Macdougal looked at Ryder in silence for a moment, and then said quietly: 'They're callin' the new man yonder at the five-mile Brummy the Nut; maybe ye mind him.'

'I do not. I--'

He was interrupted by the report of a revolver out in the darkness. The trooper at the French window remained upright for a moment, then fell to his knees, and then forward upon the carpet. For two or three seconds all eyes but Lucy's and Ryder's were fixed upon the window, and there was apprehension in every face. Lucy's eyes were upon Ryder's hands; she saw the handcuff fall from one, saw him swing with a sudden, swift movement of the right arm, and the heavy manacle struck the trooper at his side on the temple, and the man fell without a groan. Then Ryder made a dash for the French window, and was gone before a hand could be raised to stay him. Lucy, who had had some understanding of his plan before he acted upon it, followed him swiftly, closing the windows after him; and she stood there, confronting the people, pale, but with determination in her face and the flash of courage in her eyes. The trooper from the other side dashed across the room, faltered for a moment, perceiving that time would be lost in a struggle with the girl, and then turned and rushed back through the door. The suddenness of all this had robbed the majority of the guests of their wits; they stood as if petrified. The wounded trooper rose slowly from the floor--it occurred to no one to offer to help him--staggered a few steps into the room, and fell again, and lay amongst the guests, his blood dyeing the carpet at their feet. Mean while Marcia had not moved; but now her white face had the expression of one listening with the intensity of an unspeakable fear for the message of death, and the sergeant in command was groping for the door, still dazed from the blow he had received, and almost blinded by the blood flowing from his wound.

Outside two troopers had jumped into their saddles, and were off in hot pursuit of the fugitive, who had galloped out of the thick cover of the orchard on Galah, Ryder's beautiful gray, and was riding at a breakneck pace for the heavily-timbered country to the east. It was a stern chase, and once Trooper Casey came so near to overhauling the gray horse that he ventured a revolver shot; but after that the hunted man drew away, and the troopers lost sight of him in the timber. The pursuit was maintained for about an hour, and then the pursuers came upon Galah trotting quietly back towards b.o.o.byalla, riderless and without a saddle. Imagining that Solo had been swept from the horse by the limb of a tree, the troopers made a long search, and while they sought, Yarra--for it was he who had led the police away on this wild-goose chase--had doubled on his pursuers, and was making a bee-line for the station again on foot. He was found in his bed at home two hours later, cowering under the blankets, pretending an overpowering fear of the shooting and the blood.

Walter Ryder, when he pa.s.sed through the window, sprang from the veranda, and dashed into the garden. A voice called to him to stand in the name of the law, and a revolver bullet clipped his shoulder, but he ran on until the thick growth of trees and shrubbery quite covered him, then, turning sharply to the left, he hid in the hollow of an old gum-tree, the creeper overgrowing which offered a perfect screen. From here he uttered the mopoke's call, repeating it twice. He had made himself familiar with all the advantages the garden and orchard offered a hunted man ere he had been a week at b.o.o.byalla. Ryder remained in this hiding-place for some time. He heard the thunder of Galah's hoofs and the cries of the troopers. Yarra had timed his break from cover to a second. When the sound of the chase died out in the distance, Solo walked quietly to the corner of the orchard opposite to that from which the black boy had started, where a horse was standing. This was Wallaroo. The saddle had been hastily thrown on to the entire's back, and the bridle was looped over a post. Ryder fastened the girths, buckled the bridle securely, and, mounting the horse, walked him to the slip panels, keeping well under cover of the trees. When about a quarter of a mile off, he stirred Wallaroo to a canter, but kept to the track thickly seared with new hoof-prints, so that it should be impossible for any but a clever tracker to follow him. After riding for about three miles, he bore to the right along the course of a small creek, and made his way into the ranges up a deepening gorge, the sides of which were clothed with heath and scrub, and ribbed thickly with the trunks of tall gums as straight as lances, shooting high into the air, and spreading their branches in the moonlight over two hundred feet above him. He turned from this gorge into a narrower ravine, which widened into a gully. Ryder continued for another half-mile to where three or four gigantic rocks thrown together formed a sort of natural stronghold with a rampart of white gums. Here he dismounted. Having rolled a boulder from a niche in the rocks, he drew out a rope, and with this tethered Wallaroo. Then, after removing the bit from his mouth and loosening the girths, he left the horse to graze.

