Part 40 (1/2)

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 towns.h.i.+p 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 towns.h.i.+p 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 c.o.c.k-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.