The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bushranger's Secret, by Mrs. Henry Clarke This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Bushranger's Secret Author: Mrs. Henry Clarke Illustrator: W. S. Stacey Release Date: February 8, 2012 [EBook #38791] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUSHRANGER'S SECRET *** Produced by Al Haines "SO YOU HAVEN'T LEFT ME TO THE CROWS" Page 159 The Bushranger's Secret BY MRS. HENRY CLARKE Author of "The Ravensworth Scholarship" "The Mystery of the Manor House" &c. ILLUSTRATED BY W. S. STACEY BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED GLASGOW AND BOMBAY Printed and bound in Great Britain BOOKS OF THIS SERIES BOYS The War of the Axe. J. Percy-Groves. Hammond's Hard Lines. Skelton Kuppord. The Bushranger's Secret. Mrs. Henry Clarke. The Penang Pirate. John C. Hutcheson. In the Hands of the Malays. G. A. Henty. In the Hands of the Cave Dwellers. G. A. Henty. Dick Chester. G. I. Whitham. For the Old School. Florence Coombe. Sturdy and Strong. G. A. Henty. Marooned on Australia. E. Favenc. In the Great White Land. Dr. Gordon Stables, R.N. The Captured Cruiser. C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne. Westward with Columbus. Dr. Gordon Stables, R.N. Hal Hungerford. J. R. Hutchinson. Dr. Jolliffe's Boys. Lewis Hough. Olaf the Glorious. Robert Leighton. GIRLS The Two Dorothys. Mrs. Herbert Martin. Susan. Amy Walton. The Hawthorns. Amy Walton. Penelope and the Others. Amy Walton. The Ravensworth Scholarship. Mrs. Henry Clarke. The Eversley Secrets. Evelyn Everett-Green. The Mystery of Kittle-Boy. Jennie Chappell. A Soldier's Daughter. G. A. Henty. Comrades from Canada. May Wynne. An Unexpected Hero. Elizabeth J. Lysaght. The Ferry House Girls. Bessie Marchant. Meg's Friend. Alice Corkran. BOYS AND GIRLS Into the Haven. Annie S. Swan. A Pair of Clogs, and other Stories. Amy Walton. That Merry Crew. Florence Coombe. Our Friend Jim. Geraldine Mockler. The House of the Five Poplars. Lucy Crump. Three Bears and Gwen. May Wynne. Tony's Chums. May Wynne. When Auntie Lil took Charge. May Wynne. The Eagle's Nest. S. E. Cartwright. Three's Company. May Wynne. The Lady Isobel. Eliza F. Pollard. BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW BOMBAY CONTENTS. Chap. I. A Fugitive II. Tempted! III. At Warrandilla IV. In Quest of Treasure V. Deadman's Gully VI. The Treasure Found VII. Deserted! VIII. Lost in the Bush IX. Facing Death X. A Grim Sort of Picnic XI. A Ruthless Villain XII. Under Green Boughs ILLUSTRATIONS "SO YOU HAVEN'T LEFT ME TO THE CROWS" . . . . . . Frontispiece "HERE, GIVE IT ME BACK," SAID THE BUSHRANGER THE MEETING IN "DEADMAN'S GULLY" A TREACHEROUS BLOW THE BUSHRANGER'S SECRET CHAPTER I. A FUGITIVE. Two men were sitting together in a small outlying hut on one of the great grazing farms of South Australia. The hut was a comfortless place. The floor was of beaten earth. Two bunks for sleeping were fixed to the log wall. Above one of the bunks hung the framed photograph of a comely woman, with two bright-faced lads leaning against her. It was the only picture on the walls. A rough table stood opposite the window, and behind the table was a wooden bench. Above the bench there was a shelf, and a stand for guns. The men were sitting on the bench. They had not long returned from a hard day's riding. The elder man was leaning back against the wall in a heavy sleep. The other, a slender, dark-eyed fellow, hardly more than a lad, was looking at him with a gloomy contemptuous irritation in his glance. "Better asleep than awake, though," he muttered to himself, after a moment. "What can he talk about but cattle and horses?" He shrugged his shoulders, and got up from his seat and stretched himself. The dog lying at the older man's feet, with its paw resting on one of them, raised its head sharply at Gray's movement, but did not attempt to get up even when Gray went to the door and opened it, letting the light of their lamp flow out in a steady stream. All round the hut stretched the gray level grass-lands, rolling away in vast monotony to a far horizon. A wide sky arched over them, in which the stars were shining with a soft yet brilliant splendour. Gray glanced carelessly up at that glorious sky. He believed himself to be endowed with a keen sense of the beautiful. He prided himself on his distaste for ugly surroundings. When he had earned the fortune he had come to Australia to earn he meant to prove to the world how keen and true his artistic tastes were. But he glanced carelessly up at the shining stars. They had no message for him. After standing in the doorway a moment he turned back into the hut, shutting the door behind him with a sudden bang that made Harding start up, rubbing his eyes. "Why, I must have been asleep!" he said with a surprised air. He drew himself up to his full height, towering like a good-tempered giant over Gray's slight figure. "I'm tired out, and that's a fact," he added apologetically. "I think I'll turn in." Gray did not answer. He flung himself down on the bench and began to pare his finger-nails, looking at each finger critically as he finished it, and taking no notice of Harding. The elder man regarded him doubtfully. "In a wax, old man?" he said in a deprecating voice. Gray flung him a vicious look over his shoulder, and returned to his nails. Harding's face had a very tender expression in it as he advanced a step and put out his hand to touch the young man's shoulder. "If it's anything I've done," he began in a shuffling, awkward, kindly tone— Gray turned upon him with startling suddenness. "Anything you've done?" he demanded, squaring his arms on the table, and fixing his dark glance on Harding. "You needn't flatter yourself that I care a rap for what you do or don't do. Turn in, and leave me to myself." "Come, come, Gray, don't take a fellow like that. You're tired out; I can see you're just tired out." "I am tired out," responded Gray grimly. "Tired of it all. Tired and sick of you along with the rest of it. A pretty life this is to live. A