"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 a.s.sent 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 pa.s.sed 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 hoa.r.s.e 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 m.u.f.fled.
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.