THE RIDER'S SCORN
Late into the night the townsfolk of Waroona stood in knots and groups
in the roadway discussing the mystery surrounding the death of Eustace.
Until the closing hour compelled the hotelkeepers to turn their
customers out, the bars were crowded and a roaring trade was done, all
the loose cash in the place passing into the tills which were full to
overflowing.
Everyone had a theory, which differed from that of everyone else, but as
one after the other told his particular views on the question and heard
them criticised and discussed, and heard also the views of others, there
was a rapid falling off in individual opinions and a tendency to
concentrate on one or two which withstood the test of criticism the
best.
On one point there was unanimity of opinion. Eustace and the man with
the yellow beard had been in league. They had robbed the bank together,
Eustace having drugged the other inmates so that there should be no
chance of the work being disturbed.
Eustace had also participated in the robbery and outrage at Taloona. He
it was, the townsmen decided, who had his face hidden by the
handkerchief mask. The indifference of his companion whether his face
was seen or not suggested to them a stranger, one who was not known in
the district, but who had come there for the purpose of carrying out the
robbery of the bank.
When the first sum of twenty-five thousand was so successfully secured,
Eustace would know that the Bank, for its own protection, would have to
hurry forward another similar sum to meet the obligation of its client.
He would know that old Dudgeon would refuse to leave it in charge of the
Bank, and would decline any police protection even if it were offered.
Therefore, the crowd argued, he and his companion had waited until they
could make a dash for that second sum.
So far the events as they knew them corroborated their views. There had
been the attack on Taloona; the second sum of money had been stolen and
the rough treatment meted out both to old Dudgeon and the sub-inspector
showed that the two outlaws were men who were prepared to play a
desperate game to preserve their liberty and booty.
It was this desperation which gave the most popular clue to the solution
of the mystery surrounding the death of Eustace.
The money, fifty thousand pounds in all, had been safely carried off to
the hiding-place the robbers had chosen. In addition to the money there
were other articles, and over the division of this spoil there had been
a quarrel. Eustace had gone down, probably taken unawares, seeing that
he had been shot in the back. Little as anyone sympathised with him in
the course he had followed, there was a feeling of resentment against
his companion for having obviously taken a mean advantage over the man
who had thrown in his lot with him. A quarrel was possible at any time,
even so deadly a quarrel as would result fatally for one or other of the
combatants; but at least it should have been fairly conducted.
Thereafter the completion of the story was easy.
The victor had emptied his victim's pockets of everything except the
incriminating handkerchief--leaving that, perchance, to fasten upon him
a part responsibility of the Taloona outrage; had taken the body on his
horse and ridden with it to the ford, dropping it in the middle of the
stream where it was bound to be discovered by the first person passing
that way.
There was a callousness, a cynical indifference to all human instincts
in this method of disposing of his victim, which deepened the feeling of
resentment against the assassin who everyone held to be the unknown man
with the yellow beard. To have left the body where it fell would have
been less brutal than to flaunt it in the face of police and public as a
taunt and a mockery. Following the outburst of amazement which the
discovery had aroused, there came a sense of bitter hostility against
the man who had done this, to their minds, needless act of savagery.
As Brennan passed to and fro he was assailed with questions as to what
the sub-inspector was going to do. Volunteers on all sides offered
their services to scour the range, where all believed the murderer was
hiding, and ride him down. But Brennan would say nothing. The
sub-inspector had barely spoken since he returned to the station; but if
he wanted help he would not hesitate to appeal for it, Brennan told
them, adding that they need not worry--the criminal who could outwit the
sleuth-hound of the force was not yet born.
"But the Rider of Waroona is no fool," one of the men remarked.
"Neither is Sub-Inspector Durham," Brennan retorted.
Gale, who was standing in the group listening to the remarks made, but
advancing no theory of his own, spoke out for the first time.
"I'm not so sure," he said. "He may be smart enough in following up town
robberies, but he hasn't done much here yet. Twice he has come in
contact with the pair, and each time they have got ahead of him. He
stops everyone else from doing anything. I offered to go out with a
dozen men and scour the range, but he wouldn't hear of it--that was
before he was cornered at Taloona."
"Don't you worry," Brennan replied. "The sub-inspector knows what he is
doing."
He passed away from the group and the men turned to Gale.
"That's what I don't follow," one of them said. "The chap must be hiding
somewhere with that white horse of his. Why not scour the range for
him?"
"Brennan told me he didn't believe there was a white horse--that it was
all a yarn," another exclaimed.
"Well, I saw it," Gale retorted. "I saw it on the Taloona road. I'd have
gone after it only I was in a buggy and it vanished into the bush."