The niche in the rocks was well stocked with food, and contained a rug, a bottle of brandy, several small parcels of ammunition, two revolvers, a few other articles, a miner's 'rig-out,' and the false beards Ryder had been in the habit of using as disguises.

Having removed the suit he was wearing, Ryder bathed and dressed the wound in his shoulder as best he could. He put on the digger's clothes, and, wrapping himself in the rug, lay under the sloping rock on a couch of dry bracken, and slept as if in a comfortable bed and at peace with the world.

The sun was throwing oblique rays into the heath on the side of the gully when Ryder awoke. He found his bridle-arm very stiff and painful, and dressed the wound again. He breakfasted on biscuits and smoked fish, and drank water flavoured with brandy. The greater part of that day he spent collecting fodder for Wallaroo, and leading the horse about to those spots where the gra.s.s was most luxuriant. He was waiting with absolute confidence and the greatest composure. The vicissitudes of his life had taught him patience.

At about a quarter past ten that night Ryder was sitting on the rug with his back to the rock, smoking reflectively, when a voice called almost at his elbow:

'Hist! Yarra bin come, boss!'

'Good boy!' Ryder replaced his revolver on a convenient ledge, and as Yarra appeared before him, grinning in-the moonlight, he added a few words of thanks and of praise in the native tongue.

'What happen by b.o.o.byalla?'

'Mine bin chase it that feller all day.' Yarra pointed at Solo, and his white teeth glittered like tiny mirrors. 'Track him longa trooper plenty far.' He pointed beyond b.o.o.byalla 'My word, Yarra make it big one d.a.m.n fool that trooper.' The thought of the manner in which he had tricked the police tickled the black boy, and he emitted a yell of laughter that startled the Bush sleepers for a mile round, and filled the trees with movements and murmurs of complaint. Ryder, knowing the susceptibilities of the race, to gratify the boy laughed too.

'Yarra plenty clever,' he said.

'My word! Yarra follow track all away topside Shepherd's Scrub. Go this way, that way, make much plurry humbug. Say: "This feller gone lame, limp it bad. Some time he creep by scrub, lie down." Trooper go search it scrub all day, nex' day, nex' day. They catch it that fellar by'n-by.'

Again he pointed at Ryder, and again his laugh echoed in the gorge. 'Mine tink it trooper search him scrub plenty long time. Boss tink I go hunt by scrub to-morrow, mine come sit down longa here.'

All of which meant that Yarra had been employed by the troopers to follow the track of Ryder, and had led them as far astray as possible, and left them with the impression that the fugitive was wounded and lying in hiding in Shepherd's Scrub, a dense ti-tree growth to the north-east of b.o.o.byalla, extending for two or three miles.

Ryder rewarded his accomplice with a n.o.bbler of brandy and a cigar, and the black sat smoking with a grand air, while the former explained that he would remain where he was until his arm was in a more serviceable state, trusting to Yarra to keep him apprised of what was going forward, and to warn him instantly danger threatened. During the last few hours the idea of inducing Lucy Woodrow to visit him there in the Bush had been stirring in Ryder's mind, and he reckoned upon turning his wound to good advantage. For the troopers he had the greatest contempt, and his confidence in Yarra was absolute. The half-caste remained with him for about an hour, and then returned into the gorge, and keeping to the bed of the creek picked up his horse, a sober old cattle nag, where he had left him at the foot of the range.

Yarra returned to Wat Ryder early in the forenoon of the following day.

