'■«», 
 
 W-HORNUNG
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 J
 
 The Shadow of a Man
 
 ^ 
 
 The 
 Shadow of a Man 
 
 By E. W. Hornung 
 
 7' 
 
 ,^W^' 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons 
 New York 1901
 
 Copyright, 1900, by 
 J. B. Lippincott Co. 
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 TKOW DIRECTORY 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 PR 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 I. The Belle of Toorak .... / 
 
 //, Injury 14 
 
 HI. Insult 28 
 
 ly. Bethune of the Hall 59 
 
 y. A Red Herring ^8 
 
 VI. -Below Zero 67 
 
 VII. A Cavalier 84 
 
 VIII. The Kind of Life . .... 97 
 
 IX. Pax in Bello 120 
 
 X. The Truth by Inches . . . • 1 34 
 
 XI. Bethune v. Bethune 147 
 
 XII. An Escapade 166 
 
 XIII. Blind Man's Block 180 
 
 XIV. His Own Coin 196 
 
 XV. The Fact of the Matter . . . 206 
 
 1.70211.8
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 THE BELLE OF TOORAK 
 
 " A ND you're quite sure the place doesn't 
 ^^* choke you off?" 
 
 " The place? Why, I'd marry you for it 
 alone. It's just sweet ! " 
 
 Of course it was nothing of the kind. 
 There was the usual galaxy of log huts ; the 
 biggest and best of them, the one with the 
 verandah in which the pair were sitting, 
 was far from meriting the name of house 
 which courtesy extended to it. These 
 huts had the inevitable roofs of galvanised 
 iron; these roofs duly expanded in the 
 heat, and made the little tin thunder that 
 dwellers beneath them grow weary of 
 hearing, the warm world over. There 
 were a few pine-trees between the build- 
 
 I
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 ings, and the white pahngs of a well 
 among the pines, and in the upper spaces 
 a broken but persistent horizon of salt- 
 bush plains burning into the blinding blue. 
 In the Riverina you cannot escape these 
 features : you may have more pine-trees 
 and less salt-bush ; you may even get blue- 
 bush and cotton-bush, and an occasional 
 mallee forest ; but the plains will recur, 
 and the pines will mitigate the plains, and 
 the dazzle and the scent of them shall 
 haunt you evermore, with that sound of 
 the hot complaining roofs, and the taste 
 of tea from a pannikin and water from a 
 water-bag. These rude refinements were 
 delights still in store for Moya Bethune, 
 who saw the bush as yet from a comfort- 
 able chair upon a cool verandah, and could 
 sing its praises with a clear conscience. 
 Indeed, a real enthusiasm glistened in her 
 eyes. And the eyes of Moya happened 
 to be her chief perfection. But for once 
 Rigden was not looking into them, and 
 his own were fixed in thought. 
 
 " There's the charm of novelty," he said. 
 " That I can understand." 
 
 2
 
 The Belle of Toorak 
 
 " If you knew how I revel in it — after 
 Melbourne ! " 
 
 " Yes, two days after ! " said he. " But 
 what about weeks, and months, and years ? 
 Years of this verandah and those few 
 pines ! " 
 
 " We could cover in part of the verandah 
 with trellis-work and creepers. They would 
 grow like wildfire in this heat, and I'm sure 
 the owners wouldn't mind." 
 
 " I should have to ask them. I should 
 like to grow them inside as well, to hide the 
 papers." 
 
 " There are such things as pictures." 
 
 " They would make the furniture look 
 worse." 
 
 " And there's such a thing as cretonne ; 
 and I'm promised a piano ; and there isn't 
 so much of their furniture as to leave no 
 room for a few of our very own things. 
 Besides, there's lots more they couldn't 
 possibly object to. Curtains. Mantel- 
 borders. I'm getting ideas. You won't 
 know the place when I've had it in hand a 
 week. Shall you mind?" 
 
 He did not hear the question. 
 
 3
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " I don't know it as it is," he said ; and 
 indeed for Rigden it was transformation 
 enough to see Moya Bethune there in the 
 delicious flesh, her snowy frock glimmering 
 coolly in the hot verandah, her fine eyes 
 shining through the dust of it like the gems 
 they were. 
 
 His face said as much in the better lan- 
 guage which needs no words. 
 
 "Then what's depressing you?" asked 
 Moya brightly. 
 
 " I dread the life for you." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 " I've been so utterly bored by it myself." 
 
 Her hand slid into his. 
 
 " Then you never will be again," she 
 whispered, with a touching confidence. 
 
 " No, not on my own account ; of course 
 not," said Rigden, " If only " 
 
 And he sighed. 
 
 "If only what?" 
 
 For he had stopped short. 
 
 " If only you don't think better of all this 
 — and of me ! " 
 
 The girl withdrew her hand, and for a 
 moment regarded Rigden critically, as he 
 
 4
 
 The Belle of Toorak 
 
 leant forward in his chair and she leant back 
 in hers. She did not care for apologetic 
 love-making, and she had met with more 
 kinds than one in her day. Rigden had 
 not apologised when he proposed to her the 
 very week they met (last Cup-week), and, 
 what was more to his credit, had refused to 
 apologise to her rather formidable family 
 for so doing. Whereupon they were en- 
 gaged, and all her world wondered. No 
 more Government House — no more parties 
 and picnics — but " one long picnic instead," 
 as her brother Theodore had once remarked 
 before Moya, with that brutal frankness 
 which lent a certain piquancy to the family 
 life of the Bethunes. And the mere thought 
 of her brother accounted for so much in her 
 mind, that Moya was leaning forward again 
 in a moment, and her firm little hand was 
 back in its place. 
 
 " I believe it's Theodore ! " she cried 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " I — I don't understand," he said, telling 
 the untruth badly. 
 
 " You do ! He's been saying something. 
 But you mustn't mind what Theodore says ; 
 
 5
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 he's not to be taken seriously. Oh, how I 
 wish I could have come up alone ! " cried 
 Moya, with fine inconsistency, in the same 
 breath. " But next time," she whispered, 
 " I will ! " 
 
 " Not quite alone," he answered. And 
 his tone was satisfactory at last. And the 
 least little wisp of a cloud between them 
 seemed dispersed and melted for ever and 
 a day. 
 
 For Moya was quite in love for the first 
 time in her life, though more than once be- 
 fore she had been within measurable dis- 
 tance of that enviable state. This enabled 
 her to appreciate her present peace of mind 
 by comparing it with former feelings of a 
 less convincing character. And at last 
 there was no doubt about the matter. She 
 had fallen a happy victim to the law of con- 
 trasts. Society favourite and city belle, 
 satiated with the attractions of the town, 
 and deadly sick of the same sort of young 
 man, she had struck her flag to one who 
 might have swum into her ken from an- 
 other planet ; for the real bush is as far from 
 Toorak and Hawthorn, and The Block in 
 
 6
 
 The Belle of Toorak 
 
 Collins Street, as it is from Hyde Park 
 Corner. 
 
 It may be that Moya saw both bush and 
 bushman in the same rosy light. To the 
 impartial eye Rigden was merely the brick- 
 red, blue-eyed type of Anglo-Saxon : a 
 transparent character, clean of body and 
 mind, modest but independent, easy-going 
 in most things, immovable in others. But 
 he had been immovable about Moya, whose 
 family at its worst had failed to frighten or 
 to drive him back one inch. She could 
 have loved him for that alone ; as it was it 
 settled her; for Moya was of age, and the 
 family had forthwith to make the best of 
 her betrothal. 
 
 This they had done with a better grace 
 than might have been expected, for the 
 Bethunes had fine blood in them, though 
 some of its virtue had been strained out of 
 this particular branch. Moya none the less 
 continued to realise the disadvantages of 
 belonging to a large family when one 
 wishes to form a family of two. And this 
 reflection inspired her next remark of any 
 possible interest to the world. 
 
 7
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " Do you know, dear, I'm quite glad you 
 haven't got any people ? " 
 
 Rigden smiled a little strangely. 
 
 " You know what I mean ! " she cried. 
 
 " I know," he said. And the smile be- 
 came his own. 
 
 " Of course I was thinking of my own 
 people," explained Moya. " They can't see 
 beyond Toorak — unless there's something 
 going on at Government House. And I'm 
 so tired of it all — wouldn't settle there 
 now if they paid me. So we're out of 
 touch. Of course I would have loved any 
 one belonging to you ; but they mightn't 
 have thought so much of me." 
 
 If she was fishing it was an unsuccess- 
 ful cast. Rigden had grown too grave 
 to make pretty speeches even to his be- 
 trothed. 
 
 " I wish you had known my mother," 
 was all he said. 
 
 " So do I, dear, and your father too." 
 
 " Ah ! I never knew him myself." 
 
 " Tell me about them," she coaxed, 
 holding his sunburnt hand in one of hers, 
 and stroking it with the other. She was 
 
 8
 
 The Belle of Toorak 
 
 not very inquisitive on the subject herself. 
 But she happened to have heard much of it 
 at home, and it was disagreeable not to be 
 in a position to satisfy the curiosity of 
 others. She was scarcely put in that posi- 
 tion now. 
 
 " They came out in the early days," said 
 Rigden, " both of the colony and of their 
 own married life. Yet already these were 
 numbered, and I was born an orphan. But 
 my dear mother lived to make a man of 
 me: she was the proudest and the poorest 
 little woman in the colony; and in point 
 of fact (if this matters to you) she was not 
 badly connected at home." 
 
 Moya said that it didn't matter to her 
 one bit ; and was unaware of any insincerity 
 in the denial. 
 
 " I don't tell you what her name was," 
 continued Rigden. " I would if you in- 
 sisted. But I hate the sound of it myself, 
 for they treated her very badly on her mar- 
 riage, and we never used to mention them 
 from one year's end to another." 
 
 Moya pressed his hand, but not the 
 point, though she was sorely tempted to 
 
 9
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 do that too. She had even a sense of irri- 
 tation at his caring to hide anything from 
 her, but she was quick to see the unworthi- 
 ness of this sentiment, and quicker to feel 
 a remorse which demanded some sort of 
 expression in order to restore complete 
 self-approval. Yet she would not confess 
 what had been (and still lingered) in her 
 mind. So she fretted about the trifle in 
 your true lover's fashion, and was silent 
 until she hit upon a compromise. 
 
 " You know — if only anybody could ! — 
 how I would make up to you for all that 
 you have lost, dearest. But nobody can. 
 And I am full of the most diabolical faults 
 — you can't imagine ! " 
 
 And now she was all sincerity. But 
 Rigden laughed outright. 
 
 " Tell me some of them," said he. 
 
 Moya hesitated ; and did not confess her 
 innate curiosity after all. She was still 
 much too conscious of that blemish. 
 
 " I have a horrible temper," she said at 
 length. 
 
 " I don't believe it." 
 
 " Ask Theodore." 
 
 10
 
 The Belle of Toorak 
 
 " I certainly shouldn't believe him." 
 
 " Then wait and see." 
 
 " I will ; and when I see it I'll show you 
 what a real temper is like." 
 
 " Then " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Well, I suppose I've had more atten- 
 tion than I deserve. So I suppose you 
 might call me unreasonable — exacting — in 
 fact, selfish ! " 
 
 This was more vital ; hence the hesitation 
 on his part. 
 
 " When I do," said Rigden, solemnly, 
 " you may send me about my business." 
 
 " It may be too late." 
 
 " Then we won't meet our troubles half- 
 way," cried the young man, with virile 
 common-sense. " Come ! We love each 
 other; that's good enough to go on with. 
 And we've got the station to ourselves ; 
 didn't I work it well? So don't let's talk 
 through our necks ! " 
 
 The bush slang made the girl smile, but 
 excitement had overstrung her finer nerves, 
 and neither tone nor topic could she change 
 at will. 
 
 II
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " Shall we always love each other, dar- 
 ling?" 
 
 And there was the merest film of moist- 
 ure upon the lovely eyes that were fixed so 
 frankly upon his own. 
 
 " I can only answer for myself," he said, 
 catching her mood. " I shall love you till 
 I die." 
 
 "Whatever I do?" 
 
 " Even if you give me up." 
 
 " That's the one thing I shall never do, 
 dearest." 
 
 " God bless you for saying it, Moya. If 
 I knew what I have ever done or can do 
 to deserve you ! " 
 
 " Don't, dear . . . you little dream . . . 
 but you will know me by and by." 
 
 " Please Heaven ! " 
 
 And he leant and kissed her with all his 
 might. 
 
 " Meanwhile — let us promise each other 
 — there shall be no clouds between us while 
 I am up here this week ! " 
 
 " I'll kiss the Book on that." 
 
 " No shadows ! " 
 
 " My dear child, why should there be ? " 
 
 12
 
 The Belle of Toorak 
 
 There's Theodore- 
 
 Bother Theodore ! " 
 
 And then there are all those faults of 
 
 mine." 
 
 " I don't believe in them. But if I did it 
 would make no difference. It's not your 
 qualities I'm in love with, Moya. It's 
 yourself — so there's an end of it." 
 
 And an end there was, for about Rigden 
 there was a crisp decisiveness which had 
 the eventual advantage of a nature only less 
 decided than his own. But it was strange 
 that those should have been the last words. 
 
 Still stranger was it, as they sat together 
 in a silence happier than their happiest 
 speech, and as the lowering sun laid long 
 shadows at their feet, that one of these 
 came suddenly between them, and that it 
 was not the shadow of pine-tree or veran- 
 dah-post, but of a man. 
 
 13
 
 II 
 
 INJURY 
 
 T T was not Theodore, however. It was a 
 man whom Moya was thankful not to 
 have seen before. Nor was the face more 
 familiar to Rigden himself, or less unlovely 
 between the iron-grey bristles that wove a 
 wiry mat from ear to ear, over a small head 
 and massive jaws. For on attracting their 
 attention the man lifted his wideawake, a 
 trick so foreign to the normal bushman 
 that Rigden's eyebrows were up from the 
 beginning; yet he carried his swag as a 
 swag should be carried; the outer blanket 
 was the orthodox " bluey," duly faded ; and 
 the long and lazy stride that of the inveter- 
 ate " sundowner." 
 
 " Eureka Station, I believe ? " said the 
 fellow, halting. 
 
 " That's the name," said Rigden. 
 
 " And are you the boss ? " 
 14
 
 Injury 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " Then Eureka it is ! " cried the swag- 
 man, reheving himself of his swag, and 
 heartily kicking it as it lay where he let it 
 fall. 
 
 " But," said Rigden, smiling, " I didn't 
 say I had any work for you, did I ? " 
 
 " And I didn't ask for any work." 
 
 " Travellers' rations, eh? You'll have to 
 wait till my storekeeper comes in. Go and 
 camp in the travellers' hut." 
 
 Instead of a thank-you the man smiled — 
 but only slightly — and shook his iron-grey 
 head — but almost imperceptibly. Moya 
 perceived it, however, and could not im- 
 agine why Rigden tolerated a demeanour 
 which had struck her as insolent from the 
 very first. She glanced from one man to 
 the other. The smile broadened on the 
 very unpleasant face of the tramp, making 
 it wholly evil in the lady's eyes. So far from 
 dismissing him, however, Rigden rose. 
 
 " Excuse me a few minutes," he said, 
 not only briefly, but without even looking 
 at Moya ; and with a word to the interloper 
 he led the way to the station store. This 
 
 15
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 was one of the many independent build- 
 ings, and not the least substantial. The 
 tramp followed Rigden, and in another mo- 
 ment a particularly solid door had closed 
 behind the pair. 
 
 Moya felt at once hurt, aggrieved, and 
 ashamed of her readiness to entertain any 
 such feelings. But shame did not remove 
 them. It was their first day together for 
 two interminable months, and the after- 
 noon was to have been their very very own. 
 That was the recognised arrangement, and 
 surely it was not too much to expect when 
 one had come five hundred miles in the 
 heat of January (most of them by coach) 
 to see one's fiance in one's future home. 
 This afternoon, at least, they might have 
 had to themselves. It should have been 
 held inviolate. Yet he could desert her for 
 the first uncleanly sundowner who came 
 along ! After first telling the man to wait, 
 he must needs show his strength by giving 
 in and attending to the creature himself, 
 his de"otion by leaving her alone on a 
 verandah without another soul in sight or 
 hearing! It might only be for the few 
 
 i6
 
 Injury 
 
 minutes mentioned with such off-hand 
 coolness. The sHght was just the same. 
 
 Such was the first rush of this young 
 lady's injured feelings and too readily em- 
 bittered thoughts. They were more bitter, 
 however, in form than in essence, for the 
 notorious temper of the Australian Be- 
 thunes was seldom permitted a perfectly 
 direct expression. They preferred the ob- 
 lique ways of irony and sarcasm, and their 
 minds ran in those curves. A little bitter- 
 ness was in the blood, and Moya could not 
 help being a Bethune. 
 
