh, have you?'" Durham exclaimed as he watched the crazy old vehicle disappear along the road.

"You are sure his money is there too?" Wallace asked.

"Quite."

"That's curious."

"Why? It was obviously stolen by the same man who robbed the bank, and naturally they took it to the same spot."

"Have you any idea who the men were—or rather the man, for I suppose there is only one now to be considered?"

"That is so," Durham answered. "Only one—and he may be—anybody."

"You have no suspicions?"

"I don't want any. If I begin suspecting different persons I may miss the real individual. As matters stand, I know where, sooner or later, I shall meet him under conditions which will identify him as the man I want. The trap is set and the bird will be caught. That is all I can say."

"Have you heard what they are saying in the town?"

"I've heard a good deal one way and another, but not to-day, as I have been away since dawn. Is it anything special?"

"Someone started the yarn last night, so Gale told me. There's an idea that old Mr. Dudgeon is at the back of the whole affair; that he hired the man they call the Rider to rob the bank in the first instance, so as to prevent the sale of Waroona Downs being completed. Eustace is supposed to have been bribed to join the conspiracy."

"That's rather an ingenious theory. Whose is it?"

"One of the men in the town; Gale did not mention his name. But he has evolved a very workable theory—at least to my mind."

"Let me hear it all," Durham said.

"Well, when the bank had been robbed, and the second lot of gold was hurried forward in time to save the situation, one part of the scheme failed, for the sale of the property was completed. The Rider and his mate—Eustace, as is generally believed—went out to Taloona to settle up with the old man. They found you there and, to blind you as to the real character of Dudgeon, they pretended to make him a prisoner. Then you showed fight, Dudgeon was shot by the bullet intended for you, the lamp was upset, and the place set on fire just as the troopers I sent arrived on the scene."

"That sounds all right as far as it goes. Is there any more?"

"Oh, yes. Dudgeon being laid up delayed the settlement and the pair had to wait—every time up to last night that the white horses have been seen was on the Taloona road, you may remember, which adds colour to the theory. Then they got tired of waiting and quarrelled between themselves, with the result that one of them got killed. The general idea is that they quarrelled over the division of the spoil, and, seeing what you have discovered to-day, I am inclined to agree with it. Last night's escapade was sheer bravado to mock at you and Brennan. What do you think of the idea?"

"Oh, it's all right, as far as it goes. When my man walks into the trap waiting for him I may be able to tell you whether it is the correct solution, but, for the present, I should neither accept nor reject it."

"That is all you have to say about it?"

"That is all; and now I must get along to the station. I'll be back in an hour or so to tell Harding where to meet me."

It was just on sunset when he returned to arrange for Harding to go out with him about midnight. With Harding and Wallace he was standing at the private entrance of the bank when, with a clatter, there dashed down the road the horse and buggy in which Dudgeon had driven by during the afternoon.

The horse was galloping with the reins trailing behind it, the splash-board was smashed and hanging loose, striking the horse at every stride and adding to its panic.

Durham and Harding rushed out to stop the runaway. It swerved to the edge of the road, the buggy overbalanced and rolled over, the shafts snapped, and the horse, breaking free, raced through the town.

"Look!" Harding cried. "What has happened?"

On the seat of the vehicle was an ugly red splash, while the floor was smothered with blood.

"Send along to Brennan to follow me, will you?" Durham exclaimed as he sprang to his horse, which was standing at the door of the bank, mounted it, and spurred away along the road the runaway had come.

Four miles away on the Taloona road he found Dudgeon.

The old man lay in a heap in the middle of the road, riddled with bullet wounds, any one of which would have proved fatal.

There were abundant signs of a fierce struggle. As Durham read the indications, an attack had been made upon him while he was driving along He had been shot and had struggled from the vehicle, probably returning the fire, for there was the mark where another man had fallen and added another red stain to the ground. Then the two had closed and, in the contest which ensued, Dudgeon had gone down, his assailant venting his mad rage by firing bullet after bullet into the prostrate form.

While he was still examining the marks Durham was joined by Brennan and half a dozen of the townsmen who had ridden out in obedience to Harding's warning. Durham drew Brennan aside.

"I only have my revolver with me," he said. "Give me your carbine and what cartridges you have. I must get away on his tracks before any of the men lose their heads and ruin the chance of capture by smothering them."

"Give Brennan what help you can, will you?" he called out to the men who stood by their horses looking, horror-stricken, at the lifeless form of the old man.

Mounting his horse he sped away. For a time he watched the track of a horse which had galloped just off the road. It had evidently lacked a firm hand on the bridle, for it seemed to have taken its own direction.