The trooper the boy shot at the window was being nursed at b.o.o.byalla, the others were away beating the scrub. The half-caste brought with him a wild duck he had trapped, and set about cooking this in its feathers. The two dined together shortly after mid-day, and the sun was streaming into the gully, the air was heavy with the odour of wild musk, and the Bush was as silent as if no life remained in the intense heat. Ryder had risen, and was looking at Wallaroo standing with his nose in the shade of a gum-b.u.t.t, fighting the avaricious flies with his tail. At that instant a loud report rang along the gully, and Ryder staggered a few paces, and fell with his back to one of the boulders, stunned. A bullet ricocheting from the rock had struck him in the neck. Yarra threw himself forward, face downward, at a s.p.a.ce between the boulders. He saw a wreath of smoke in the gully and a slight movement in the thick growth, and fired twice, but the distance was too great for a revolver. The enemy, whoever he was, was armed with a gun. The half-caste listened for a moment, and his black eyes searched the gully. Then he heard the beat of a horse's hoofs. A look of enlightenment came to his face. There was one horseman only; he was riding at a pace which, in such country, threatened death at every stride.

The boy looked at Ryder, pointing back in the direction from which the shot had come.

'That feller mine boss,' he said, and fear tinged his blackness a slaty gray.

Ryder had slipped to a sitting position--one hand held a blood-stained handkerchief to his neck, the other clutched a revolver. He was white to the lips, but his eyes blazed with life and the pa.s.sion of a wounded lion.

XXII

RYDER knew himself to be badly hurt; he realized that he was in a desperate situation, a situation from which it would require all his cunning to extricate himself. The plans he had formed were abandoned, and even while suffering the first shock of the wound his mind was busy. He had been attacked by one man; his enemy knew he was not alone, and was not sure of the effect of his shot, otherwise he would not have fled. The outlaw felt that he might rely upon immunity from further attack for some time, and meanwhile all the strength and energy remaining to him must be devoted to the task of reaching another refuge. In Macdougal be had met an enemy of a kind he had never before been called upon to deal with. The squatter was indefatigable in pursuit of his vengeance, evidently an expert Bushman, and bent upon dealing retribution with his own hand. Wat Ryder wasted no time in fruitless lamentation over his folly in not having made good his escape while the opportunity offered. Already he had lost much blood. The muscle on the right side of the neck was badly lacerated. First of all, the wound must be dressed. For years he had been prepared for an exigency of this sort, and was never without materials for the treatment of serious hurts. With Yarra's a.s.sistance, the wound was washed with a lotion, closed as well as possible, and then carefully bandaged, without the waste of a moment.

Ryder lay with his revolver by his side. He knew perfectly that he might be engaged in a life or death struggle at any moment, and was prepared to die by his own hand the instant the fight became hopeless.

'Go, Yarra; pick up his track; find which way he has gone; come back one minute.'

He knew there was no occasion to warn the half-caste, in whom the instincts of his mother's people were paramount. Yarra was a child of the Bush; nothing would escape his eye or his ear, and at the same time he would be as swift and as secret as a snake.

While the boy was away Ryder wrote a note in pencil addressed to Lucy Woodrow. Yarra was back within five minutes.

'Him Boss belonga me all right. Him run longa gully, catch up horse by ole man blackb.u.t.t, ride longa gorge same debble chase him,' reported the half-caste.

'Right, right! Yarra plurry fine feller!' said Ryder. 'Now we go up over small spur, down by gorge, sit down little stone cave near big splash.

Pretty quick you come back, catch Wallaroo, lead him down to the gorge along down the creek. Make a track by the bank some time, turn him in pool where black fish sit down, and ride back up creek again, and tie horse up by big rock same monkey bear. Then to-night you creep down by b.o.o.byalla, knock on Miss Lucy's window, gib Miss Lucy this letter. No one else must see. If Miss Lucy say yes, when sun jumps up to-morrow you take Wallaroo down by wattle track, gib her horse, come back sit down by me.