 But she had finer qualities than were rife 
 — or at all events conspicuous — in the rank 
 and file of her distinguished family. She 
 had the quality of essential sweetness which 
 excited their humorous contempt, and she 
 was miraculously free from their innate 
 and unparalleled cynicism. At her worst 
 she had warm feelings, justly balanced by 
 the faculty of cold expression. And at her 
 best she was quick to see her faults and to 
 deplore them ; a candid and enthj^siastic 
 friend ; staunch at your side, sincere to your 
 face, loyal at all costs behind your back. 
 
 17
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 It was this loyalty that came to her rescue 
 now: she stood suddenly self-convicted of 
 a whole calendar of secret crime against the 
 man whom she professed to love. Did she 
 love him? Could she possibly love him, 
 and so turn on him in an instant, even in 
 her heart? Oh, yes, yes! She was a little 
 fool, that was all ; at least she hoped it was 
 all. To think that her worst faults should 
 hunt her up on the very heels of her frank 
 confession of them ! So in a few minutes 
 sense prevailed over sensibility. And for 
 a little all was well. 
 
 But these minutes mounted up by fives 
 and then by tens. And the verandah was 
 now filled to blindness and suflfocation by 
 the sunken sun. And there sat Moya 
 Bethune, the admired of all the most ad- 
 mirable admirers elsewhere, baking and 
 blinking in solitary martyrdom, while, with 
 a grim and wilful obstinacy, she stoically 
 waited the pleasure of a back-block over- 
 seer who preferred a disreputable tramp's 
 society to hers ! 
 
 The little fool in her was uppermost once 
 more. There was perhaps some provoca- 
 
 i8
 
 Injury 
 
 tion now. Yet a little fool it indubitably 
 was. She thought of freckles. Let them 
 come. They would be his fault. Not that 
 he would care. 
 
 Care ! 
 
 And her short lip lifted in a peculiar 
 smile ; it was the war-smile of the Bethunes, 
 and not beautiful in itself, but Moya it 
 touched with such a piquant bitter-sweet- 
 ness that some of her swains would anger 
 her for that very look. Her teeth were 
 white as the wing of the sulphur-crested 
 cockatoo, and that look showed them as no 
 other. Then there was the glitter it put 
 into her eyes : they were often lovelier, but 
 never quite so fine. And a sweet storm- 
 light turned her skin from pale rose to 
 glowing ivory, and the short lip would 
 tremble one moment to set more unmerci- 
 fully the next. Even so that those who 
 loved and admired the milder Moya, feared 
 and adored her thus. 
 
 But this Moya was seldom seen in 
 Toorak, or, for that matter, anywhere else ; 
 and, of course, it was never to show itself 
 any more, least of all at Eureka Station. 
 
 19
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Yet it did so this first, this very afternoon, 
 though not all at once. 
 
 For the next thing that happened she 
 took better than all that had gone before, 
 though those were negative offences, and 
 this was a positive affront. 
 
 It was when at last the store door opened, 
 and Rigden went over to the kitchen for 
 something steaming in a pannikin, and then 
 to his room for something else. He passed 
 once under Moya's nose, and once close 
 beside her chair, but on each occasion with- 
 out a look or a word. 
 
 " Something is worrying him," she 
 thought. " Poor fellow ! " 
 
 And for a space her heart softened. But 
 it was no space to speak of; intensified 
 curiosity cut it very short. 
 
 " Who can the horrid man be? " 
 
 The question paved the way to a new 
 grievance and a new resolve. 
 
 " He ought to have told me. But he 
 shall ! " 
 
 Meanwhile the dividing door was once 
 more shut ; and now the better part of an 
 hour had passed; and the only woman on 
 
 20
 
 Injury 
 
 the station (she might remain the only 
 woman) had carried tea through the veran- 
 dah and advised Moya to go indoors and 
 begin. Moya decHned. But no one ever 
 sat in the sun up there. Moya said noth- 
 ing; but at length gave so short an answer 
 to so natural a question that Mrs. Duncan 
 retreated with a very natural impression, 
 false for the moment, but not for so many 
 moments more. 
 
 For presently through the handful of 
 pines, red-stemmed and resinous in the sun- 
 set, there came the jingle of bit and stirrup, 
 to interrupt the unworthiest thoughts in 
 which the insulted lady had yet indulged. 
 She was thinking of much that she had 
 missed in town by coming up-country in 
 the height of the season ; she was wishing 
 herself back in Toorak. There she was 
 somebody; in Toorak, in Melbourne, they 
 would not dare to treat her thus. 
 
 Her fate was full of irony. There she 
 could have had anybody, and, rightly or 
 wrongly, she was aware of the fact. No 
 other girl down there — or in Melbourne, 
 for that matter — was at once a society 
 
 21
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 belle, a general favourite, and a Bethune. 
 The latter titles smacked indeed of the con- 
 tradiction in terms, but their equal truth 
 merely emphasised the altogether excep- 
 tional character of our heroine. That she 
 was herself aware of it was not her fault. 
 She had heard so much of her qualities for 
 so many years. But all her life it had been 
 impressed upon her mind that the Be- 
 thunes, as a family, were in a class by them- 
 selves in the southern hemisphere. In 
 moments of chagrin, therefore, it was only 
 natural that Moya should aggravate mat- 
 ters by remembering that she also was a 
 Bethune. 
 
 A Bethune engaged to a bushman who 
 dared to treat her thus ! 
 
 Such was the pith and point of these 
 discreditable reflections when the jingle of 
 approaching horse put a sudden end to 
 them. Moya looked up, expecting to see 
 her brother, and instinctively donning a 
 mask. She forgot it was in the buggy 
 that Theodore had been got out of the way, 
 and it was with sheer relief that her eyes 
 lit upon a sergeant and a trooper of the 
 
 22
 
 Injury 
 
 New South Wales mounted police, with 
 fluttering puggarees and twinkling ac- 
 coutrements, and a black fellow riding 
 bareback in the rear. 
 
 They reined up in front of the veran- 
 dah. 
 
 " We want to see Mr. Rigden," said the 
 sergeant, touching the shiny peak of his 
 cap. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! " 
 
 "Is he about?" 
 
 Moya would not say, and pretended she 
 could not. The sudden apparition of the 
 police had filled her with apprehensions as 
 wild as they were vague. The trooper had 
 turned in his saddle to speak to the black- 
 fellow, and Moya saw the great Govern- 
 ment revolver at his hip. Even as she 
 hesitated, however, the store door opened, 
 and Rigden locked it behind him before 
 sallying forth alone. 
 
 " Yes, here he is ! " exclaimed Moya, and 
 sat like a statue in her chair. Yet the pose 
 of the statue was not wholly suggestive of 
 cold indifference and utter unconcern. 
 
 " Glad to find you in, Mr. Rigden," said 
 23
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 the sergeant. " We're having a httle bit 
 of sport, for once in a way." 
 
 " I congratulate you. What sort ? " said 
 Rigden. 
 
 " A man-hunt ! " 
 
 And there were volumes of past bore- 
 dom and of present zest in the sergeant's 
 tone. 
 
 " That so? " said Rigden. " And who's 
 the man ? " 
 
 The sergeant glanced at the young lady. 
 Rigden did the same. Their wishes with 
 respect to her were only too obvious. 
 Moya took the fiercer joy in disregarding 
 them. 
 
 " I'd like to have a word with you in the 
 store," said the sergeant. 
 
 " No, no ! " said Rigden hastily. " Ser- 
 geant Harkness — Miss Bethune." 
 
 It was a cold little bow, despite this 
 triumph. 
 
 " Miss Bethune will be interested," added 
 Rigden grimly. " And she won't give any- 
 thing away." 
 
 "Thank you," said Moya. And her 
 tone made him stare. 
 
 24
 
 Injury 
 
 Harkness touched his horse with the 
 spurs, and rode up close to the verandah, 
 on which Rigden himself now stood. 
 
 " Fact is," said he, " it oughtn't to get 
 about among your men, or it's a guinea to 
 a gooseberry they'll go harbouring him. 
 But it's a joker who escaped from Darling- 
 hurst a few days ago. And we've tracked 
 him to your boundary — through your 
 horse-paddock — to your home-paddock 
 gate ! " 
 
 Rigden glanced at Moya. Her eyes were 
 on him. He knew it before he looked. 
 
 " Seen anything of him ? " asked the ser- 
 geant inevitably. 
 
 " Not to my knowledge. What's he 
 like?" 
 
 " Oldish. Stubby beard. Cropped head, 
 of course. Grey as a coot." 
 
 " ' Height 5 ft. ii in.,' " supplemented the 
 trooper, reading from a paper ; " ' hair iron- 
 grey, brown eyes, large thin nose, sallow 
 complexion, very fierce-looking, slight 
 build, but is a well-made man.' " 
 
 A dead silence followed; then Rigden 
 spoke. Moya's eyes were still upon him, 
 
 25
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 burning him, but he spoke without tremor, 
 and with no more hesitation than was 
 natural in the circumstances. 
 
 " No," he said, '* I have seen no such 
 man. No such man has been to me ! " 
 
 " I was afraid of it," said Harkness. 
 " Yet we tracked him to the boundary, 
 every yard, and we got on his tracks again 
 just now near the home-paddock gate. I 
 bet he's camping somewhere within a 
 couple of miles ; we must have another 
 look while it's light. Beastly lot of sand 
 you have from the home-paddock gate 
 right up to the house ! " 
 
 " We're built upon a sandhill, you see," 
 said Rigden, with a wry look into the heavy 
 yellow yard : " one track's pretty much like 
 another in here, eh, Billy?" 
 
 The black tracker shook a woolly pate. 
 
 " Too muchee damn allasame," said he. 
 " Try again longa gate." 
 
 " Yes," said the sergeant, " and we'll 
 bring him here for the night when we catch 
 him. You could lend us your travellers' 
 hut, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 26
 
 Injury 
 
 "So long then, Mr. Rigden. Don't be 
 surprised if you see us back to supper. I 
 feel pretty warm." 
 
 And the sergeant used his spurs again, 
 only to reign up suddenly and swing round 
 in his saddle. 
 
 " Been about the place most of the after- 
 noon?" he shouted. 
 
 " All the afternoon," replied Rigden ; 
 " between the store and this verandah." 
 
 _" And you've had no travellers at all ? " 
 
 " Not one." 
 
 " Well, never mind," cried the sergeant. 
 " You shall have four for the night." 
 
 And the puggarees fluttered, and the 
 stirrup irons jingled, out of sight and ear- 
 shot, through the dark still pines, and so 
 into a blood-red sunset. 
 
 27
 
 Ill 
 
 INSULT 
 
 DIGDEN remained a minute at least 
 *^ (Moya knew it was five) gazing 
 through the black trees into the red light 
 beyond. That was so characteristic of him 
 and his behaviour! Moya caught up the 
 Australasian (at hand but untouched all this 
 time) and pretended she could see to read. 
 The rustle brought Rigden to the right 
 about at last. Moya was deep in illegible 
 advertisements. But the red light reached 
 to her face. 
 
 Rigden came slowly to her side. She 
 took no notice of him. His chair was as 
 he had pushed it back an age ago ; he 
 drew it nearer than before, and sat down. 
 Nor was this the end of his effrontery. 
 " Don't touch my hand, please ! " 
 She would not even look at him. In a 
 flash his face was slashed with lines, so deep 
 
 28
 
 Insult 
 
 you might have looked for them to fill with 
 blood. There was plenty of blood beneath 
 the skin. But he obeyed her promptly. 
 
 " I am sorry you were present just now," 
 he remarked, as though nothing very tragi- 
 cal had happened. There was none the 
 less an underlying note of tragedy which 
 Moya entirely misconstrued. 
 
 " So am I," said she ; and her voice 
 nipped like a black frost. 
 
 " I wanted you to go, you know ! " he 
 reminded her. 
 
 " Do you really think it necessary to tell 
 me that ? " 
 
 All this time she was back in her now 
 invisible advertisements. And her tone 
 was becoming more and more worthy of a 
 Bethune. 
 
 " I naturally didn't want you to hear me 
 tell a lie," explained Rigden, with incon- 
 sistent honesty. 
 
 " On the contrary, I'm very glad to have 
 heard it," rejoined Moya. " It's instruc- 
 tive, to say the least." 
 
 " It was necessary," said Rigden quietly. 
 
 " No doubt ! " 
 
 29
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " A He sometimes is," he continued 
 calmly. " You will probably agree with 
 me there." 
 
 " Thank you," said Moya promptly ; but 
 no insinuation had been intended, no 
 apology was offered, and Rigden pro- 
 ceeded as though no interruption had 
 occurred. 
 
 " I am not good at them as a general 
 rule," he confessed. " But just now I was 
 determined to do my best. I suppose you 
 would call it my worst ! " 
 
 Moya elected not to call it anything. 
 
 " That poor fellow in the store " 
 
 " I really don't care to know anything 
 about him." 
 
 " — I simply couldn't do it," concluded 
 Rigden expressively. 
 
 " Is he the man they want or not ? " 
 
 The question came in one breath with 
 the interruption, but with a change of tone 
 so unguardedly complete that Rigden 
 smiled openly. There was no answering 
 smile from Moya. Her sense of humour, 
 that saving grace of the Bethunes as a 
 family, had deserted her as utterly as other 
 
 30
 
 Insult 
 
 graces of which she had more or less of a 
 monopoly. 
 
 " Of course he's the man," said Rigden 
 at once ; but again there was the deeper 
 trouble in his tone, the intrinsic trouble 
 which mere results could not aggravate. 
 
 And this time Moya's perceptions were 
 more acute. But by now pride had the 
 upper hand of her. There was some ex- 
 traordinary and mysterious reason for Rig- 
 den's conduct from beginning to end of 
 this incident, or rather from the beginning 
 to this present point, which was obviously 
 not the end at all. Moya would have given 
 almost anything to know what that reason 
 was ; the one thing that she would not give 
 was the inch involved in asking the ques- 
 tion in so many words. And Rigden in his 
 innocence appreciated her delicacy in not 
 asking. 
 
 " I can't explain," he began in rueful 
 apology, and would have gone on to entreat 
 her to trust him for once. But for some 
 reason the words jammed. And meanwhile 
 there was an opening which no Bethune 
 could resist. 
 
 31
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " Have I asked you for an explanation ? " 
 
 " No. You've been awfully good about 
 that. You're pretty rough on a fellow, all 
 the same ! " 
 
 " I don't think I am at all." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you are, Moya ! " 
 
 For her tongue was beginning to hit him 
 hard. 
 
 " You needn't raise your voice, Pelham, 
 just because there's some one coming." 
 
 It was only the Eureka jackeroo (or 
 " Colonial experiencer "), who had the 
 hardest work on the station, and did it 
 " for his tucker," but so badly as to justify 
 Rigden in his bargain. It may here be 
 mentioned that the manager's full name 
 was Pelham Stanislaus Rigden ; it was, 
 however, a subconscious peculiarity of this 
 couple never to address each other by a 
 mere Christian name. Either they con- 
 fined themselves to the personal pronoun, 
 or they made use of expressions which may 
 well be left upon their lovers' lips. But 
 though scarcely aware of the habitual 
 breach, they were mutually alive to the 
 rare observance, which was perhaps the 
 
 32
 
 Insult 
 
 first thing- to make Rigden realise the 
 breadth and depth of his offence. It was 
 with difficuhy he could hold his tongue 
 until the jackeroo had turned his horse 
 adrift and betaken himself to the bachelors' 
 hut euphemistically yclept " the barracks." 
 
 " What have I done," cried Rigden, in 
 low tones, " besides lying as you heard ? 
 That I shall suffer for, to a pretty dead cer- 
 tainty. What else have I done ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing," said Moya impatiently, 
 as though the subject bored her. In reality 
 she was wondering and wondering why he 
 should have run the very smallest risk for 
 the sake of a runaway prisoner whom he 
 had certainly pretended never to have seen 
 before. 
 
 " But I can see there's something else," 
 persisted Rigden. " What on earth is it, 
 darhng? After all I did not lie to you ! " 
 
 " No," cried Moya, downright at last ; 
 " you only left me for two mortal hours 
 alone on this verandah ! " 
 
 Rigden sprang to his feet. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " he cried ; and little 
 dreamed that he was doubling his enormity. 
 
 33
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " So you were unaware of it, were you ? " 
 
 " Quite ! " he vowed naively. 
 
 " You had forgotten my existence, in 
 fact ? Your candour is too charming ! " 
 
 His candour had already come home to 
 Rigden, and he bitterly deplored it, but 
 there was no retreat from the transparent 
 truth. He therefore braced himself to stand 
 or fall by what he had said, but meanwhile 
 to defend it to the best of his ability. 
 
 " You don't know what an interview I 
 had in yonder," he said, jerking a hand 
 towards the store. " And the worst of it 
 is that I can never tell you." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " God forgive me for forgetting or neg- 
 lecting you for a single instant ! " Rigden 
 exclaimed. " I can only assure you that 
 when I left you I didn't mean to be gone 
 five minutes. You will realise that what 
 I eventually undertook to do for this 
 wretched man made all the difference. It 
 did put you out of my head for the moment ; 
 but you speak as though it were going to 
 put you out of my life for all time ! " 
 
 " For the sake of a man you pretended 
 34
 
 Insult 
 
 never to have seen before," murmured 
 Moya, deftly assuming u^hat she burned to 
 know. 
 
