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 Cumshaw 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?"

Cumshaw 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," Cumshaw 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 grass 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. Cumshaw 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," Cumshaw 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.

Cumshaw, 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 Cumshaw. "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 Cumshaw 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 passed.

His first thought then was that Bradby was away much longer than he had

any right to be. It occurred to him that Bradby might have gone much

further than he intended and by some mischance had lost his way. He

decided to wait a while longer, and then, if Bradby did not appear in

the meantime, to go in search of him. But the time passed, the fire died

away to red hot coals, and the shadows fell thickly on everything; but

still Bradby did not come. At last Cumshaw rose swiftly to his feet in

the manner of a man who has decided on the course he must take and means

to stick to it unswervingly. With quick yet noiseless steps he stole

through the trees, occasionally swinging a sharp glance to the left or

right. But it was very dark in the woods, and it was impossible to tell

shape from shadow. A regiment might have been hiding behind the boles of

the trees without him being one whit the wiser. He had profound

objections against shouting his whereabouts to his mate--his woods'

instinct warned him never to reveal his presence unless there was no

other way out--but he saw speedily enough that there was no other course

left for him to take.

He made a megaphone of his hands, and sent a long-drawn "Coo-ee" out to

wake the echoes. The sound reverberated from the hills and died rumbling

away in the hollows. For some seconds after that there was absolute

silence, and then somewhere ahead of him he caught a very faint noise as

of long grass rustling in the wind. But the air was absolutely devoid of

motion. The sound puzzled Cumshaw; the very stealthiness of it convinced

him that no animal had made it, yet he could not understand why Bradby

should exercise such unnecessary caution.

Then in an instant he knew. The black wall ahead of him was split by a

pencil of flame, the silence of the forest crackled into sound, and the

whip-like crack of a revolver echoed and re-echoed. A bullet whistled

dangerously close to Cumshaw. He swore under his breath and tugged

furiously at his own revolver. Bending almost double he sprinted towards

the shelter of the nearest tree, while at the same instant the

stranger's weapon cracked again. Something stung his ear. He put up his

hand, and the warm blood spurted through his fingers.

He compressed himself into the smallest possible space behind the tree

and then fired in the direction of the last shot. He allowed a short

interval to elapse and then fired again. The other man must have seen

the flashes, but he made no attempt to answer them. The moment the first

shot was fired Cumshaw realised, in a flash of intuition, that his

assailant was none other than Jack Bradby. The knowledge made him

extremely angry, for such black treachery was the last thing he had

expected to have to contend with. He saw now that it was the old case of

thieves falling out over the division of the spoils, and that Jack

Bradby was determined to stop at nothing, even murder, in order to gain

the whole of the plunder. He continued firing with a savage fury that

boded ill for his late mate.

The thing itself happened suddenly. One moment he was peering out into

the darkness in an effort to locate his enemy; the next strong sinewy

hands were around his throat choking the life out of him. With that

clarity of vision that comes to a man perhaps once in a lifetime, he

saw, even in the all-pervading darkness, the shadowy face that was

pressed close to his own. The eyes that looked into his were dim pools

of evil light, faintly phosphorescent like those of a cat, and the face

that framed them was contorted into a malignant leer of triumph. That

much he saw before the darkness crushed him out of existence and all

things earthly faded from his vision.

Bradby felt the man's body go limp in his arms, and he quickly thrust

into its holster the revolver with which he had dealt the final blow.

There was a steamy smell of blood on the thick, damp air, and when Mr.

Bradby drew away his right hand he found it warm and wet.

"Christ!" he said in a tone of fear, "I've killed him!" That was

precisely what he had intended to do from the very first, but now his

plan had apparently fructified, he felt a vague horror at the result of

his handiwork. He opened Cumshaw's shirt and put his hand over the man's

heart. He could not detect even the faintest flutter.

Then swiftly, with many glances about him as he moved, he carried the

body to the undergrowth and very gently laid it on the ground. But he

failed to notice that as he bent down a flat piece of wood had slipped

from the pocket of his shirt and had fallen soundlessly into the soft

green grass at the side of Abel Cumshaw's body.

Five minutes later silence reigned. Only the heavy scent of the wattle

was mingled with another odor--the warm, sickly smell of freshly-shed

blood.

CHAPTER V.

EXPIATION.

Unaccountably enough Bradby went no further than the dying embers of the

fire. His first act was to build a big blaze, for he was already

becoming afraid. He could not define even to himself just what this fear

was; it was not so much horror at what he had done as a feeling that his

sins would yet find him out. Some strange attraction kept him close to

the scene of the tragedy, and all night he sat by the fire with his head

in his hands and his eyes staring at the ever-widening ring of white

ashes. Towards morning he fell into a doze, but scarcely had the first

rays of the sun penetrated through the leafy mantle of the trees than he

was wide-awake. There were dark rings under his eyes, and the eyes

themselves looked strangely tired and haggard. He glanced at his hands

with a faint idea that something had been wrong with them the night

before. He was disgusted to find that they were caked with dried blood,

and a feeling almost akin to nausea shook his frame. He made all the

haste he could to the creek and washed every speck of blood and dirt

off, so that when he had finished his hands were clean and spotless.

He shot a parrot for breakfast and made a gruesome meal off the raw

flesh. There was nothing else to eat, for the flour had all been

finished the previous day. After the morning's meal he brightened up and

set off northward with a brisk stride. The money was safe enough in the

valley for the present, he decided, and a couple of months in the

Riverina would not only not do him any harm, but would allow the hue and

cry time to die down. After that he would come back and get the gold,

and this time there would be no question of division; it would be his,

all of it. Now that the daylight had come he could think of the dark

figure suddenly growing limp in his arms and the smell of fresh blood

mixing with the scent of the wattles without the slightest misgiving. He

had no fear of it; he certainly felt no remorse. The further he got from

the scene of the murder, the lighter grew his spirits. He turned the

situation over in his mind and found abundant satisfaction in it; his

primitive logic told him that there was no evidence against him.

* * * * *

It is doubtful who was the most surprised, the troopers or Bradby when

he stumbled unexpectedly into their camp that evening. They were not the

men who had been following the bushrangers from the start, but another

body, warned by wire and hurriedly sent out from Murtoa. For some

unexplained reason the camp-fire had been allowed to die down, and so

there was no red glow to warn Bradby of their proximity. He had

blundered into the midst of the men before he quite realised what had

happened, and, when he made a wild dash for safety, he found that all

way of escape had been cut off. He was hemmed in on every side. The

troop was in charge of an officer of more than average intelligence, and

he instantly jumped to the correct conclusion. Had Bradby not lost his

head and endeavored to escape, he might have been able to pass himself

off as a prospector or something of the sort, but the mere sight of his

all-too-evident anxiety to get away wakened the suspicions of the

sergeant. The Grampians and the country surrounding them had hitherto

been singularly free from crime, and no malefactors from other parts of

the State were known to be at large in that neighbourhood. Obviously

this man, who displayed such a disinclination to meet the police, must

be a criminal, and just as obviously must he be one of the men wanted

for the gold escort robbery. The sergeant decided in one lightning flash

on a plan that he hoped would startle the man into betraying himself.

The moment Bradby turned to retreat and found himself hemmed in, the

other walked over to him, scrutinised him carefully, and in the same

instant placed his hand on his shoulder and said, "I arrest you in the

Queen's name for the robbery of the Gold Escort on the night of 1st

December."

Bradby's jaw dropped and he stared open-mouthed at the other. He could

not understand the process of almost instantaneous reasoning by which

the officer had arrived at this conclusion, and the swift scrutiny the

man had given him convinced him that in some strange and unaccountable

way a description of him had been obtained and circulated. The man had

recognised him, of that he felt sure.

All round him were staring policemen, watching him intently with eyes

that were no less full of astonishment than his own. They could not

fathom the reasons that actuated their chief, but they realised, all of

them, that the man before them must be in some guilty way connected with

the robbery. His very manner told them that.

The chief uttered the usual warning: "It is my duty to warn you that

anything you say will be used in evidence----" He got so far when Bradby

awoke from his stupor. He gave no warning of his intention, but his

doubled fist shot out, caught the other on the point of the jaw and

dropped him in a heap on the ground. Then with the swiftness of thought

he leaped to one side, pulling his revolver loose at the same instant.

He had just the smallest fraction of a second's start of the police, and

in the flurry of the moment he actually burst through the cordon that

had formed around him. The next instant the carbines of the police

commenced to bark. Bradby stumbled, recovered himself, and fired over

his shoulder. Several of the troopers were already on horseback, and it

was only a matter of riding him down. He saw this himself, and his

futile shot was designed to stop one at least of the horses. However, it

went wide. He slipped behind a tree and began snap-shooting at the

advancing mounted men. They spread out fanwise, thus coming at him from

three sides at once. He moved slightly in order to get a better aim, and

in doing so unwittingly exposed himself. One of the troopers, who had

discarded his carbine in favor of a revolver, took a flying shot. Bradby

lurched from behind the tree, clasped his hands to his left side and

slipped down on to the grass.

When they reached him the blood was welling out of his side, and they

saw that he was mortally wounded. The man who had fired the fatal shot

dropped on his knees beside him and lifted up his head. Bradby's face

was ashy pale, even in the faint moonlight one could see that, but he

was still conscious.

"It's no use," he panted. "I'm done."

"Where is the gold and where are your mates?" the man asked, conscious

that a word from the dying bushranger would solve everything. Bradby's

frame shook spasmodically, and when the other looked again there was

blood on his pale lips.

