The Shadow of a Man

"No more I do – for lots of reasons. I mean to take the devil, alive or dead, and yet I don't want anybody else to take him! Sounds well, doesn't it? Yet I bet you'd feel the same in my place – if you knew who he was!"

Rigden stood mute.

"You won't cut me out for the reward, Mr. Rigden, if I tell you who it is, between ourselves? You needn't answer: of course you won't. Well – then – it's good old Bovill the bushranger!" And the sergeant's face shone like the silver buttons of the sergeant's tunic.

"Captain Bovill!" gasped Rigden, but only because he felt obliged to gasp something.

"Not so loud, man!" implored the sergeant, who had sunk his own voice to the veriest whisper. "Yes – yes – that's the gentleman. None other! Incredible, isn't it? Of course it wasn't Darlinghurst he escaped from, but Pentridge; only I thought you'd guess if I said; it's been in the papers some days."

"We get ours very late, and haven't always time to read them then. I knew nothing about it."

"Well, then, you knew about as much as is known in Victoria from that day to this. The police down there have lost their end of the thread, and it was my great luck to pick it up again by the merest chance last week. I'll tell you about that another time. But you understand what it would mean to me?"

"Rather!"

"To land him more or less single-handed!"

"I won't tell a soul."

"And don't you go and take the man himself behind my back, Mr. Rigden!" the policeman was obliged to add, with such jocularity as men feign in their deadliest earnest.

But Rigden's laugh was genuine and involuntary.

"I can safely promise that I won't do that," said he. "But ask the other fellows if they've seen the kind of man you describe; if they haven't, no harm done."

The unprofitable inquiry was conducted in Moya's presence, who abruptly disappeared, unable to bear any more and still hold her peace. Thereupon Rigden breathed more freely, and offered supper with an improving grace; the very tracker was included in the invitation, which was accepted with the frank alacrity of famished men.

"And it's not the last demand we shall have to make on you," said Harkness, as he washed in Rigden's room; "we've ridden our cattle off their legs since we were here in the afternoon. We must hark back on our own tracks first thing in the morning. Beds or bunks we shall want for the night, and fresh horses for an early start."

Rigden thought a moment.

"By all means, if you can stand the travellers' hut. It's empty, but in here we're rather full. As for horses, I've the very three for you. I'll run 'em up myself."

The storekeeper came to him as he was pulling on his boots. He was not a conspicuously attractive young man, but he had one huge merit. His devotion to Rigden was quite extraordinary.

"Why not let one of us run up those horses, sir?"

"One of you! I like that. Give us those spurs."

"Well, of course I meant myself, Mr. Rigden. The new chum wouldn't be much use."

"I'm not sure that you'd be much better. You don't know the paddocks as I know them, nor the mokes either. Nobody does, for that matter. But I don't want the men to get wind of this to-night."

"I'll see that they don't, Mr. Rigden."

"Now I'm ready, and I'll be twice as quick as anybody else. What's the time, Spicer?"

"Just on ten."

"Well, I'll be back by eleven. Now go in and see they've got everything they want, and take Mr. Bethune in with you for a drink. That's your billet for to-night, Spicer; you've got to play my part and leave the store to take care of itself. Now I'm off."

But it was some minutes before he proceeded beyond the horse-yard; indeed, he loitered there, though the jackeroo had the night-horse ready saddled, until Theodore had accepted the storekeeper's invitation, and the verandah was empty at last.

"Hang it! I'll have my dust-coat," he cried when about to mount. "Hold him while I run back to the barracks."

"Can't I go for you, sir?"

"No, you can't."

And the Rugby boy thought wistfully of Cambridge while Rigden was gone; for he was an absent-minded youth, who did not even notice how the pockets of the dust-coat bulged when Rigden returned.

Only Moya, from her dark but open door on that same verandah, had seen the manager slip from the barracks over to the store, and remain there some minutes, with the door shut and the key inside, before creeping stealthily out and once more locking the door behind him.