 " It was no pretence. I didn't recognise 
 him." 
 
 " But you do now," pronounced Moya, 
 as one stating a perceptible fact. 
 
 " Yes," said Rigden, " I recognise him — 
 now." 
 
 There was a pause. Moya broke it 
 softly, a suspicion of sympathy in her 
 voice. 
 
 " I am afraid he must have some hold 
 over you." 
 
 " He has indeed," said Rigden bitterly ; 
 and next moment his heart was leaping, as 
 a flame leaps before the last. 
 
 She who loved him was back at his side, 
 she who had flouted him was no more. Her 
 hot hands held both of his. Her quick 
 breath beat upon his face. It was now 
 nearly dark in the verandah, but there was 
 just light enough for him to see the tears 
 shining in her splendid eyes. Rigden was 
 infinitely touched and troubled, but not by 
 this alone. It was her voice that ran into 
 
 35
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 his soul. She was imploring him to tell her 
 all ; there must be no secrets between them ; 
 let him but tell her the worst and she would 
 stand by him, against all the world if need 
 be, and no matter how bad the worst might 
 be. She was no child. There was nothing 
 he could not tell her, nothing she could not 
 understand and forgive, except his silence. 
 Silence and secrecy were the one unpardon- 
 able sin in her eyes. She would even help 
 him to conceal that dreadful man, no matter 
 what the underlying reason might be, or 
 how much she might disagree with it, if 
 only the reason were explained to her once 
 and for all. 
 
 It was the one thing that Rigden would 
 not explain. 
 
 He entreated her to trust him. His voice 
 broke and the words failed him. But on 
 the crucial point he was firm. And so was 
 she. 
 
 " You said you were unreasonable and 
 exacting," he groaned. " I didn't believe 
 it. Now I see that it is true." 
 
 " But this is neither one nor the other," 
 cried Moya. " Goodness ! If I were never 
 
 36
 
 Insult 
 
 to exact more than your confidence! It's 
 my right. If you refuse " 
 
 " I do refuse it, in this instance, Moya." 
 
 " Then here's your ring! " 
 
 There was a wrench, a ghtter, and some- 
 thing fell hot into his palm. 
 
 " I only hope you will think better of 
 this," he said, 
 
 " Never ! " 
 
 " I own that in many ways I have been 
 quite in the wrong " 
 
 " in every way ! " 
 
 " There you are unreasonable again. I 
 can't help it. I am doing what I honestly 
 believe " 
 
 His voice died away, for a whip was 
 cracking in the darkness, with the muffled 
 beat of unshod hoofs in the heavy sand. 
 They sat together without a word, each 
 waiting for the other to rise first ; and thus 
 Theodore found them, though Moya's 
 dress was all he could descry at first. 
 
 "That you, Moya? Well, what price 
 the bush ? I've been shooting turkeys ; 
 they call it sport ; but give me crows to- 
 morrow! What, you there too, Rigden? 
 
 37
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Rum coincidence! Sorry I didn't see you 
 sooner, old chap; but I'm not going to 
 retract about the turkeys." 
 
 He disappeared in the direction of the 
 barracks, and Moya held out her hand. 
 
 " Lend me that ring," she said. " There's 
 no reason why we should give ourselves 
 away to-night." 
 
 " I think the sooner the better," said 
 Rigden. 
 
 But he returned the ring. 
 
 38
 
 IV 
 
 BETHUNE OF THE HALL 
 
 yHEODORE BETHUNE was a young 
 man of means, with the brains to add 
 to them, and the energy to use his brains. 
 As the eldest of his family he had inherited 
 a special legacy in boyhood ; had imme- 
 diately taken himself away from the Church 
 of England Grammar School, and booked 
 his passage to London by an early boat. 
 On the voyage he read the classics in his 
 deck chair, asked copious questions in the 
 smoking-room, and finally decided upon 
 Cambridge as the theatre of his academical 
 exploits. 
 
 Jesus was at that time the College most 
 favoured by Australasian youth : this was 
 quite enough for Theodore Bethune. He 
 ultimately selected Trinity Hall, as appear- 
 ing to him to ofifer the distinction of Trin- 
 ity without its cosmopolitan flavour, and 
 
 39
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 a legal instead of an athletic tradition. In 
 due course he took as good a degree as he 
 required, and proceeded to be called at the 
 English bar before returning to practice in 
 Melbourne. In connection with his uni- 
 versity life he had two or three original 
 boasts : he had never been seen intoxicated, 
 never played any game, and only once in- 
 vestigated Fenner's (to watch the Austra- 
 lians). On the other hand, he had added 
 appreciably to his income by intelligent 
 betting on Newmarket course. 
 
 Temperament, character, and attainment 
 seemed to have combined to produce the 
 perfect barrister in Theodore Bethune, who 
 was infinitely critical but himself imper- 
 vious to criticism, while possessed of a 
 capital gift of insolence and a face of triple 
 brass. The man, however, was not so per- 
 fect ; even the gentleman may exhibit cer- 
 tain flaws. Of these one of his sisters had 
 latterly become very conscious ; but they 
 came out as a boon to her on the second 
 evening of this visit to Eureka Station, New 
 South Wales. 
 
 For in conversation Bethune was what 
 40
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 even he would formerly have called " a 
 terror," an epithet which he still endeav- 
 oured to deserve, though he no longer 
 made use of it himself. Captious, cock- 
 sure, omniscient, he revelled in the uses of 
 raillery and of repartee. Nothing pleased 
 him more than to combat the pet theories 
 of persons whom he had no occasion to 
 conciliate. He could take any side on any 
 question, as became the profession he never 
 ceased from practising. He destroyed il- 
 lusions as other men destroy game, and 
 seldom made a new acquaintance without 
 securing a fair bag. Better traits were a 
 playful fancy and an essential geniality 
 which suggested more of mischief than of 
 malice in the real man ; the pose, however, 
 was that of uncompromising and heartless 
 critic of every creature of his acquaintance, 
 and every country in which he had set 
 foot. 
 
 The first night he had behaved very well. 
 Moya had made him promise that he would 
 not be openly critical for twenty-four hours. 
 He had kept his word like a man and a 
 martyr. The second night was different. 
 
 41
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Theodore was unmuzzled. And both 
 Moya and Rigden were thankful in their 
 hearts. 
 
 Sir Oracle scarce knew where to begin. 
 There were the turkeys which a child could 
 have hit with a pop-gun ; there were the 
 emus which the Queen's Prizeman could 
 not have brought down with his Lee-Met- 
 ford. But Theodore had discovered that 
 there was no medium in the bush. Look 
 at the heat ! He had been through the Red 
 Sea at its worst, but it had not fetched the 
 skin from his hands as this one day in 
 Riverina. Riverina, forsooth ! Where were 
 their rivers? Lucus a non lucendo. 
 
 The storekeeper winked ; he was a 
 humorist himself, of a lower order. 
 
 " No good coming it in Greek up here, 
 mister." 
 
 The jackeroo was the storekeeper's 
 hourly butt. The jackeroo was a new 
 chum who had done pretty badly at his 
 public school, and was going to do worse 
 in the bush, but he still knew Latin from 
 Greek when he heard it, and he perceived 
 his chance of scoring ofif the storekeeper. 
 
 42
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 " Greek is good," said the jackeroo. 
 " Greek is great ! " 
 
 " Ah, now we have it ! " cried the store- 
 keeper, who was a stout young man with 
 bulbous eyes, and all the sly glances of the 
 low comedian. " 'Tis the voice of the 
 scholard, I heard him explain ! He comes 
 from Rugby, Mr. Bethune ; hasn't he told 
 you yet ? Calls himself an Old Rug — sure 
 it isn't a plaid-shawl, Ives? Oh, you needn't 
 put on side because you can draft Greek 
 from Latin ! " 
 
 Ives the jackeroo, a weak youth wearing 
 spectacles, had put on nothing but the long- 
 suffering smile with which he was in the 
 habit of receiving the storekeeper's grape- 
 shot. He said no more, however, and a 
 brief but disdainful silence on the part of 
 Bethune made an awkward pause which 
 Rigden broke heroically. Hitherto but 
 little talking had been required of him or 
 of Moya. The aggressive Theodore had 
 been their unwitting friend, and he stood 
 them in better stead than ever when the 
 young men adjourned to smoke on the 
 verandah. 
 
 43
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 This was the time when the engaged 
 couple would naturally have disappeared ; 
 they had duly done so the previous evening ; 
 to-night they merely sat apart, out of range 
 of the lamp, and the young men galled them 
 both by never glancing their way. Nothing 
 had been noticed yet ; nor indeed was there 
 anything remarkable in their silence after 
 so long a day spent in each other's exclu- 
 sive society. From time to time, however, 
 they made a little talk to save appearances 
 which were incriminating only in their own 
 minds ; and all the time their eyes rested 
 together upon the black stack of logs and 
 corrugated iron which was the store. 
 
 Once the storekeeper approached with 
 discreet deliberation. 
 
 " I've lost my key of the store, Mr. Rig- 
 den ; may I borrow yours ? " 
 
 " It's I who've lost mine, Spicer, so I 
 took yours from your room. No, don't 
 bother about your books to-night ; don't go 
 over there again. Look after Mr. Be- 
 thune." 
 
 He turned to Moya when the youth was 
 gone. 
 
 44
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 " One lie makes many," he muttered 
 grimly. 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 Meanwhile Bethune was in his element, 
 with an audience of two bound to listen to 
 him by the bond of a couple of his best 
 cigars, and with just enough of crude re- 
 taliation from the storekeeper to act as a 
 blunt cutlass to Theodore's rapier. The 
 table with the lamp was at the latter's elbow, 
 and the rays fell full upon the long succes- 
 ful nose and the unwavering mouth of 
 an otherwise rather ordinary legal counte- 
 nance. There was plenty of animation in 
 the face, however, and enough of the devil 
 to redeem a good deal of the prig. The 
 lamp also made the most of a gleaming 
 shirt-front ; for Theodore insisted on 
 dressing ("for my own comfort, purely,") 
 even in the wilderness, where black coats 
 were good enough for the other young 
 men, and where Mora herself wore a high 
 blouse. 
 
 " But there's nothing to be actually 
 ashamed of in an illusion or two," the jack- 
 eroo was being assured, " especially at your 
 
 45
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 age. I've had them myself, and may have 
 one or two about me still. You only know 
 it when you lose them, and my faith in my- 
 self has been rudely shattered. I've shed 
 one thundering big illusion since I've been 
 up here." 
 
 The Rugby boy was not following; he 
 had but expressed a sufificiently real regret 
 at not having gone up to Cambridge him- 
 self; and he was wondering whether he 
 should regret it the less in future for what 
 this Cambridge man had to say upon the 
 subject. On the whole it did not reconcile 
 him to the university of the bush, and for a 
 little he had a deaf ear for the conversation. 
 A question had been asked and answered 
 ere he recovered the thread. 
 
 " Oh, go on," said the storekeeper. 
 " Give the back-blocks a rest, Bethune !" 
 
 " I certainly shall, Mr. Spicer," rejoined 
 Theodore, with the least possible emphasis 
 on the prefix, " once I shake their infernal 
 dust from my shoes. Not that I'd mind 
 the dust if there was anything to do in it. 
 Of course this sort of thing's luxury," he 
 had the grace to interject ; " in fact, it's far 
 
 46
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 too luxurious for me. One rather likes to 
 rough it when one comes so far. Anything 
 for some excitement, some romance, some- 
 thing one can't get nearer home ! " 
 
 " Well, you can't get this," said the loyal 
 storekeeper. 
 
 " I never was at a loss for moonlight," 
 observed Theodore, " when there happened 
 to be a moon. There are verandahs in 
 Toorak." 
 
 Spicer lowered his voice. 
 
 " There was a man once shot dead in this 
 one. Bushrangers ! " 
 
 "When was that?" 
 
 " Oh, well, it was before my time." 
 
 " Ten years ago ? " 
 
 " Ten to twenty, I suppose." 
 
 " Ten to twenty ! Why, my good fellow, 
 there was a blackfellows' camp in Collins 
 Street, twenty years ago! Corrobborees, 
 and all that, where the trams run now." 
 
 " I'm hanged if there were," rejoined 
 Spicer warmly. " Not twenty years ago, 
 no, nor yet thirty ! " 
 
 " Say forty if it makes you happy. It 
 doesn't aflfect my argument. You don't 
 
 47
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 expect me to bolt out of this verandah be- 
 cause some poor devil painted it red before 
 I was breeched? What shall it profit us 
 that there were bushrangers once upon a 
 time, and blacks before the bushrangers? 
 The point is that they're both about as ex- 
 tinct as the plesiosaurus " 
 
 " Kill whose cat ? " interposed the store- 
 keeper in a burst of his peculiar brand of 
 badinage. " He's coming it again, Ives ; 
 you'll have another chance of showing off, 
 old travelling-rug ! " 
 
 " And all you've got to oflfer one instead," 
 concluded Bethune, " besides the subtleties 
 of your own humour, is a so-called turkey 
 the size of a haystack, that'll ram its beak 
 down your gun-barrel if you wait long 
 enough." 
 
 The Rugbeian laughed outright, and 
 Spicer gained time by insulting him while 
 he rummaged his big head for a retort 
 worthy of Bethune ; it was worthier of him- 
 self when it came. 
 
 " You want adventure, do you ? I know 
 the place for you, and its within ten miles 
 of where you sit. Blind Man's Block ! " 
 
 48
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 " Reminds one of the Tower/' yawned 
 Bethune. 
 
 " It'll remind you of your sins if ever you 
 get bushed in it ! Ten by ten of abandoned 
 beastliness ; not a hoof or a drop between 
 the four fences ; only scrub, and scrub, and 
 scrub of the very worst. Mallee and porcu- 
 pine — porcupine and mallee. But you go 
 and sample it; only don't get too far in 
 from the fence. If you do you may turn 
 up your toes ; and you won't be the first or 
 the last to turn 'em up in Blind Man's 
 Block." 
 
 " What of?" asked Bethune sceptically. 
 
 " Thirst," said Spicer ; " thirst and hun- 
 ger, but chiefly thirst." 
 
 " In fenced country ? " 
 
 " It's ten miles between the fences, and 
 not a drop of water, nor the trace of a track. 
 It's abandoned country, I'm telling you." 
 
 " But you could never be more than five 
 miles from a fence ; surely you could hit one 
 or other of them and follow it up? " 
 
 "Could you?" said the storekeeper. 
 " Well, you try it, and let me know ! Try 
 it on horseback, and you'll see what it's like 
 
 49
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 to strike a straight line through mallee and 
 porcupine ; and after that, if you're still 
 hard up for an adventure, just you try it on 
 foot." 
 
 " Don't you, Theodore," advised Rigden 
 from his chair. " I'm not keen on turning 
 out all hands to look for you, old chap." 
 
 " But is the place really as bad as all 
 that ? " inquired Moya, following him into 
 the conversation for the look of the thing. 
 
 " Worse," said Rigden, and leaned for- 
 w^ard, silent. In another moment he had 
 risen, walked to the end of the verandah, 
 and returned as far as Bethune's chair. 
 " Sure you want an adventure, Theodore ? 
 Because the Assyrians are coming down 
 in the shape of the mounted police, and it's 
 the second time they've been here to-day. 
 Looks fishy, doesn't it? " 
 
 Listening, they heard the thin staccato 
 jingle whose first and tiniest tinkle had been 
 caught by Rigden ; then with one accord 
 the party rose, and gathered at the end 
 of the verandah, whence the three black 
 horsemen could be seen ambling into 
 larger sizes, among the tussocks of blue- 
 
 50
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 bush, between the station and the rising 
 moon. 
 
 "What do they want?" idly inquired 
 Bethune. 
 
 " A runaway convict," said Rigden, 
 quietly. 
 
 " No ! " cried Spicer. 
 
 " Is it a fact ? " asked Ives, turning in- 
 stinctively to Miss Bethune. 
 
 " I believe so," replied Moya, with 
 notable indifference. 
 
 " Then why on earth have you been keep- 
 ing it dark, both of you?" demanded Be- 
 thune, and he favoured the engaged couple 
 with a scrutiny too keen for one of them. 
 Moya's eyes fell. But Rigden was equal 
 to the occasion. 
 
 " Because the police don't want it to get 
 about. That's why," said he shortly. 
 
 And Moya admired his resource until she 
 had time to think ; then it revolted her as 
 much as all the rest. But meanwhile the 
 riders were dismounting in the moonlight. 
 Rigden went out to meet them, and forth- 
 with disappeared with Harkness among the 
 pines. 
 
 SI
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " No luck at all," growled the sergeant. 
 " We're clean off the scent, and it licks me 
 how he gave you such a wide berth and us 
 the slip. We can't have been that far be- 
 hind him. None of the other gentlemen 
 came across him, I suppose? " 
 
 " As a matter of fact I've only just men- 
 tioned it to them," replied Rigden, rather 
 lamely. " I thought I'd leave it till you 
 came back. You seemed not to want it to 
 get about, you know." 
 