"Is the range the only place you'd look, Mr. Gale?" one of the men
asked.
"No," Gale replied. "I'd look there first, and then I'd go the other
way."
"Taloona way?"
"Well, not far off."
"That's what I think," the man went on. "Old Crotchety takes the loss of
his money too quietly to please me. He's a pretty fly old chap and does
not stop at a trifle to get his own back."
"Like he did when he fired you out, Davy," someone exclaimed, and there
was a general laugh, for the story of how Davy had been sent about his
business at a moment's notice by Dudgeon was one of the stock anecdotes
of the district.
"Oh, that's as it may be," Davy retorted, "but I know too much about the
old man to trust him very far."
"Do you think he's the Rider?" Gale exclaimed.
"No, but he may know who the Rider is--there are plenty of men who'd do
the job for a round sum down."
"But how about Eustace?"
"Oh, well, that would be a bit of luck to get him to join. They may have
thrown him over when he was no more use to them, and then there may
have been a row and somebody's gun may have gone off a bit too soon.
You never know. But anyhow, I'm with you when you say things look as if
they are getting too much for the police to handle."
"That's all very fine, Davy, but what I'd like to know is why the old
man got shot? Did he pay a man to do that?"
"Of course he didn't," Davy exclaimed. "I had a yarn with one of the
troopers about that. He told me what the sub-inspector said in his
report. Maybe that's something you don't know."
It was, and the attention of the group concentrated on Davy, much to his
satisfaction.
"Go on, let's have the yarn," someone said impatiently, and there was a
chorus of assent from the others.
"This is what happened," Davy went on. "The Rider and his mate--Eustace,
as I believe--came into the hut to settle the sub-inspector. As a blind
they put handcuffs on the old man and were going to do the same with
Durham when he, finding himself cornered again, made a fight for it. One
of the chaps fired, meaning to finish him, but missed and hit the old
man instead. Then, in the fight, the lamp was upset and the place in a
blaze. Durham got a crack on the head and staggered outside, and before
the others could get the old man out of the place the troopers arrived,
and they had to bolt to save their own skins. That is pretty much what
Conlon told me was in the sub-inspector's report. It was after hearing
it I suspected the old chap."
The group was silent as Davy ceased.
"You've got the bulge on us this time," one of them remarked presently.
"Why didn't you tell the yarn before?"
"Because it was told to me in confidence--I knew Conlon years ago in the
South. But now this other thing's happened it makes all the difference,
doesn't it?"
"But how about the money, Davy?" Gale asked. "That had gone, you know; I
saw the place where it had been dug up."
"Did you? You saw a hole in the ground; but how do you know the money
was ever in it? And how could two chaps carry away a lot of loose bags
of money on horseback?"
"That's so," one of the group cried. "I reckon Davy's on the right track
this time."
"Anyway, so far as the money is concerned, only those who can afford to
lose have been robbed. It won't break the Bank and old Dudgeon can stand
it," Gale observed.
"But there's murder in the case now. That counts more than money. It
means hanging for someone," Davy replied.
"Or ought to--if the police can catch him," Gale said, as he left the
group and went on to Soden's bar, where he found Allnut and Johnson
carrying on an animated discussion with the hotelkeeper on the one
topic.
"Have you heard the latest?" he inquired as he joined them.
"What's that? A clue? Have the police got a clue?" Soden exclaimed.
"There's a clue--of a sort, but the police haven't got it. Davy Freeman
has been giving us a new theory. He says old Dudgeon's at the back of it
all."
"I'm not sure he's far wrong, Mr. Gale, to tell you the truth," Soden
said in his slow manner. "They say funny things about the old man,
especially those who were here in the early days."
"What's Freeman's yarn?" Allnut asked.
By the time Gale had repeated the story his audience had grown, and the
waning interest in the subject was revived as the theory was passed from
one to the other until it spread through all the groups and was debated
and discussed from every possible and impossible standpoint. When the
hour arrived for closing the bars the men clustered in the road, still
wrestling with the problem.
The night wore on and the young moon was sinking to the west before they
began to knock the ashes out of their pipes, preparatory to adjourning
the open-air parliament until the following day. One man was still
pouring out his views and opinions and the others crowded round him,
their own energies spent, but listening listlessly before they
separated.
Suddenly the sound of a horse galloping wildly startled them. With one
accord they turned towards the direction whence the sound came.
In the faint half-light, right in the middle of the road, racing with
maddened speed, charging straight upon them, they saw a white horse with
a bearded rider.
To the right and left they scattered to get clear of the flying hoofs as
through the midst of them, with a mocking shout and a wave of his hand,
there flashed past the man with the yellow beard.