"Through the lung," muttered one of the others who had some knowledge of

medical science.

The first man repeated his question in another form.

Bradby looked at him with a strangely inscrutable face and with eyes

that were already darkening with the shadow of death.

"Where's the gold? Where's ... my ... mates?" The last three words were

almost whispered.

"Yes," said the trooper eagerly. "Where are they?"

The dying man moved his lips, but no sound issued from them. The other

bent down closer to him.

"That," said the bushranger with long and painful pauses between each

word, "you ... will ... never ... know."

And with that last taunt on his lips he died.

"Game to the end," the trooper said to his comrades with an admiration

he made no effort to hide.

* * * * *

The blow had not killed Abel Cumshaw. He lay unconscious for the better

part of the night, and even when the day dawned he was too weak at first

to do more than crawl a few paces at the most. His head was throbbing,

his mouth was a raging furnace, and all his limbs felt as if they had

been racked and twisted. When daylight came at length he lay still for a

while, trying to recollect what had happened. But his mind was a perfect

blank and he himself was a man without an identity. The blow that had

knocked him unconscious had somehow affected his memory, and he knew no

more about himself than he did about the man in the moon. Something

terrible had happened, something in which he had played a very prominent

part, that much he realised; but beyond that simple fact his

recollection did not extend. He groped about in the grass in the hope

that he might find something that would give him a clue to the

situation. His hand fell on his revolver. That at least was tangible,

but there was nothing enlightening about it. Further search revealed a

small flat piece of wood. He picked it up curiously and stared at it.

Two or three sentences had been hurriedly scratched on its smooth

surface with the point of a sharp knife, but though they were

intelligible enough they did not appear to refer to anything concerning

him. The mere fact that he had been lying almost on top of the wood

struck him as strange, and in a moment of unusual thoughtfulness he

slipped it into his pocket.

It was bright day by then, and the warmth of the sun seemed to revive

him to a marvellous extent. He got on his feet more by sheer will-power

than by any sudden accession of strength. He found that he could stagger

along, though his pace was necessarily slow and his course very erratic.

Some uncharted sense, instinct perhaps, led him along the track to the

creek where he had pitched his camp the previous evening. There was a

dim familiarity about the place that puzzled him. He felt in some absurd

way that he should recognise it, and he was both angry and surprised

that he could not. He found the remains of the parrot that Bradby had

eaten for breakfast, and he wondered vaguely who the man might be who

had been so close to him that morning. His wonder was such an impersonal

thing that he did not connect his own condition with the fact of the

other man's presence. Something had given way inside his head, that

something that controlled rational and consecutive memory. He sat down

on the bank of the creek and gazed into space. It would be incorrect to

say that he was dazed or that he behaved like a man in a dream. Those

are stock terms that in themselves are quite inadequate to convey his

peculiar state of mind and body. It was something more than lassitude,

yet it was not quite fatigue. It was rather as if some integral part of

his brain had been removed.

It is impossible to say just how long he remained on the bank of the

creek. At last his hunger became so acute that he determined to go off

foraging. He had his revolver with him; he was a fair enough shot, and

so it was not long before he tumbled a 'possum out of a tree. He made a

rough meal of it, and after that set off aimlessly into the bush. Had he

kept to his original intention he would have speedily wandered into the

Mallee, and would have run a good chance of dying of starvation in that

thinly-populated district. But his mind was still in a whirl, and

instinct alone guided his footsteps to the east. He was many miles north

of the valley and during his travels he moved further north, so that he

did not come across it during his journey back.

His subsequent adventures are not very clear. Early in his travels the

piece of wood began to trouble him, and he decided that the sooner he

got rid of it the better. It is more than likely that he connected it in

some way with that blank feeling of inexplicable tragedy which seemed to

overshadow him. His instinct, however, led him to hide rather than

destroy it. He read the wording very carefully, but it failed to awaken

any responsive chords in his memory. As an after-thought, just as he was

about to slide the wood into the hole he had scraped out, he took his

knife and cut his name below the screed. Then he thrust it into the hole

and stamped the earth in on top of it. In this relation it is

interesting to notice the connection between the hiding of the money and

the burying of the wood that held the key to the position of the former.

It seems as if the sub-conscious memory of the one act had its influence

on the man in his performance of the other.

Thereafter Mr. Cumshaw simply disappeared off the face of the earth. His

son's story is that he went to New South Wales, married there and raised

a family, and in the light of subsequent events that seems to be what

most likely occurred. It is known, however, that the Cumshaws were in

Victoria again somewhere about nineteen hundred and two or three, Albert

being at that time seven years old.

With the lapse of years Abel had gradually recovered his memory, and bit

by bit most of the incidents of the robbery had stolen out of the

shrouded darkness of the past. He appears to have been perfectly

contented with his family, and for one reason and another the gold

remained undisturbed through the long years. The time was coming when

the old play would be staged again and new actors would arise to carry

it through.

The tale of the gold robbery and the shooting of Mr. Jack Bradby, as the

reader will readily understand, passed into the police records and thus

became matters of history. Though no definite statement has been left

us, Mr. Bryce must have first come across the story during his

researches into Victorian history. He had friends in the Department, and

it is quite feasible that he had ready access to many official documents

that are usually beyond the reach of the ordinary public. He was not the

only one in this enviable position. There were other students of the

past who were moving along the same lines, and as he pieced together the

puzzle of the robbery he was followed by a pair of agile, unscrupulous

brains every whit as clever as he. The police records told Mr. Bryce

just this much:--On the first day of December, 1881, there had been a

gold robbery, and the robbers had got completely away. They had been

followed, and subsequently a man had been killed in the Grampians who

had been identified as John Bradby, a noted sheep and cattle-duffer.

When dying he refused to tell who his pals were, and had in the same

breath stated that the police would never find the gold. That in itself

was conclusive, yet the additional fact remained that the whereabouts of

the gold was still as big a mystery as ever it had been. The opinion of

the police was that the other members of the gang--they seemed to think

that it was a fairly large one--had returned when the hue and cry had

died away and recovered the plunder. Bryce, reading between the lines of

the dry official record, rather thought that they hadn't. At any rate

the element of mystery was sufficiently strong to induce him to

investigate the matter further. That was really the beginning of the

trouble.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HEGIRA OF MR. ABEL CUMSHAW.

Early in January, 1919, Mr. Bryce had advanced so far in his

investigations that he resolved on taking a trip to the country around

the Grampians. He had nothing very definite to go on beyond the facts

that the robbery had been committed at one spot and Mr. Bradby had been

killed at another, and logically the gold must have been hidden

somewhere in between. He had hopes that he might stumble on something

that in his capable hands would prove to be a clue to the long-lost

hiding-place of the gold. Before he made any preparations he inserted an

advertisement in several of the leading dailies. It ran somehow like

this:--"Wanted--A capable and intelligent assistant to take part in

dangerous expedition to Grampians. Apply," and then followed his name

and address. He was convinced in his own mind that someone amongst those

who read this notice would have some inkling at least of the events of

1st December, 1881, and he rather fancied that he or they would be on

the alert. In that case it was just possible that the persons concerned

would either approach him with a guarded offer or would dog his

footsteps. In either case there was a chance of Mr. Bryce picking up

information that might be to his immediate advantage. He convinced

himself that there were still people living who had played an intimate

part in the affairs of that memorable night.

The advertisement, however, had two results that were unforeseen by Mr.

Bryce. The third day after the insertion of the notice he was informed

that a gentleman wanted to see him. He requested that the man be shown

into his study. In due course the visitor arrived. He was a man

somewhere in the neighbourhood of sixty, but, save for a slight greying

of the hair about his temples, he showed little outward signs of his

age. His eyes, which were of a deep, unfathomable black, were very alert

and followed Mr. Bryce's every movement with a glittering serenity, if

one can use the expression, that was very disturbing.

"Sit down," said Mr. Bryce, and he waved his visitor to a chair.

The man sat down in the chair indicated, looked Mr. Bryce up and down,

without, however, the least sign of offensiveness in his gaze, and said

without any further preliminary, "I've come to see you about that

advertisement."

"Um!" said Mr. Bryce non-committally. "Yes, that ad. What about it?"

"I think," said the other with his eyes fixed intently on Mr. Bryce, "I

think I am the best man for the job."

"I haven't told you yet what the job is," Mr. Bryce objected.

"That's so," the other admitted. "Beyond saying that it was dangerous,

you did not attempt to describe it. It doesn't matter what you want in

the Grampians. I'm the man to take. I know the place well."

"It's changed vastly in thirty years," Bryce said suddenly.

The other must have been expecting something like this, for he never

turned a hair. As far as he was concerned Mr. Bryce's observation might

have been the most casual remark in the world. He ignored it. Perhaps it

would have been better had he commented on it and asked what association

to-day's expedition had with what had happened during thirty odd years.

He passed the matter over in silence, and in that instant Bryce guessed

that the man knew as much, if not more, than he did.

"Do you know why I advertised that expedition as dangerous?" Bryce

asked, seeing that the other made no attempt to reply.

The man shook his head. "No, I don't," he said distinctly.

"I'll tell you," said Bryce, and he leaned forward in simulated

confidence. "I'm fat and I wheeze. My bellows are all to blazes and the

doctors won't give a rap for my heart. I might go out any minute, more

especially if there's any extra exertion. Now I want a man who won't ask

questions, who will do the exertions for two, and take what's coming

with a grin."

"That sounds simple enough," the man remarked. "May I ask what we are

after?"