 " 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 ser- 
 geant's face shone like the silver buttons 
 of the sergeant's tunic. 
 
 " Captain Bovill ! " gasped Rigden, but 
 52
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 only because he felt obliged to gasp some- 
 thing. 
 
 " Not so loud, man ! " implored the ser- 
 geant, 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 al- 
 ways 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 
 53
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 himself behind my back, Mr. Rigden ! " 
 the policeman was obliged to add, with 
 such jocularity as men feign in their dead- 
 liest earnest. 
 
 But Rigden's laugh was genuine and in- 
 voluntary. 
 
 " 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 de- 
 scribe ; if they haven't, no harm done." 
 
 The unprofitable inquiry was conducted 
 in Moya's presence, who abruptly disap- 
 peared, 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 rid- 
 den our cattle ofif 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 
 
 54
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 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 con- 
 spicuously attractive young man, but he 
 had one huge merit. His devotion to Rig- 
 den 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 
 55
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 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 pro- 
 ceeded 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. 
 
 56
 
 Bethune of the Hall 
 
 Only Moya, from her dark but open door 
 on that same verandah, had seen the man- 
 ager 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 lock- 
 ing the door behind him. 
 
 57
 
 V 
 
 A RED HERRING 
 
 D IGDEN 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 moon- 
 light, 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, 
 
 58
 
 A Red Herring 
 
 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 unerr- 
 ingly. 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 oiflcio a quiet beast. 
 
 Rigden wondered whether any man had 
 ever before changed his boots on horse- 
 back. 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 
 
 59
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 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 hah (while the 
 stamping was done under its nose) and to 
 pirouette in fashion that must have aston- 
 ished 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, with- 
 out, 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 
 
 60
 
 A Red Herring 
 
 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 store- 
 keeper'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 him- 
 self for having accepted it. It was rather 
 a menagerie, this storekeeper's room, with 
 these policemen smoking their rank tobac- 
 co. Theodore had offered them his ci- 
 gars, 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 
 
 6i
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 teach him nothing ; he never touched crim- 
 inal 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 some- 
 thing else first." 
 
 " The man? " they all cried as one. 
 
 " No, not the man," said Rigden smiling. 
 "Where's your tracker, sergeant?" 
 
 62
 
 A Red Herring 
 
 " Put him in your travellers' hut, Mr. 
 Rigden." 
 
 " Quite right. I only wanted to ask him 
 something, but I dare say you can tell me 
 as well. Get that track pretty plain before 
 you lost it this afternoon ? " 
 
 "Plain as a pikestafT, didn't we?" said 
 the sergeant to his sub. 
 
 " My oath ! " asseverated the trooper, 
 who was a man of few words. 
 
 " Notice any peculiarity about it, Hark- 
 ness? " 
 
 " Yes," said the sergeant. 
 
 " What ? " pursued Rigden. 
 
 " That," said Harkness ; and he pro- 
 duced a worn heel torn from its sole and 
 uppers. 
 
 " Exactly," said Rigden, nodding. 
 
 The sergeant sprang from the bed. 
 
 " Have you struck his tracks ? " 
 
 "I won't say that," said Rigden. "All 
 I undertake is to show you a distinct track 
 with no left heel to it all down the line. 
 No, I won't shake hands on it. It may lead 
 to nothing." 
 
 All was now excitement in the small 
 63
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 and smoky bedroom. The jackeroo had 
 appeared on the scene from his own room, 
 to which his sensitive soul ever banished 
 him betimes. All were on their feet but 
 BethUne, who retained the only chair, but 
 with eyes like half-sheathed blades, and 
 head at full-cock. 
 
 " Did you follow it up ? " asked the ser- 
 geant. 
 
 " Yes, a bit." 
 
 " Where did you strike it? " 
 
 " I'll tell you what : you shall be escorted 
 to the spot." 
 
 " Um ! " said the sergeant ; " not by all 
 hands, I hope?" 
 
 " By Mr. Spicer and nobody else. I'd 
 come myself, only I've found other fish to 
 fry. Look here, Spicer," continued Rig- 
 den, clapping the storekeeper on the 
 shoulder ; " you know the clay-pans in the 
 horse-paddock? Well, you'll see my 
 tracks there, and you'd better follow them ; 
 there are just one or two of the others ; but 
 on the soft ground you'll see the one as 
 plain as the other. You'll have to cross 
 the fence into Butcher-boy; you'll see 
 
 64
 
 A Red Herring 
 
 where I crossed it. That's our killing- 
 sheep paddock, Harkness ; think your man 
 could kill and eat a sheep? " 
 
 " I could kill and eat you," said the ser- 
 geant cordially, " for the turn you've done 
 me. 
 
 " Thanks ; but you wait and see how it 
 pans out. All I guarantee is that the 
 tracks are there ; how far they go is another 
 matter. I only followed them myself as 
 far as the tank in Butcher-boy. And that 
 reminds me: there'll be a big muster to- 
 morrow, Spicer. The tank in Butcher- 
 boy's as low as low; the Big Bushy tanks 
 always go one worse; we'll muster Big 
 Bushy to-morrow, whether or no. I've 
 been meaning to do it for some time. Be- 
 sides, it'll give you all the freer hand for 
 those tracks, sergeant: we shall be miles 
 apart." 
 
 "That's all right," said the sergeant. 
 " But I should have liked to get on them 
 to-night." 
 
 " The moon's pretty low." 
 
 Harkness looked out, 
 
 " You're right," he said. " We'll give it 
 65
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 best till morning. Come, mate, let's spell 
 it while we can." 
 
 The rest separated forthwith. Bethune 
 bade his future brother-in-law good-night 
 without congratulation or even comment on 
 the discovery of the tracks. Rigden lin- 
 gered a moment with his lieutenants, and 
 then remarked that he had left his coat in 
 the harness-room ; he would go and fetch 
 it, and might be late, as he had letters to 
 write for the mail. 
 
 " Can't I get the coat, sir ? " asked the 
 willing jackeroo. 
 
 Rigden turned upon him with unique 
 irritation. 
 
 " No, you can't ! You can go to bed 
 and be jolly well up in time to do your part 
 to-morrow! It's you I am studying, my 
 good fellow," he made shift to add in a 
 kindlier tone ; " you can't expect to do 
 your work unless you get your sleep. And 
 I want you to round up every hoof in the 
 horse-paddock by sunrise, and after that 
 every man in the hut ! " 
 
 66
 
 VI 
 
 BELOW ZERO 
 
 " IVA AY I come in?" 
 
 It was her brother at Moya's 
 door, and he began to believe she must 
 be asleep after all. Theodore felt ag- 
 grieved ; he wanted speech with Moya 
 before he went to bed. He was about to 
 knock again when the door was opened 
 without a word. There was no light in the 
 room. Yet the girl stood fully dressed in 
 the last level rays of the moon. And she 
 had been crying. 
 
 " Moya ! " 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 " Only to speak to you." 
 
 "What about?" 
 
 " Yourself, to begin with. What's the 
 trouble, my dear girl ? " 
 
 He had entered in spite of her, and yet 
 she was not really sorry that he had come. 
 
 67
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 She had suffered so much in silence that 
 it would be relief to speak about anything 
 to anybody. Theodore was the last per- 
 son in whom she could or would confide. 
 But there was something comfortable in his 
 presence just there and then. She could 
 tell him a little, if she could not tell him 
 all ; and he could tell her something in re- 
 turn. 
 
 She heard him at his match-box, and shut 
 the door herself as he lit the candles. 
 
 " Don't speak loud, then," said Moya. 
 " I — I'd rather they didn't hear us — putting 
 our heads together." 
 
 *' No fear. We've got the main building 
 to ourselves, you and I. Rather consider- 
 ate of Rigden, that." 
 
 Indeed it was the best parlour that had 
 been prepared for Moya, for in your south- 
 ern summers the best parlour of all is the 
 shadiest verandah. Theodore took to the 
 sofa and a cigarette. 
 
 "Do you mind?" he said. "Then do 
 please tell me what's the matter with you, 
 Moya ! " 
 
 " Oh, can't you see? I'm so unhappy ! " 
 68
 
 Below Zero 
 
 Her eyes had filled, but his next words 
 dried them. 
 
 " Had a row with Rigden? " 
 
 And he was leaning forward without his 
 cigarette. 
 
 Moya hated him. 
 
 " Is that all that occurs to you ? " she 
 asked cuttingly. " I'm sorry to disappoint 
 you, I'm sure ! I should have thought 
 even you could have seen there was enough 
 to make one unhappy, without the consum- 
 mation you so devoutly " 
 
 "Good, Moya! That's all right," said 
 her brother, as he might have compli- 
 mented her across the net at lawn-tennis. 
 
 " It's quite unpleasant enough," con- 
 tinued Moya, with spirit, " without your 
 making it worse. The police in possession, 
 and a runaway convict goodness knows 
 where ! " 
 
 " I agree," said Theodore. " It is un- 
 pleasant. I wonder where the beggar can 
 be?" • 
 
 " It's no use asking me," said Moya ; for 
 the note of interrogation had been in his 
 voice. 
 
 69
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " You didn't see any suspicious-looking 
 loafers, I suppose? I mean this after- 
 noon." 
 
 " How could I ? I was with Pelham all 
 the time." 
 
 She would never marry him, never! 
 That was no reason why she should give 
 him away. She would never marry a man 
 with discreditable secrets which she might 
 not share, not because they were discredit- 
 able, but for the other reason. Yet she 
 must be a humbug for his sake ! Moya felt 
 a well-known eye upon her, felt her face 
 bathed in fire ; luckily her explanation itself 
 might account for that, and she had the wit 
 to see this in time. 
 
 " I mean," she stammered, " one was on 
 the verandah all the afternoon. Nobody 
 could have come without our seeing them." 
 
 " I don't know about that. Love is 
 blind ! " 
 
 His tone carried relief to Moya. The 
 irony was characteristic, normal. It struck 
 her as incompatible v/ith any strong sus- 
 picion. But the ground was dangerous all 
 the same. 
 
 70
 
 Below Zero 
 
 " If we are made uncomfortable," said 
 Moya, shifting it, " what must it be for 
 Pelham ! It's on his account I feel so 
 miserable." 
 
 And she spoke the truth; indeed, a 
 truism ; but she would be still more miser- 
 able if she married him. She would never 
 
 miarry a man the haunting sentence 
 
 went for once unfinished. Theodore was 
 favouring her with a peculiar scrutiny 
 whose import she knew of old. She was 
 on her guard just in time. 
 
 " You haven't heard the latest develop- 
 ment, I suppose? " 
 
 " Has there been something fresh since I 
 came away ? " 
 
 And even Theodore did not know that 
 she was holding her breath. 
 
 " Something as fresh as paint," said he 
 dryly. " Rigden thinks he's got on the 
 fellow's tracks." 
 
 Moya had braced herself against any 
 sudden betrayal of alarm ; she was less 
 proof against the inrush of a new contempt 
 for her lover. 
 
 71
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " You don't mean it ! " she cried with 
 indignation. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Theodore blandly. 
 
 " Oh, nothing. Only it's pretty disgrace- 
 ful — on the part of the police, I mean — 
 that they should spend hours looking for 
 what a mere amateur finds at once ! " 
 
 The brother peeped at her from lowered 
 lids. He was admiring her resource. 
 
 " I agree," he said slowly, " if — our 
 friend is right." 
 
 " Whom do you mean ? " inquired Moya, 
 up in arms on the instant. 
 
 " Rigden, of course." 
 
 " So you think he may be mistaken about 
 the tracks, do you ? " 
 
 " I think it's possible." 
 
 " You know a lot about such things 
 yourself, of course ! You have a wide 
 experience of the bush, haven't you ? What 
 do the police think? " 
 
 " They're leaving it till the morning. 
 They hope for the best." 
 
 " So everybody is pleased except my 
 brilliant brother ! I want to know why — I 
 want to know more about these tracks." 
 
 72
 
 Below Zero 
 
 He told her more with unruffled mien ; he 
 rather enjoyed her sarcasm ; it both justified 
 and stimulated his own. Sarcasm he held 
 to be the salt of intercourse. It was cer- 
 tainly a game at which two Bethunes could 
 always play. 
 
 " But we shall see in the morning," con- 
 cluded Theodore. "The heathen is to be put 
 upon the scent at dawn ; if he passes it, well 
 and good." 
 
 " Meanwhile you don't ? " 
 
 " No, I'm hanged if I do," said Theodore, 
 bluntly. 
 
 " Because you haven't been to see?" 
 
 Theodore smiled. 
 
 " Because you wouldn't know a man's 
 track from a monkey's if you went ? " 
 
 Theodore laughed. 
 
 " Why drag in Darwin, my dear girl ? 
 No, I've not been to look, and yet I'm not 
 convinced. I just have my doubts, and a 
 reason or so for them ; then I haven't your 
 admirable ground of belief in the infalli- 
 bility of our host's judgment. He may be 
 mistaken. Mistakes do get made by 
 moonlight. Let's put it at that." 
 
 1Z
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 But Moya knew that he was not putting 
 it at that in his mind, and she made up hers 
 to learn the worst of his suspicions. 
 
 " If the tracks are not his, whose are 
 they ? " she demanded, as though it mat- 
 tered. " If the creature is not somewhere 
 about the run, where is he? " 
 
 And this did matter. 
 
 " If you ask me," said Theodore, with 
 great gravity for him, " I should say that he 
 was within a few yards of us all the time ! " 
 
 "A few yards?" 
 
 " I should say," repeated Theodore, 
 " that he was somewhere about the home- 
 stead, not the run. And you know per- 
 fectly well that you agree ! " 
 
 "I?" • 
 
 She jumped up in a fury. 
 
 " How dare you say that to me ? How 
 dare you, Theodore? " 
 
 " My dear Moya, I'm at a loss to under- 
 stand you ! " and his eyebrows underUned 
 the words into largest capitals. " How 
 on earth have I offended? I'm quite sure 
 that you have the same suspicion — not to 
 call it fear — that I entertain myself. If not, 
 
 74
 
 Below Zero 
 
 why be in such a state? Why not go to 
 bed and to sleep like a rational person ? I 
 confess I don't feel like doing so myself — 
 with the chance of waking up to find an 
 escaped criminal on your chest. I prefer 
 to sit up and keep watch. Tm convinced 
 he's somewhere about ; all these huts afford 
 far better cover than the open paddocks, 
 bless you! He could easily have slipped 
 among them without either of you seeing 
 him, and the chances are he has." 
 
 " If you think that," said Moya, " why 
 didn't you suggest it ? " 
 
 " I did — to Rigden. Wouldn't listen to 
 me ; so, of course, I can't expect you to be 
 so disloyal as to do so either." 
 
 But Moya had no more of that kind of 
 fight in her. " So you intend to sit up and 
 watch ? " was her sole rejoinder. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Then so do I ! " 
 
 Theodore looked dubious, but only for an 
 instant. 
 
 " You begin to think there may be some- 
 thing in my theory? " 
 
 " I think there — may be." 
 75
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 "Then I'll tell you more!" exclaimed 
 Theodore with decision : " I believe the 
 fellow's over yonder in that store ! " 
 
 His eyes were waiting for her face to 
 change. But it changed very little. Moya 
 was beginning to wonder whether her 
 terrible brother did not already know all. 
 One moment she thought he did, the next 
 that he did not ; indifference was creeping 
 over her with the long-drawn strain of the 
 situation. What did it matter if he did 
 know? It would make no difference be- 
 tween her and Pelham. That was at an 
 end, in any case ; all that was at an end for 
 ever. 
 
 Meanwhile she humoured Theodore just 
 a little, particularly in the matter of her 
 sitting up. He begged her not to do so, 
 and she feigned consent. One of his ob- 
 jects in sitting up himself was to secure her 
 safety. He might be wrong in all his con- 
 jectures, and Rigden might be right. Theo- 
 dore was none the less virtuously deter- 
 mined not to give a chance away. 
 
 " And if I am right I'll nab him the mo- 
 ment he shows his nose ; and the credit will 
 
 76
 
 Below Zero 
 
 belong to your humble brother. It isn't 
 as if I hadn't mentioned my general ideas 
 to Rigden ; otherwise it might be rather 
 much to take upon one's self ; but as it is I 
 have no scruples. If nothing happens, I've 
 simply been sleeping on the verandah, be- 
 cause it's cooler there, and that long chair's 
 as good as any bed. Do you mind doing 
 something for me, Moya?" 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " My room's at the back, as you know ; 
 do you mind keeping a look-out while I go 
 round and get into my pyjamas? " 
 
 " No, I don't mind." 
 
 " Particularly on the store, you know." 
 
 " Yes, I know." 
 
 " If anything happens come straight to 
 me, but as quietly as possible." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " I mean if you see anybody." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " But I shan't be many minutes." 
 
 And he was gone. 
 
 At last ! 
 