Yarra catch hold all that?'

Yarra nodded brightly. 'My word, mine know him all right,' he said.

'Yarra always good friend by me?'

'My word!'

The climb over the spur that divided the outlaw's first retreat from the gorge proved a terrible task for the wounded man. For some distance the boy followed him, obliterating his tracks; but before the journey was half completed Ryder required all the a.s.sistance the half-caste could give him, and he reached the small cave in the side of the gorge, about a mile and a half from its entrance, in an exhausted and feverish condition. There Yarra gave him drink, and, having made him a comfortable bed, left him with a revolver by his side, and returned for Wallaroo and Ryder's belongings. The boy followed the instructions he had received faithfully, and was with the outlaw again before sundown, watching over him with an interest he had never before felt in any human creature.

Ryder knew now that his life depended upon the boy's fidelity, and that there was only one other person in the world upon whom he could rely in his extremity--Jim Done.

We left Done in a poor condition to help any man--lying in Kyley's tent, enfeebled by sickness, clinging to Aurora's fingers as some sort of anchorage in a fragile world. When he awoke again Aurora was still by his side. He grew quite accustomed to waking and finding her there, and in his waking moments for two or three days he clasped her fingers with an almost infantile helplessness. The first stages of recovery were slow, and in them his chief delight was to lie watching his nurse, scarcely conscious of anything beyond. He found her very worn, and she looked old.

Few of the qualities that had impelled him to call her Joy remained in this anxious face. She attended to him a.s.siduously; but she was only a nurse, nothing of a lover, and presently he found himself wondering at her lack of emotion, fretting for the absent caress with an invalid's petulance. As his strength returned, Aurora permitted Mary Kyley to a.s.sume the larger share of the nursing, and Jim was told what news there was, excepting the truth about poor Mike. It was Ryder who had informed Aurora that Done and his friends were in the stockade, where he had seen them during the Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Mary read a letter from the Peetrees inviting Jim to join them at Blanket Flat--where they had taken his and Mike's belongings--when he was strong enough to get about. According to Mrs. Ryley's version of this letter, Mike was with the Peetrees.

Eventually Jim was strong enough to sit up for a while, and in the course of a few days Ben helped him out into the open, and the pure, hot sunshine seemed to pour new life into his veins. It was after this that Done missed Aurora. Mrs. Ben said she had gone away for a few days to recruit; but eventually, when Jim was hobbling about, she admitted that she did not know where the girl had gone, and believed that she might not come back.

'But why?' said Jim--' why go away without a word, without giving me a chance to thank her for what she has done?'

'Thank her!' said Mary, with some contempt. 'Are you thinking the poor girl wanted thanks from you?'

'It is strange that she should leave in this way,' answered Done impatiently.

'There's nothing strange in it, man; it's just natural. You never understood how much that girl cared for you, Jimmy. If you did, perhaps you would know what it meant for her to be working herself to a ghost over your bed there while you babbled of love to another woman.'

'I did?'

'Did you? Night and day. It was Lucy, Lucy, Lucy--always Lucy. Lucy with the brown hair and the beautiful eyes--Lucy the pure, and sweet, and good. Never a word of Joy--never the smallest word of the woman who was beating the devil off you, you blackguard!'

'But I was delirious! Surely----'

'True, you were wandering; but it's only when a man's mad or drunk that one gets the truth out of him about women. "There's not a thought of me left in his heart, Mary!" said the poor girl.'

'She was wrong--wrong!' he protested.

'Not a bit, boy! 'Twas the pure girl had all your soul. Heavens! and how you rubbed it in about her purity and goodness! Mother of us! let a man be so infernally bad that the very fiend sniffs at him, but he'll bargain with the impudence of an archangel for the pure girl.'

'And she went away for this?'

'Sure enough. Aurora's the sort to hide her hurts. When she can't fight over them, she'll not cry a whimper.'