"I'm searching for gold," said Bryce with a startling clearness.

The other shifted in his seat, looked at Bryce as if to measure the

possibilities of his next remark, and then said, "There's no gold

there."

"You mean," said Bryce, "that none's ever been discovered there; quite a

different thing. I hope to discover some before I'm done."

"It's too far west for mines," the other asserted.

Mr. Bryce passed over the man's statement in a way that showed that as

far as he was concerned that aspect of the matter was over and done

with. The obvious answer for him to make would have been, "Gold comes in

other ways than out of mines," but he was cautious enough not to air all

his knowledge at once.

"What's your name?" he demanded.

"Abel Cumshaw," the other answered, and saw by the way Bryce screwed up

his brows that it conveyed nothing to him.

"Well, Mr. Cumshaw, would you care to take this job on?"

"How long would we be away?"

"Six weeks or two months. I'm not certain of that."

"When do we start?"

"This is Monday. Be here Friday and we'll get right away. Friday

morning, mind, at ten-thirty sharp. That's all, I think. Good-day."

After Mr. Cumshaw had gone Bryce slipped back in his chair and laughed

till his whole face creased up in rolls of quivering fat. "That's a good

one on him," he murmured. "He didn't ask what screw he was to get, and I

didn't tell him because I wanted to see if he'd ask. But he didn't, so

he must have been thinking of something else. He's anxious to get to the

Grampians, darned anxious. From the way he went on he seems to know a

bit about the place too. I wonder has he any suspicion?... Good Lord!

wouldn't it be a streak of luck if he knew! Yes, I did the right thing

in sending in that ad. One man's bitten at any rate."

He went about the house all day chuckling away to himself.

* * * * *

The second incident which occurred that same day was of even a more

disturbing nature. Late that afternoon the telephone bell rang, and when

Bryce answered it a voice asked if he was the Mr. Bryce who had

advertised for an assistant in an expedition to the Grampians.

"That's me," said Bryce. "But I'm sorry to say that the position's

filled."

"Why are you sorry?" the voice asked disconcertingly.

"Um!" said Mr. Bryce. "Aren't you after it?"

"No chance," said the voice. "As a matter of fact, I was on the point of

writing out a similar one myself, when I saw yours and guessed I'd let

you do the work."

"Who are you?" Bryce demanded with a trace of sharpness in his voice.

The man at the other end of the wire laughed cheerfully. "Never you

mind," he said. "You'll know soon enough, as soon as you've landed Jack

Bradby's plunder. Now, I want to put up a sporting proposition to you.

We'll retire gracefully, if you'll split fifty-fifty."

"We!" Bryce repeated. "So there's more than one of you?"

"There's lots of us, and we've got the whip hand of you because, you

see, you don't know who we are. We know you; we've been following a

couple of jumps behind you right through all the records, and we guess

it's high time we cashed in."

"I'll see you in Hell first!" said Bryce angrily.

"Probably you will," said the voice with a chuckle. "If you won't treat

with us, we'll get what we want in other ways."

"No, by thunder, you won't!" said Bryce shortly. "I'll warn you that

I'll shoot on sight."

"So do we," the other laughed. "I hope, for your sake, you recognise us

first, though I don't think it likely."

"If I catch you monkeying around I'll fill you so full of holes that

your own mother won't know you from a colander," Bryce threatened; but

the voice laughed irritatingly, and when Bryce tried to get a reply he

found that the other had rung off.

He flickered the hook with his finger. "Exchange," he said, giving his

number, "can you tell me who was speaking just now?"

"Box three, G. P. O. public 'phones," said the girl wearily.

"Oh, hell!" said Bryce in disgust, and hung up the receiver.

* * * * *

The rest of the week passed without incident of any sort, and, despite

the warning he had received. Bryce went on calmly with his preparations.

For all the fat flabbiness of him he was grit through and through, and

it took more than a warning over the telephone to turn him aside once he

had made up his mind to take a certain course. He went on quietly and

silently; his only sign of perturbation was that first thing on Tuesday

he slipped down town and bought a big calibre revolver.

Friday morning came, and at ten-thirty exactly, not a minute before or

after, Mr. Abel Cumshaw knocked at the front door and was admitted. He

was shown at once into Mr. Bryce's study, where that gentleman awaited

him, watch in hand.

"On time to the tick," he said affably as Cumshaw entered the room.

"Everything's ready for an immediate start. I suppose you've got all you

want."

"I'm always ready at a moment's notice," Cumshaw said. "I travel light.

I'm an old campaigner."

"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," Bryce said breezily. "We'll

be going in my car as far as we can. After that we'll have to walk, and

I'm not a very good hand at that. There's some rough spots up there,

they tell me," he said off-handedly. For all his seeming nonchalance he

was watching Cumshaw intently, and he saw him give an almost

imperceptible start. It flashed across Bryce's mind that perhaps Cumshaw

was in the pay of the people who had gone to such pains to 'phone him. A

second look at the man convinced him that such was not the case.

Cumshaw's eyes were frank and clear, and met his unswervingly. They were

not the eyes of a man who was playing a double game.

There was something in them that Bryce did not quite understand. It was

the animation of newly-resurrected hope, such a light as might have

shone in the eyes of the men who rode to find the Holy Grail. Bryce knew

nothing of him or his history, and his only thought was that in some

queer way the man had a vital interest in the Grampians. It must be

remembered that, as far as known facts were concerned, Bryce knew

nothing more than the police records had told him. True, his reasoning

faculties, which were none of the densest, carried him a little further,

but he would have been the very first to admit his fallibility. Nothing

had occurred as yet to connect Cumshaw with Mr. Jack Bradby. He

recognised that the man had a definite object in view in going to the

Grampians--that was plain enough--but it might after all be merely

coincidence. Such things have happened. Mr. Cumshaw, on the other hand,

was alert and suspicious. He suspected everybody and everything, and he

had answered the advertisement solely because he believed, or affected

to believe, that an expedition to the hill country could have no other

object that the recovery of the gold. Doubtless it will appear strange

that Mr. Cumshaw had allowed so many years to elapse without attempting

to secure it for himself, but, as he told Bryce later on, there were

reasons even for that.

* * * * *

They stopped at Ballarat for lunch; Bryce refilled the petrol tank, and

then they set out on the long stretch to Ararat. Though no definite

statement exists, they passed the night at the latter town, for Cumshaw

afterwards told his son that they reached Landsborough about 10.30 the

following morning. Beyond Landsborough the track became very trying for

the car, and somewhere towards the evening of the second day the machine

was hidden away securely in one of the many gullies that abounded in the

neighbourhood. Then the hardest part of the journey began. Child's play

though it might have been to Cumshaw, who, for all his years, had a

constitution such as it is given to a few men to possess, it certainly

must have been a matter of infinite torture to Bryce, handicapped as he

was with his weak-heart and his wheezy lungs.

They spent the next few days in working across to the spot where Bradby

had been killed thirty odd years before. As they drew near to the place

Cumshaw became more self-contained and uncommunicative than ever. The

sight of the old scene seemed to have depressed him marvellously. Bryce

watched him with increasing attentiveness; he noticed that he picked out

the road as if he had been used to it from childhood. There were times

when Bryce turned suddenly on him and caught a glimpse of a hard-set jaw

and a mouth about which strong lines of determination had woven

themselves. Yet, as soon as Cumshaw fancied he was observed, the mask of

his face melted into a smile, and the sombre eyes sparkled with a humor

that somehow seemed too real to be assumed.

"You seem very familiar with the place, Cumshaw," Bryce remarked one

morning.

"I told you I was," Cumshaw answered, his unfathomable eyes searching

his employer's face.

"How long is it since you were here last?" Bryce asked.

At the question all expression vanished from the other's face, leaving

it as immobile as a carven image of stone. "I have been here many

times," he said evasively.

"Um!" said Bryce in that peculiar way of his, and he looked the other up

and down contemplatively. "I didn't think anyone had been here since

Bradby was shot."

Bryce made the remark in the most casual and innocent way; he hadn't the

faintest notion in the world that what he had said was like a bombshell

bursting beneath the structure of Mr. Cumshaw's composure. He was

intelligent enough to realise that it was more than probable that

Cumshaw possessed knowledge of that almost forgotten episode which was

not shared with anyone else, but he had not the least suspicion that his

casual utterance would hit home so shrewdly as it did.

Mr. Cumshaw stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. For once

he made no attempt to disguise his emotions beneath the mask of

stoicism. He saw laughter in the other's eyes, the jovial laughter of a

man who has always known the sweets of victory, and he jumped to the

natural though erroneous conclusion that Bryce had fathomed his

connection with the late Mr. Bradby. For all that he did not abandon his

defences without some show of resistance.

"What do you mean?" he demanded in the belligerent attitude of a man who

is fighting a desperate though losing fight.

"Just what I said, Mr. Cumshaw," Bryce smiled. "What else did you think

I meant?"

The quiet question was put in such an unexpectedly mild tone that

Cumshaw was left wordless for the nonce, though his face showed in all

their fulness the emotions that were stirring within him. Doubt,

indecision, fear of a kind.

"I thought----," he said and then stopped short.

"You thought," Bryce repeated with a gentle persuasiveness in his voice.

"What was it you thought, Cumshaw?"

They were both fencing, in sporting parlance "sparring for wind," each

of them with the Big Idea almost within reach, and each not daring yet

to put it into words. For the space of a heart-beat they stared into

each other's eyes, seeking to read the other's thoughts. In the end it

was Cumshaw who gave in first. He tore his eyes away from that fixed yet

kindly gaze that seemed to search and read his very soul.