 Moya flung herself upon the bed, and lay 
 for a few seconds with closed eyes. Her
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 forehead was wondrous white ; the fine eye- 
 brows and the long lashes seemed suddenly 
 to have gone black ; the girl was fainting 
 under the triple strain of fear and shame 
 and outraged love. Yes, she was in love, 
 but she would never marry him. Never! 
 It was the irony of her fate to love a man 
 whom she would rather die than marry, 
 after this ! Yet she loved him none the 
 less ; that was the last humiliation of women 
 whom she had scorned all her days for this 
 very thing, only to become one of them in 
 the end. 
 
 But she at least would never marry the 
 man she loved and yet despised. That 
 would be the only difference, yet a fairly 
 essential one. And now her strength was 
 renewed with her resolve, so that she was 
 up and doing within the few seconds afore- 
 said ; her first act was to blow out the 
 candle ; her next, to open the door an inch 
 and to take her stand at the opening. 
 
 Nor was she much too soon. It was as 
 though Rigden had been only waiting for 
 her light to go out. Within a minute he 
 appeared in the sandy space between the 
 
 78
 
 Below Zero 
 
 main building and the store. He was again 
 wearing the yellow silk dust-coat of which 
 enough has been heard; it was almost all 
 that could be seen of him in the real dark- 
 ness which had fallen with the setting of 
 the moon, 
 
 Moya heard his key in the heavy door 
 opposite. Should she tell him of Theo- 
 dore's suspicions, or should she not? 
 While she hesitated, he let himself in, 
 took out the key, and once more locked 
 the door behind him. Next moment a 
 thread of light appeared upon the thresh- 
 old; and, too late, Moya repented her in- 
 decision. 
 
 Theodore would return, and then 
 
 But for once he was singularly slow; 
 minute followed minute, and there was 
 neither sign nor sound of him. 
 
 And presently the store door opened 
 once more; the figure in the dust-coat 
 emerged as it had entered; and vanished 
 as it had appeared, in the direction of the 
 horse-yard. 
 
 Once more the door was shut ; but, once 
 more, that thread of incriminating light 
 
 79
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 burnt like a red-hot wire beneath. And 
 this time Moya could not see it burn: the 
 red-hot wire had entered her soul. Theo- 
 dore had been so long, he might be longer ; 
 risk it she must, and take the consequences. 
 Two steps carried her across the verandah ; 
 lighter she had never taken in a ball-room, 
 where her reputation was that of a feather. 
 Once in the kindly sand, however, she ran 
 desperately, madly, to the horse-yard. And 
 she was just in time to hear the dying beat 
 of a horse's canter into infinity. 
 
 Then she must inform the wretch himself, 
 the runaway rufhan in the store ! One sob 
 came, and then this quick resolve. 
 
 She gained the store, panting; and in- 
 stinctively tried the door before knocking. 
 To her amazement and alarm it was open. 
 She stood confounded on the threshold, and 
 a head bending over the desk, under the 
 lamp, behind the counter, was suddenly 
 transformed into a face. And it was not 
 the runaway at all ; it was Rigden himself ! 
 
 " I saw you come out ! " she gasped, past 
 recrimination, past anger, past memory 
 itself in the semi-insensibility of over- 
 
 80
 
 Below Zero 
 
 whelming surprise. He looked at her 
 very gravely across the desk. 
 
 " No, that was the man who has wrecked 
 my life," he said. " I've got him through 
 them at last, I do believe." 
 
 And his eyes flashed their unworthy 
 triumph. 
 
 " You could actually give him your 
 horse ! " 
 
 " I wish I could. It would be missed in 
 a minute. No, he's only just to run the 
 gauntlet on it, and I shall find it at the first 
 gate. But what is it, Moya? You came 
 for something?" and he was a miserable 
 man once more. 
 
 " I'm ashamed to say why I came — but 
 I will ! " cried Moya in a low voice. " I did 
 not want you to be found out through my 
 own brother. He suspected the man was 
 in here — I don't know why. He was 
 going to watch the store all night, and I 
 was watching it for him while he changed, 
 and the light under the door " 
 
 Rigden held up his hand. 
 
 "Hush!" he said. "Here is your 
 brother." 
 
 8i
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Theodore was more than decent ; he was 
 positively gorgeous in striped and tasselled 
 silk. He stood in the doorway with ex- 
 pressive eyebrows and eloquent nostrils, 
 looking from Moya to Rigden until his 
 gaze settled upon the latter. It was almost 
 an innocuous gaze by then. 
 
 " So it was you in here," he said. Rig- 
 den nodded. " Do you know who I was 
 ass enough to think it was?" continued 
 Theodore, using a word which Moya 
 had never heard him apply to himself 
 before, even in fun. " Has Moya told 
 you?" 
 
 " She has." 
 
 " I saw the light," said Moya, in elliptical 
 explanation. Theodore continued to ad- 
 dress his host. 
 
 " I oughtn't to have interfered," he said, 
 with a humility which was already arous- 
 ing Moya's suspicions. " I should have 
 minded my own business, Rigden, and I 
 apologise. I'd got it into my head — I 
 can't tell you why. Will you forgive me? 
 And have you any more whisky ? " 
 
 " I've nothing to forgive," said Rigden, 
 82
 
 Below Zero 
 
 sincerely enough. " But a drink we'll have ; 
 that's an excellent idea ! " 
 
 But the counter was between them, and 
 Theodore was the first to leave the store ; 
 but on the threshold he stopped, and just 
 turned to Moya for an instant. 
 
 " By the way, you didn't see anybody 
 else, I suppose? " said he. 
 
 There was an instant's pause. Then 
 Moya committed her sin. 
 
 " Of course I didn't," were the words. 
 
 Theodore strolled over to the verandah. 
 Moya waited behind as in devotion while 
 Rigden locked that fatal door for the last 
 time. 
 
 " You see what you've brought me to ! " 
 she hissed. " But don't think it's because 
 I care a bit what happens to you — once I'm 
 gone. And I hate you for it — and I always 
 shall ! " 
 
 " Thank you," he said. 
 
 And that was all. 
 
 83
 
 VII 
 
 A CAVALIER 
 
 ]\A OYA went to bed like one already in a 
 dream. She smiled when she real- 
 ised what she was doing; there would be 
 no sleep for her that night. Yet she went 
 through with the empty form, even to 
 putting out the light to rest her aching 
 eyes. And in five minutes her troubles 
 ceased for as many hours ; she had passed 
 that pitch of excitement which is another 
 name for insomnia ; she had reached the 
 stage of sheer exhaustion, and she reaped 
 the recompense. 
 
 Spurred feet treading gingerly neverthe- 
 less awoke her towards dawn. It was a 
 bitter awakening. Further sleep was im- 
 possible, further rest intolerable ; besides, 
 something must be done at once. It was 
 an ordeal to face, but sooner or later Theo- 
 dore must be told, and then — good-bye! 
 
 84
 
 A Cavalier 
 
 Obviously the sooner the better, since the 
 thing was settled between the two whom it 
 concerned ; and Moya had the tempera- 
 ment which prefers to precipitate the 
 absolutely inevitable ; but temperament 
 for once was not her lord. It was too 
 hard! 
 
 Character came to the rescue. It must 
 be done. And Moya dressed by candle- 
 light with a craven but a resolute heart. 
 
 Meanwhile the cautious footsteps and the 
 low voices died away ; and the girl found a 
 bare verandah, chill and silent as a vault 
 in the twiHght of early morning, A lamp 
 was burning in the dining-room, but the 
 chairs were pushed back, crusts left, and 
 tea-cups half full. The teapot felt quite 
 heavy ; and Moya took a cup and a bite 
 before going to see whether Theodore was 
 awake. If not, she must wake him, for she 
 could not wait. But his room was deserted ; 
 his very boots were gone ; and the craven 
 heart leapt, for all its resolution. 
 
 Moya returned to the verandah in time 
 to see the new chum, Ives, coming at a 
 canter through the pines. She cut him off 
 
 85
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 at the barracks, where, however, he flung 
 himself from the saddle and almost into 
 her arms. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Miss Bethune ! 
 Forgotten something as usual, you see ! " 
 
 Hurry and worry were behind his smile. 
 Yet Moya had the heart to detain him. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Ives. Where's 
 everybody ? " 
 
 " Gone mustering." 
 
 " Not my brother ? " 
 
 " No ; he's gone with the police." 
 
 " The police." 
 
 " You know, they've gone to follow up 
 some tracks " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know ! " cried Moya. 
 
 So Theodore was hand-in-glove with the 
 enemy ! Not that the police were the 
 enemy at all ; they were only his enemies ; 
 but the fact remained that Theodore was 
 one of them. Very likely he had already 
 made them a present of his suspicions ; 
 nothing likelier, or more fitting, than the 
 exposure of her " lover " through her own 
 brother's agency. It will be seen that her 
 bitterness against one was rapidly embitter- 
 
 86
 
 A Cavalier 
 
 ing Moya's view of all and sundry. She 
 was not original in that. 
 
 " I forgot my water-bag," the jackeroo 
 remarked. " I shall have to gallop to catch 
 them up." 
 
 But he was too polite to move. 
 
 " Must you catch them up ? " inquired 
 Moya, in flattering dumps : but indeed it 
 would be deadly at the station all day, and 
 such a day, without a soul to speak to ! 
 
 " Well, they won't wait for me, because 
 they told me what to do/' said Ives on 
 reflection. 
 
 " And what have you to do ? " asked 
 Moya, smiling. 
 
 " Go down the fence ; it's easiest, you 
 know." 
 
 " But what are you all going to do ? 
 What does this mustering mean ? " 
 
 Ives determined in his own mind to blow 
 the odds. He was not only a gentleman ; 
 he was a young man ; and Miss Bethune 
 should have all the information she wanted 
 and he could give. Ives began to appre- 
 ciate her attractions, and Rigden's good 
 fortune, for the first time as they deserved. 
 
 87
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 It would be another place after the mar- 
 riage. She was a ripper when you got her 
 to yourself. 
 
 Aloud he explained the mustering as 
 though he had the morning to spare. It 
 meant sweeping up all the sheep in a given 
 paddock, either to count them out, or to 
 shift them altogether if feed or water was 
 failing where they were. A big job in any 
 case, but especially so in Big Bushy, which 
 was by far the largest paddock on Eureka ; 
 it was seven miles by seven. 
 
 " And do you generally go mustering 
 at a night's notice ? " 
 
 " No, as a rule we know about it for days 
 before ; but last night the boss — I beg your 
 pardon " 
 
 "What for?" said Moya. "I like to 
 hear him called that." 
 
 And she would have liked it, she hardly 
 knew why. But he was not her boss, and 
 never would be. 
 
 " Thanks awfully. Well, then, the boss 
 found a tank lower than he expected in 
 Butcher-boy, that's the killing-sheep pad- 
 dock, and it's next door to Big Bushy, 
 
 88
 
 A Cavalier 
 
 which is stocked with our very best. If the 
 tanks were low in Butcher-boy, they might 
 be lower still in Big Bushy " 
 
 "Why?" asked Moya, Hke a good 
 Bethune. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ; only the boss seemed 
 to think so ; and of course it wouldn't do to 
 let our best sheep bog. So we've got to 
 shift every hoof into Westwells, where 
 there's the best water on the run." 
 
 Moya said no more. This seemed gen- 
 uine. Only she was suspicious now of 
 every move of Rigden's ; she could not 
 help it. 
 
 " And why must you have a water-bag? " 
 she asked, for asking's sake. 
 
 " Oh, we never go without one in this 
 heat. The boss won't let us. So of course 
 I went and forgot mine. I'm no good in 
 the bush. Miss Bethune ! " 
 
 "Not even at mustering?" asked sym- 
 pathetic Moya. 
 
 " Why, Miss Bethune, that's the hardest 
 thing of the lot, and it's where I'm least 
 use. It's my sight," said the young fellow 
 ruefully ; " I'm as blind as a mole. You 
 
 89
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 ought to be able to see sheep at three miles, 
 but I can't swear to them at three hundred 
 yards." 
 
 " That's a drawback," said Moya, look- 
 ing thoughtfully at the lad. 
 
 " It is," sighed he. " Then I haven't a 
 dog, when I do see 'em ; altogether it's no 
 sinecure for me, though they do give me 
 the fence; and — and I'm afraid I really 
 ought to be making a start. Miss Bethune." 
 
 The outward eye of Moya was still fixed 
 upon him, but what it really saw was her- 
 self upon that lonely verandah all day long 
 — waiting for the next nice development 
 — and waiting alone. 
 
 " I have excellent eyes," she observed at 
 length. 
 
 " To say the least ! " cried her cavalier. 
 
 " I meant for practical purposes," re- 
 joined Moya, with severity. " I'm sure 
 that I could see sheep at three miles." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder," said he enviously. 
 
 " And I see you have a spare horse in the 
 yard." 
 
 " Yes, in case of accidents." 
 
 " And I know you have a lady's saddle." 
 90
 
 A Cavalier 
 
 " It was got for you." 
 
 Moya winced, but her desire was un- 
 diminished. 
 
 " I mean to be the accident, Mr. Ives," 
 said she. 
 
 "And come mustering?" he cried. 
 " And be my — my " 
 
 " The very eyes of you," said Moya, 
 nodding. " I shall be ready in three min- 
 utes ! " 
 
 And she left him staring, and bereft of 
 breath, but flushed as much with pleasure 
 as with the rosy glow of the Riverina sun- 
 rise which fell upon him even as she spoke ; 
 she was on the verandah before he re- 
 covered his self-possession. 
 
 " Your horse '11 be ready in two ! " he 
 bawled, and rushed to make good his word. 
 Moya had to remind him of the water-bag 
 after all. 
 
 First and last she had not delayed him so 
 very long, and the red blob of a sun was 
 but clear of the horizon when they obtained 
 their first unimpeded view of it. This was 
 when they looked back from the gate lead- 
 ing into Butcher-boy : the homestead pines 
 
 91
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 still ran deep into the red, and an ink-pot 
 would still have yielded their hue. 
 
 In Butcher-boy, which was three miles 
 across, there was nothing for them to do 
 but to ride after their shadows and to talk 
 as they rode, neck and neck, along the 
 fluted yellow ribbon miscalled a road, be- 
 tween tufts of sea-green saltbush and far- 
 away clumps of trees. 
 
 " I wish I wasn't such a dufifer in the 
 bush," said Ives, resolved to make the most 
 of the first lady he had met for months. 
 " The rum thing is that I'm frightfully 
 keen on the life." 
 
 " Are you really ? " queried Moya, and 
 she was interested on her own account, for 
 what might have been. 
 
 " Honestly," said Ives, " though I begin 
 to see it isn't the life for me. The whole 
 thing appeals to one, somehow ; getting up 
 in the middle of the night (though it was an 
 awful bore), running up the horses (though 
 I can't even crack a stock-whip), and just 
 now the station trees against the sunrise. 
 It's so open and fresh and free, and unlike 
 everything else ; it gets at me to the core ; 
 
 92
 
 A Cavalier 
 
 but, of course, they don't give me my 
 rations for that." 
 
 " Should you really Hke to spend all your 
 days here ? " 
 
 " No ; but I shouldn't be surprised if I 
 were to spend half my nights here for the 
 term of my natural life ! I shall come back 
 to these paddocks in my dreams. I can't 
 tell why, but I feel it in my bones ; it's the 
 light, the smell, the extraordinary sense of 
 space, and all the little things as well. The 
 dust and scuttle of the sheep when two or 
 three are gathered together ; it's really 
 beastly, but I shall smell it and hear it till 
 I die." 
 
 Moya glanced sidelong at her com- 
 panion, and all was enthusiasm behind the 
 dusty spectacles. There was something in 
 this new chum after all. Moya wondered 
 what. 
 
 " You're not going to stick to it, then ? " 
 
 Ives laughed. 
 
 " I'm afraid it won't stick to me. I can't 
 see sheep, I'm no real good with horses, and 
 I couldn't even keep the station books ; the 
 owner said my education had been sadly 
 
 93
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 neglected (one for Rugby, that was !) when 
 he was up here the other day. It's only 
 through Mr. Rigden's good-nature that I'm 
 hanging on, and because — I — can't — tear 
 myself away." 
 
 " And what do you think of doing event- 
 ually?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. I shall go home 
 again, I suppose ; I only came out for the 
 voyage. After that, goodness knows; I 
 was no real use at school either." 
 
 Insensibly the rocking-chair canter of the 
 bush horses had lapsed into the equally easy 
 amble which is well-nigh their one alterna- 
 tive ; and the shadows were shortening, and 
 the back of the neck and the ears were 
 beginning to burn. The jackeroo was 
 sweeping the horizon for pure inexplicable 
 delight in its dirty greens and yellows ; but 
 had quite forgotten that he ought already 
 to have been scouring it for sheep. 
 
 " And so the boss is good-natured, is 
 he ? " said Moya, she could not have told 
 herself why ; for she would not have ad- 
 mitted that it could afford her any further 
 satisfaction to hear his praises. 
 
 94
 
 A Cavalier 
 
 " Good-natured ? " cried the jackeroo. 
 " He's all that and much more ; there's 
 not a grander or a straighter chap in 
 Riverina, and we all swear by him ; but — 
 well, he is the boss, and let's you know 
 it." 
 
