Part 13 (2/2)

The scared hors.e.m.e.n with one accord glanced toward the trees that fringed the road. Mr. Bradby had stage-managed the affair with such consummate skill that they could only see the dim forms of several horses. The shadows were cast so that it was impossible to say how many there were; as far as the captives were concerned a regiment of cavalry might have been ma.s.sed behind the trees for all they could say to the contrary. They had a feeling that unseen eyes watched them and invisible firearms covered their every movement. A solitary ray of moonlight, glinting for an instant on one of c.u.mshaw's revolvers lent color to this suggestion, so like wise men they surrendered to the inevitable and allowed the explosive Mr. Bradby to relieve them first of all of their weapons, and, when he had ”drawn their teeth,” as he succinctly expressed it, to rifle their saddle-bags for the little packages of gold that it was their mission to guard with their lives. Life at all times is dearer than gold, and the men realised that they were in a trap from which there was only one way of escape. They submitted meekly to their fate, saw the saddle-bags rifled without a word of protest, and, deceived by the shadows, watched what they took to be half a dozen men at least loading up with the gold. It speaks well for the dominant personality of Mr. Bradby that no one seemed to have suspected that only two men were concerned in the hold-up, despite the fact that they really only saw one man and the shadowy outline of another.

”Turn round, all of you!” Mr. Bradby commanded when the transfer had been completed. ”Turn round and keep your hands in the air!”

Obediently, albeit clumsily, since they could not use their hands, the hors.e.m.e.n wheeled their mounts around, and Mr. Bradby surveyed the scene with satisfaction.

”You all look nice from the rear,” he remarked. ”Some of you've got real fine backs. Just you keep like that now and see what the fairies'll send you.”

So silently that he might have been a disembodied spirit he turned on his heel, seized the reins Mr. c.u.mshaw threw him and vaulted into the saddle. As softly as two shadows the horses melted into the night, their m.u.f.fled hoofs making no sound on the hard earth.

Ten minutes later one of the hors.e.m.e.n, grown tired of the unearthly inaction and suspecting something of what had happened, slewed his head round very cautiously. In a flash he realised the position and imparted his discovery to his companions.

”We can't follow them,” the leader said. ”We're unarmed. Furthermore we've got no idea which way they went. The only thing we can do is to get back to the nearest police station and report.”

The man who had first discovered the absence of the bushrangers had been employing his time in examining the ground for traces of the gang, and very shortly he came across the tracks that the precious pair had made earlier in the evening. An exclamation from him drew the others to the spot. By the flickering light of a match they inspected the hoof-marks, and then the leader of the party gave vent to a snort of disgust.

”There's only two of them,” he said. ”What fools we've been!”

”They completely took us in,” remarked another member of the party.

”That's so,” agreed a third, ”but we can't make people understand. If we tell them how two men stuck us up, we're going to look a lot of goats. I For one think we'd better keep the number to ourselves, or, better still, we might say that there was a big party of them.”

One or two demurred at this, but the bulk of the party knew well the ridicule that the truth would attach to them, and the result was that between them a story carrying the marks of probability was invented, and, thus armed against the laughter of the State, the party set out for the nearest town.

In the meanwhile Bradby and c.u.mshaw had doubled back on their tracks and were heading for the Grampians. Though neither of them had explored the mountains before, they were quite satisfied from what they knew of the general formation of the country that there were gullies, even valleys, where an army might lie hidden. So confident were the two adventurers that there was no danger of pursuit that they did not press forward at anything like a reasonable speed. They took things easy. Somewhere about two o'clock in the morning they halted and removed the blanket-pads from their horses' hoofs. Mr. c.u.mshaw was just going to throw them into the bushes when Mr. Bradby stopped him.

”Don't do that,” he said, ”we'd better destroy them outright.”

”How?” queried Abel.

”Burn 'em, I should say,” Mr. Bradby answered. ”You make a good job of it, and you don't leave anything behind. If you throw them away someone's sure to find them just when it's most awkward for you. No, Abel, burn them and hurry up about it.”

So it came about that presently a tiny spot of light glowed like a red warning beacon from the lower slopes of the range. A lonely prospector, a few miles to the east, saw the spark and wondered at it. He knew that no one lived in that part of the country. The more he thought of it the more it puzzled him, though with the morning there came an unexpected solution.

CHAPTER II.

THE PURSUIT.

A body of mounted troopers left Ararat an hour or so before daylight the next morning, and by seven o'clock had reached the scene of the robbery.

They had with them a capable black tracker who had figured in recent events in the Wombat Ranges. He was a silent individual who answered to the name of ”Jacky,” a name that seems to be the heritage of all blacks who serve in the police force. He quickly picked up the false scent, and the party turned east. It wasn't until the horses stumbled over the heap of stones that some brilliant intellect dropped to the trick that had been played on them. Then, with the better part of an hour to the bad, the party returned to the starting-point of the trail.

”Seems to me,” the sergeant in charge remarked to his subordinate, ”that they've laid this trail with a good reason. Now if a man wanted to put you on the wrong track, what would you think he'd naturally do?”

”Send us in the opposite direction,” said the other promptly.

”Quite so,” said the sergeant. ”Now the false trail leads east, so it's only reasonable to suppose that they've gone west.”

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