"I see," said Bryce, with a sudden intake of breath that lent a sibilant

quality to his speech, "I see that we are on the same track. Mr.

Cumshaw, place your cards on the table. You are after the gold that

Bradby hid; so am I. Our aims are the same. Let us be partners, instead

of employer and assistant. What do you know that I do not? What do I

know that you do not?"

Like most fat and comfortable people Bryce was the soul of generosity,

and his offer was dictated not so much by expediency as by a sense of

the pity that he felt for this man, who seemed to have aged years in the

last few minutes. He, too, in his time had known what it meant to have

the prize within a hand's touch and then at the last moment lose it

after all.

"You know nothing about me," Cumshaw said impulsively. "You don't know

who I am or what I've been. You haven't an idea...."

Bryce cut him short with a sweeping gesture of his chubby hands. "My

dear man," he said, "what you've been doesn't matter a tinker's curse to

me. It's what you are that counts."

"You don't even know that," the other answered, his lips curling in a

wry smile.

"I'll know as soon as you tell me," Bryce hinted.

It is a difficult matter for a man, who all his life has held a close

secret, to divulge it at a moment's notice, in a sudden fit of warm

friendliness, to a comparative stranger, and so Abel Cumshaw found it.

It is even harder to surrender one's hopes and ambitions in favor of a

potential rival, honest and all as that rival may appear to be. For one

brief moment Cumshaw paused on the brink of revelation, the while he

weighed the matter in his mind. In some strange way Bryce had guessed

that he was after the gold, but did he know why and how? Cumshaw rather

fancied he didn't. He was so sure of it that he decided that he would

gain nothing by divulging the connection between himself and the late

Mr. Bradby. So the mouth which was opening to speak shut up again like a

steel trap, and the dark eyes turned bleak and cold. He looked Bryce

steadily and calmly in the face.

"There is nothing to tell," he said, and turned on his heel.

* * * * *

Black night had descended on the forest many hours before, so many in

fact that the camp fire had sunk to a feeble red glow, and the dying

embers were already circled by a ring of dead white ash. The breeze was

crooning softly through the branches of the trees, singing weird

chanties to itself. In between the murmurs of the wind there came

another sound, the indistinct sound of a sleepy man mumbling to himself.

Bryce half-raised himself on one elbow and listened. Half a dozen feet

away from him Cumshaw lay tightly rolled in his blankets. He tossed

restlessly and once all but sat up. Bryce dropped quickly but

soundlessly back into a prone position. But the alarm had been a false

one, and presently he quietly raised himself again. The indistinct

mumbling went on as before, and he strained his ears to catch some

intelligible word.

"Kill me, would you?" he heard the other say.

His voice sank again, and for a time he mumbled and mouthed his words so

that Bryce missed most of what he said. He was just on the point of

settling down again when Cumshaw suddenly sat up.

"I'll beat you yet, Bradby!" he cried with startling distinctness.

"You're dead now and the gold's mine."

His eyes opened and he stared dazedly around him. Bryce was lying prone

and snoring away hoggishly. He was fast asleep; there was not the

slightest doubt in the mind of the man who watched him so closely.

"I must have dreamt I said it," Cumshaw murmured to himself. "If I'd

spoken the way I thought I had he'd have been wide-awake." And then he

in his turn composed himself to slumber.

* * * * *

They were very quiet at breakfast. Bryce was turning the situation over

in his mind, viewing it from all possible angles and seeking some method

of getting Cumshaw to speak without in any way antagonising him. Cumshaw

himself was troubled by lingering doubts. It was quite possible after

all that Bryce had heard him, supposing he had spoken aloud, and was

quietly dissembling for some purpose of his own. His very thoughtfulness

seemed to lend color to that idea. He looked at Bryce across the carpet

of grass and at the same instant Bryce raised his eyes. They stared at

each other with the breathless intensity of two men who know that in all

things they are evenly matched. Each was striving to the last atom of

his will-power to break down the resistance of the other and force him

in some way to take the initiative. At last it was Bryce who dropped his

eyes a fraction and Cumshaw who breathed a sigh of relief. But his

relief was short-lived, for in the last half-second his guard had

relaxed. Bryce said:

"Why did Bradby want to kill you, Mr. Cumshaw?"

The quick yet calm question, covering as it did the one episode of which

nobody but the two participants could possibly have any knowledge,

startled Cumshaw. For once his impassive face showed signs of fear, and

his eyes became those of a hunted man. He half-rose to his feet and then

dropped back again, as if aware of the uselessness of flight. He tried

to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. In one short sentence Bryce

had shattered all his hopes and pulled his airy castles to the ground.

Did this man but like to speak he would be once again Cumshaw the

bushranger, the man who had been hand in glove with Bradby, and who,

through some miracle of mischance, had not been bracketed with his dead

colleague. Bryce knew all apparently, and a word from him----. Cumshaw

shivered.

"You can trust me," Bryce said softly. "I guess I know your secret now.

You and Bradby carried out that robbery between you. You hid the gold,

and for one reason and another you've never retrieved it. Isn't that

it?"

Cumshaw nodded. It was too late now to deny anything, even if he had so

felt inclined. Nemesis in the shape of this laughing-eyed, gross-bodied

man, had come upon him in his old age, and there was nothing for it but

to take what was coming with as good a grace as he could muster.

"What happened thirty years or more ago is over and done with," Bryce

ran on, "and I'm not the sort to bring it into the light of day again.

I'm after that gold, and, in order to get it, I'm quite ready to repeat

my previous offer. We each seem to have something that the other lacks.

You can tell me many things I don't know. Of that I'm sure."

"There's a lot of things you seem sure of," Cumshaw said with a

half-defiant air.

"I'm as sure that you're the man who was with Bradby as if I'd seen it

all myself," Bryce stated. "Remember, before you refuse, that it's

always better to compromise than fight. Furthermore, if you have to

fight, it's much better to have an ally you can rely on."

"What's that?" Cumshaw demanded with a show of interest. "What do you

mean?"

"Only this," Bryce said slowly. "There's another crowd on the track, and

they've already warned me that they'll make the going heavy. If you've

got to be up against them, why not throw in your lot with me? It's

fifty-fifty with us; if you stand out on your own, you'll probably lose

it all."

"I think you've got me in a cleft stick," Cumshaw said a trifle

ruefully. "I can't see that I can refuse. Now how much do you know?"

Said Mr. Bryce untruthfully, "I know everything except where you've

hidden the gold."

"And even I couldn't swear to that," Cumshaw said.

"It seems to me," said Bryce dryly, "that the best thing you can do is

to tell me the whole story."

He listened eagerly to the tale, occasionally stopping the other to

question him on some obscure point, sometimes helping him along with a

comment that threw unexpected light in the dark corners of the story.

"It amounts to this," he said when Cumshaw had finished. "Bradby buried

the gold in this hidden valley of yours. It's so hidden--the valley, I

mean--that you only came on it by accident, and you have no definite

idea as to its whereabouts. It's three or four days' journey into the

mountains, that's all you can say. There's no way of recognising it from

the outside that you know of. Well, I'll tell you this, Mr. Cumshaw.

It's my frank opinion that your clever murderous friend had some way of

finding it again, or he wouldn't have been in such haste to make away

with you. He knew what he was doing, you can depend on it. Now I wonder

if he left any clue?"

"I've got a hazy memory that he left directions somewhere and that I had

them," Cumshaw said despondently, "but I can't say what happened to

them. You must remember that I was wandering about half-delirious for a

long while after I got knocked, and it was years before I got really

right again. I might have lost any note he made; I might have done

anything with it."

"You might have and that's a fact," Mr. Bryce agreed. "Now you say

you've hunted for this valley many times during the last ten years or

so."

Cumshaw nodded. "It seems funny," he said, "but I've never been able to

find it."

"There's nothing funny about it," Bryce told him. "History and fiction

abound with instances of similar miscalculations. I'll guarantee that

there are scores of such places in every continent in the world.

Australia's got just as many as any other place. What made you want to

hunt it up again after all those years?"

"Old associations, I suppose," Cumshaw said half-ashamedly. "While I was

in New South Wales--I went there, you understand, until things blew over

a bit--and my wife was alive, I didn't want anything else but to be near

her. When she died and things began to go wrong with me, I drifted back

here. Money was short. I was living as best I could, and there were the

children to look after, and the sight of the old places brought things

back to my mind. I was beginning to dig bits up from the memory of the

past--the doctors have some fancy name for lapses like mine, though I

could never remember what it was--and then one day I asked myself why

shouldn't I go after the gold? It was as much mine as anyone else's, now

that Bradby was dead, and the Bank that originally owned it had gone

smash about the Land Boom time from what I could gather. I went, but I

missed the place somehow. I went time and again, but it was always like

that 'Lost Mountain' story of Mayne Reid's, though a valley's harder to

find than a mountain you'd think. I couldn't find it anyhow, and that's

about all there is to it."

"Um!" said Mr. Bryce, and he ran his hand softly across his chin. "We

are up against a bigger thing than I thought. I'm hanged if I can see a

glimmer of light anywhere. Is there anything you can suggest?"

Cumshaw did not reply. He was staring straight ahead of him, staring

intently, and little furrows of anxiety marred the serenity of his

forehead. He was peering into the shadows of the trees as if his eyes

were twin searchlights that could cut substance from the gloom. He was

staring so intently that Bryce whirled round, fully convinced that his

friends of the telephone were upon them.