The rider was wounded. Of that Durham was certain.

Under such circumstances where would he go?

As Durham turned his horse into the bush, making for the range where the little cave was situated, he answered his own question.

Riding at topmost speed, he reasoned as he rode. The other man had at least two hours' start. With such a lead he could easily reach the cave first if he could ride steadily. But he was wounded, and in that lay Durham's hope of getting there before him.

The light was waning by the time the commencement of the foothills was reached. At the bottom of the gully lying at the foot of a ridge across which he had to ride, Durham gave his horse a spell. The top of the ridge rose steep and bare. As he looked towards it, estimating which was the better direction to take to get to the cave, he heard the sounds of a horse walking.

Presently, on the sky-line, immediately above him, he saw a horse and rider. There was just light enough for him to distinguish the form of the man.

He was clad in grey, the jacket open, his hat in his hand. He was a bearded man—a man with a yellow beard.

It was the Rider!

Even as Durham watched, the man saw him, saw him and swung his horse round so sharply it set back on its haunches.

In another moment he would be flying away through the gathering gloom, away into the broken fastnesses of the range, away, perhaps, for all time, from capture.

The horse was recovering itself. Durham threw his carbine forward and, as the horse reared at the pain of the spurs driven into its side, he fired.

Amid the echoes of the report there came a sharp scream of agony.

Durham leaped to his saddle and spurred his horse up the steep slope.

When he reached the summit only the marks of the flying horse's hoofs showed which way the man had gone.



CHAPTER XVIII

UNMASKED

The silvery sheen of the rising moon glittered on the surface of the pool and lay over the sombre-foliaged bush as Durham came out upon the top of the bluff above the Rider's cave.

From the moment he reached the ridge to find only the marks made by the plunging horse he had raced to get there first. Down the sharp slopes of the gullies, across the dry, rock-strewn bed of the mountain-streams, up the opposite steeps, with never a care for the risks he ran, he kept his horse at its topmost speed, sparing neither spur nor lash to urge it along. There was no time to choose the easy paths, no chance of picking his way; every moment was of value, for he knew how the wounded outlaw would make desperate haste to get to the shelter of his haven.

The gloom of the bush ere the moon rose added to his difficulties. With no landmark to serve as a guide he had to rely absolutely upon his instinctive sense of locality, and kept steadily in the one direction, although that meant riding over the rugged ground, barred by tumbled boulders and thickly growing trees, which formed the almost precipitous sides of the gullies. At any time a fall was possible; he carried his life in his hands and knew it; but the ride was a race against odds, and there was no time to heed.

He was breasting the rise of what he believed to be the last of the ridges he would have to cross, when the laboured breathing of his horse told him it was almost done. Leaning forward in his saddle, he patted it on the neck and spoke to it as a man who has realised the companionship between himself and a favourite horse will do. Responding to the encouragement, it mounted to the summit of the ridge and quickened its pace as it felt it was on level ground again. But where the other ridges had been flat on the top, this one was little more than a razor-back. No sooner was the ascent completed than the descent began. The horse caught in its stride to steady itself, tripped, stumbled, and came down. Durham was flung over its head like a stone from a catapult.

Fortunately he came to the ground on the broad of his back, though with such force that he was momentarily stunned. His horse picked itself up and stood trembling and panting long before he was able to scramble to his feet. Even when he did so his head was spinning and he could barely stand.

With unsteady steps he went to his horse and took hold of the bridle. To attempt to ride it further was obviously out of the question, and he led it slowly down to the bottom of the slope, tethering it securely to a tree in the shelter of the gully. Then, pulling himself together, he set off up the opposite slope on foot.

His head was still swimming from the concussion of his fall, and into it there came the humming he had experienced after his adventure at Taloona. It made him so dizzy that he sank down on a boulder, resting his head on his hands until the humming and throbbing should pass. As he sat there came a sound to his ears which made him start to his feet, forgetful of the giddiness, forgetful of everything save the sound and all that it signified.

Through the silence of the bush came the measured tread of a walking horse.

It was evidently crossing the gully below, for, as he listened, the pace quickened to a trot and then to a canter and then became suddenly faint and muffled.

In an instant Durham read the significance of it. The horse had crossed the gully on to level ground and, urged by its rider, had cantered out of hearing. Exactly such a thing would happen were the gully he had crossed the one which came out on to the level sandy margin of the pool.

The realisation sent a chill through him. The rise up which he was climbing must be the ridge which formed the bluff above the cave. If he were not over it quickly, the Rider would be the first at the cave and Durham's scheme for his capture defeated.