pretty companion you make, don't you?" "Well, well, things may better soon," said the other soothingly. "I wish I was more book-learned for your sake, old fellow. But that's past wishing for, ain't it? And you'll have to make the best of me for a spell." "Best or worst, I can't endure this life any longer," returned Gray impatiently. "I'll ride over to the station to-morrow and give it up; or end it quicker than that perhaps;" and he glanced up with a dark look at the loaded gun lying across the shelf. Harding knew Gray well enough to be able to disregard that look, but he spoke very seriously. "You'll not be such a foolish lad as to throw up your berth in a fit of temper. This won't last much longer. You will be called in to the station in a week or two and given a better post; and it's your duty to stick on here till you're called in, you see." "Duty!" Gray flung the word at him like a missile. Harding's mild eyes looked at him in gentle reproof. "It's a fine thing to do, my lad. No man can do more if he lived in a king's palace. And a man who does his duty is greater than a king." "That's all rubbish, talk like that," returned Gray sharply. "You just drop it, Harding." He got up, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, and leant against the wall. His eyes went round the hut. "A king's palace!" he said with a hard laugh. "Verily it needs strong imagination to think of such a place here. What a hole to live in! But I'll not stand it much longer." Harding did not answer this time. He went up to his bunk and took from under the pillow his little shabbily bound Bible and sat down to read his evening chapter. Gray watched him moodily; but in a moment his attention was drawn off by the strange behaviour of the dog, which, when Harding had sat down on his bunk, had crawled under it. But it had come out again almost at once, and now stood in the middle of the hut, with its head bent and its ears upraised in the attitude of intent listening. "What's the matter with the dog?" said Gray. "He hears somebody." Harding looked up. "Nobody ever comes this way; it's out of the track. Come here, Watch. You're dreaming, old fellow." The dog turned its head and looked at its master, gave a slow wag of its tail to show that it heard his voice, and then with a dash it sprang at the door, barking fiercely. Harding got up and flung back the door. His movement was so sudden, that a man who had crept up to the hut and was now leaning against the door had no time to recover himself, and staggered forward into the hut. Watch retreated, still growling fiercely, but restrained from attacking the stranger by a gesture of its master. Gray made a clutch at the gun above his head, but the next moment withdrew his hand. That pitiful, abject, trembling fugitive was not a man to take arms against. The stranger staggered across the hut and crouched down against the opposite wall, breathing in short hurried pants. His face was painfully thin, and as white as death. From a long jagged wound, half hidden by his matted hair, blood was trickling in a dark slow stream. The clothes he wore were torn to tatters. You could see his skin through the rents. He crouched back against the wall, hugging his arms against his breast, and looking from Gray to Harding with a wild agonized entreaty in his eyes. It was the look of a hunted animal appealing for mercy rather than the look of a man asking help of fellow-men. He was evidently unable to speak. He tried to articulate something, but his baked, blistered lips refused their office. "He's just done for," said Gray. Harding nodded, and going up to the pannikin of cold tea on the shelf took out some in a cup and held it to the stranger's lips. He drank it up greedily and then words came to him. "Don't give me up," he cried out in a strange hoarse scream, and fell along the floor huddled up in a dreadful heap. The two men looked at each other. "It's plain enough to see what he is," said Gray with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "Shall we have to entertain the rest of the gang, do you think?" "The police, more likely, lad. They're close on his track, I fancy." He bent over the man and straightened him out. Gray did not attempt to help him; he stood looking down at the wretched fugitive with a cold unsympathizing curiosity in his handsome face as he said: "He isn't dead, is he?" As he spoke the man opened his eyes and gazed up at them. Wild gleaming dark eyes they were, looking all the darker for the haggard pallor of his face. He raised himself on his elbow and made a clutch at his breast. There was something hidden there, and he kept his hand closed upon it. Harding put the cup with more tea to his lips again, and again he drank greedily. Then he tried to raise himself into a sitting posture, but sank back on the floor. "I'll cheat the beaks after all," he said hoarsely. A grim smile flickered over his face. "I swore I'd never be caught." He looked from one man to the other. "They'll make no gallows-bird o' me," he added with a sort of hoarse chuckle. He still kept his hand clutched upon his breast. Gray noticed the action, and a vivid curiosity rose up in him to know what the man kept so jealously hidden there. He must have shown this in his face, for the man addressed him sharply. "What are you starin' at, eh? Do you think I've got the Kohinoor hidden about me? Well, I ain't got it." "I don't think anything about you, my man," replied Gray loftily. He turned to Harding. "What are we going to do with him?" "Lend me a hand and we'll lift him on my bunk," said Harding. "I'll lie here," broke from the man. "You just leave me alone." He pushed away the food Harding offered him. "I can't swallow. Just leave me alone." Gray shrugged his shoulders and walked to the door. The man's eyes followed him with a suspicious glance. "Thinks himself a fine gentleman, it's plain," he muttered. Then he beckoned to Harding. "Do you know Princes Street, Adelaide, mate?" he whispered. Harding nodded. "No. 5 Princes Street, top floor. You give two knocks. Write that