 A masterful man ; and Moya had wanted 
 her master all these years ! She asked no 
 more questions, and they rode a space in 
 silence, Ives glancing sidelong in his turn, 
 and in his heart congratulating Rigden 
 more and more. 
 
 " By Jove," he cried at last, " I think I 
 shall have to get you to use your influence 
 on my behalf! " 
 
 " For what ? " asked Moya, wincing 
 again. 
 
 " Another chance ! They mustn't give 
 me the sack just yet — I must be here when 
 you come. It's the one thing we need — a 
 lady. It's the one thing he needs to make 
 him as nearly perfect as it's comfortable for 
 other people for a man to be. And I sim- 
 ply must be here to see." 
 
 " Let's canter," said Moya. The blood 
 came rushing to his face. 
 
 95
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " I apologise," he cried. " It was horrid 
 cheek of me, I know ! " 
 
 Moya's reassuring smile was all kindly, 
 and not all forced ; indeed, the tears were 
 very close to the surface, and she could not 
 trust herself to say much. 
 
 " Not cheek at all," was what she did say, 
 with vigour. " Only — you'll change your 
 mind." 
 
 With that her eyes glistened for an in- 
 stant ; and young Ives loved her himself. 
 But neither of them was sorry when an- 
 other gate grew large above the horses' ears, 
 with posts and wires dwindling into per- 
 spective on either side to mark the east- 
 ern frontier of Big Bushy. 
 
 96
 
 VIII 
 
 THE KIND OF LIFE 
 
 " MOW what do we do, Mr. Ives? " 
 
 He had shut the gate and joined 
 her on a sandy eminence, whence Moya 
 was seeking to prove the excellence of her 
 eyesight at the very outset. But the pad- 
 dock had not got its name for nothing; it 
 was overrun with the sombre scrub, short 
 and thick as lichen on a rock ; and from the 
 open spaces no sheep swam into Moya's 
 ken. 
 
 "Turn sharp to the left, and follow the 
 fence," replied the jackeroo. 
 
 " But I can't see a solitary sheep ! " 
 " No, because you're looking slap into 
 the paddock; that's the ground the others 
 are going over, and they've already cleared 
 it as far as we can see for the scrub. Each 
 man takes his own line of country from this 
 gate to the one opposite — seven miles away 
 
 97
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 — and collects every hoof on the way. My 
 line is the left-hand fence. Got to keep it 
 in sight, and drive everything down it, and 
 right round to the gate." 
 
 " Well, my line is yours," said Moya, 
 smiling; and they struck ofif together from 
 the track. 
 
 " It's the long way round, but we can't 
 miss it," said Ives ; " all we have to do is to 
 hug the fence. Slightly inglorious, but I'd 
 rather that than make a fool of myself in 
 the middle." 
 
 " Is it so very difficult to ride straight 
 through the bush ? " 
 
 " The most difficult thing in the world. 
 Why, only the other week " 
 
 " I see some! " 
 
 The girl was pointing with her riding- 
 switch, to make other use of it next instant. 
 Her mount, a shaggy-looking roan mare, 
 as yet imperfectly appreciated by Moya, 
 proved unexpectedly open to persuasion, 
 and found her gallop in a stride. Ives 
 followed, though he could see nothing but 
 sand and saltbush in the direction indi- 
 cated. Sheep there were, however, and 
 
 98
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 a fair mob of them, whose behaviour was 
 worthy of their kind. In all docility they 
 stood until the last instant, then broke into 
 senseless stampede, with the horses at their 
 stubby tails. 
 
 " Round them up," cried Ives, " but look 
 out! That mare can turn in her own 
 length, and will when they do ! " 
 
 The warning was timely to the very 
 second : almost simultaneously the sheep 
 doubled, and round spun both horses as in 
 the air. Moya jerked and swayed, but 
 kept her seat. Ives headed the mob for 
 the fence, and for the moment the nonsense 
 was out of them. 
 
 " Bravo, Miss Bethune ! " said he. 
 " You'll make a better bushman than ever 
 I should." 
 
 Moya clouded Uke an April sky; the 
 instant before she had been deliciously 
 flushed and excited. Her companion, 
 however, was happily intent upon his 
 sheep. 
 
 " That's the way to start," he said, " with 
 fifty or sixty at one swoop ; you can work 
 a mob like that; it's the five or six that 
 
 99
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 give the trouble. I have reason to know! 
 There's a corner of one of the paddocks in 
 our South Block where a few of the dufTers 
 have a meet every morning, just because 
 there's some water they can smell across 
 the fence ; won't draw to their own water 
 at the opposite corner of their own pad- 
 dock, not they ! No, there they'd stick and 
 die of thirst if one of us wasn't sent to rout 
 them out. It was my billet every day last 
 week, and a tougher one I never want. 
 One time there was less than half a dozen 
 of 'em : think of driving five weak sheep 
 through eight or nine miles of scrub with- 
 out a dog! It would be ten miles if I fol- 
 lowed both fences religiously ; but I'm 
 getting so that I can cut ofif a pretty fair 
 corner. Yes, it's pretty hard graft, as 
 they say up here, a day like that ; but your 
 water-bag holds nectar, while it lasts; and 
 may your wedding-cake taste as good as 
 the bit of browny under a pine. Miss 
 Bethune ! " 
 
 " What's browny? " asked Moya hastily. 
 
 " Raisins and baking-powder," said Ives, 
 with a laugh ; " but I've got enough for 
 
 100
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 two in my pocket, so you shall sample it 
 whenever you like. By the way, aren't you 
 thirsty yet ? " 
 
 Moya was. 
 
 " It's the dust from the sheep, which you 
 profess to relish, Mr. Ives." 
 
 " Only because it's like no other dust," 
 explained the connoisseur. " And water- 
 bag water's like no other kind." 
 , The canvas bag was wet and heavy as he 
 detached it from the saddle and handed it 
 to Moya after drawing the cork from the 
 glass mouthpiece ; and from the latter 
 Moya drank as to the manner born, the 
 moist bag shrinking visibly between her 
 hands. 
 
 " Steady ! " cried Ives, " or we shall 
 perish of thirst before we strike the gate. 
 Well, what do you think of it ? " 
 
 " A little canvassy, but I never tasted 
 anything cooler, or more delicious," said 
 Moya in all sincerity, for already the sun 
 was high, and the dry heat of it stupendous. 
 
 The jackeroo sighed as he replaced the 
 cork after a very modest sip. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, " I wish we were taking 
 lOI
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 sheep to water in the paddock I was telling 
 you about ! Long before you get to their 
 water, you strike a covered-in tank, that is 
 if you cut off your corner properly and hit 
 the other fence in the right place. It's 
 really more like a well, without much water 
 in it, but with a rope and a bucket with 
 a hole in it. That bucket's the thing! You 
 fill it a bumper, but it runs out faster than 
 it comes up, and you're lucky if you can 
 pour a wineglassful into the crown of your 
 hat ; but that wineglassful's sweeter than 
 the last drop from the bag; it's sweeter 
 than honey from the honeycomb, and I 
 shall say so all my life ! " 
 
 The boy's enthusiasm was very hard on 
 Moya. It pricked every impression deep 
 in her heart for ever; she caught the con- 
 tagion of his acute receptivity, upon which 
 the veriest trifles stamped themselves with 
 indelible definition ; and it was the same 
 with her. She felt that she should never 
 quite lose the sharp sensations of this one 
 day of real bush life, her first and her last. 
 
 Down the fence they fell in with frequent 
 stragglers, and the mob absorbed them in 
 
 102
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 its sweep ; then Moya made a sortie to 
 the right, and Ives lost sight of her through 
 the cloud of dust in which she rode, till the 
 beat of hoofs came back with a scuttle of 
 trotters, and the mob was swollen by a 
 score at least, and the thickening cloud 
 pierced by Moya radiant with success. 
 Her habit was powdered as with sullen 
 gold, and the brown gold streamed in 
 strands from her adorable head. Ives wor- 
 shipped her across the yellow gulf between 
 their horses. 
 
 "Where's the dog?" she asked. "I'm 
 certain that I heard one barking." 
 
 He turned his head and she heard it again, 
 while the lagging rearguard broke into a 
 run. 
 
 " Yet you say you are no bushman ! " 
 remonstrated Moya. " No wonder you 
 can do without a four-wheeled dog ! " 
 
 " It's my one worthy accomplishment," 
 said the barker, modestly ; " picked it up in 
 that other paddock ; simply dumb with it, 
 sometimes, when I strike the covered-in 
 well I was telling you about. But here we 
 are at the corner ; there's a seven-mile fence 
 
 103
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 to travel now, and then as much again as 
 we've done already. Sure you can stand it, 
 Miss Bethune ? " 
 
 " Is there any water on the way, if we 
 run short ? " queried Moya. 
 
 Ives considered. 
 
 " Well, there's an abandoned whim in the 
 far corner, at the end of this fence ; the 
 hut's a ruin, but the four-hundred-gallon 
 tank belonging to it was left good for the 
 sake of anybody who might turn up 
 thirsty. Of course it may be empty, but 
 we'll see." 
 
 " We'll chance it, Mr. Ives, and have 
 another drink now ! " 
 
 For it was nearing noon, and beyond the 
 reek of the travelling mob, now some 
 couple of hundred strong, the lower air 
 quivered as though molten metal lay cooling 
 in the sand. Moya had long since peeled 
 off her riding gloves, and already the backs 
 of her hands were dreadfully inflamed. 
 But the day would be her first and last in 
 the real bush ; she would see it through. 
 She never felt inclined to turn back but 
 once, and that was when a sheep fell gasp- 
 
 104
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 ing by the way, its eyes glazed and the 
 rattle in its neck. Moya insisted on the 
 remnant of water being poured down its 
 throat and the tears were on her cheeks 
 when they rounded up the mob once 
 more, leaving a carcass behind them after 
 all, and the blue crows settling on the 
 fence. 
 
 Otherwise the seven miles were unevent- 
 fuh travelling ; for even Moya's eyes dis- 
 cerned few more sheep on their side of the 
 wires ; and beyond these, to the left, was 
 the long and ragged edge of a forest so 
 dense (though low) that Moya, riding with 
 Ives at the tail of the mob, said it was no 
 wonder there were no sheep at all on the 
 other side. 
 
 " Oh, but that's not Eureka over there," 
 explained Ives ; " that's the worst bit of 
 country in the whole of Riverina. No one 
 will take it up ; it's simply fenced in by the 
 fences of the blocks all round." 
 
 Moya asked what it was called. The 
 name seemed familiar to her. It was Blind 
 Man's Block. 
 
 " Ah ! I know," she said presently, sup- 
 105
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 pressing a sigh. " I heard them speaking 
 of it on the verandah last night." 
 
 " Yes, Spicer was advising your brother 
 to sample it if he wanted an adventure ; but 
 don't you let him, Miss Bethune. I wouldn't 
 lose sight of the fence in Blind Man's Block 
 for all I'm ever likely to be worth: there 
 was a man's skeleton found there just be- 
 fore I came, and goodness knows how 
 many there are that never will be found. 
 Aha! there's the whim at last. I'm jolly 
 glad ! " 
 
 " So am I," said Moya, with a little 
 shudder ; and she fixed her eyes upon some 
 bold black timbers that cut the sky like a 
 scafTold a mile or two ahead ; yet more than 
 once her eyes returned to the line of dingy 
 scrub across the fence to the left, as if 
 fascinated by its sinister repute. 
 
 " We must bustle them along, by Jove ! " 
 exclaimed Ives, and he yelped and barked 
 with immediate effect. " You can't do 
 more than a couple of miles an hour with 
 sheep ; and at that rate we shan't be at the 
 gate much before three o'clock ; for I see 
 that it's already close upon one." 
 
 io6 
 
 #'
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 " But how do you see it ? " asked Moya 
 curiously. " I've never seen you look at a 
 watch." 
 
 Ives smiled, for he had led up to the 
 question, and was about to show off in yet 
 another branch of the bushman's craft 
 which even he had succeeded in mastering. 
 
 " The fences are my watch," said he ; 
 " they happen to run due east and west and 
 north and south on this station. This one 
 is north and south. So at noon the shad- 
 ows of the posts lie exactly under the wires : 
 put your head between 'em, and when the 
 bottom wire bisects the shadow it's as near 
 noon as you would make it with a quadrant 
 and sextant. The rest comes by practice. 
 Another dodge is to put a stick plumb in 
 the ground and watch when the shadow is 
 shortest ; that's your meridian." 
 
 " Yet you say you are no good in the 
 bush ! " 
 
 " I have two of the unnecessary qualifi- 
 cations, Miss Bethune, and I've taken care 
 to let you see them both," laughed the open 
 youth. " My only other merit as a bush- 
 man is a good rule which I am sorry to say 
 
 107
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 I've broken through talking to you. I 
 always have my lunch at twelve under the 
 biggest tree in sight. And I think we shall 
 find something in that pine-ridge within a 
 cooee on the right." 
 
 But they could not find shade for two, 
 and Moya voted the pine-tree a poor 
 parasol ; whereupon her companion showed 
 off still further by squatting under the very 
 girths of his horse, but once more spoilt 
 his own effect by confessing that they 
 gave him the quietest horse on the station. 
 So the two of them'divided bread and meat 
 and " browny " for one, of which last Moya 
 expressed approval ; but not until she was 
 asked ; for she was not herself during this 
 interval of inaction, or rather she was her- 
 self once more. Care indeed had ridden 
 behind her all the morning; but now the 
 black imp was back before her troubled eyes, 
 and for the moment they saw nothing else. 
 But Ives began to see and to wonder what in 
 the world it could be. She was engaged to 
 one of the best of good fellows. She took 
 to the bush as to her proper element, and 
 but now had seemed enchanted with her 
 
 io8
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 foretaste of the life. Why then the grim 
 contour of so sweet a face, the indignant 
 defiance in the brooding eyes? Ives 
 thought and thought until his youthful 
 egoism assumed the blame, and shot him 
 from his precarious shelter, all anxiety and 
 remorse. 
 
 " What a brute I am ! You're simply 
 perishing of thirst I " 
 
 Moya coloured, but had the wit to accept 
 his construction. 
 
 " Well, it isn't your fault, at any rate, 
 Mr. Ives." 
 
 " But I might have ridden on and filled 
 the bag; there's certain to be something 
 in the tank at the hut." 
 
 " Then let's ride on together." 
 
 " No, you ride ahead and fill the water- 
 bag. It'll save time. Miss Bethune, be- 
 cause I can be cutting off the corner with 
 the mob." 
 
 But the mob had first to be rounded up, 
 for it had split and scattered, and over a 
 square mile every inch of shade was covered 
 by a crouching fleece. The mounted Ives 
 made a circuit with his patent yelp, and 
 
 109
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 each tuft and bush shook out its pure 
 merino. It was harder work to head them 
 off the fence at an angle of forty-five, and 
 to aim for the other fence before a post of 
 it was discernible by near-sighted eyes. 
 Ives was too busy to follow Moya's excur- 
 sion, but was not less delighted than 
 amazed at the speed with which she re- 
 turned from the hut. 
 
 " Good riding. Miss Bethune ! A drink, 
 a drink, my kingdom " 
 
 Moya's face stopped him. 
 
 " I'm sorry to say I've got nothing for 
 you to drink, Mr. Ives." 
 
 Ives licked the roof of his mouthy but 
 tried to be heroic. 
 
 " Well, have you had some yourself?" 
 
 " No. I — the fact is I couldn't see the 
 tank." 
 
 " Not see the tank ! Why, you ought to 
 be able to see it from here ; no, it's on the 
 other side ; give me the bag!" 
 
 " What for ?" asked Moya, more startled 
 than he saw. 
 
 " I'll go this time. You stay with the 
 sheep." 
 
 no
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 " But what's the good of going if the tank 
 has been removed? If I couldn't see it I'm 
 sure you can't," said Moya bluntly. 
 
 " Did you ride right up ?" 
 
 " Of course I did." 
 
 And Moya smiled. 
 
 " Well, at all events there's the whim- 
 water. It's rather brackish " 
 
 " Thank you," said Moya, smiling still. 
 
 " But I thought you were knocked up 
 with thirst? I am, I can tell you. And 
 it's only rather salt — that's why we've given 
 up using that whim — but it's not salt 
 enough to make you dotty!" 
 
 Moya maintained the kindly demeanour 
 which she had put on with her smile ; it 
 cost her an efifort, however. 
 
 " Go on your own account, by all means," 
 said she ; " but not on mine, for I shan't 
 touch a drop. I'm really not so thirsty as 
 you suppose ; let me set you an example of 
 endurance, Mr. Ives !" 
 
 That was enough for him. He was spur- 
 ring and yelping round his mob next 
 moment. But Moya did not watch him ; 
 she had turned in her saddle to take a last 
 
 III
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 look at the black hieroglyph of a whim, 
 with the little iron roof blazing beside it in 
 the sun. She even shaded her eyes with 
 one sunburnt hand, as if to assure herself 
 that she had made no mistake. 
 
 " So the whim is abandoned, and the hut 
 unoccupied ?" 
 
 " Yes, ever since Mr. Rigden has been 
 manager. I hear it was one of his first im- 
 provements." 
 