The thought drove the last vestige of dizziness from his brain. He faced the slope and forced his way through the tangled undergrowth until he came to the top and saw the moonlight gleaming on the surface of the pool and illuminating with its silvery sheen the open space at the foot.

There was no sign of the horse he expected to see, and no sound came from the cave. With his carbine ready, he crept slowly and silently down until he was at the mouth. A stray moonbeam fell upon the spot where he had seen the clothes on his former visit. The spot was bare.

He was about to step into the cavern when he heard the distant tread of the horse. Quickly drawing back, he hid himself behind a clump of shrubs which sheltered him, while leaving him a clear view in front up to the line of bushes stretching from the bank to the water's edge. There he waited, while the sound of the horse approaching became more and more distinct.

Presently it was so clear he could hear the snapping of the twigs of the undergrowth as they were trampled down, and he levelled his carbine so as to cover the man immediately he and his horse emerged from the line of bushes. But when the animal appeared, for the moment Durham thought it was riderless. Only when it reached the middle of the open space and was almost directly below him did he see the man, lying forward over the withers, with his arms weakly clinging to the horse's neck and his legs swaying limply as they dangled with the feet out of the stirrups.

Of its own accord the horse stopped. The man painfully pushed himself up until he was able to turn his head and look from side to side.

He was scarcely ten yards from Durham, and the clear light of the moon revealed the face as distinctly as though it were day. The close-cropped hair, fair almost to whiteness, the eyebrows and eyelashes of the same hue; the general form of the face showing above the beard were incongruously, yet elusively, familiar, while the pallor of the cheeks and the anguish of the eyes told of the terrible injury the man had sustained.

He was trying to push himself up so as to sit in the saddle. Only his arms seemed to have any strength, for the legs still dangled limply and the fingers clutched the horse's mane convulsively as the body swayed. The moonlight fell full upon the face, glistening on the beads of moisture which stood out on the skin.

A twinge of pity passed through Durham's heart as he watched the agony of the stricken wretch. The effort to maintain his balance was more than the weakened muscles could stand. A deep groan broke from his lips as his arms gave way; his head fell and he plunged forward, slipping over the horse's shoulder and coming head first to the ground, where he lay in a limp, dishevelled heap.

Freed from its burden, the animal stepped forward and moved to a tree where it had evidently been accustomed to find its feed, for it snorted impatiently and shook itself as it sniffed round the trunk. But Durham had no eyes for it; he was watching, with fascinated intentness, the figure lying motionless on the ground.

Slipping from behind the sheltering shrubs, he approached the man with noiseless steps. There was no sign of life in the figure which lay as it had fallen, but across the lower part of the back the clothes were stained with blood. A bullet had struck him almost on the spine, and the dangling limbs were explained. The shot had paralysed them.

Durham stooped over him. The faintest flicker of breathing showed he was still alive. He lay on his face, his arms out-flung, his legs twisted. Drawing the arms together, Durham slipped a strap round them above the elbows so as to hold them secure. Then he partly lifted him from the ground and dragged him to the mouth of the cave, where he sat him with his back against the rock.

The head drooped forward. In his waist-belt there was a revolver-pouch which Durham, on removal, found to contain a revolver of heavy calibre loaded in all chambers.

Now that he was unarmed and secured, Durham knelt beside him to try and revive him. He gently raised the head and rested it against the stone, holding it steady with one hand while with the other he lifted off the false beard.

As the disguise came away and left the face fully exposed, Durham's heart stood still. With a cry he sprang to his feet, staggering back to stand, with clenching hands and throbbing temples, staring blankly at the white, drawn face upturned to his.

The humming roar was again in his ears, a trembling seized his limbs, his brain reeled and the scene spun before his eyes.

"Oh, my God!" he cried.

Slowly the eyelids lifted and a spasm of pain contracted the pallid face. The glance rested for a moment on Durham as a faint wan smile flickered round the corners of the bloodless lips and the eyelids drooped again.

The sound of his own voice in a hoarse, strained whisper jarred on Durham's ears.

"You!" he gasped. "You!"

The eyes opened once more.

In a weak, wavering tone came disjointed words.

"You said—you—would shoot him—like a dog—and I told you—it would—kill—me if you—did."

As white as his captive, Durham stood dumbfounded.

The feeling of horror which had come upon him when first he recognised the face overwhelmed him. His heart went dead and his brain numbed. All the roseate dreams of his romance turned to dull grey leaden grief to flaunt and mock him.