down." Harding took out his worn pocket-book and wrote it down. The man lay staring up at him, then with a sudden effort, as if his mind was at last made up, he dragged a tattered scrap of yellow paper from his breast and held it up to Harding. "Send it—there," and he feebly nodded at the pocket-book in Harding's hand. Gray was still standing in the doorway, looking out over the level pastures. He half expected to hear the gallop of well-trained horses, the shout of authoritative voices; but all was still, the police had missed the track. He shut the door and came back into the hut. "Make your mind easy, my friend," he said in a half-sneering tone. "It's all quiet outside." The man gave him a dark look and raised himself towards Harding. "Here, give it me back," he said, with a hasty snatch at it. "Your pal's no call to see it." "HERE, GIVE IT ME BACK," SAID THE BUSHRANGER Harding had raised the paper towards the lamp-light, and was looking scrutinizingly at it. It seemed to be a rough map. There was a wavy line that evidently represented the course of a ravine or gully, and on each side were jagged marks that betokened rising ground. Right across the paper ran the words in large ill-formed characters: "Deadman's Gully." About the middle of the paper there was a sort of big blot, and underneath in smaller words was written: "Big gum. Dig five feet due south from hole." Gray came leisurely up to Harding's side. "What is it?" he said, holding out his hand for the paper. A scowl came over the face of the man on the ground. He flung himself upward and snatched the paper from Harding's hand with a violent oath. The effort was too much for him, and he fell back groaning and helpless. But he still kept the paper clutched in his right hand, and his eyes fixed themselves on Gray with something of the look of a trapped wild beast. "Keep off, can't you!" he gasped out. "A pretty gentleman you are, pryin' and sneakin' like that." Gray stood over him, looking down upon him with a cold cynical regard that seemed to madden the man. "Better step back and leave him to me," whispered Harding. Gray laughed. "All right! but play fair, old fellow." Harding's mild eyes looked their wonder at him, but Gray only laughed again and went back to the table, where he sat with his head propped on his hands watching the two. Harding dragged his box out from under his bunk and sat down on it. The man lay still for a moment and then painfully raised himself into a sitting posture against the wall. "Look here," he said. "Do you think I'm dyin'?" "Yes," said Harding briefly. "Before mornin'?" "I don't believe you have many hours to live." "Right, that's what I think myself. I've cheated the beaks, eh?" Harding was silent. The man looked sharply at him. "You've got that address written down?" "Yes, but I can't send that paper." "You can't send it?" The words dropped slowly from the man's lips. "Of course I can't," returned Harding. "You know that well enough." "You won't send it," repeated the man again, with a dull rage in his voice. The paper was still clutched in his hand, and he looked at it and then up at Harding. "There's a fortin in it," he whispered under his breath. "Bill 'ull go shares. Here, you take it. You go to 5 Princes Street, top floor, and ask for Bill Clay. He'll go shares, and thankful." Harding made no attempt to take the paper. He merely said: "Tear it up if you like, but if you give it to me I shall hand it over to the police." The man stared at him with a fierce incredulity in his gleaming dark eyes. "There's a fortin in it," he repeated, as if the words must convince Harding of his foolishness—"a fortin, mate. And you carn't miss the place. Bill, he knows Deadman's Gully." He held out the paper, but Harding shook his head and said: "You are wasting your words." "You won't send it? Look here, just look here." He stopped to moisten his dry lips, and then went on: "You've heard of Tom Dearing?" Harding nodded. It was the name of a noted bushranger, whose last crime had been a daring robbery of the chief bank of Adelaide. "Well, I'm Tom Dearing. Now you know." Harding gazed silently at him. He could not get the right words to speak, but it did not need words to make Dearing understand the intense ardent desire to help him that was flooding Harding's soul. It affected the man strangely. He forgot the buried treasure for a moment. The paper fluttered out of his hand and fell on the floor as he cried: "You're sorry for me; sorry for me!" "I'm dead sorry for you, lad," said Harding with slow fervent utterance. "You've been spending your life in getting trash like that"—he waved his hand toward the paper. "And now you've got to die, and go before God. He'll be sorry for you too. If I'm sorry, a man like me, what must God's sorrow be for such a life as yours has been! Don't think about that hateful money, lad. Let it lie where you've laid it if you like." Harding took the paper up and thrust it back into the man's fingers as he said: "Tear it up. But you've got a chance to show you're ashamed for what you've done. Give the money back to those you stole it from. 'Tis all you can do now to make amends." The man gazed irresolutely at him. "You talk mighty fine, but what's to hinder you grabbin' the whole blessed lot?" "Nothing." That single word said everything. Dearing stared fixedly at Harding for a moment, and then thrust the paper into his hand. "Here, take it," he said. "And if there's anything good you've got to say to me, let's hear it. I'll listen to you, old man. You act up to what you talk of." CHAPTER II. TEMPTED! Dearing died next day just after sunrise. They buried him down by the creek, out of sight of the hut. "So that's the end of Mr. Tom Dearing," said Gray, as they turned away and walked back towards the hut. "He didn't manage well, did he?" Harding gave him one of his pained, wondering looks. "Don't talk like that, dear lad," he said, "you don't mean it, you know." Gray gave a laugh that had not much mirth in it "What a fellow you are, Harding! You insist on everybody being as