Queensland Cousins Part 19

"He--he looks like a gentleman," spluttered Nesta.

"Oh, shut up," said Eustace. "Can't a gentleman look an a.s.s? Who is that riding up the hill?"

His quick ears had caught the sound of hoofs, and glad of a pretext to change the subject he went and leant over the balcony.

Nesta was at his side with a pounce.

"Hulloa!" he shouted a few seconds later; "here is something queer."

"What is it, Eustace?" called his mother from within; and soon every one was on the veranda, staring eagerly down the hill.

Coming up at a leisurely trot was a riderless horse--saddled, bridled, but alone.

The watchful party waited in breathless astonishment till it was close to the house. Then Eustace said sharply,--

"Mother, it's the horse Bob went away on this morning! There's been some accident."

CHAPTER X.

A VOICE FROM THE SCRUB.

There could be no doubt about it, and every one stared blankly after the beautiful big creature as it pa.s.sed on, round the house towards its own stable.

"What can have happened?" Mrs. Orban exclaimed. "Bob is such a splendid rider."

"Oh, he can't have been thrown, of course," Eustace said, with an emphasis meant to impress Aunt Dorothy.

"Perhaps it's black-fellows," said Nesta shakily.

"Stupid," said Eustace sharply, "Bob can shoot straighter than any one I know."

"Instead of wrangling over possibilities, we ought to be doing something," said Mrs. Orban. "Eustace, you had better fetch that horse and ride down to father at once. Perhaps he will guess what it means."

Eustace was off like an arrow from a bow, and presently appeared below the veranda, sitting erect and fearless, riding the returned horse.

He looked such a sc.r.a.p perched up there that Miss Chase had a sudden qualm as to his safety.

"Will he be all right going down alone?" she asked.

"All right?" questioned Mrs. Orban, looking puzzled.

"Yes; I mean, isn't it rather a risk for him?"

"Oh goody, no!" Nesta answered with a laugh. "Why, Eustace can ride anything; he has ridden ever since he was six."

"Father will want to see the horse," Mrs. Orban said. "Perhaps it has only run away from the Highlands before it was stabled. But I can't think what it has been doing in the interval, or why Bob has not sent over to inquire. He ought to have got home by nine at latest."

Mr. Orban was as puzzled as every one else when he saw the horse.

He examined it carefully.

"Well, so far as I can see, Bolter has not been running away," he said thoughtfully. "He has not been overheated, and he is as fresh as paint. I should say he has had some quiet hours of grazing. But where Bob is remains a mystery. I must ride over to the Highlands at once and find out if he is there."

"O father, can I come too?" Eustace cried eagerly. "I could ride Bolter, and I shall never be happy till I know Bob is all right."

Mr. Orban eyed the boy kindly.

"Yes, you can come," he said. "It will scare Mrs. Cochrane less perhaps, and look more casual if I have you with me."

Away they went at a quick trot along the rough road leading to the wood known as Palm Tree Scrub. Eustace knew every inch of the way, and generally loved to get into the cool and shade under the feathery palms. But to-day he glanced left and right, looking for he knew not what with sickening anxiety.

The road, nothing but a cart-track, skirted a mangrove swamp awhile.

"He can't have got in there," said Eustace, with a nod towards the thickly growing stems of ti-trees rearing up from long coa.r.s.e gra.s.s.

There was a mysterious darkness in the depths of the woods that somehow chilled the boy to-day.

"What should he get into a rank place like that for?" said Mr.

Orban bracingly.

At the same time he whipped up his horse and hurried forward. He was regretting having brought Eustace. A mangrove swamp is an unhealthy spot at the best of times, productive of a great deal of malarial fever; it would be nightfall, he reflected, before they got back, and the mist would be rising.

Away and away out into the open the pair galloped, and came to the side of the creek--the bend in the river through which the horses had to wade. The water was low just now. There were times when such floods roared over this spot that the man carrying the mails had been known to be swept away, horse and all, and was never heard of again.

At the other side the horses plunged into gra.s.s as high as their flanks--a flat, uninteresting tract of land, bare of trees except where here and there a single palm tree arose. But beyond that the ground rose suddenly from the banks of this bend of the river. On the summit of a high bank, luxuriantly surrounded by tropical foliage of all sorts, was Bob Cochrane's home.

It was a relief to Mr. Orban to find only Mr. Cochrane on the lower veranda. He was a short, broad, sandy-haired man with a rough appearance, and as kind a heart as could be found in the colony, which is saying a great deal.

"Good-evening, Cochrane," said Mr. Orban casually, as he reined in his horse. "Is Bob at home?"

Eustace listened for the answer with a thumping heart, and he saw a slight look of surprise flit across Mr. Cochrane's face as he replied slowly,--

"Bob? No. I thought he was over at your place. He hasn't turned up here to-day."

"Well, he was with us," Mr. Orban said, trying hard to keep up the careless tone, "but he started off this morning--I thought for home."

"Not he," said Mr. Cochrane; "at least he hasn't arrived. Perhaps he had to come round by somewhere else--Gairloch or one of those places. Come in, won't you, and wait for him, if you want to see him."

"Afraid I can't do that," Mr. Orban said, speaking low so that only Mr. Cochrane, now by his horse's head, should hear. "Fact is, I'm rather worried. Bob's horse went lame, and he borrowed one of mine.

He should have been here at about nine, but the horse--this one Eustace is on--appeared back at my place an hour ago."

Mr. Cochrane stared blankly.

"Without Bob?" he questioned in a dazed way.

"Yes. Don't say anything about it to your wife--it might frighten her unnecessarily," Mr. Orban said. "He may have gone round by Gairloch, and the beast ran away from there. We can just say I came over on business, and then you had better come right off with me to see if Bob is all right."