DICK HADDON did not enter his home immediately after parting with his
mates. Mrs. Haddon's little cottage, four roomed, with a queer skillion
front, was surrounded by a tumbled mass of tangled vegetation miscalled a
garden, and Dick loitered in the shadow of the back fence to consider
what manner of entrance would be most politic. He was shrewdly aware that
his mother might be tempted to make an attack on the impulse of the
moment, her most pathetic letter notwithstanding, and it was a point of
honour with him to offer no resistance and make no evasion when Mrs.
Haddon felt called upon to administer corporal punishment. To be sure the
maternal beatings occasioned very little physical inconvenience; but they
gave rise to much unpleasantness, and were to be avoided when possible.
As it happened, Dick was not put to the necessity of making a choice
to-night. In the midst of his cogitations he felt himself seized from
behind in a pair of long, strong arms. With the quick instinct of a
wrongdoer he suspected evil, and kicked sharply back ward at the shins of
the enemy.
'Le' go! You le' me go, see!' gasped the boy, struggling and fighting
fiercely.
Resistance was quite useless. Dick was dragged through the gate, and up
to the house. The door was opened, and he was bundled unceremoniously
into the kitchen. Then Ephraim Shine--for it was the superintendent who
had fallen upon Dick in the darkness--thrust his sparsely-whiskered,
leathery face into the well-lighted room, and said shortly:
'Your boy, ma'am!'
Shine withdrew instantly, closing the door noiselessly after him, and
left Dick flushed and furious.
'He didn't take me,' he cried. 'I was comin' home, an' he grabbed me just
outside there--the beast!
Dick stopped short, suddenly conscious of the presence of visitors. Mrs.
Hardy was sitting opposite his mother by the wide fireplace--the tall,
white-haired gentlewoman in whose society he always felt himself
transformed suddenly into a sort of saintly fellowship with the
remarkably gentlemanly little boys whose acquaintance he made in the
books provided by the chapel library. At the table sat Gable, the grey,
chubby-faced third-class scholar whom Joel Ham had forgiven because of
his extreme youth. The old man had a circular slab of bread and jam in
his left hand, and was grinning fraternally at Dick. There was a third
visitor, a stranger, a brown-haired, brown-skinned, bony young man,
dressed after the manner of a drover. He had a small moustache, and a
grave, taking face. He looked like a bushranger, Dick thought admiringly.
'This is Richard, Henry,' said Mrs. Hardy.
'You don't know me, eh, Coppertop?' said the young man, taking the boy's
hand.
'Harry Hardy,' said Dick at random.
'Well, that's a good enough guess, young fellow
Dick fell back quietly. It was, he felt, a moment when an air of sadness
and a retiring disposition would be likely to be most becoming in
him--and most effective. He declined his mother's invitation to supper
with such meekness that the little woman found it difficult to hide her
concern. Could she have peeped into the drive of the Mount of Gold, where
was scrap-food enough to victual a small regiment, not to mention pillage
from Wilson's orchard, she might have been more at her ease--or have
found fresh occasion for uneasiness. Dick had none of his mother's
apple-like roundness--the widow, who was not yet thirty-five, always
suggested apples and roses--he had inherited his father's flame-coloured
hair, and a pale complexion that was very effective in turning away
maternal wrath when allied with an appearance of pensive melancholy and a
fictitious pain in the chest.
The conversation, which had been interrupted by Dick's entrance, was
presently resumed. The women were recounting the story of Frank Hardy's
arrest and trial for Harry's information. The subject was one of profound
interest to Dick, and from his retreat at the far end of the table, where
he sat disregarded, his crimes tacitly ignored for the time being, he
listened eagerly. When Gable kicked him to attract his attention, and
gleefully exhibited a handful of loaf sugar that he had slyly abstracted
from the basin, the small boy frowned the old man down with a diabolical
scowl.
Gable was Mrs. Hardy's brother, and although over sixty years of age, his
mind had remained the mind of a child; mentally, he never grew beyond his
eighth year. He was a child in all his ways and wishes, was happiest in
the society of children, and was regarded by them, without question and
without surprise, as one of themselves. He was sent to school because it
pleased him to go, and it kept him out of mischief, and every day he
learned over again the lessons he had learned the day before and
forgotten within an hour. His admiration for Dick Haddon was profound,
the respect and appreciation the boy of eight has for the big brother who
is twelve and smokes.
Abashed by Dick's frown, the old man devoted himself humbly to his
'piece,' and the boy gave his whole attention to the conversation. He was
eager to get an inkling of Harry's line of action. For his own part he
had thought of a desperate band, with Harry at its head and himself in a
conspicuous position, raiding the gaol at Yarraman under a hail of
bullets, and bearing off the prisoner in triumph; but experience had
taught him that the expedients of grown-up people were apt to be
disgustingly common place and ludicrously ineffective.