virtuous as yourself. But I mean exactly what I say. Why did Mr. Tom Dearing take to robbing his neighbour unless he could insure himself against being found out? It may be bad to be a rogue; it's unpardonable to be known for one." "What difference does it make in the sin, lad?" said Harding, with a sorrowful look at him. "And it's the sin we've got to think of." "Yes, I know that's your view," said Gray, with a scarcely concealed sneer. "But it's a sadly old-fashioned one, my dear fellow." Harding was silent. "It's only the fear of being found out that keeps men honest," Gray went on after a moment. "We're told, from our youth up, that 'Honesty is the best policy,' and most of us are sensible enough to believe it—and so we're honest." "Don't you believe it, lad?" burst with emphasis from Harding; and not even Gray's flippant rejoinder, "Not believe that 'Honesty is the best policy?' you can't mean that?" was able to check his eagerness to speak. He stopped in the path and laid his hand on Gray's arm, more moved than Gray had ever seen him before. "You wouldn't talk like that if you'd seen that poor fellow die, Gray," he said. "There's more difference between doing right and doing wrong than just that you get punished for wrong-doing if you're found out. Sin drags a man down, lad; it eats the manhood out of him. It makes a ruin of what's best in him." The words fell on ears dull to their meaning. And Harding was quickly silent; speech was always a difficult thing to him. He had never spoken so earnestly to Gray before. When they came back to the hut Harding took out the tattered sheet of yellow paper from his breast-pocket and placed it in the small desk upon the shelf. "One of us must take that over to the station," he said. "The bank authorities will be glad enough to get it." Gray had heard enough of the conversation between Harding and Dearing to know what the paper was about, though Harding had not mentioned it before. He stood at the door, swinging his heavy stock-whip in his hand. "I should like to have a look at it," he said carelessly. "So you shall, lad. And I think you'd better go over with it. But we'll talk of that to-night." "What made him hide the money, do you know?" he asked. "He didn't say. The police were after him, I expect, and he hoped to be able to get back sometime and dig it up." "I wonder if he had told any of his friends and acquaintances?" said Gray, looking up at the desk where Harding had put the map. "If so, I wouldn't give much for the bank's chance of getting the money." "He hadn't told a soul," was Harding's answer. "He wanted me to send the map to some mate of his, but he thought better of that afterwards." "Better?" Gray lifted his dark eyebrows. "What does the bank want with the money? It's rich enough to stand the loss. It isn't as if he had robbed a poor man, you know. It's the best thing I've heard of him, his wanting to send that map to his mate." "Stolen money does no good to anybody," said Harding rather shortly. "It didn't do any good to him at any rate," said Gray. He moved from the door to let Harding pass. "I suppose we must start," he went on with a yawn. "Another day of this hateful stock-riding! and another day of it to-morrow, and the next day, and the next day! How am I going to stand it, I wonder?" Harding had disappeared into the stable, and Gray said the last words to himself. There was a heavy frown on his handsome young face, bitter discontent in his dark eyes. When Harding brought his horse to him he scarcely thanked him, and he rode away by his side in sullen silence. When they returned that night, Harding was too fagged out to talk of anything. He went off into a heavy sleep directly after supper, and Gray found it impossible to wake him sufficiently for rational conversation. The desk in which he had placed the paper was not locked, and Gray took out the paper and sat down by the lamp to study it. It was very easy to understand. Anyone who knew Deadman's Gully could not fail to find the treasure, Gray thought to himself. And his thoughts ran on something like this: "Suppose I had found this map, not knowing whose it was, and had gone to dig in Deadman's Gully on the chance, what a wonderful and blessed change it would have made in my life? No more hateful stock-riding; no more dreary days spent with this dull-witted Harding; but a glad return to civilized England, and a rich cultured life in congenial society. If it only had happened so! Yet, even now—?" But there Gray's thoughts took pause. The secret was not his alone. It was shared by Harding. Even if Harding would allow him to— But Harding would not, and there was an end of it. They arranged at breakfast next morning that Gray should ride over to the station the day after and carry the paper with him. From the station it could be easily sent in to the inspector of police with the report of Dearing's death. Gray got the paper down for another look at it. "I believe I've heard you speak of Deadman's Gully, Harding." "That's most likely, old man. I know the place well. I was stationed within a mile of it once. You know Rodwell's Peak?" "Haven't the honour," said Gray flippantly. He got up and put the paper back in the desk. "Rodwell's Peak and Deadman's Gully! The Australian mind isn't gifted with imagination in regard to names." "Deadman's Gully got its name rightly enough. It was the haunt of a gang of bushrangers. A track runs right by the mouth of it, and they buried the travellers there that they waylaid. That wasn't in my time, but I've heard old Jebb speak of it. He went with the police there once. A lonely dismal spot, he said, between high rocks, with a few trees in the middle." "Our friend Dearing knew the spot well, it seems." "Yes; but he didn't belong to that lot. He used it as a hiding-place, I fancy. He'd had a miserable life from what he told me." Gray was putting on his boots, and apparently paying but little attention to Harding's remarks. "I suppose you could find it, though?" he said carelessly. "Easily enough. You've just got to follow the