"What's wrong?" he queried in a hoarse whisper. "What are you looking

at?"

"Nothing," said Cumshaw. "I thought I heard something moving, that's

all."

Bryce in his turn peered intently in between the tree-boles, but the

shadows lay thick upon the grass between, and it was difficult to define

even the shapes of the more distant timber. The place was still and

gloomy, full of grim forebodings, like a summer sky in which a storm is

gathering.

"We must have been mistaken," Bryce remarked in his embracing way.

"There doesn't seem to be anyone about."

"Hands up!" snapped a crisp voice, and in the surprise of the moment

Bryce obeyed. Cumshaw had no such intention. He dropped suddenly on to

the ground even as a shot rang out, and a bullet whistled close above

his head. The next instant he was crashing swiftly through the bushes,

spinning down into the gully like a human projectile.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GATHERING OF THE EAGLES.

At first Bryce could see nothing but the dull gleam of unpolished metal

from the barrel of a revolver which protruded from behind a tree, but a

further scrutiny showed him the dim outlines of a man's figure standing

in that place of gloom and ghosts. The man stepped out from his

hiding-place, even as Bryce watched him, and was followed almost

instantly by another man. They were both somewhere about the same

height, in the neighbourhood of five feet ten. Their features were not

visible, for each of them wore a handkerchief about his face in the

time-honored fashion of the men of the road, and a hat pulled well down

over the eyes completed the disguise.

"Well, Mr. Bryce," said the man in front, "what have you got to say for

yourself?"

"It's a funny thing," remarked Bryce, with the adventures of Mr. Cumshaw

and the late Mr. Bradby in his mind, "it's funny how history repeats

itself."

The leader made a step forward and stared intently at Bryce. "You're the

man right enough," he said. "Where's your pal?"

"Ask me something easy," sneered Bryce, "and I'd be obliged if you'd let

me drop my hands awhile. This is getting fairly tiresome."

"You should have thought of that before you started that business," the

other one reminded him. "It's rather late now to be finding out the

flaws in your plans."

The sneering smile on Mr. Bryce's face broadened into a grin of triumph.

"Didn't you ever hear the proverb about glass-houses and the people who

live in them?" he enquired blandly.

The first speaker stared at him, but the other one said impatiently,

"Finish him off, Alick, and let's get it over."

The man called Alick answered in a subdued voice. Bryce did not catch

what he said, but supposed it to be a counsel of caution. His smile grew

in intensity, so much so that Alick snapped at him. "What the deuce are

you grinning at, you fat fool?" he demanded.

"You'll know soon enough," Bryce said with a chuckle. He looked right

past them into the shadows of the trees, on his face the joyful

expression of a man who sees the long-locked gates of his prison swing

open before him. Both men whirled round with a chorus of oaths. They

were quite positive that Bryce's mate had stolen a march on them and

crept up behind their backs. They had their heads turned away but for

the fraction of a second, but the time, short though it was, was plenty

long enough for Mr. Bryce. With an agility, remarkable in a man of his

weight and state of health, he faded into the landscape like some fat

fairy.

"Fooled!" said Alick's companion, and he whipped round to face his

prisoner, only to find that the keen-brained Mr. Bryce had vanished as

completely as if he had been blown off the face of the earth.

"Nice pair of goats we are," remarked Alick disgustedly.

The other said nothing, but stood for a moment in a state of indecision.

At that precise instant a pencil of flame shot out from one of the trees

immediately in front of them, and Alick dropped his revolver with a howl

of pain.

"He's winged me," he said, and applied to Mr. Bryce an epithet not

usually heard in polite society.

His mate fired at the tree from which the shot had evidently come, but

the bullet did nothing more than flatten itself against the trunk in a

shower of dust and dry bark. Mr. Bryce's revolver spoke once again. This

time he failed to register.

"The sooner we get out of this the better," said Alick, with one hand

clasped to his injured shoulder. "The beggar'll riddle us both if we

stop here."

The other man grunted his approval of the suggestion and proceeded to

carry it into effect at once.

"Better look where you are going," Alick advised. "That other chap's

about somewhere, perhaps waiting for us."

The other consigned both Bryce and his assistant to a place more noted

for its warmth than its comfort. Despite their forebodings Mr. Cumshaw

did not put in an appearance, and they gained the shelter of the thick

timber in safety.

Once he was sure that they had really departed Mr. Bryce stepped out

from behind his tree, first, however, with commendable caution reloading

the heavy revolver he carried. The smile was still flickering about the

corners of his mouth, but there was a little wrinkle of anxiety across

his forehead.

"I wonder where the devil Cumshaw's gone?" he remarked to the

unresponsive trees. "He went off like a scared rabbit. I'd better hunt

for him. I can't get on without him now."

With the laudable intention of finding Mr. Cumshaw as soon as possible

he began to scour the neighbourhood.

When Mr. Cumshaw disappeared so precipitately it was with the idea that

he must maintain his freedom at any cost. True, Bryce might be captured,

but by the same token he could be rescued just as easily. Though his

intentions were right enough he was prevented in the simplest manner

possible from carrying them into effect. He went crashing through the

bushes as has already been related, and found himself on the edge of

what was nothing more or less than a blind creek. The sides were covered

with matted brushwood and were as slippery as glass. His momentum was

such that he could not stop himself in time, and he went head over heels

down the side of the gully, and spun on to the boulder-covered bottom

like some new and monstrous kind of Catherine wheel. He collided with

the rounded surface of one of the big weather-worn rocks which lay

strewn about the gully floor like the tremendous marbles of a giant.

The world spun round him in a blaze of colored lights, and his head felt

as if it were filled with fireworks. Then in an instant all sensation

ceased as though cut off with the clean sweep of a naked sword. Mr.

Cumshaw lay still and lifeless under the shadow of the brushwood-covered

gully.

Some half an hour later, when Bryce happened on this very spot, he

pulled the bushes aside cautiously and peered down almost between his

toes; but the shadows lay thick beneath him, and the edge of the gully

so projected that he could not see the body of the man for whom he was

searching. Slowly he retraced his steps. He was deeply puzzled by this

new aspect of the affair. It seemed impossible that Cumshaw could have

completely disappeared in so short a space of time, yet the fact that he

could not be found was in itself proof conclusive. Had Bryce lingered a

couple of seconds longer he would have seen the rapidly-recovering

Cumshaw turn over on his side, raise one hand to his head, and present a

startled face to the scanty rays of light that filtered down to him. In

a sense his revival was something more than a recovery; it was a

resurrection. The years rolled away in an instant, and he ceased to be

the Abel Cumshaw who had fallen down the side of the gully and cracked

his head against an extra-large sized boulder; he became the Abel

Cumshaw who had just been knocked into unconsciousness by the butt of

Mr. Bradby's revolver, and whose head still throbbed with the force of

the blow.

He stared uncomprehendingly at the steep sides of the gully; they had no

place in his gallery of mental pictures. He had a vague idea that there

should be a creek somewhere close at hand. His head was throbbing,

pulsing as if some mighty engine were working inside it. He rose

unsteadily to his feet and regarded the steep declivities which formed

the sides of the gully with a contemplative eye. He decided that they

were climbable, but that he must wait awhile before he made the attempt.

He was weak yet; one does not recover instantaneously from a crack on

the head. He moved very carefully when he moved at all, and he kept well

within the shadows of the overhanging banks. Mr. Bradby was somewhere

handy, he argued, extremely ready and willing to finish him off, and it

would never do to give him another chance. He had no idea that Mr.

Bradby had died long years ago. Time had telescoped and he was back

again in the early eighties. With the addled craftiness of a half-witted

creature he set about escaping from the imprisoning walls of the

gully-dungeon. Had it been anything else than a blind creek he would

have found an exit by following the dry bed, and thus have disappeared

entirely from this story. But it was fated otherwise. The one idea that

gained any sort of prominence in his mind was that he must climb the

side of the gully.

He found a pool of clear rainwater in a little cavity in the dry bed of

the creek, and bathed his head in it and drank a little. Its refreshing

coolness acted on his jaded body like the sting of a spur on the flank

of a lazy horse. He crept cautiously in under the overhang of the bank

and searched about for a foothold. Such was not hard to find, and, in

less time than it takes to write of it, he was swinging up the side of

the bank, clinging to projecting ledges of rock with hands and feet that

seemed to possess all the prehensile quality of a monkey's. Once on the

top of the bank he burrowed into the mass of vegetation like some

primeval creature taking to earth, a pitiful caricature of the sane,

strong man he had been a few short hours before. Cautious and all as he

was, his flight was not absolutely noiseless, and so it came about that

presently Bryce heard him, and circled round the spot from which the

sound came like a wolf heading off a herd of deer.

Cumshaw crashed through the bushes and emerged into the open a hundred

yards or so ahead of Bryce. The latter caught sight of him at the moment

of his emergence and called out to him to stop.

"Cumshaw," he called. "Come here!"

The other heard the call and caught his own name, but instead of

slackening he accelerated his pace. He did not look round; he was

convinced in his own warped mind that his pursuer was none other than

the late Mr. Bradby. Accordingly he swung along at such a rate that

Bryce soon dropped behind, breathless and dispirited. He sat down on a

convenient log and mopped his damp face with a large-sized handkerchief.

Presently his breathing became normal again, and his agitated heart

ceased fluttering like a caged bird. He fell to reviewing the position.