 They had struck the farther fence, and 
 the mob was well in hand along the wires. 
 Moya and the jackeroo were ambling 
 leisurely behind, and nothing could have 
 been more natural than Moya's ques- 
 tions. 
 
 " And the hut is unoccupied ?" was her 
 next. 
 
 " Quite ; as a matter of fact, it's unfit for 
 occupation." 
 
 " Yet you wanted me to drink the water !" 
 
 " That might have been all right ; besides 
 any water's better than none when you're 
 as thirsty as I thought you were." 
 
 Moya said no more about her thirst ; it 
 was intolerable; but they must be getting 
 
 112
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 near the gate at last. She was silent for a 
 time, a time of imaginative torment, for her 
 mind ran on the latter end of such sufferings 
 as she was only beginning to endure. She 
 was just uncomfortable enough to have a 
 dreadful inkling of the stages between dis- 
 comfort and death. 
 
 " It's a pity not to use the hut," she said 
 at length. 
 
 " I believe it was more bother than the 
 class of water was worth," returned Ives. 
 " Yes, now I think of it, I remember hearing 
 that they couldn't get men to stay there. 
 Blind Man's Block used to give them the 
 creeps. They're frightfully superstitious, 
 these back-blockers !" 
 
 " I'm not surprised," said Moya, with a 
 shudder. " I never want to see Blind Man's 
 Block again, or the hut either." 
 
 " But you will, you know !" the jackeroo 
 reminded her. And that put an end to the 
 conversation. 
 
 Over a thousand sheep were at the gate 
 waiting for them, with half a dozen horses 
 and as many men. Of course Ives was the 
 last to arrive with his mob, but the goodly 
 
 "3
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 numbers of the latter combined with the 
 amazing apparition of Moya to save her 
 friend from the reprimand he seldom failed 
 to earn. Rigden came galloping to meet 
 them, and for both men's sake Moya treated 
 him prettily enough in front of Ives. Even 
 through that day's coat of red, Rigden 
 glowed, and told Ives that he should make 
 something of him yet. His water-bag was 
 not quite empty, and Moya had enough to 
 make her long for more as she cantered 
 with the bag to Ives, who had forged dis- 
 creetly ahead. 
 
 " Don't let him know we went so long 
 without, Mr.' Ives !" 
 
 And his cracked lips were sealed upon 
 the subject. 
 
 " Of course you cut ofif the corner, and 
 didn't go right round by the hut?" said 
 Rigden, riding up ; and the jackeroo felt 
 justified in speaking strictly for himself; 
 and thought it so like Miss Bethune not to 
 compromise him by saying how near to the 
 hut they had been : for Moya said nothing 
 at all. 
 
 " And now you shall see a count-out," 
 
 J14
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 cried Rigden, in better spirits than ever, " as 
 soon as we've boxed the mobs." 
 
 " Boxed them!" cried Moya. " Where?" 
 
 " Joined them, I mean. To think of your 
 coming mustering of your own accord, 
 Moya!" 
 
 His voice had fallen; she did not lower 
 hers. 
 
 " It's one of the most interesting days I 
 even had," she informed all within hear- 
 ing ; " now let me see the end of it, and I'll 
 go back happy." 
 
 The adjective was not convincing, but 
 Rigden would not let it dishearten him. 
 The very fact of her presence was the end 
 of his despair. 
 
 " I met one of our rabbiters, and arranged 
 for tea at his tent," he said. " He little ex- 
 pects a lady, but you'll have to come." 
 
 The prospect had material attractions 
 which Moya was much too honest to deny. 
 " Then make haste and count I" was what 
 she said. 
 
 And that followed which appealed to 
 Moya more than all that had gone before. 
 The gate gaped wide, and Rigden on foot 
 
 115
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 put his back to one post. The rest kept 
 their saddles, and began gently rounding 
 up the mob, till it formed a pear-shaped 
 island of consolidated wool, with the head- 
 land stretching almost to Rigden's feet. 
 He turned and beckoned to the jackeroo. 
 
 " Tally, Ives !" 
 
 " Tally, sir," the jackeroo rejoined, and 
 urged his horse to the front. He had 
 managed to drift back to Moya's side, to 
 ensure her complete appreciation of a 
 manoeuvre he deHghted in, but at the word 
 of command he was gone without a glance, 
 and visible responsibility settled on his 
 rigid shoulders. 
 
 Real dogs kept the mob together, but the 
 head stood stubborn at the gate, with none 
 to lead the way till Rigden touched the fore- 
 most fleece with his toe and the race began. 
 Slowly and singly at the start, as the first 
 grains slip through the hour-glass; by 
 wondering twos and threes, as the reluctant 
 leaders were seen alive and well in the far- 
 ther paddock ; thereafter by the dozen 
 abreast, so far as the ordinary eye could 
 judge; but Rigden was the only one that 
 
 ii6
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 knew, as he stood in the gateway, beating 
 time to the stampede with raised forefinger, 
 and nodding it with bent head. 
 
 " Hundred !" he called after the first half- 
 minute, and " hundred ! " in quarter of a 
 minute more, while Ives raised a hand each 
 time and played five-finger exercises with 
 the other hand upon his thigh. At the same 
 time Rigden vanished in a yellow cloud, 
 whence his voice came quicker and thicker, 
 crying hundred after hundred above the 
 dull din of a scuffling and scuttling as of a 
 myriad mice heard through a microphone. 
 And the dusty fleeces disappeared on one 
 side of the cloud to reappear on the other 
 until all were through. 
 
 " And seventy-two !" concluded Rigden 
 hoarsely. " How many, Ives ?" 
 
 " Two thousand one hundred and sev- 
 enty-two," replied the jackeroo promptly. 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 " Certain, sir." 
 
 " And so am I," said Moya, riding for- 
 ward, " for I kept tally too. Yes, the hun- 
 dreds are all right ; but nothing will con- 
 vince me that they were hundreds ; you 
 
 117
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 might as well count the falling drops in a 
 shower!" 
 
 Rigden smiled as he wiped the yellow de- 
 posit from his scarlet face. 
 
 " I may be one per cent, out," said he ; 
 " but if I'm more I deserve the sack." 
 
 So Moya allowed that it was the most 
 marvellous performance her own eyes had 
 ever seen ; and these were full of an un- 
 conscious admiration for Rigden and his 
 prowess ; but Rigden was conscious of it, 
 and his chin lifted, and his jaw set, and his 
 burnt face glowed again. 
 
 Two of the musterers were told ofif to 
 take the sheep to their new tank, for their 
 own dust had set them bleating for a drink ; 
 the rest lit their pipes and turned their 
 horses' heads for home ; but Ives was in- 
 structed to stop at the rabbiter's camp and 
 tell him whom to expect. 
 
 " It would be unfair to spring you on the 
 poor chap," said Rigden to Moya. 
 
 Ives also had a last word to say to her, 
 though he had to say it before the boss. 
 
 " That was something to see, wasn't it, 
 Miss Bethune ? Doesn't it make you keener 
 
 ii8
 
 The Kind of Life 
 
 than ever on the bush? Or isn't that pos- 
 sible ?" 
 
 And he took off his wideawake as he shot 
 ahead ; but Rigden and Moya rode on to- 
 gether without speaking. 
 
 119
 
 IX 
 
 PAX IN BELLO 
 
 T N happier circumstances the rabbiter's 
 camp would have had less charm for 
 Moya. Its strings of rabbit-skins would 
 have offended two senses, and she would 
 have objected openly to its nondescript 
 dogs. The tent among the trees would 
 never have struck Moya as a covetable 
 asylum, while the rabbiter himself, on his 
 haunches over the fire, could not have 
 failed to impress her as a horrid old man 
 and nothing else. He was certainly very 
 ragged, and dirty, and hot ; and he never 
 said " sir," or " miss," or " glad to see you." 
 Yet he could cook a chop to the fraction of 
 a turn ; and Moya could eat it off his own 
 tin platter, and drink tea by the pint out 
 of a battered pannikin, with no milk in it, 
 but more brown sugar than enough. The 
 tea, indeed, she went so far as to commend 
 in perfectly sincere superlatives. 
 
 1 20
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 " Oh, the tea's not so dusty," said the 
 rabbiter grimly ; " it didn't ought to be at 
 the price you charge for it in your store, 
 mister ! But the tea don't matter so much ; 
 it's the water's the thing; and what's the 
 matter with the water in these here tanks, 
 that you should go shifting all your sheep, 
 Mr. Rigden ? " 
 
 This was obviously Rigden's business, 
 and Moya, pricking an involuntary ear, 
 thought that he might have said so in as 
 many words. But Rigden knew his type, 
 and precisely when and in what measure to 
 ignore its good-humoured effrontery. 
 
 " It's the sort of thing to do in time, or 
 not at all," said he. " You catch me wait till 
 my sheep begin to bog!" 
 
 " Bog!" cried the rabbiter. " Who said 
 they were beginning to bog? I tell you 
 there's tons of good water in this here tank ; 
 you come and look !" 
 
 And he made as if to lead the way to the 
 long yellow hp of excavation that showed 
 through the clump. But Rigden shook his 
 head and smiled, under two scrutinies ; and 
 this time he did not say that he knew his 
 
 121
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 own business best ; but his manner be- 
 trayed no annoyance. 
 
 Moya, however, contrived to obtain a 
 glimpse of the water as they rode away. It 
 looked cool and plentiful in the slanting sun- 
 light — a rippling parallelogram flecked with 
 gold. There was very little mud about the 
 margin. 
 
 " So it is quite an event, this mustering?" 
 
 The question had been carefully con- 
 sidered over a mile or so of lengthening 
 shadows, with the cool hand of evening on 
 their brows already. It was intended to 
 lead up to another question, which, how- 
 ever, Rigden's reply was so fortunate as to 
 defer. 
 
 " Oh, it's nothing to some of our other 
 functions," said he. 
 
 And Moya experienced such a twinge of 
 jealousy that she was compelled to ask what 
 those functions were ; otherwise she would 
 never know. 
 
 " First and foremost there's the shearing; 
 if this interests you, I wonder what you'll 
 think of that?" speculated Rigden, exactly 
 as though they had no quarrel. " It's the 
 
 122
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 thing to see," he continued, with deliberate 
 enthusiasm : " it means mustering the whole 
 run, that does, and travelling mob after mob 
 to the shed ; and then the drafting ; that's 
 another thing for you to see, though it's 
 nothing to the scene in the shed. But it's 
 no good telling you about that till you've 
 seen the shed itself. We shore thirty-eight 
 thousand last year. I was over the board 
 myself. Two dozen shearers and a round 
 dozen rouseabouts " 
 
 " I'm afraid it's Greek to me," interrupted 
 Moya dryly ; but she wished it was not. 
 
 " — and no swearing allowed in the shed ; 
 half-a-crown fine each time; that very old 
 ruffian who gave us tea just now said it was 
 a lapsus lingua when I fined him! You 
 never know what they've been, not even the 
 roughest of them. But to come back to the 
 shed : no smoking except at given times when 
 they all knock off for quarter-of-an-hour, 
 and the cook's boy comes down the board 
 with pannikins of tea and shearers' buns. 
 Oh, they take good care of themselves, these 
 chaps, I can tell you ; give their cook half- 
 a-crown a week per head, and see he earns 
 
 12^
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 it. Then there's a couple of wool-pressers, 
 a wool-sorter from Geelong, Ives branding 
 the bales, Spicer seeing the drays loaded 
 and keeping general tally, and the boss of 
 the shed with his eye on everything and 
 everybody. Oh, yes, a great sight for 
 you — your first shearing !" 
 
 Moya shook her head without speaking, 
 but Rigden was silenced at last. He had 
 rattled on and on with the hope of reawa- 
 kening her enthusiasm first, then her sym- 
 pathy, then — but no ! He could not keep it 
 up unaided ; he must have some encourage- 
 ment, and she gave him none. He relapsed 
 into silence, but presently proposed a can- 
 ter. And this brought Moya to her point 
 at last. 
 
 " Cantering won't help us," she cried ; 
 " do let's be frank ! It's partly my fault for 
 beating about the bush ; it set you off talk- 
 ing against time, and you know it. But we 
 aren't anywhere near the station yet, and 
 there's one thing you are going to tell me 
 before we get there. Why did you move 
 those sheep ?" 
 
 Rigden was taken aback. 
 124
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 "You heard me tell that rabbiter/' he 
 replied at length. 
 
 " But not the. truth," said Moya bluntly. 
 " You know you don't usually have these 
 musters at a moment's notice ; you know 
 there was no occasion for one to-day. Do 
 let us have the truth in this one instance — 
 that — that I may think a little better of you, 
 Pelham !" 
 
 It was the first time that she had called 
 him by any name since the very beginning 
 of their quarrel. And her voice had 
 softened. And for one instant her hand 
 stretched across and lay upon his arm. 
 
 " Very well !" he said brusquely. " It was 
 to cover up some tracks." 
 
 " Thank you," said Moya ; and her tone 
 surprised him, it was so free from irony, so 
 earnest, so convincing in its simple sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 " Why do you thank me ? " he asked sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 " I Hke to be trusted," she said. " And 
 I like to be told the truth." 
 
 " If only you would trust me !" he cried 
 from his heart. " From the first I have told 
 
 125
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 you all I could, and only asked you to be- 
 lieve that I was acting for the best in all the 
 rest. That I can say: according to my 
 lights I am still acting for the best. I 
 may have done wrong legally, but morally 
 I have not. I have simply sheltered and 
 shielded a fellow creature who has already 
 suffered out of all proportion to his fault ; 
 but I admit that I have done the thing 
 thoroughly. Yes, I'll be frank with you 
 there. I gave him a start last night on my 
 own horse, as indeed you know. I laid a 
 false scent first ; then I arranged this muster 
 simply and solely to destroy the real scent. 
 I don't know that it was necessary ; but I 
 do know that neither the police nor any- 
 body else will ever get on his tracks in Big 
 Bushy ; there has been too much stock over 
 the same ground since." 
 
 There was a grim sort of triumph in 
 his tone, which Moya came near to shar- 
 ing in her heart. She felt that she could 
 and would share it, if only he would tell 
 her all. 
 
 "Why keep him in Big Bushy?" she 
 quietly inquired. 
 
 126
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 " Keep him there ?" reiterated Rigden. 
 " Who's doing so, Moya?" 
 
 " I don't know ; but he was there this 
 morning." 
 
 "This morning?" 
 
 " Yes, in the hut. I saw him." 
 
 " You saw him in the hut ? The fool !" 
 cried Rigden. " So he let you see him ! 
 Did you speak to him ?" 
 
 " No, thank you," said Moya, with un- 
 affected disgust. " I was riding up to see 
 whether there was any water at the hut. I 
 turned my horse straight round, and did 
 without." 
 
 " And didn't Ives see him?" 
 
 " No, he was with the sheep ; when I 
 joined him and said I could see no tank, 
 which was perfectly true, he wanted to go 
 back for the water himself." 
 
 She stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I wouldn't let him," said Moya. 
 " That's all." 
 
 She rode on without glancing on either 
 hand. Dusk had fallen ; there were no 
 more shadows. The sun had set behind 
 
 127
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 them ; but Moya still felt the glow she could 
 not see ; and it was in like manner that she 
 was aware also of Rigden's long gaze. 
 
 " The second time," he said softly at last. 
 
 " The second time what ?" 
 
 This tone was sharp. 
 
 " That you've come to my rescue, Moya." 
 
 " That I've descended to your level, you 
 mean!" 
 
 He caught her rein angrily. 
 
 " You've no right to say that without 
 knowing!" 
 
 " Whose fault is it that I don't know ?" 
 
 He loosed her rein and caught her hand 
 instead, and held it against all resistance. 
 Yet Moya did not resist. He hurt her, and 
 she welcomed the pain. 
 
 " Moya, I would tell you this moment if I 
 thought it would be for your good and 
 mine. It wouldn't — so why should I? It 
 is something that you would never, never 
 forgive ! " 
 
 " You mean the secret of the man's hold 
 upon you?" 
 
 " Yes," he said, after a pause. 
 
 " You are wrong," said Moya, quickly. 
 128
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 " It shows how Httle you know me ! I could 
 forgive anything — anything — that is past 
 and over. Anything but your refusal to 
 trust me . . . when as you say your- 
 self ... I have twice over . . ." 
 
 She was shaking in her saddle, in a fit of 
 suppressed sobbing the more violent for its 
 very silence. In the deep gloaming it might 
 have been an ague that had seized her ; but 
 some tears fell upon his hand holding hers ; 
 and next moment that arm was round her 
 waist. Luckily the horses were tired out. 
 And so for a little her head lav on his 
 
 ml 
 
 shoulder as though there were no space be- 
 tween, the while he whispered in her ear 
 with all the eloquence he possessed, and all 
 the passion she desired. 
 