A howl of execration and wrath broke from their lips. Those who had gone
to their homes rushed out. Brennan, with Durham at his heels, dashed
from the station.
"The Rider! The Rider!" came in a chorus of hoarse shouts. "After him,
lads, after him."
There was a scatter and scamper as men fled for their horses.
Barebacked, many with the bridle scarcely secure, all without weapons,
the men of Waroona raced pell-mell down the road.
Behind them, armed and orderly, Durham and his constable spurred their
horses in pursuit.
"The fools! They'll help him to escape," Durham cried as they came in
sight of the confused rabble racing along the road.
Ahead of the charging mob the road for a hundred yards showed clear as
it topped a slight ascent. A belt of scrub a quarter of a mile through
intervened between the mob and the open stretch of road. But from where
Durham and Brennan were the view was uninterrupted.
The white horse and its rider were half-way to the top.
Acting with one impulse, both raised their carbines and fired from the
saddle. The noise of the reports echoed through the still air and made
the men in the scrub below rein in their horses to listen. As the smoke
drifted clear Durham and Brennan saw, on the summit of the rise, the
white horse prancing, riderless.
Reloading as they rode, they dug their spurs home and raced through the
patch of scrub. The men heard them coming, and waited, the lack of a
leader making them undecided how to act. They made way for the two
police, closing in behind them and pressing up to learn what had
happened.
"He's down. Keep back," Brennan called to them over his shoulder, and
they slowed their horses until Durham and the constable rode twenty
yards in front.
Through the shadow of the scrub the two galloped side by side, each with
his carbine resting on his hip ready for instant use. The road was soft
and sandy and the beat of the horses' hoofs was muffled.
With a sharp turn the road was clear of the scrub, and the open stretch
rising to the top of the hill lay before them. In the centre one small
dark object was on the ground, but there was no sign of the man they
expected to see.
Reining in as they came up to the small object, they saw it was an
ordinary bushman's slouch hat. In the roadway, close to it, two long
furrows were scored, while at irregular intervals up the rise flecks of
blood glistened.
Durham leaped from his saddle and picked up the hat. On the lining was
stamped the name of the chief Waroona storekeeper, Allnut.
"He's a local man," Durham said quickly. "Keep those fools back."
While Brennan checked the charging crowd, now racing up the slope,
Durham went forward alone. On the sandy roadway the marks made by the
prancing horse were clearly visible to the top of the hill. The animal
had evidently been badly frightened and had reared and plunged from one
side of the road to the other, but nowhere was there such a mark as he
knew must have been made had the rider fallen. Nor had the horse plunged
as a riderless animal, but as one straining against a tight-held rein.
At the top of the hill the marks showed down the other slope until the
horse had reached a point where it would no longer be visible from the
spot he and Brennan had been when they fired. There the track gradually
approached the edge of the road and vanished on to the rough ground.
Durham sprang out of the saddle and bent over the marks where they left
the road. The horse had been pulled round and ridden directly into the
bush. With the last faint rays of the moon dying away it was hopeless
trying to follow the tracks through the sombre shadow; nothing more
could be done until daylight to follow where the man had ridden.
He had remounted and was riding back when the remainder of the men came
up with Brennan.
"The track runs into the bush; there's no hope of following it
to-night," he cried.
No hope? A dozen voices answered him with a flat contradiction, and past
him there was a rush of barebacked riders hot on the trail. They
scattered in a wide-spreading line, riding straight ahead and watching
only for a gleam of the white horse amid the shadows of the bush.
Durham stood up in his stirrups and shouted to them to come back, but he
might as well have called to the wind. The fever of the chase was in
their veins, the reckless dash of the hunter fired by the excitement of
the greatest of all pursuits, a man-hunt. While this held them, they
raced, aimlessly, uselessly, but persistently.
Those with cooler heads and better judgment reined in their horses. Gale
found himself in the midst of an excited throng with whom he was carried
forward for some distance before he could get free.
"He's right, lads, he's right," he shouted. "There's no chance to follow
the track till it's daylight. Don't smother it. Come back."
"Chase him to the range, boys, chase him to the range. We'll catch him
at the rise," yelled one of the men in the lead, and with an answering
cheer the galloping crowd held on.
Those who had remained on the road were starting to return to the
township when Gale rode back. Hearing him coming, they waited to see who
it was.
"They're mad," he cried, as he came up. "If they get near him, he'll
shoot them as they come, and they'll destroy every sign of his tracks."
"It's done now," Durham exclaimed impatiently. "We'll have to leave
them; it's no use going after them now."
He turned his horse's head and set off for the township with Brennan at
his side and the rest trailing after him. At the station he and Brennan
wheeled their horses into the yard while the others went on to their
homes.