The more he thought of it, the less hopeless it appeared to be. His

unrecognisable and nameless antagonists had temporarily withdrawn from

the fight, whether to consolidate their forces and plan some new form of

attack, or because they had received a very salutary lesson, he could

not say. Also it did not worry him over much. His ideas were centred

mainly on Mr. Cumshaw. True, that gentleman had disappeared over the

horizon with every mark of unseemly haste, and already he must be well

advanced on whatever road he was taking. Not so very far away the car

awaited Bryce, and he was sure that, once he reached it, it would be

merely a matter of a day or so until he rediscovered Mr. Cumshaw. He

repeated the verb. "Re-discovered" struck a distinctive note. One could

not convey the same meaning with any form of the verb "to overtake;" Mr.

Cumshaw had disappeared, not simply gone on ahead. He chuckled softly at

his own quaint conceit, and at that his spirits began to rise again.

Feeling now fully rested, he rose to his feet and swung out on the track

with that long slow stride which was all that remained of his athletic

form of the old New Guinea days. Of late years he had walked, when he

had walked at all, with the quick nervous step of the city-bred man, and

it heartened him immensely to know that he was recovering without any

effort of his volition the old easy pioneer stride.

It is not within the scope of this tale to relate how Mr. Bryce at

length reached his car and set out on what he believed to be Abel

Cumshaw's trail. Suffice it to state that he reached his machine without

any untoward incident, the two gentlemen who had so rudely disturbed the

serenity of his nature having seemingly disappeared from the face of the

earth. Once he passed a drover and elicited from him that a man

answering Cumshaw's description had passed him on the road the previous

morning. Evidently then the missing man was keeping away from the towns,

taking instead a trail that would inevitably lead him further into the

bush. He was rather pleased at this. Abel Cumshaw in the city would be

as hard to find as the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay, but in the

bush it would be much easier to locate him, Bryce considered. So he

drove the car along at a low speed, keeping all the time a watchful eye

out for any signs of the truant. As he progressed he was surprised and

not a little pleased to find that his New Guinea woodcraft was coming

back to him by degrees. The joy of the chase was his, and he experienced

again the same keen and primitive emotions that had thrilled him in the

days when the elder Carstairs and he had trodden the unexplored wilds of

Papua.

* * * * *

He came upon Cumshaw very suddenly. The car was creeping through the

trees at a snail's pace--there was no clearly defined track in that part

of the bush, and Bryce was taking no unnecessary risks--when he caught

sight of a figure that might or might not be the missing Mr. Cumshaw. He

stopped the car at once and descended to the ground. As has already been

noted earlier in these memoirs, Mr. Bryce, when occasion required it,

for all his huge bulk, could move as agilely and noiselessly as that

pre-eminently silent animal, the domestic cat. He had been so keyed up

by the emotional stresses of the last few days that he threw himself

into the adventure with all the zest of a schoolboy just being

introduced into romance. The man was dodging through the trees a hundred

yards or so ahead, and there was something so furtive about his

movements that Bryce approached with more than his usual caution.

The man halted and glanced swiftly around. Bryce flattened himself

against a handy tree, and fervently hoped that the shadow was thick

enough to conceal him. The other patently had no idea that he was being

followed, for, apparently quite satisfied with his hasty scrutiny, he

dropped on his knees and commenced scraping the earth away with the

point of a knife that had appeared in his hand with the magical

suddenness of a conjuring trick. As the man worked away Bryce peeped out

from his hiding-place and saw then that it was indeed Cumshaw. He

watched fascinated. His heart was thumping away like the piston of a

steam-engine, and some queer unnamed instinct told him that the chase

was drawing to a close. Cumshaw was digging up something of vital

importance; it might be the treasure itself or perhaps the key to it.

But why should Cumshaw have gone so stealthily to work unless--? "Unless

he is going to cut me out of it," said Bryce to himself.

Abruptly the other straightened up and hugged something to his breast.

It was covered with black loam, and at the distance Bryce could not tell

what it was. He slipped stealthily from tree to tree until he had wormed

his noiseless way right up to Cumshaw. Then, seeing that he had his man

cut off should he attempt to escape, he stepped out into the open and

laid a kindly hand on the fugitive's shoulder. Cumshaw turned in a

flash, and, in the excitement of the moment, the earth-covered object

slipped out of his hands and fell on the grass at his feet.

"Where have you been all this time?" Bryce asked jovially.

Cumshaw stared at him in a puzzled way. His face at first had shown all

the symptoms of fear, but the moment Bryce spoke they faded out, to be

replaced by a very obvious air of relief. Yet there was nothing of

recognition in the man's eyes; they were full of a great blank wonder,

like the eyes of a child who takes its first look at the teeming life

beyond its doors. His forehead crinkled up as if he were trying to

recall something that had slipped his memory.

"Who are you?" he said at length. "I ... I don't think I know you," and

he brushed his forehead with a weak, ineffective gesture of the hand. It

was then that Bryce noticed the matted, blood-stained condition of his

hair and the big purple bruise that disfigured his temple. His quick

mind guessed at what had happened, though, erroneously enough, he

concluded that Cumshaw had received the blows in an encounter with the

men who had been the original cause of the man's flight.

"You'd better come with me, Cumshaw," he said in the same soothing tone

that he would have applied to a tired child.

"I'm going home," said Cumshaw with weak stubbornness. "I don't want to

go with you."

"I'll take you home," said Bryce.

That he decided was the only thing he could do. Cumshaw was in no fit

state to continue the search for his lost valley, and Bryce realised

that it would not be safe to leave him uncared for. If he went home with

Cumshaw he would be throwing his pursuers off the track. That would help

him considerably. He had no fear that they would discover the valley

during his absence; their attack on him showed that they had come to the

end of their resources, and fancied that their only hope of touching any

of the spoils was by forcing the secret out of Bryce. Of course it was

quite on the cards that they would follow the car, but it was just as

likely that they would make no definite move until they had solved the

meaning of his change of plans.

Cumshaw was still standing like a man in a dream. Bryce placed his hand

on the man's arm.

"Come along with me," he said. "I'll see that you get safely home."

He bent down quickly and picked up the loam-encrusted object that

Cumshaw had dropped in the first moment of the encounter, Cumshaw

followed his movements with troubled eyes, but did not interfere in any

way. Bryce could see that the thing was a bit of wood, and on one piece

of it, where the earth had been scraped off, there were letters

scratched. He thrust it into his pocket, meaning to examine it more

closely at his leisure.

Cumshaw walked to the car with him. He yielded to the stronger will

without any show of resistance. All his own will-power seemed to have

departed, and he obeyed Bryce with a child-like faith. Once in the car

he slumped into the corner and closed his eyes. Bryce seized the

opportunity thus given him to steal another look at the wood he had

picked up. He scraped away what loam he could with his finger nail, and

soon was able to make out two complete words.

"This'll have to wait," he said with a sigh, as he thrust it back into

his pocket. "This bit of wood's got your name on it, Mr. Abel Cumshaw,

and I'll bet all I ever owned that it's the key you've been hunting

for."

He cranked up the car, and soon was speeding back to the high road. In

his corner Mr. Cumshaw slept.

Ten minutes after they reached the main road another car swung out along

the Ararat road. There were three men in it, the chauffeur and two

passengers. One of the latter held his hand to a wounded shoulder, and

swore at the chauffeur every time the car jolted and sent a quiver of

pain through the wound.

In course of time Bryce's car came to a little hamlet on the Geelong to

Colac road--a hamlet that must be nameless in this story. There he found

the Albert Cumshaw of this tale, delivered his father into his care and

told him all that had happened, suppressing only the episode of the

finding of the wood. He found Albert Cumshaw easier to deal with than he

had expected--as a matter of fact the younger man already knew much of

his father's story--and the result of the conversation was that the

search was held over, pending the elder Cumshaw's recovery.

Bryce remained the night with the Cumshaws, saw that a doctor was

secured who would give skilled attention to the elder man, and then

early in the morning set out for home. The day was very warm, and the

cool breeze that presently sprang up from the ocean moved Bryce to motor

down to the coast. At the worst it was only a few miles out of his road.

At first he had no intention of making a stop at the heads, but the sea

as he came within sight of it looked so cool and inviting that he was

tempted to have a dip. He parked his car in the reserve, purchased a

bathing suit at the local store and ambled down to the beach. It was

only when he commenced to undress that he recollected that the wood was

still in his pocket, so with rare caution he thrust it under the sand,

quite satisfied that no one would dream of looking there. He had no idea

that his pursuers were so close behind him; he was merely taking

precautions against any casual tramp who might be tempted to run through

his pockets.

Ten minutes later James Carstairs, explorer, gentleman and rolling

stone, limped into the picture, and the story of The Lost Valley entered

upon its penultimate phase.

PART III

_THE FINDING OF THE LOST VALLEY._

CHAPTER I.

THE CYPHER.

"You may smoke if you like, Mr. Cumshaw," Moira said graciously to our

visitor.

I said nothing; instead I silently handed the man my cigar-case. He

selected a weed with a discriminating care that I felt cast an

unwarranted reflection on the quality of the cigars I smoked. I watched

him in silence while he cut off the end with a neat, precise stroke of

his penknife, lit the cigar and blew a cloud of blue smoke out of his

mouth. All the time I was staring at him I could feel Moira's eyes on

me, and I knew that she was wondering what made me so boorish and

morose. Or, perhaps, with a woman's keen instinct for ferreting out the

things she shouldn't know anything about, she guessed just what was the

matter. To tell the truth I was just beginning to feel a little jealous.

