The Bushranger's Secret Part 1

The Bushranger's Secret.

by Mrs. Henry Clarke.

CHAPTER I.

A FUGITIVE.

Two men were sitting together in a small outlying hut on one of the great grazing farms of South Australia. The hut was a comfortless place. The floor was of beaten earth. Two bunks for sleeping were fixed to the log wall. Above one of the bunks hung the framed photograph of a comely woman, with two bright-faced lads leaning against her. It was the only picture on the walls. A rough table stood opposite the window, and behind the table was a wooden bench.

Above the bench there was a shelf, and a stand for guns.

The men were sitting on the bench. They had not long returned from a hard day's riding. The elder man was leaning back against the wall in a heavy sleep. The other, a slender, dark-eyed fellow, hardly more than a lad, was looking at him with a gloomy contemptuous irritation in his glance.

"Better asleep than awake, though," he muttered to himself, after a moment. "What can he talk about but cattle and horses?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and got up from his seat and stretched himself. The dog lying at the older man's feet, with its paw resting on one of them, raised its head sharply at Gray's movement, but did not attempt to get up even when Gray went to the door and opened it, letting the light of their lamp flow out in a steady stream.

All round the hut stretched the gray level gra.s.s-lands, rolling away in vast monotony to a far horizon. A wide sky arched over them, in which the stars were shining with a soft yet brilliant splendour. Gray glanced carelessly up at that glorious sky. He believed himself to be endowed with a keen sense of the beautiful. He prided himself on his distaste for ugly surroundings. When he had earned the fortune he had come to Australia to earn he meant to prove to the world how keen and true his artistic tastes were. But he glanced carelessly up at the shining stars. They had no message for him.

After standing in the doorway a moment he turned back into the hut, shutting the door behind him with a sudden bang that made Harding start up, rubbing his eyes.

"Why, I must have been asleep!" he said with a surprised air. He drew himself up to his full height, towering like a good-tempered giant over Gray's slight figure. "I'm tired out, and that's a fact," he added apologetically. "I think I'll turn in." Gray did not answer. He flung himself down on the bench and began to pare his finger-nails, looking at each finger critically as he finished it, and taking no notice of Harding. The elder man regarded him doubtfully.

"In a wax, old man?" he said in a deprecating voice. Gray flung him a vicious look over his shoulder, and returned to his nails. Harding's face had a very tender expression in it as he advanced a step and put out his hand to touch the young man's shoulder.

"If it's anything I've done," he began in a shuffling, awkward, kindly tone--

Gray turned upon him with startling suddenness.

"Anything you've done?" he demanded, squaring his arms on the table, and fixing his dark glance on Harding. "You needn't flatter yourself that I care a rap for what you do or don't do. Turn in, and leave me to myself."

"Come, come, Gray, don't take a fellow like that. You're tired out; I can see you're just tired out."

"I _am_ tired out," responded Gray grimly. "Tired of it all. Tired and sick of you along with the rest of it. A pretty life this is to live. A pretty companion you make, don't you?"

"Well, well, things may better soon," said the other soothingly. "I wish I was more book-learned for your sake, old fellow. But that's past wishing for, ain't it? And you'll have to make the best of me for a spell."

"Best or worst, I can't endure this life any longer," returned Gray impatiently. "I'll ride over to the station to-morrow and give it up; or end it quicker than that perhaps;" and he glanced up with a dark look at the loaded gun lying across the shelf.

Harding knew Gray well enough to be able to disregard that look, but he spoke very seriously.

"You'll not be such a foolish lad as to throw up your berth in a fit of temper. This won't last much longer. You will be called in to the station in a week or two and given a better post; and it's your duty to stick on here till you're called in, you see."

"Duty!" Gray flung the word at him like a missile.

Harding's mild eyes looked at him in gentle reproof.

"It's a fine thing to do, my lad. No man can do more if he lived in a king's palace. And a man who does his duty is greater than a king."

"That's all rubbish, talk like that," returned Gray sharply. "You just drop it, Harding."

He got up, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, and leant against the wall. His eyes went round the hut.

"A king's palace!" he said with a hard laugh. "Verily it needs strong imagination to think of such a place here. What a hole to live in!

But I'll not stand it much longer."

Harding did not answer this time. He went up to his bunk and took from under the pillow his little shabbily bound Bible and sat down to read his evening chapter.

Gray watched him moodily; but in a moment his attention was drawn off by the strange behaviour of the dog, which, when Harding had sat down on his bunk, had crawled under it.

But it had come out again almost at once, and now stood in the middle of the hut, with its head bent and its ears upraised in the att.i.tude of intent listening.

"What's the matter with the dog?" said Gray. "He hears somebody."

Harding looked up.

"n.o.body ever comes this way; it's out of the track. Come here, Watch.

You're dreaming, old fellow."

The dog turned its head and looked at its master, gave a slow wag of its tail to show that it heard his voice, and then with a dash it sprang at the door, barking fiercely.

Harding got up and flung back the door. His movement was so sudden, that a man who had crept up to the hut and was now leaning against the door had no time to recover himself, and staggered forward into the hut. Watch retreated, still growling fiercely, but restrained from attacking the stranger by a gesture of its master. Gray made a clutch at the gun above his head, but the next moment withdrew his hand. That pitiful, abject, trembling fugitive was not a man to take arms against.

The stranger staggered across the hut and crouched down against the opposite wall, breathing in short hurried pants. His face was painfully thin, and as white as death. From a long jagged wound, half hidden by his matted hair, blood was trickling in a dark slow stream.

The clothes he wore were torn to tatters. You could see his skin through the rents.

He crouched back against the wall, hugging his arms against his breast, and looking from Gray to Harding with a wild agonized entreaty in his eyes. It was the look of a hunted animal appealing for mercy rather than the look of a man asking help of fellow-men. He was evidently unable to speak. He tried to articulate something, but his baked, blistered lips refused their office.

"He's just done for," said Gray. Harding nodded, and going up to the pannikin of cold tea on the shelf took out some in a cup and held it to the stranger's lips. He drank it up greedily and then words came to him.

"Don't give me up," he cried out in a strange hoa.r.s.e scream, and fell along the floor huddled up in a dreadful heap.

The two men looked at each other.

"It's plain enough to see what he is," said Gray with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "Shall we have to entertain the rest of the gang, do you think?"

"The police, more likely, lad. They're close on his track, I fancy."

He bent over the man and straightened him out. Gray did not attempt to help him; he stood looking down at the wretched fugitive with a cold unsympathizing curiosity in his handsome face as he said:

"He isn't dead, is he?"

As he spoke the man opened his eyes and gazed up at them. Wild gleaming dark eyes they were, looking all the darker for the haggard pallor of his face. He raised himself on his elbow and made a clutch at his breast. There was something hidden there, and he kept his hand closed upon it.

Harding put the cup with more tea to his lips again, and again he drank greedily. Then he tried to raise himself into a sitting posture, but sank back on the floor.

"I'll cheat the beaks after all," he said hoa.r.s.ely. A grim smile flickered over his face. "I swore I'd never be caught."