"I shall be away with the dawn," Durham said, as soon as the horses were
stabled and they were in their quarters. "It's the old story. That
fellow has had so much luck up to the present he's lost his head. He
wants to show us how clever he really is."
"There's not much sense in what he did to-night; anyone in the crowd
might have had a rifle, and there was no doubt who he was--he carried
his life in his hands for nothing, it seems to me."
"They always do sooner or later. He's an old hand at the game, or he
wouldn't be so anxious to let us know he's still in the neighbourhood."
While he was speaking, the door opened and Soden, the hotelkeeper,
excitedly entered the room.
"Here, come across the road, quick. Come and have a look at it. Hang me
if this doesn't beat cock-fighting. They've stuck up the pub and cleared
off with the till and all the takings," he exclaimed.
He led the way to his hotel, the front door of which was open.
"As I found it," he said as he pulled it to until it was ajar. "When we
closed for the night it was locked and bolted. Look at it."
Durham carefully examined it.
"Opened by an expert burglar," he said quietly.
"No one but a master of the craft could have done it so neatly. Show me
the till."
Soden led them into the bar. The till, empty, was on the floor; every
cupboard door was forced and the place in chaos.
As they stood looking at the wreck, voices sounded outside and other men
trooped in.
"Here, I say," the first-comer cried. "Here's a pretty go. Someone has
been in my place and cleared every pennypiece out of it and--hullo!" he
exclaimed as he looked at the state of Soden's bar, one of the show
places of the town under ordinary conditions. "You seem to have had them
too, and there's a mob outside, all with the same story."
There was no gainsaying what had happened. While the men of the town
were out careering after the mysterious Rider, their homes had been
rifled of everything of value. The town was stripped as clean as though
a tribe of human locusts had swept through it. Two places only were
unvisited, the bank and Mrs. Eustace's cottage, in both of which places
lights had been burning.
Not even the police-station escaped, though not until Durham and Brennan
returned to it did they realise the fact. What money there was in the
place had vanished; a watch Brennan had left hanging over his bunk had
disappeared and, as if to emphasise the visit, the pages of the record
book were smeared with ink and defaced.
Brennan glanced covertly at his superior who, with a heavy frown on his
brow, stood scowling at the defaced book.
"Have the revolvers gone?" he asked suddenly.
Brennan turned to the locker where they were kept.
"No, sir, they are here all right. I fancy he must have been disturbed
before he could finish his work here. None of the cupboards have been
touched."
"Whom do you suspect?" Durham asked sharply.
Brennan scratched his head and screwed up his face.
"Well, to tell you the plain, honest truth, sir, I'm bothered if I know
who to suspect. What gets over me is that white horse. No one believed
the yarn about the buggy and pair of white horses, and no one believed
the yarn about the men on white horses being seen on the Taloona road.
But here the chap comes clean through the township riding a horse of a
colour that isn't known in the district. You can't put a white horse out
of sight like you can a stray cat, sir. But where do they go when the
Riders are not on the road? It gets me, sir, I'm free to admit."
"That hat I picked up was bought at the store in the town. That suggests
someone who has been about the place."
"Well, he might have stolen it. He might have taken it from the bank, or
Taloona, or it might have been that other poor chap's--out there, I
mean," he added, nodding towards the shed where Eustace lay.
"He's no bushman," Durham said.
"He rides well enough for one."
"Oh, yes, I admit he rides well enough for one, but many men ride
besides bushmen. I know neither he nor his partner have any practical
bush experience. I know that. Just as I know the man who went through
the town to-night is a burglar who learned his craft in one of the big
cities of the world. The way that hotel door was opened was one of the
finest pieces of expert burglary I've ever seen, and there are some
pretty smart men at the game in our cities."
"He's a pretty daring chap," Brennan remarked, with a touch of
admiration in his voice.
"He's too daring. That is what puzzles me. With fifty thousand pounds in
gold and the valuables stolen from the bank, what sense is there in
dashing through the place as he did to-night and then taking a bigger
risk by doubling back past us and stealing what at the most can barely
have been a hundred pounds in all?"
"Do you think he doubled back, sir? Don't you think the dash through the
town was a trick to draw everyone away so as to leave the way clear for
a second man to do the burgling?"
"I don't see who the second man could be. The handkerchief shows Eustace
was the man who was with him at Taloona. I don't think he has another
man with him now. He is doing it single-handed and seems to be enjoying
it, too."
"We ought to be able to pick up his tracks in the morning, if he doubled
back."
"Yes, if those fools have not smothered them. I'll see to that. I'll be
away with the dawn. Mind you, no one is to know."
"You can be sure of that, sir," Brennan answered.