Part 18 (1/2)

c.u.mshaw said. ”I wonder if there's any other way.”

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

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

”Blocked!” said Bradby savagely.

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

He was gone for ten minutes, ten long minutes that Bradby occupied in cursing the valley in particular and the rest of the world in general.

Then there came a cry from the height above him, and, looking up, he saw Abel c.u.mshaw waving to him. Next instant the man disappeared and a few seconds later swung down through the rocks.

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

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

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

”You said it was murder yesterday when I suggested shooting them,”

Bradby reminded him.

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

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

The horses were shot then and there as the easiest way out of it, and when the echoes had died away the two men crawled cautiously up the funnel-like opening in the rock. Footholds were precarious enough, but by dint of hanging on by teeth and claw the partners at length forced their way to the top and stood on the ledge that overhung the valley.

Across the smoky sea of timber they caught sight of the long line of golden wattle through which they had broken their way the previous evening. It occurred to both in almost the same instant that no man would be very likely to blunder in by chance. The place was securely hidden from view on three sides at least, and on the fourth, the side where they now stood, the approach was so difficult and, as they learnt later, dangerous that a man must have some very good reason for attempting it. c.u.mshaw it was who first put his thoughts into words.

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

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

”I don't think he'd have found the other way in a month of Sundays.

However, let's get along. We'll have to make haste now we're without horses, What's it to be? Riverina or Adelaide?”

”I favor the Riverina,” c.u.mshaw said. ”I'm more familiar with the country, and they've got nothing against me up there.”

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

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

The tragedy happened that evening. An hour or so before sunset they decided to camp hard by a little creek they had just discovered.

c.u.mshaw, as usual, tended to the fire, and Bradby, after idling about for a while, suggested that he had better go hunting, in the hope of being able to obtain fresh meat for the meal.

”All right,” said c.u.mshaw. ”Go ahead. But don't be any longer than you can help.”

”I'll be back as soon as I can,” Bradby answered, and slipped into the shadows that were already gathering thick and fast. Abel c.u.mshaw worked away, whistling softly to himself the while. He was so busy doing one thing and another that it was not until darkness fell suddenly and completely on the scene that he realised how quickly time had pa.s.sed.