'If he'd an enemy,' said Harry, 'there'd be something to go on. Was there
nobody, no one at all, that he'd had any row with--nobody who hated him?'
Mrs. Haddon shook her head.
'Nobody,' she said. 'But he declared the real thieves had done it, either
to shift suspicion or to be rid of him. He thought it a disgrace that all
the men at the Stream should be marked as probable thieves because of one
or two rogues; an' he was always eager to spot the real robbers. It was
known gold-stealin' had been goin' on for some time. That's why they put
on the searcher.'
'Shine. Mightn't he have had a finger in it?'
'No, no. It doesn't seem likely. Why should he?'
'I can't say. God knows! But there is somebody. If I only knew the
man--if I only had him under my hand!
Harry's face became grey through the tan; he sat forward in his chair,
with a sinewy arm thrust down between his knees, and his hand closed as
if upon a throat. His mother touched his shoulder.
'Violence can only work mischief, my boy. Use what intelligence you
have--only that can help. If we can save poor Frank and clear his name,
we may leave vengeance to the law.'
'Yes, mother, you are right, but I am no saint. I hate my enemies, an' it
is maddening not to know who you hate--who to hit at.'
'That may be so, Henry, but passion will only blind you. If you are not
cool you will fail. Remember, the true culprits may be near you while you
are seeking; do nothing to set them on their guard. You may learn much
from the men. They are all Frank's friends, even those who believe him
guilty.'
'Believe him guilty!
'O, my boy, my boy! You would want to fight them all. It is folly. The
evidence did not leave room for a doubt as to his guilt, and these men
have their own ideas as to the morality of such crimes. Many of them
think none the worse of a man who helps himself to a nugget that he may
find on his shovel.'
'An' you are the mother of a thief, I am a thief's brother; Frank is a
convict, an' we must grin an' gammon we like it.'
'We must be discreet, we must be cunning, if we wish to prove we are no
thieves and no kin to thieves.'
'Right you are, mother--always right.' The young man spread his rough,
brown hand caressingly upon the small hand upon his knee. 'My fist always
moves before my head, but I know your way is best, an' I don't mean to
forget it.'
'Ephraim Shine seemed to be tryin' to do his best for Frank at the
trial,' said Mrs. Haddon. 'I think he's a well-meanin' man, if he is a
bit near an' peculiar in his ways. He always says it was his duty he did,
an' that's true. We know Frank's not guilty, because--because we're fond
of him'--here the little widow wiped her eyes, and her voice trembled--'
an' know him better than others, but the case was black against him.
Frank came straight up from below and into the searcher's shed, an' Shine
found the gold in his crib bag, which was rolled up, an' forced under the
handle of his billy.'
'Where it'd been for half the shift, the billy hanging in a dark drive
where any man below might 'a 'got at it.'
'They found gold in a little box-place made in the heel of one of his
workin' boots.'
'A boot that was always left in the boiler-house when he was off work.
'He had sold coarse water-worn gold to a Jew at Yarraman.'
'Yes, I know, I know. Got, he said, fossicking down the creek where
nobody had ever won anything but fine gold before. Whoever put that gold
in his crib bag an' faked his boot-heel salted Frank's puddling-tub. It
was easy done. He on'y worked there now'n again when on night or
afternoon shift, an' it was open to anyone. It was salted with Silver
Stream gold by some double-damned cunning scoundrel.'
'We know it, Harry, and we have to prove it. To do that we must have all
our wits about us.'
'Yes, mother, we must; but if that man ever is found I hope I may have
the handling of him. Dick!' said the young man, turning suddenly.
Dick came forward somewhat diffidently, like a detected criminal.
'You know all about this business, eh?'
The boy nodded his head solemnly.
'Who do you think worked that dirty trick on my brother?' asked Harry
gravely.
Dick had not thought of the matter in that light, but he answered,
without hesitation:
'Ole Tinribs, I expect.'
'Dickie!' cried Mrs. Haddon, reprovingly.
'Why, why, Dick?' queried the young man.
Oh, I dunno; on'y he seems that sort, don't he?' Dick had been subjected
to a grave indignity at the hands of the superintendent, and was not in a
frame of mind to form a just estimate of the character of that good man.
He spoke with the cheerful irresponsibility of youth.
'I'm afraid you won't be much good to us, Copper-top, old man, if you
rush at conclusions in that desperate way,' said Harry.
Mrs. Hardy shook an impressive forefinger at the boy.
'You will say nothing to anybody of our intentions, Richard.'
'No,' said Dick simply; but that word given to Mrs. Hardy was a sacred
oath, steel-bound and clamped.