The Gold-Stealers Part 27

He burst into the room where Mrs. Hardy and Harry and Mrs. Haddon were seated, hatless and breathless, and filled his friends with alarm.

'Please, Harry, Downy says 'Ready!'' blurted d.i.c.k.

Harry sprang to his feet and made for the door.

'That mens he's discovered something important, mother.' he said as he pa.s.sed out.

d.i.c.k followed, leaving the women astonished and curious, slipped away around the fence enclosing Harry's home, and made off towards the other end of the township. His intention was to warn Ephraim Shine of the danger that threatened. He did not doubt but that Rogers, if he fell into the hands of the troopers, would tell all.

There was a light burning in Shine's skillion, and d.i.c.k's knock was answered by Miss Chris, who wore her hat and was on the point of leaving for her home at Summers'.

'I want your father,' said d.i.c.k quickly. 'The troopers 'r' after him.

Tell him to bolt.'

'd.i.c.kie--d.i.c.kie, whatever do you mean?' cried Christina, greatly agitated.

The next moment she was thrust aside and Shine appeared, showing a drawn gaunt face, the skin of which looked crinkled and yellow in the candle light, like old parchment.

'What's that?' he gasped. 'Who wants me?'

'You're found out,' said d.i.c.k, drawing back, shocked by the ghastly appearance of the man. 'They're after Rogers. They've got him by this, I expect, an' they'll soon have you if you don't make a bolt fer it.'

Shine uttered a wailing cry and d.i.c.k turned and fled again, afraid of being seen in the vicinity of the searcher's abode by Downy or any of his men. Looking back he saw that the house was now in darkness, and surmised that Ephraim had taken advantage of his warning to escape into the bush.

When Harry Hardy and the trooper rode up to Shine's house half an hour later, they found the place deserted. The door was on the latch, and the interior gave no indication of a hurried departure, but the searcher was nowhere to be seen.

'It's all right,' said Harry, 'he'll be somewhere about the township.

I'll take a trip round an' see if I can hit on him, if you'll stay here an' keep watch.'

'Right,' said the sergeant, 'but you'd best drop in on Downy and let him know. If our man gets wind of what's happened he'll skedaddle.'

'If he doesn't we'll nab him at the mine at one.'

Harry found that Downy had disposed of his prisoner, having converted the cellar at the Drovers' Arms into a lock-up for the time being, and smuggled Joe Rogers in so artfully that McMahon's patrons in the bar were quite ignorant of the proximity of the prisoner and of the presence of the guardian angel sitting patiently in the next room, tenderly nursing a broken head and a six-barrelled Colt's revolver.

Harry and Downy searched Waddy from end to end in quest of Ephraim Shine, and saw nothing of him. Downy interviewed Christina without betraying his ident.i.ty or his object, but could get no inforination of any value; and when the missing man failed to put in an appearance at the Silver Stream to search the miners from the pump coming off work, the hunt was abandoned for the time being.

'He's got wind of my game and cleared,' said Downy, 'but we'll have him before forty-eight hours have pa.s.sed.'

'But how could he know?' asked Harry, impatient to lay Shine by the heels.

'May have heard the shots. May have been hiding anywhere. But, never fret, we'll round up your friend, my boy. Men of his make and shape are as easy to track as a hay waggon.'

In the early hours of the morning Downy drove his prisoner into Yarraman, and that day's issue of the local Mereury contained a thrilling description of the capture of the Waddy gold-stealer--a description that created an unprecedented demand for the Mercury, and quite compensated the gifted editor for, the heartburnings he had endured over the bushranging fiasco.

Waddy was dumbfounded when the Mercury came to hand, and horribly disgusted to think the stirring incident described had happened right under its nose, without its having the satisfaction of witnessing the least moving adventure or catching even a glimpse of the prisoner. Joe Rogers a free man was a familiar and commonplace object, but Joe Rogers handcuffed and leg-ironed in the custody of the law was a person of absorbing interest, and Waddy would have turned out to a man and woman to give him an appropriate send-off.

There, before their eyes, set forth in the columns of the Mercury, were the details of Detective Downy's ruse, and valuable remarks enlarging upon the almost superhuman astuteness of the officer in question; the story of d.i.c.k's capture by Rogers, the flight to the Piper shaft and all that happened there, the fight between the gold-stealer and the troopers, the shooting of Casey, the overthrow of Rogers, and the hunt for Ephraim Shine; all these things had happened in a small township within the s.p.a.ce of a few hours, and Waddy, that had always found its Sunday nights hang so heavily on its hands, had been cheated out of every item of the bewildering list. It was a shame, an outrage. Detective Downy was voted a public enemy, and his name was execrated from the chapel yard to McMahon's bar.