track till Rodwell's Peak is right in front of you. You've never been in the uplands, have you, Gray?" Harding broke off to say. "It's grand scenery. You ought to go there one day." "Suppose we go there now." Gray had finished putting on his boots, and was taking his whip down from the nail. He said it laughingly, looking back at Harding over his shoulder. Harding, who was washing the dishes at the table, returned his laughing look with a wondering glance. "How could we? Who'd look after the stock?" "Leave them to take care of themselves, the ugly brutes," went on Gray in the same laughing way. "Let us run up to Deadman's Gully and appropriate that coin, Harding. What do you say to that plan, eh?" Harding laughed, but half-sadly. "I believe you'd make a joke of anything, lad. But don't joke about that money. It don't seem right." "It isn't a joke the bank would appreciate at any rate," returned Gray, with another laugh. He did not continue the subject "You get a talk with Mr. Morton, lad," said Harding to him, as they stood outside the hut, ready to start for their day's work. "He'll listen to you, I know. Tell him you're tired of the work here." "What's the good of telling him that?" returned Gray, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm tired of work everywhere —tired and sick of this horrible country, and everything and everybody in it." "Well, Morton might help you to a post in Adelaide," said Harding, who had been much troubled by Gray's constant despondency of late. "You'd have better company there. It's more like England, you know." "What post could he get me in Adelaide?" returned Gray, with a bitter irony in his tone. "And do you think it would be any pleasure to me to sit in an office and see the carriages driving by? I had enough of that in England. No, I'd be off to the diamond fields if I'd the cash for the journey. Do you think Morton would lend me that?" Harding shook his head sorrowfully. "I wish I knew how I could help you, lad. I can't bear to see you like this. I wish Polly was here. She'd know how to talk to you better than I do." Gray cast a scornful look at his companion's troubled face. It rankled in his heart that Harding should pity him. "Are we going to stand talking here all day?" he said irritably. "Aren't you going to get the horses out?" They rode off in different directions that morning. Gray went on a long round. His ride took him to a distant part of the run, from which he could get a glimpse of the far-off mountains. The peak towering up in the blue air so far above its fellows was Rodwell's Peak. Gray remembered now that Harding had pointed it out to him when they had been together at this spot. He checked his horse and paused for some time gazing at the peak. Close under it was Deadman's Gully! Gray knew well enough how deceptive distance was in that clear air. He knew how far off those hills really were; but the sight of Rodwell's Peak seemed to bring the money close within his grasp, to give the convict's story a reality it had wanted before. It was with a darker face, and a heart overflowing with bitterness, that he left that spot and turned his horse's head homewards. Harding was not at home when he returned. This was a new cause for vexation, for Gray had to light the fire and prepare the tea, a task he hated. It was with a muttered curse against Harding that he set about it, and he was ready with a very unpleasant greeting for him when he should at last appear. Gray was very slow and awkward over his unaccustomed work; but tea was at last got ready. Gray finished his meal, and still Harding had not come. It was getting dark now; the stars were coming out; the wide outlines of the pastures were growing indistinct. Gray went outside the hut and looked searchingly in the direction from which he expected Harding to come. But there were no signs of him. Up to this point Gray had not even wondered at his lateness; he had only felt annoyed at it. But now a wild thrill went over him. Had something happened? Had Harding met with some accident? Gray caught hold of the top rail of the fence to steady himself as the thought swept over him. It brought such a throbbing of wild hope with it that Gray recoiled at his own feelings, but the feelings remained. He could not crush them out. He knew—even while the knowledge horrified him—he knew that if Harding did not return, if some dark fate had overtaken him, that he would be glad—yes, glad! For then the secret would be his alone. Then there would be nothing to prevent him from taking possession of the buried treasure. But it was early yet. He and Harding, Gray reflected, had often been out together as late; only, Harding had said so decidedly that he should be back long before dusk. What could be keeping him? Gray left the hut and walked for some distance along the grassy plain, but he could see nothing, hear nothing. He "coo'eed" once or twice, but there was no answer. All was dark and still under the starry sky. He went back, and sat down in the hut and waited. Once or twice he thought of taking his horse and riding out to search for Harding. But that would be of no use, he reflected. Harding had had a wide stretch of country to cover. It was a million chances to one that he could find him. So Gray sat still and waited. Towards midnight he rose, drawn by a horrible sort of fascination, and took the paper from Harding's desk. He spread it out on the table, and sat down to study it. The more he looked at it the more easy it all seemed to be. It was such an absolutely safe thing. No one could possibly know the contents of that paper but himself and Harding. If Harding never came back he would be the sole owner of the secret. Gray made his plans as he sat there with his eyes fixed on the faded, dirty sheet. He would destroy the paper—he did not need to keep it now; he knew its contents too well. Then he would give up his work at the first opportunity, and after waiting a certain time would make his way to Deadman's Gully, get the money, and be off to England. Then he would begin to live