Frankly I considered that she was paying too much attention to Mr.

Albert Cumshaw, and I hadn't two sharp eyes without seeing that he

openly admired her. Of course I had turned down her overtures of

reconciliation, and I think I told her plainly enough that there was no

possibility of my falling in love with her again; but, if all that were

perfectly true, I shouldn't have been jealous because the two of them

took to making eyes at each other. The fact remained that I was a little

hurt by what I saw, and I had to recognise, even though I ran counter to

the promptings of my common-sense, that I wasn't as indifferent to her

as I would have myself believe.

I brought myself back with a jerk to the matter in hand.

"What do you propose doing about the matter?" I asked of Cumshaw.

He did not reply immediately. His right little finger flipped the ash

from off the end of his cigar, and then the dark curly head lifted and

the glowing eyes looked straight into mine.

"What do I propose doing!" he repeated. "Well, if it was left to me," he

said, after a contemplative pause, "I'd say the treasure's there, and

the sooner we go after it the better. We know already that there's other

people on the job--they killed Mr. Bryce and they made a mess of the

Dad--and it's all right thinking, as Mr. Bryce did, that they've come to

the end of their tether and are waiting for us to set the pace for them.

There's been so many miracles in this play already that it doesn't do to

risk the chance of any more. We've got no absolute guarantee that they

won't stumble on the key to everything while we're wasting time here.

You say you've got a cypher Mr. Bryce left you. Well, that cypher

contains the position of the treasure; there's no doubt about that in my

mind. Bradby carved it on the wood--neither he nor the Dad had any paper

with them at the time--and from what I've heard of the man I'm confident

that it's the kind of thing he would do. Then when Mr. Bryce got hold of

it he burnt the wood and threw what was on it into a sort of cryptogram.

One way and another he was pretty cautious when the fit took him, though

I must say that when it was a question of his own life he wasn't so

particular. It boils down to this. The Dad's out of the game for good

and we've got to use our own wits. Within limits we've got a fair idea

of the position of the valley, and, once we've solved the cypher, we'll

probably have something more definite to go on."

"That," I remarked, "is supposing we do solve it. As far as I can see

it's too weird for anything."

"Uncle," said Moira severely, "wouldn't have written it if he didn't

think you could solve it. That's why he made it easy."

"If you think it's easy," I retorted, "take it yourself and see what you

can make of it."

"That's a good idea," Cumshaw cut in, turning my own shaft against

myself. "Suppose we all have a shot at it and see what we can make of

it. We might get it all out and again we mightn't. When we get as far as

we can we'll all pool our efforts, and maybe we'll make something out of

it that way."

"An excellent suggestion, Mr. Cumshaw," Moira said, and darted a glance

of triumph at me. It said as plainly as so many words that here was a

champion for her, a man who would defend her against the whole world. Of

course I ignored it. What man would do anything else under the

circumstances? But there are some things, of which this was one, that

the more one ignores them the more insistent as to their presence do

they become. So, though I affected not to see Moira's little glance of

triumph, it photographed itself upon my mind's eye and completely

spoiled the evening for me.

"We'll get Jim here to type out a copy for you before you go, Mr.

Cumshaw," she promised, "and you can see what you can make of it."

"Thanks," said the young man briefly. I had expected him to make a

bigger mouthful of it than that, and I thought it odd that he did not.

It struck me too as queer that he did not ask for a look at the cypher;

an ordinary man would have known no peace until he had examined it in

all its baffling details. As I was to learn, Mr. Cumshaw was no ordinary

man, and, for a young chap of his age, had his emotions and inclinations

under rather remarkable control.

I stood up. "If you want that cypher," I said, "I'll type it out now,

and you can study it on the way home if you wish."

"It's very kind of you," Cumshaw murmured with a well-bred lack of

enthusiasm.

"I think," said Moira, "that we'd all better adjourn to the study. I

don't like to think of anyone being in there alone, especially at night.

You see," she explained to Cumshaw, "the room hasn't been used since

Uncle's death. He was killed in that very room ... in front of my eyes."

"I understand," said Cumshaw softly, and he rose to his feet and held

the door open for Moira to pass out. She led the way to the study and

unlocked the door. It had been a fad of hers ever since the tragedy to

keep the room sealed, and, as I saw no reason for gainsaying her, I had

never interfered. She switched on the light and we stood for a moment on

the threshold, dazzled by the unaccustomed radiance. Nothing in the

place had been touched--we had not disturbed anything during our search

for Bryce's papers--and, save for the absence of some of the actors in

the scene, it might have been the very night of the tragedy itself.

I broke the spell by walking into the room and proceeding to take the

cover off the typewriter. The machine had not been used since its owner

had died. Despite the manner in which I had lied to Bryce, I knew a

thing or two about typewriters. As a matter of fact I transcribed the

greater part of my father's three volumes of Solomon Island Ethnology on

just such another machine. I sat down at the table and drew from my

pocket the letter and the cypher, both of which I had thrust out of

sight when Albert Cumshaw had been announced that afternoon.

"There's the cypher," I said, and I spread the sheet out on the table.

Cumshaw bent over it and read out aloud from beginning to end.

"2@3; 5@3 &9; 3 5433-3/4 5@ 3 @75 £994 1/4;£ 5@3 48½8;? ½7; ¼43 8; & 8;3

--3¼½743 ½3:3; "335 3¼½5.5@3; "¼/3 £843/5 ;945@¾£4¼2 ¼;95@34 &8;3 ¼5

48?@5 ¼;?&3½ 59 5@3 043:897½ 9;3¾3)53;£8;? " 94 523&:3 "335.£8? 5@3;,"

he said, stumbling every now and then at the unfamiliar expressions.

"What do you make of it?" I asked.

He looked up at me with just the flicker of a smile about the corners of

his mouth. "I can't say just yet," he replied. "All these things take

time. You can't solve them in an instant."

"I thought we might," I said, with just the least hint of offensiveness

in my tone. I don't know whether or not he noticed it, but if he did he

was gentleman enough to ignore it.

"All right," I ran on, "I'll type this out if one of you'll read it to

me. Go slowly, as I don't want to have any mistakes. It's bad enough to

have to do it once without having to do it again."

"I'll read it," Cumshaw volunteered. I nodded to show my agreement. I

then threaded the paper through and said, "I'm ready."

He began to read it very slowly and carefully, and I typed away as he

spoke. I had just got the first four or five combinations down when

Moira interrupted me.

"I knew you'd make a mess of it," she said coldly. "I told you so at the

beginning." As a matter of fact she had said no such thing, but I let it

pass.

"What's wrong?" I queried, looking up at her.

"I've been watching you," said she, "and you haven't depressed your

figure lever once. You must have it all wrong. It'll just be simple

letters instead of the signs."

I had been typing all the time with my eyes on the keyboard, and I

hadn't once glanced at the finished work. Now I looked at it I saw that

she was right. I had been typing letters all along when I should have

been printing figures. And then something queer about the letters struck

me. My heart gave a jump.

"Go on," I said huskily to Cumshaw. "Give me a few more."

He read out two or three more combinations and then I leaned back in the

chair. "Look," I said triumphantly, "look what I've done!"

Two heads bobbed down over my work, stared at it for a moment, and then

two pairs of eyes smiled at me.

"You've solved it by accident," said Cumshaw.

"I'm sorry for what I said," Moira said simply.

"It's just the simplest cypher in existence," I said. "You've got a

keyboard with letters and figures on it. When you want letters you type

straight out, and when you want figures you just depress the lever. Now

look at this. That 5 is on the same key as T, @ is on H's key, 3 means

E, and so on. When Bryce worked it out he simply pressed down the figure

lever and left it down, and now to reverse the process all we've got to

do is to hit the keys these signs are on and leave the lever alone.

Simple, isn't it?"

"Very," said Cumshaw.

"Get it all out, Jim, quick!" said Moira with feminine impatience.

I did. I pressed 2 and I got W, and so on all along the keyboard, and

when I had finished I pulled the sheet out and handed it to them. "Read

it out, Moira," I said. "It's your turn."

"'When the Lone Tree, the hut door and the rising sun are in line

measure seven feet east. Then face direct north, draw another line at

right angles to previous one, extending for twelve feet. Dig then.'"

"If it hadn't been for you," said Cumshaw, "we wouldn't have found it. I

congratulate you," and he held out his hand to me.

"Rubbish!" I said. "It was all a lucky accident." But all the same I

took the proffered hand.

"We can go right on with it now," Moira cried joyously. "There's nothing

to stop us."

"Only that we've got to find the valley yet," said Cumshaw gloomily. "My

father made several attempts but couldn't locate it."

"You've got to bear in mind," I told them, "that we've got some

information your father hadn't, strange though it seems."

"And that?" Cumshaw queried quickly.

"We're looking for a valley that's got a lone tree overlooking it. Your

father didn't seem to be aware of that."

Cumshaw seized the paper and read it through quickly. "By the Lord

Harry, you're right, Carstairs! That's one piece of information he

didn't have. If he had known that when he went after the gold himself

he'd have got it."

"Maybe he would," I said doubtfully.

"You don't seem too sure of it, Carstairs," Cumshaw remarked, with a

sidelong glance at Moira.

"No more I am," I told him. "I don't like our chances either."

"But," he protested with a puzzled indrawing of his eyebrows, "as far as

we're concerned it's as easy as falling off a log."

"Just as easy," I agreed, "providing our friends the enemy don't

interfere. They don't seem to be the kind of men who rest on their oars,

that is if we can judge anything from their past exploits."