The only satisfaction available to the people was in going over the ground, and they flocked to Joe's hut and congregated there, discussing, arguing, and predicting; examining with owlish wisdom the bullet mark on the hut chimney, and counting the blood spots on the worn track near the door where the hero Casey bled in defence of his country's laws. Of course, 'the boy Haddon' was a favourite theme, and now d.i.c.k appeared as a public benefactor. The matter of the stolen gold had yet to be settled, but the most generous view of this business was popular, and the confidence in Richard Haddon was complete. The women declared emphatically and without a blush that they had always believed in the honesty and intelligence and brave good heart of the boy. To be sure he was a bit wild and a little mischievous--but, there, what boy worth his salt was not? and, in spite of everything they had all seen long ago that Widow Haddon's young son was a good lad at bottom. His conduct in deluding Joe Rogers in the face of so terrible a danger reflected credit upon Waddy, and Waddy gratefully responded by being heartily proud of him. A crowd marched to Mrs. Haddon's back fence expressly to cheer d.i.c.k; and cheer him they did, in a solemn, matter-of-fact way, like a people performing a high public duty. d.i.c.k was not in the least moved by this display of feeling, but his mother was delighted and kissed him heartily, and responded on his behalf by shaking a towel out of the back window with great energy and much genuine emotion.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE detective had asked Harry to keep careful watch upon d.i.c.k, but the boy betrayed no inclination to roam, and when he did venture out it was to call upon Harry himself. d.i.c.k's spirits had recovered marvellously, and if it were not for an occasional fit of sadness (induced by thoughts of Christina Shine) he would have been quite restored to his former healthy craving for devilment, and eager to call together the shareholders of the Mount of Gold with a view to arranging further adventures. Harry, too, no longer felt the ill effects of his injuries, and intended returning to work in the course of a few days. The recent discoveries had served to lighten his heart, and yet thoughts of Christina welled bitterness; but his mother was happy in the confidence that at last justice would be done and her son restored to her.

d.i.c.k found Harry moodily smoking in the garden, and addressed him through the fence.

'What d'ye think?' he said, with the air of one propounding a conundrum.

Harry was not in a guessing mood; he gave it up at once and d.i.c.k took another course.

'I got somethin' p'tickler to tell you,' he said.

'Have you, Ginger?' Harry was quite alert now. 'About this gold-stealin'?'

'No--o, not quite about that. I'm goin' to tell all that to Downy, but it's somethin' jist as p'tickler--about a reef we found.'

'A reef? Nonsense, d.i.c.k. How could you find a reef?'

'By diggin' fer it, I s'pose. What'd you think if I said we fellers' ye got a mine--a really mine--me an' Jacker Mack, an' Ted McKnight, an'

Billy Peterson, an' Phil Doon? What'd you say, eh?'

'I'd say you didn't know what you were talking about, Ginger, my boy.'

'But if I took you down the shaft an' showed you the reef, an' showed you stone with gold stickin' in it--suppose I done that, how then?'

'Where is this reef?' asked Harry, becoming impressed by the boy's earnestness.

'Tellin's!'

'But didn't you come to tell me?'

'Come to tell you we'd found it, an' to ask what to do, so's no one can jump it. We want it took up on a proper lease, all right fer me an' the rest o' the fellers, an' we'll let you stand in.'

'I can't take up a lease unless I know where the reef is, can I?'

'Well, it ain't far from the Bed Rand.'

'Nonsense, d.i.c.k! The bottom must be over three hundred feet deep there.

You couldn't cut a reef any shallower than that.'

'On'y we have.'

Harry sat for a moment lost in thought. He had suddenly recalled old talk about mysterious indications of a shallow reef in that locality, a reef the existence of which would have been in open opposition to mining traditions, and contrary to all locally known theories of scientific mining. He remembered hearing of a shaft that had been put down by a few believers, in defiance of local derision; he recalled, too, the eccentric and unheard-of drive thrown out by the Red Hand in some such absurd quest, and his respect for the boy's opinion grew into something like conviction.

'It's very queer, d.i.c.k,' he said; 'but if you'll show it to me I'll do all I can for you.'

'That's good! You see we're all in it. We're the Mount of Gold Quartz-minin' Company--me an' Jacker an' them--but it's on'y a make-believe company, an' I'd like Mr. McKnight, an' Mr. Peterson, an'