He was some little time catching the horse, and when he reached the
commissioner's house Coulthurst was already sitting with a book in front
of him. He looked up with a little dry smile when Ingleby came in.
"It is after my usual office hours, but I understand from Mr. Sewell
that you are anxious I should register you to-night as one of the
owners of the claim held by Tomlinson?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said Ingleby. "There are one or two reasons that make it
advisable."
He fancied there was a very faint twinkle which might have suggested
comprehension in Coulthurst's eyes as the latter took up a pen.
"Then I think I can make an exception in your case, especially as
Tomlinson seems equally anxious, and we will get the business done," he
said.
There was silence for a minute or two, and they waited with an
impatience that was the fiercer because it was suppressed while
Coulthurst turned over the papers in front of him and took down a book.
There was no sound but the splashing of the rain upon the roof and the
snapping of the little stove, but Ingleby felt his nerves tingle as he
listened. Coulthurst, however, closed the book at last and handed him a
paper.
"That should meet your requirements, and it will be quite in order for
you to carry on the work at the claim should Tomlinson be absent from
any cause," he said, and stopping abruptly looked up as though
listening. "I fancy you were wise in getting the agreement
recorded--now. Delays, as you are aware, are apt to be especially
dangerous in case of a placer claim."
He appeared to busy himself again with his book; but Tomlinson rose
suddenly, and stood a moment, tense and strung up, with head turned
towards the door, as a sound that suggested men and horses splashing in
the mire reached them faintly through the rain. Then he stepped forward
towards the veranda by which they had entered, but Ingleby seized his
arm and pointed towards the other door at the back of the room. He and
Sewell knew that one could reach the bush that way through the outbuilt
kitchen.
Coulthurst, who could not see the door from where he sat, looked up from
his book for just a moment, and did not appear to notice that Tomlinson
was no longer in front of him.
"I presume there is nothing more I can do for you, and that is
apparently Captain Esmond. I think he has some business with me," he
said.
The hint that he would excuse them was plain enough, even if it went no
further, and he drew another bundle of papers towards him. This, no
doubt, accounted for the fact that he failed to notice that while Leger
and Sewell moved towards the veranda, Ingleby slipped out through the
other door. Sewell, however, gasped with relief when he saw it swing
silently to. Just then there was a tramp of feet outside, and in another
few moments Esmond sprang upon the veranda, splashed with mire and
dripping with rain. Two wet troopers appeared behind him, carbines in
hand. He stopped them with a little gesture of command, and then,
striding past Sewell and Leger into the room, appeared to have some
difficulty in restraining himself when he saw only the major there.
"You will excuse me for coming in unceremoniously, sir, but I had
reasons for believing Tomlinson was here," he said.
"He was here," said Coulthurst. "In fact, I don't quite understand how
it was you didn't meet him going away."
"I certainly did not," and Esmond flashed a keen glance at him. "If I
had done so, I should naturally not have troubled you about him."
Coulthurst appeared reflective.
"He was here. In fact, I have just done some business for him," he said,
and stopped; for one of the troopers cried out, and all could hear a
thud of hoofs and the smashing of undergrowth. Coulthurst glanced
suggestively at Esmond.
"That sounds very much like somebody riding through the bush," he said.
Esmond certainly wasted no time now in ceremony. He was on the veranda
in another moment and shouting to the trooper, who led up a horse. They
vanished amidst a rustle of trampled fern, and Sewell laughed as he and
Leger turned back towards the shanty.
"One could fancy Major Coulthurst belonged to the aristocracy some of
our friends are pleased to consider played out; but there are at least
signs of intelligence in him," he said. "He is, by the way, I am
somewhat proud to claim, a friend of mine, though that is, of course, no
compliment to him."
"Well," replied Leger drily, "it is seldom wise to generalize too
freely, which is a mistake we make now and then. After all, it may be a
little hard on the major to blame him for being a gentleman. He probably
couldn't help it, you see."
He had spoken lightly to hide his anxiety; but now he stopped a moment
and stood listening intently. A faint sound of splashing and scrambling
came up out of the hollow through the rain.
"It's not a trail most men would care to ride down in daylight, but they
seem to be facing it," he said. "If they caught Ingleby it would
complicate the thing."
"It's scarcely likely," said Sewell. "He got away two or three minutes
before they did."
"The difficulty is that Ingleby can't ride as you and the troopers can."
Sewell touched his shoulder.
"Listen," he said, and Leger heard the roar of the river throb across
the dripping pines. "When they get near the ford the troopers are
scarcely likely to hear anything else through that, and they would
naturally not expect the man they're after to double back for the canyon.
If they push on as they seem to be doing, they should be a good way down
the trail by morning."
They both laughed at this, and were sitting in the shanty half an hour
later when Ingleby limped in, smiling and very miry, with his jean
jacket badly split.
"Tomlinson got away?" he asked.
"Presumably," said Leger. "We were almost afraid you hadn't. We haven't
seen him. Where are Captain Esmond and his troopers?"
Ingleby laughed. "They were riding very recklessly over an infamous
trail with my horse in front of them when I last saw them. I was just
then behind a tree. The beast I couldn't stop simplified the thing by
flinging me off. I hadn't any stirrups, perhaps fortunately."
"They'd catch the horse eventually," said Sewell.
"Of course! That is, if they could keep in the saddle long enough, which
is far from certain, considering the state of the trail. Then they would
naturally fancy that Tomlinson had taken to the range. In fact, I
shouldn't wonder if they spent most of to-morrow looking for his trail.
Still, there is a question I should like to ask. Why did you worry
Tomlinson about that plant?"
Sewell took a little packet from his pocket and opened it. There were
one or two pulpy leaves inside it.
"Those grew on the plant in question, which Tomlinson had never heard
of. The Indians use them for stopping blood," he said. "I took them from
the body of Trooper Probyn."
There was silence for a little while, and during it the sound of the
river came up to them in deep pulsations through the roar of the rain.
Then Leger laughed.
"I'm afraid Captain Esmond and his troopers will be very wet," he said.
"He is a capable officer, but such simple-minded persons as Hetty and
Ingleby are now and then a match for the wise."
"Haven't you left somebody out?" asked Ingleby.
"Major Coulthurst," said Leger, "is, of course, the Gold Commissioner,
and could not be expected to have any sympathy with such a man as
Tomlinson. It would, in fact, be unpardonable to suggest that he could
be an accessory. Still, it is, perhaps, not quite out of the question
that people outside the class to which Hetty and Ingleby and I belong
should possess a few amiable qualities."
"You and Ingleby and Hetty?" said Sewell reflectively.
Leger looked at him with a little smile.
"Yes," he said, "you heard me quite correctly. It's not worth
discussing, but I scarcely think one could place you in quite the same
category."