his life in earnest. Dazzling visions of that new life began to rise before Gray. Not a life of vulgar dissipation—Gray was not that sort of man; he loathed coarseness and riot—but a life of cultured ease, of refined luxury, rich in all the beautiful things that wealth could bring him. A sudden noise without brought him back with a shock to present surroundings. He rose hurriedly and pushed the paper back in the desk. He thought Harding had returned. But it was only his own horse moving uneasily in the stable. It was missing its companion, and was restless and unhappy. Gray soothed it as well as he could, and then went out once more to look across the plain. But dark and silent the land lay beneath the stars. No sound, no movement. Gray went back into the hut and sat down again; but he did not touch the paper any more. The certainty that Harding would never return began to grow upon him, and he was frightened at himself. It was as if his half-formed wishes had brought about Harding's fate. The hours passed, and at last the dawn came—a clear, beautiful dawn, with a fresh wind blowing over the grass and a rosy radiance flooding the sky. Gray went out once more to look along the horizon. This time his search was not in vain. Almost at once he discerned a small moving object against the sky. It was moving slowly towards the hut. Gray knew at once what it was. It was the dog, and Harding must be close behind. The dog came slowly on, moving with heavy, dragging steps, very unlike its usual joyous bounds; and it was quite alone. Gray could see no other moving thing along the plains. The dog had come back, but not its master. Gray hurried forward to meet it. He saw the dog leap up when it caught sight of him, and make a dash forwards, but before it had gone a dozen steps it slackened its pace again and began to drag itself slowly forward as if utterly worn out. It was a pitiable object to look at. Its beautiful coat was matted with blood and dust. One of its ears was almost torn away, and its body was covered with wounds. But it dragged itself onward, moaning now and then, until it got near Gray. Then it sank down on the grass and lay there, faintly wagging its tail, and fixing its eyes on Gray with a pathetic, supplicating glance. It was plain to see that the dog had been attacked and sorely wounded. Gray surmised that one or more of the herd had turned savage, and in conflict with them Watch had got his wounds. He bent over the dog and unfastened its spiked collar. "Poor old fellow, what—?" He broke off suddenly. A scrap of paper fastened by a string to the collar caught his eye. Some words were scrawled on it: "Badly hurt. Watch will show—" There was an attempt at another word or two but they were illegible. Gray read the paper and let it flutter from his fingers to the ground. The next moment he picked it up again, and crushed it between his fingers. He had not made up his mind what to do; but the thought flashed through him as he saw the paper lying on the ground, that it might be necessary to destroy it, if— If what? Gray hardly dared finish the thought, even in the secrecy of his own soul. The dog followed his actions with a dumb pathetic glance, and then slowly struggled to its feet. It stood looking up at Gray, lifting one paw towards him with an indescribable air of supplication in its whole attitude. Then it turned, and began to move in the direction it had come from, looking round at every painful step to see if Gray would follow. A rush of pitiful feeling swept over Gray. He ran back towards the hut with one thought uppermost in his mind, to get his horse and go with the dog. Everything else was forgotten. When he had run a short distance he looked round at Watch and whistled. The dog was lying on the grass regarding him, but it refused to come at his whistle. Gray stood still, and began to argue with himself. It was absurd to start at once. Watch would die on the way. It would be far better to wait for some hours till the poor creature was rested. Harding, in all probability, was already dead. Still he would go—of course he would go; but not just yet. It would be the height of absurdity to start just now. He would fetch Watch some water and food where it lay, if he could not get the dog to go back to the hut. He whistled again, but Watch made no response. It lay with its head between its paws, and its eyes still fixed on Gray. "Stay there, then," muttered he impatiently, and went on towards the hut. The dog was still lying in the same place when he brought the food and water for it. It ate and drank greedily, and then rose and shook itself with a glad, eager movement, and ran a few steps forward. It was pitiful to see the change that went over the dog when on turning its head it saw that Gray was walking steadily back towards the hut. It lay down again, and gave a series of short barks and then a long pitiful howl when it found that Gray still went steadily on. Gray did not turn round this time. He went into the hut, and sat down to think the matter over. What was the use of going with the dog at all? he began to say to himself. Would it not be better to go over to the station at once? or, better still, go later on in the day, so as to reach the station in the evening when the men would have come in from their work? Yet—was not every moment precious? If he went at once with the dog, might he not be in time? He sat thus, swaying to and fro between different decisions, till a violent scratching at the door roused him. He got up and flung back the door. Watch stood there with drooping tail, and eyes full of dumb entreaty. Gray shut the door sharply on him. "Lie down, sir!" he exclaimed imperatively. The sight of the dog filled him with rage. Watch whined once or twice; but then came silence. Gray sat down again at the table. "I will not go," he said to himself. And he put the thought of Harding from him, and tried to plan how he would carry out his scheme. But suddenly, before he was aware, a wave of remorseful shame came over him, and he sprang to his feet as one awaking