V

A RED HERRING

Rigden cantered to the horse-paddock gate, and on and on along the beaten track which intersected that enclosure, and which led ultimately to a wool-shed pitched further from the head-station than wool-shed ever was before or since. Rigden rode as though he were on his way thither; he certainly had not the appearance of a man come to cut out horses in a horse-paddock. His stock-whip was added to the bulging contents of the dust-coat pockets, instead of being ready as a lance in rest. The rider looked neither right nor left as he rode. He passed a mob of horses in the moonlight, not without seeing them, but without a second glance.

Suddenly he left the track at a tangent; but there was no symptom of the sudden thought. Rigden sat loosely in his saddle, careless but alert, a man who knew every inch of the country, and his own mind to an irreducible nicety. A clump of box rose in his path; a round-shot would have cut through quicker, but not more unerringly. Rigden came out on the edge of a chain of clay-pans, hard-baked by the sun, and shining under the moon like so many water-holes.

Rigden rode a little way upon the nearest hard, smooth surface; then he pulled up, and, looking back, could see scarcely any trace of his horse's hoofs. He now flung a leg across the saddle, and sat as the ladies while his quiet beast stood like bronze. A night-horse is ex officio a quiet beast.

Rigden wondered whether any man had ever before changed his boots on horseback. When he proceeded it was afoot, with his arm through the reins, and the pockets of the dust-coat bulging more than ever. From his walk it was manifest that the new shoes pinched.

But they left no print unless he stamped with all his might. And that was a very painful process. Rigden schooled himself to endure it, however, and repeated the torture two or three times on his way across the clay-pans. On such occasions the night-horse was made to halt (while the stamping was done under its nose) and to pirouette in fashion that must have astonished the modest animal almost as much as each fresh inspiration astonished Rigden himself.

On the sandy ground beyond he merely led the horse until a fence was reached. Here some minutes were spent, not only in strapping down the wires and coaxing the night-horse over, but in some little deliberation which ended in the making of mock footprints with his own boots, without, however, putting them on. Rigden had still another mile to do in the tight shoes for this his sin. It brought him to the pouting lips of a tank (so called) where the moon shone in a mirror of still water framed in slime. Here he gave his horse a drink, and, remounting, changed his boots once more. A sharp canter brought him back to the fence; it was crossed as before; the right horses were discovered and cut out with the speed and precision of a master bushman; and at half-past eleven exactly the thunder of their hoofs and the musketry of Rigden's stock-whip were heard together in the barracks, where the rest had gathered for a final pipe.

"Good time," said the sergeant, who was seated with his subordinate on the storekeeper's bed.

"Not for him," said Spicer. "He said he'd be back by eleven. He's generally better than his word."

"A really good man at his work – what?"

Bethune had been offered the only chair, and was not altogether pleased with himself for having accepted it. It was rather a menagerie, this storekeeper's room, with these policemen smoking their rank tobacco. Theodore had offered them his cigars, to put an end to the reek, but his offer had come too late. He hardly knew why he remained; not even to himself would he admit his anxiety to know what was going to happen next. A criminal case! It would teach him nothing; he never touched criminal work; none of your obvious law and vulgar human interest for him.

"Good man?" echoed Spicer the loyal. "One of the best on God's earth; one of the straightest that ever stepped. Don't you make any mistake about that, Bethune! I've known him longer than you."

The testimonial was superfluous in its warmth and fulness, yet not uncalled for if Bethune's tone were taken seriously. It was, however, merely the tone in which that captious critic was accustomed to refer to the bulk of humanity; indeed, it was complimentary for him. Before more could be added, "the straightest man that ever stepped" had entered, looking the part. His step was crisp and confident; there was a lively light in his eye.

"Have a job to find them?" inquired his champion.

"Well," said Rigden, "I found something else first."

"The man?" they all cried as one.

"No, not the man," said Rigden smiling. "Where's your tracker, sergeant?"