"You're right there, Carstairs," Cumshaw said. "I never gave them a

thought, but I see now that they're likely to prove a pretty active

menace to our safety."

"That," I said, turning to Moira, "cuts out all possibility of your

coming with us. You can't be running into danger."

"Can't I just," she said with an assertive toss of her head, "and,

whether I can or not, I'm going," she finished.

I looked at Cumshaw. I could not tell from his expression whether he was

pleased or sorry. His face was as devoid of emotion as that of a china

doll.

"What do you think about it?" I asked him straight out.

He glanced at me in his turn with a curious baffling light in his dark

eyes, and I felt as if he had stripped my soul bare of all pretences and

was reading my thoughts in all their nakedness.

"I should think," he said at length with an air of absolute

impartiality, "that Miss Drummond is the mistress of her own actions and

neither you nor I have any right to dictate what she is to do."

"Have it your own way then," I said, with difficulty suppressing my

rising anger. "But if anything goes wrong remember that I warned you

beforehand."

"I'll remember that," Moira said, and she favored Cumshaw with a little

smile of gratitude. She never smiled at me like that, not even in those

far-away days when we were all the world to each other or thought we

were. Which in the end amounts to much the same thing.

"Well, if you don't mind," said Cumshaw, breaking an awkward silence,

"I'll go home now and think matters over. And then to-morrow we'll

decide what to do."

"Home?" I echoed. "I thought----" And then I stopped.

"I'm staying in town," he said with a smile. "That's what I meant when I

said home."

"In that case," I said, "you'll be handy whenever we want you. You'd

better leave your address in case we want you in a hurry."

He scribbled his address--a leading city hotel--on a blank card and

handed it to me. I glanced at it and then thrust it into my pocket. When

I looked up again he was holding Moira's hand in his, just a trifle

longer than convention demanded I thought, and saying something to her

that I did not catch. She smiled in return, a dazzling smile, and said

quite distinctly, "Please call whenever you feel inclined. There is no

need for us to stand on ceremony with each other now we're partners."

I saw him to the door. At the threshold he turned and spoke with one

foot on the step and the other on the ground, taking up that attitude of

unaffected ease that gives an air of friendliness to even the most

formal conversation.

"I'm rather pleased I met you, Carstairs," he said. "In one way and

another I've heard a lot about you, and I think you've got the kind of

level head we'll need before we've seen this business through."

"Thank you," I replied. I was nearly going to say 'Soft words butter no

parsnips,' but my common-sense came to my aid just in time to prevent me

making a fool of myself. He held out his hand, and I took it in the

spirit in which he had offered it to me. Nevertheless I was absurdly

jealous of the man, though Heaven knows I hadn't the least reason to be.

I could see with half an eye that he had made a good impression on

Moira, and the way she had spoken to him, especially that last remark of

hers, showed me that she was egging him on. It didn't matter one single

solitary damn to me. I had told her clearly and definitely that we were

business partners and that love was altogether out of the question. Yet

here was I, the moment a potential rival appeared on the scene, behaving

for all the world like a spoilt child. And, like a spoilt child, for my

own good I needed someone to bring me sharply and suddenly to my

bearings.

Cumshaw bade me a cheerful good-night. I saw his lithe figure swing

along through the sub-tropical darkness of a moonless summer night. Then

the latch on the gate clicked with the ringing sound of metal striking

against metal. I closed the door and went inside.

Moira was standing in the study just as I had left her, standing as

motionless and devoid of life as a statue of carven stone. I don't think

she heard me at first.

"Well," I said conversationally, "how is it now?"

She turned at the sound of my voice and faced me squarely. I could see

that her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and something inside of me

moved me with a sudden impulse to go up to her. I placed my hands on her

shoulders and was amazed to find how unsteady they were. They trembled,

my hands trembled! And yet they used to tell me in the old Island days

that I hadn't a nerve in my body.

I was quite prepared for anything except what really happened. I could

feel a sort of tension in the atmosphere, and I expected her to do

something theatrical. But she didn't. She backed away from me, but she

didn't go far. The table was behind her.

I don't know how long we stood looking at each other. It seemed a

lifetime to me, and the silence was the sort that a man feels it

sacrilege to break.

"You make it very hard for me, Jim," Moira said calmly. The tears were

still in her eyes, but her voice was under excellent control. It didn't

vibrate a note. She looked at me as she spoke, looked me straight in the

eyes, and I think it was then that I began to realise what an ass I had

been making of myself.

"How do I make it hard?" I asked. My voice was curiously low, almost

husky in fact. I rather think she noticed it and took heart therefrom. A

man is very easy to handle when he is not quite sure of himself.

"I've got to pretend," she said in answer to my question. "Pretend that

you are nothing to me when----"

She stopped short. It seemed almost as if she regretted that she had

said so much.

"Go on," I urged.

"There's not much to say," she continued. "I just want to tell you, to

tell you in such a way that you'll believe me, that if I've treated you

shamefully I've suffered for it. I can't make any reparation for it; you

were quite right in saying that it is too late now to alter things. I

just want you to know that I'm sorry. I can't say much more than that,

though I don't want to take any credit for it now, seeing that it's been

practically forced out of me."

I remembered the way she had been standing when I came in, the tears in

her eyes, and the way she had backed out of my reach the moment I put my

hands on her shoulders. It would have been so easy for her to have done

the other thing, but she hadn't, and I admired her all the more for it.

She might easily have captured me in the first flush of emotion, but she

had instead given me time to think and a chance to get away if I wanted

to. There was something in her attitude that appealed to my sense of

fair play and at the same time prevented me from in any way

misinterpreting her last remark.

"Moira," I said, "were you crying when I came in just now?"

Her lip trembled a little as she asked, "Why do you want to know?"

"Because," I said slowly, "I've solved one riddle already to-night, and

I've a mind to solve another before I go to bed."

"I was crying," she admitted, "only I didn't mean you to see."

"And why was that?"

"I thought you might imagine I was just doing it."

I knew what she meant; there was no need for her to explain further. She

didn't want to influence me in any way; whatever I did must be done of

my own free will.

"I'm beginning to understand," I said slowly.

"Then you'll forgive?" she said quickly, and one hand went up to her

throat as if she were choking.

I nodded and impulsively she held out her hand to me. I did not take it,

and she half-turned so that I would not see what was in her eyes.

"Can't we even be friends?" she said, with a queer little catch in her

words.

Something snapped in my head at that, and the words I had been holding

back all the evening came to my lips in a rush of speech.

"I didn't mean you to take it that way," I said desperately. "I wouldn't

shake hands because ... that's not what I want. It's too stand-offish.

I'm going to do more than forgive, and we're going to me more than

friends, if you still want me."

"You know I want you," she said softly with her head bowed shyly and the

blushes rising in her cheeks.

I took her in my arms and kissed her.

CHAPTER II.

OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY.

Once we had definitely fixed the date of our departure we lost no time

in making ready. As the days went by I began to see more and more

clearly that it was just as well I had thrown in my lot with Moira and

young Cumshaw. Neither of them had the least idea of organisation, and

they seemed to think that things just happened of their own accord.

Moira couldn't see anything else but the glamor and romance of the

adventure, and I found that, for all his cleverness, Albert Cumshaw did

not know what was essential to the expedition and what wasn't.

"We can't start off like a picnic party," I said to them on one

occasion, "and just wander on until we come to a likely spot. We've got

to have everything planned out right down to the last box of matches and

the last cartridge."

Cumshaw drew a deep breath. "Cartridges!" he said, "Are you talking

figuratively?"

"No," I answered. "I'm speaking literally. It might yet be the case of

the last cartridge. You must remember that, even if we get the gold and

come back here in safety, we're still not out of the wood. We're not

safe until our friends the enemy are removed from our paths for ever."

"You mean that they must be killed?" Moira demanded.

"I don't mean anything of the kind," I answered. "As a matter of fact

I've got a perfect horror of killing people. It makes such a mess, and

I'm naturally a rather tidy person."

Cumshaw laughed softly, but Moira bit her lip, though she made no reply

to what I had said.

"Now, while we're talking about it," I ran on, "I just want to impress

on you the fact that we aren't going off into the bush--not the kind of

bush that you read about in books, where it's all scrub and myall blacks

and things like that. Most of the time we'll be within coo-ee of

civilisation. Most of Western Victoria's pretty well settled, and it's

just the luck of the game and the formation of the country that this

valley's remained so long hidden away. We'll be near enough to people

all the time to be noticeable if we do anything remarkable. We've got to

go to work so that we'll attract as little attention as possible. We'll

want food, enough for several weeks, I suppose, and we've got to get it

and take it with us, and do it all in such a way that nobody's going to

wonder what we're after. Another thing that that reminds me of. Miss

Drummond here had better keep out of sight as long as she can. We two

can manage to escape observation, but people always want to know what a

woman's doing in it when there's anything suspicious happening."

"If you mean by that that you think I can be turned back at the last

moment, you're making a mistake," Moira informed me.

"I don't mean that," I said calmly, "but I want to take every precaution

that I can. I'm in charge of this expedition, elected by three votes to

nothing, and I'm going to run things the way I think best. It mightn't

be the best way in the end, but that's quite another matter. I haven't

wandered across the world from Yokohama to the White Nile and from the

Klondyke to the Solomons without knowing how to organise an expedition."

"You're right there," Cumshaw acknowledged. "You're the only one amongst

us who's had practical experience. In future what you say goes."