from some hideous dream. He grasped his whip and hurried to the door; but,— The dog was gone. CHAPTER III. AT WARRANDILLA. An hour after, Gray was riding swiftly across the plains on his way to the station. He was urging on his horse with voice and hand and spur, riding as if for dear life, yet even while he rode he was making up his mind to keep back from Mr. Morton all knowledge of Dearing's map. Of Dearing's death he was bound to tell him, but he would say nothing of the map. If Harding was found it would be so easy to say he had forgotten it in his anxiety; if Harding— Gray did not finish the sentence to himself, but he determined to keep back the map. It was not much past noon when the plains began to give place to undulating ground, richer in vegetation, and with great clumps of dark-foliaged trees here and there; and it was soon after that that Gray caught his first glimpse of the river, and saw the roofs of the station gleaming in the sunlight. Mr. Morton had spent the morning watching the men at work on the new cottages he was building near his own house for his head shepherds and stock-keepers. They were comfortable, roomy cottages, looking down on the river, with gardens before them, which Mr. Morton intended to be as well stocked and as pretty as his own. "They will be finished in another week," he said to his wife. He had come back to the house across the garden, and found her sitting in the shady verandah. "And I have made up my mind, Minnie, who's to have the one we meant for Murray." Mrs. Morton put down her needle-work, and looked eagerly at her husband. Murray had lately left them to start a run of his own, and Mr. Morton had been undecided who should take his post. "I shall give it to Harding," he said. "I'll ride over and tell him so to-morrow. You'll like having him on the station, won't you?" "I am very glad indeed," said little Mrs. Morton with energy. "And how delighted he will be. He will be able to get everything ready before his wife and boys get here. They don't leave England till next week. He was telling me all about them when last he was over here." "Oh, I knew he was a great favourite of yours, my dear," said her husband with a well-pleased look. "And if he isn't as sharp as some, he is as true as steel. I thought it all over this morning, and I believe he's my best man." Mrs. Morton was called into the house at that moment, and her husband strolled into the garden to await his summons to the mid-day meal. He had not been there many moments when his quick ear caught the sound of rapid hoof-beats on the road below the house. A gate from the garden led into the road, and Mr. Morton hurried towards it. Gray had intended to ride up to the other side of the house, but when he saw Mr. Morton at the gate he checked his horse and flung himself off. There was no need for him to speak for Mr. Morton to know he brought bad news. His whole frame was trembling as he stood steadying himself by his horse; his lips were white as death. "Something has happened to Harding, is that it?" exclaimed Mr. Morton when Gray had twice tried to make his voice audible and failed. "I fear so," Gray gasped out. "He has not come back. He started yesterday morning for Big Creek, and he has not come back." Gray had determined beforehand what to say, but he had not known it would be so difficult. His eyes fell before Mr. Morton's glance, as if that glance could read his soul. But Mr. Morton had never felt so warmly towards Gray as he did at that moment. He was a better fellow than he had thought him, he said to himself, to feel Harding's disappearance so keenly. "Look here, my lad," he said kindly, "you go into the house and ask Mrs. Morton to give you something to eat. You're just tired out, you know, and won't be fit for anything till you've had a rest. Oh, you shall go with us," he added as he saw Gray's hesitating look. "But we can't start for another hour. I must send over to Billoora for a man or two. Don't be so downhearted about it, Gray. We shall find him, never fear." But Mr. Morton's cheerful prophecy was not destined to be verified. The search for Harding was long and thorough—and fruitless. His horse was found lying dead, with an ugly wound in its neck from the horn of a bull; but Harding and his dog were gone. Gray grew very worn and haggard in those weeks of waiting. His youth went from him. They attributed his changed looks at the station to his grief for Harding. It was enough to unhinge any man, they said—that mysterious loss of his mate. And in this explanation they were partly right. At first, Gray's remorse was almost more than he could bear. He was one of the most eager in the search-party. He rode day after day across those barren wastes of back-country, and spared no effort to find some sign of the missing man. But when the search was at last given up as hopeless, when those on the station began to take Harding's death for granted, and life began to flow on in the ordinary channel, then Gray's mind went back to the map he had destroyed, and the treasure hidden in Deadman's Gully. He was thinking of it one afternoon as he was riding across to Billoora on an errand for Mr. Morton. It was a clear beautiful afternoon, and the air on the grassy uplands was fresh and bracing. Gray might have taken the river road, which was a mile or two nearer, but it would have led him past the cottages, and he could not bear to look at them— the remembrance that Harding was to have had one of them was too exquisitely painful. But on the uplands there was nothing to remind him of Harding—the richly-green rolling wooded pastures were altogether unlike the gray plains round the hut. Gray gazed about him and thought of England. If he got that money he would go back there; his mind was fully made up on that point. And though he had not yet said so in so many words to himself, he knew he intended to get the money. Only the day before he had refused a new post offered to him by Mr. Morton, and said that he wished to leave the station in a week or two. And this afternoon, for the first time since Harding's disappearance, he allowed himself to dwell on the great and wonderful change the finding of the treasure would make in his life. Absorbed in these thoughts he did not notice the approach of a man along the grassy track. The man was walking slowly and painfully, carrying a bundle over his shoulder. He was a small, wiry, narrow-shouldered man, with a thin peaked face, from which a pair of small eyes looked keenly out from under thick reddish eyebrows. He had caught sight of Gray long before Gray saw him, and after walking some distance towards him, he sat down on the bank and waited for him to come up. Gray checked his horse to speak. "You look tired, my man." Gray's tone of cool superiority was not resented by the wayfarer. He got up and came nearer. "I've had a longish tramp," he said in a thin, not unpleasant voice. "I'm bound for Warrandilla, Mr. Morton's place. I've begun to fear as how I've missed my road." "Oh, you're all right!" Gray returned indifferently; "the station is just over the rise there. You'll see it in a mile or so." The man looked in the direction Gray pointed, and then turned his eyes again on Gray's face. Curious, shifty, cunning eyes they were—eyes that went well with the narrow, cruel mouth, and the sharply-pointed chin. "Perhaps you're Mr. Morton yourself, sir," he said ingratiatingly. "You deserve to be, I'm sure." "No such luck," said Gray with a laugh, not ill pleased at the man's suggestion. "But you'll find him at home if you go on. I've just left him." Gray was about to ride on, when the man spoke again. "I won't detain you a minute, sir, but perhaps you can tell me if I've got a chance of some work over there." "It depends on what you can do, and who you are, you know," said Gray, with a brief comprehensive glance over the man's figure. "You'd better not try to play any tricks with Morton if you want him to help you. That's a friendly bit of advice I'll give you." "Thank you, sir; I'll remember it," was the humbly-spoken answer, though there was a sudden gleam in the pale blue eyes that Gray did not see. "I've heard along the road what a good employer he is. They were tellin' me at Billoora last night about the poor cove what was lost. I suppose there's no chance that he'll ever be found now, sir?" Gray felt the colour going out of his cheeks at the sudden reference to Harding. "I'm afraid not," he said hurriedly. "But I must go on. There's your road straight in front of you. You can't miss it." The man had put his hand on the neck of the horse, and he still kept it there. "I'm sorry I spoke, sir. I can see as how you're a friend of his, and I wish I'd held my tongue. But 'tis his mate I pities most. How's he bearin' it now, sir? They was tellin' me he's nigh broken-hearted." Gray stared blankly at the man for a moment without answering. Then he recovered himself and said with some haughtiness, "I would rather not talk of it, my man. Just let my horse go, will you? I'm in a hurry." The man stepped back instantly with a word of apology, and Gray rode on without looking back. If he had turned his head he would have seen his late companion gazing after him with a satirical smile on his crafty face. "We'll have some more talk afore long, my fine gentleman," he was saying. "You didn't think, did you, that I knowed who you was? Them men at Billoora aren't half-bad at a description." And with a laugh Mr. Lumley, as he chose to call himself at that particular moment, went on his way. He was bent on staying at Warrandilla for a time, and would have tried his hand at any work offered to him, but as it turned out the work he could do best was just the work that was wanted, and he got regular employment at once. Mrs. Morton was devoted to her garden, and Lumley was really a clever gardener; so that, though she could not help agreeing with her husband's verdict about the man, she was eager to keep him. Lumley made no secret of his past "misfortunes." He had been shipped to the colony while it was still a convict station, and his record was by no means a good one since his first term had been worked out. "But I have never had a good chance before, madam," he said to Mrs. Morton, trying to keep his shifty eyes fixed in a straightforward look upon her face. "I've never had a good kind friend like you before. Please God, I'll do well now." And though Mrs. Morton distrusted his professions of reform, she found him a clever steady workman, and one most anxious to please. He became one of the most frequent attendants at the religious services which Mr. Morton held two or three times a week in the little chapel next his house. If Mr. Morton had been a different sort of man the new gardener might have gone on to worse hypocrisy still, but there was something in his employer's strong keen face that kept him back from that. As Lumley put it to himself, "Shammin' religion is no go with him." It was about three weeks after Lumley's appearance at the station that Gray's time for departure came. Everyone was very kind to him; their kindness and sympathy cut him to the heart. They tried to comfort him by telling him that no one could have shown more energy in the search than he had, that nothing had been left undone, and that Harding himself would have been the last to wish that his friends should grieve too much. In some such strain Mr. Morton talked to him when he went to the house to bid him good-bye. "You must cheer up, my lad," he said kindly. "You have done all you could. No man can do more." Gray made no reply, nor did he raise his gloomy eyes to meet the pleasant kindly glance of his employer. Mr. Morton went on: "So you are thinking of going back to the old country, Gray. Well, there ought to be room there for a man like you; and I don't wonder at your wanting to get away from here after what's happened." "I am not sailing for a month or so," said Gray. He spoke hurriedly, clearing his throat before he could articulate the words properly. "I think of taking a trip into the mountains. I don't feel equal to the voyage just now." "Wel...