 In this she must trust him, else indeed let 
 her never trust him with her life ! But she 
 would — she would ? Surely one secret with- 
 held was not to part them for all time ! 
 And she loved the place after all, he could 
 see that she loved it, nor did she deny it 
 when he paused ; she would love the life, he 
 saw that too, and again there was no denial. 
 They had been so happy yesterday ! They 
 
 129
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 could be so happy all their lives ! But for 
 that it was not necessary that they should 
 tell each other everything. It was not as if 
 he was going to question her right to have 
 and to keep secrets of her own. She was 
 welcome to as many as ever she liked. He 
 happened to know, for example (as a matter 
 of fact, it was notorious), that he was not 
 the first man whom she had fancied she 
 cared about. But did he ask questions 
 about the others? Well, then, she should 
 remember that in his favour. And yet — 
 and yet — she had stood nobly by him in 
 spite of all her feelings ! And yes, she had 
 earned the right to know more — to know all 
 — when he remembered that he was risking 
 his liberty and her happiness, and that she 
 had countenanced the risk in her own de- 
 spite ! Ah, if only he were sure of her and 
 her forgiveness ; if only he were sure ! 
 
 " You talk as though you had committed 
 some crime yourself," said Moya ; " well, I 
 don't care if you have, so long as you tell me 
 all about it. There is nothing I wouldn't 
 forgive — nothing upon earth — except such 
 secrets from the girl you profess to love." 
 
 130
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 She had got rid of his arm some time 
 before this, but their hands were still joined 
 in the deepening twilight, until at this he 
 dropped hers suddenly. 
 
 " Profess ! " he echoed. " Profess, do 
 I? You know better than that, at all 
 events! Upon my soul I've a good mind 
 to tell you after that, and chance the con- 
 sequences ! " 
 
 His anger charmed her, as the anger of 
 the right man should charm the right 
 woman. And this time it was she who 
 sought his hand. 
 
 " Then tell me now," she whispered. 
 " And you shall see how you have mis- 
 judged me." 
 
 It was hard on Moya that he was not 
 listening, for she had used no such tone 
 towards him these four-and-twenty hours. 
 And listening he was, but to another sound 
 which reached her also in the pause. It was 
 the thud and jingle of approaching horse- 
 men. Another minute and the white trap- 
 pings of the mounted police showed 
 through the dusk. 
 
 " That you, Mr. Rigden ?" said a queer 
 131
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 voice for the sergeant. " Can you give us 
 a word, please? " 
 
 Rigden had but time to glance at Moya. 
 
 " I'll ride on slowly," she said at once ; 
 and she rode on the better part of a mile, 
 leaving the way entirely to her good bush 
 steed. At last there was quite a thunder of 
 overtaking hoofs, and Rigden reined up be- 
 side her, with the sergeant not far behind. 
 Moya looked round, and the sergeant was 
 without his men, at tactful range. 
 
 "Do they guess anything?" whispered 
 Moya. 
 
 " Not they !" 
 
 " Sure the others haven't gone on to 
 scour Big Bushy ?" 
 
 " No, only to cross it on their way back. 
 They've given it up, Moya! The sergeant's 
 just coming back for dinner." 
 
 His tone had been more triumphant be- 
 fore his triumph was certain, but Moya did 
 not notice this. 
 
 " I'm so glad," she whispered, half mis- 
 chievously, and caught his hand under 
 cloud of early night. 
 
 "Are you?" said Rigden, wistfully. 
 132
 
 Pax in Bello 
 
 "Then I suppose you'll say you're glad 
 about something else. You won't be when 
 the time comes ! But now it's all over you 
 shall have your way, Moya; come for a 
 stroll after dinner, and I'll tell you — every 
 — single — thing ! " 
 
 133
 
 THE TRUTH BY INCHES 
 
 f TK told her with his back against the 
 gate leading into Butcher-boy. Moya 
 heard him and stood still. Behind her rose 
 the station pines, and through the pines 
 peeped hut and house, in shadow below, but 
 with each particular roof like a clean table- 
 cloth in the glare of the risen moon. A high 
 light or so showed in the verandah under- 
 neath ; this was Bethune's shirt-front, that 
 the sergeant's breeches, and those transi- 
 tory red-hot pin-heads their cigars. Rigden 
 had superb sight. He could see all this at 
 something like a furlong's range. Yet all 
 that he did see was Moya with the moon 
 upon her, a feathery and white silhouette, 
 edged with a greater whiteness, and 
 crowned as with gold. 
 
 " Your father !" 
 
 " Yes, I am his son and heir." 
 134
 
 The Truth by Inches 
 
 Her tone was low with grief and horror, 
 but his was unintentionally sardonic. It 
 jarred upon the woman, and reacted against 
 the man. Moya's first feeling had been 
 undefiled by self; but in an instant her 
 tears were poisoned at their fount. 
 
 " And you told me your father was 
 dead!" 
 
 The new note was one of the eternal scale 
 between man and woman. It was the note 
 of unbridled reproach. 
 
 " Never in so many words, I think," said 
 Rigden, unfortunately. 
 
 " In so many words !" echoed Moya, but 
 the sneer was her last. " I hate such con- 
 temptible distinctions !" she cried out hon- 
 estly. " Better have cheated me wholesale, 
 as you did the police ; there was something 
 thorough about that." 
 
 " And I hope that you can now see some 
 excuse for it," rejoined Rigden with more 
 point. 
 
 " For that, yes !" cried Moya at once. 
 " Oh, dear, yes, no one can blame you for 
 screening your poor father. I forgive you 
 for cheating the police — it would have been 
 
 135
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 unnatural not to — but I never, never shall 
 forgive you for what was unnatural — cheat- 
 ing me." 
 
 Rigden took a sharper tone. 
 
 " You are too fond of that word," said he, 
 " and I object to it as between me and you." 
 
 " You have earned it, though I" 
 
 " I deny it. I simply held my tongue 
 about a tragedy in my own family which 
 you could gain nothing by knowing. There 
 was no cheating in that." 
 
 " I disagree with you !" said Moya very 
 hotly, but he went on as though she had not 
 spoken. 
 
 " You speak as though I had hushed up 
 something in my own life. Can't you see 
 the difference? He was convicted under 
 another name ; it was a thing nobody knew 
 but ourselves ; nobody need ever have 
 known. Or so I thought," he ended in a 
 wretched voice. 
 
 But Moya was outwardly unmoved. 
 
 " All the more reason why you should 
 have told me, and trusted me," she in- 
 sisted. 
 
 " God knows I thought of it ! But I knew 
 136
 
 The Truth by Inches 
 
 the difference it would make. And I was 
 right ! " 
 
 It was his turn to be bitter, and Moya's 
 to regain complete control. 
 
 " So you think it's that that makes the 
 difference now?" 
 
 " Of course it is." 
 
 " Would you believe me if I assured you 
 ■ it was not ?" 
 
 " No ; you might think so ; but I know." 
 
 " You know singularly little about 
 women," said Moya after a pause. 
 
 And her tone shook him. But he said 
 that he could only judge by the way she 
 had taken it now. 
 
 There was another pause, in which the 
 proud girl wrestled with her pride. But at 
 last she told him he was very dull. And she 
 drew a little nearer, with the ghost of other 
 looks behind her tears. 
 
 But the high moon just missed her face. 
 
 And Rigden was very dull indeed. 
 
 " You had better tell me everything, and 
 give me a chance," she said dryly. 
 
 " What's the use, when the mere fact is 
 enough ?" 
 
 1.37
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " I never said it was." 
 
 " Oh, Moya, but you know it must be. 
 Think of your people !" 
 
 " Why should I ?" 
 
 " They will have to know." 
 
 " I don't see it." 
 
 " Ah, but they will," said Rigden, with 
 dire conviction. And though the change in 
 Moya was now apparent even to him, it 
 wrought no answering change in Rigden; 
 on the contrary, he fell into a brown study, 
 with dull eyes fixed no longer upon Moya, 
 but on the high lights in the verandah far 
 away. 
 
 "There's so little to tell," he said at 
 length. " It was a runaway match, and a 
 desperately bad bargain for my dear mother, 
 yet by no means the unhappy marriage you 
 would suppose. I have that from her own 
 dear lips, and I don't think it so extraor- 
 dinary as I did once. A bad man may 
 still be the one man for a good woman, and 
 make her happier than the best of good fel- 
 lows ; it was so in their case. My father was 
 and is a bad man ; there's no mincing the 
 matter. I've stood by him for what he is 
 
 138
 
 The Truth by Inches 
 
 to me, not for what he is in himself, for he 
 has gone from bad to worse, like most 
 prisoners. He was in trouble when he mar- 
 ried my mother; the police were on his 
 tracks even then : they came out here under 
 a false name." 
 
 "And your name?" asked Moya, perti- 
 nently yet not unkindly; indeed she was 
 standing close beside him now. 
 
 " That is not false," said Rigden. " My 
 mother used it from the time of her trouble. 
 She would not bring me up under an alias ; 
 but she took care not to let his people or 
 hers get wind of her existence ; never wrote 
 them a line in her poorest days, though her 
 people would have taken her back — without 
 him. That wouldn't do for my mother. Yet 
 nothing else was possible. He was sent to 
 the hulks for life." 
 
 Moya's face, turned to the light at last, 
 was shining Hke the moon itself; and the 
 tears in her eyes were tears of enthusiasm, 
 almost of pride. 
 
 " It was fine of her !" she said, and caught 
 his hand. 
 
 " She was fine," he answered simply. Yet 
 139
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Moya's hand had no effect. He looked at it 
 wistfully, but let it go without an answering 
 clasp. And the girl's pride bled again. 
 
 She hardly heard his story after that. 
 Yet it was a story to hear. The villain had 
 not been a villain of the meaner dye, but 
 one of parts, courage among them. 
 
 " There have been no bushrangers in 
 your time," said Rigden ; " but you may 
 have heard of them ?" 
 
 " I remember all about the Kellys," said 
 honest Moya. " I'm not so young as all 
 that." 
 
 " Did you ever hear of Captain Bovill ?" 
 " I know the name, nothing more." 
 " I am glad of that," said Rigden, grimly. 
 " It is the name by which my unhappy 
 father is going down to Australian history 
 as one of its most notorious criminals. The 
 gold-fields were the beginning of the end 
 of him, as of many a better man ; he could 
 not get enough out of his claim, so he took 
 it from an escort under arms. There was a 
 whole band of them, and they were all taken 
 at last ; but it was not the last of Captain 
 Bovill. You have seen the old hulk 
 
 140
 
 The Truth by Inches 
 
 SuccessF He was one of the prisoners who 
 seized the launch and killed a warder and a 
 sailor between them ; he was one of those 
 sentenced to death and afterwards re- 
 prieved. That was in '56; the next year 
 they murdered the Inspector-General ; and 
 he was tried for that with fifteen others, but 
 he got off with his neck. He only spoilt his 
 last chance of legal freedom in this life ; so 
 he tried to escape again and again ; and at 
 last he has succeeded!" 
 
 The son's tone was little in keeping with 
 his acts, but the incongruity was very 
 human. There was Moya beside him in the 
 moonlight, but for the last time, whatever 
 she might say or think ! And her mind was 
 working visibly. 
 
 " Why didn't the police say who it was 
 they were after?" she cried of a sudden; 
 and the blame was back in her voice, for she 
 had found new shoulders for it. 
 
 Rigden smiled sadly. 
 
 " Don't you see? " he said. " Don't you 
 remember what Harkness said at the start 
 about my fellows harbouring him ? But he 
 told me that evening — to think that it was 
 
 141
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 only last night ! — as a great secret and a 
 tremendous piece of news. The fact is that 
 my unhappy father was more than notori- 
 ous in his day ; he was popular ; and popu- 
 lar sympathy has been the bugbear of the 
 police ever since the Kellys. Not that he 
 has much sympathy for me !" cried Rigden 
 all at once. " Not that I'm acting alto- 
 gether from a sense of filial duty, however 
 mistaken ; no, you shan't run away with 
 any false ideas. It was one for him and two 
 for myself! He had the whip-hand of me, 
 and let me know it ; if I gave him away, he'd 
 have given me !" 
 
 " If only you had let him ! If only you 
 had trusted me," sighed Moya once more. 
 " But you do now, don't you — dear? " 
 
 And she touched his coat, for she could 
 not risk the repulse of his hand, though her 
 words went so far — so very far for Moya. 
 
 " It's too late now," he said. 
 
 But it was incredible ! Even now he 
 seemed not to see her hand — hers ! Vanity 
 invaded her once more, and her gates stood 
 open to the least and meanest of the beset- 
 ting host. She make advances to him, to the 
 
 142
 
 The Truth by Inches 
 
 convict's son ! What would her people say ? 
 What would Toorak say? What would 
 she not say herself — to herself — of herself — 
 after this nig-htmare night? 
 
 And all because (but certainly for the 
 second time) he had taken no notice of her 
 hand! 
 
 When found, however, Moya's voice was 
 as cold as her heart was hot. 
 
 " Oh, very well ! It is certainly too late if 
 you wish it to be so, and in any case now. 
 But may I ask why you are so keen to save 
 me the trouble of saying so?" 
 
 Rigden looked past her towards the sta- 
 tion, and there were no more high lights in 
 the verandah ; but elsewhere there were 
 voices, and the champing of a bit. 
 
 " If you go back now," he said, " you 
 will just be in time to hear." 
 
 " Thank you. I prefer to have it here, 
 and from you." 
 
 Rigden shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Then I am no longer a free agent. I am 
 here on parole. I am under arrest." 
 
 " Nonsense !" 
 
 " I am, though : harbouring the fugitive ! 
 143
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 They can't put salt on him, so they have 
 
 on me." 
 
 Moya stood looking at him in a long 
 silence, but only hardening as she looked : 
 patience, pity and understanding had gone 
 like so many masts, by the board, and the 
 wreckage in her heart closed it finally 
 against him in the very hour of his more 
 complete disaster. 
 
 " And how long have you known this ?" 
 she inquired stonily, though the answer was 
 obvious to her mind. 
 
 " Ever since we met them on our ride 
 home. They showed me their warrant then. 
 The trooper had done thirty miles for it 
 this afternoon. They wanted to take me 
 straight away. But I persuaded Harkness 
 to come back to dinner and return with me 
 later without fuss." 
 
 " Yet you couldn't say one word to me !" 
 
 " Not just then. Where was the point ? 
 But I arranged with Harkness to tell you 
 now. And by all my gods I've told you 
 everything there is to tell, Moya ! " 
 
 " You should have told me this first. But 
 you tell nothing till you are forced ! I might 
 
 144
 
 The Truth by Inches 
 
 have known you were keeping the worst up 
 your sleeve ! I shouldn't be surprised if the 
 very worst were still to come ! " 
 
 "It's coming now," said Rigden, bitterly ; 
 " it's coming from you, in the most miser- 
 able hour of all my existence ; you must 
 make it worse ! How was I to know the 
 other wouldn't be enough for you? How 
 do I know now ? " 
 
 " Thank you," said Moya, a knife in her 
 heart, but another in her tongue. 
 
 The voices drew nearer through the 
 pines ; there was Harkness mounted, with a 
 led horse, and Theodore Bethune on foot. 
 Rigden turned abruptly to the girl. 
 
 " There are just two more things to be 
 said. None of them know where he is, and 
 none of them know my motive. You're in 
 both secrets. You'd better keep them — 
 unless you want Toorak to know who it was 
 you were engaged to." 
 
 The rest followed without a word. It 
 might have been a scene in a play without 
 words, and indeed the moon chalked the 
 faces of the players, and the Riverina 
 crickets supplied the music with an orches- 
 
 145
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 tra some millions strong. The clink of a 
 boot in a stirrup, a thud in the saddle, 
 another clink upon the off side ; and Rigden 
 lifting his wideawake as he rode after Hark- 
 ness through the gate ; and Bethune hold- 
 ing the gate open, shutting it after them, 
 and taking Moya's arm as she stood like 
 Lot's wife in the moonlight. 
 
 146
 
 XI 
 
 BETHUNE V. BETHUNE 
 
 (( 
 
 T DON'T want to rub things in, or to 
 make things worse," said Theodore, 
 kindly enough, as they approached the 
 house ; " but we shall have to talk about 
 them, for all that, Moya." 
 
 " I'm ready," was the quick reply. " I'll 
 talk till daylight as long as you won't let 
 me think ! " 
 
 " That's the right child ! " purred her 
 brother. " Come to my room ; it's the least 
 bit more remote ; and these youths are hold- 
 ing indignation meetings on their own ac- 
 count. Ah ! here's one of them." 
 
 Spicer had stepped down from the 
 verandah with truculent stride. 
 
 " A word with you, Bethune," said he, 
 brusquely. 
 
 " Thanks, but I'm engaged to my sister 
 for this dance," replied the airy Theodore. 
 
 147
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Moya could not stand his tone. Also she 
 heard young Ives turning the horses out 
 for the night, and an inspiration seized her 
 by the heels. 
 
 " No, for the next," said she ; " I want to 
 speak to Mr. Ives." 
 
 And she flew to the horse-yard, where the 
 slip-rails were down, and Ives shooing horse 
 after horse across them Hke the incurable 
 new chum he was. 
 
 " Wait a moment, Mr. Ives. Don't have 
 me trampled to death just yet." 
 
 "Miss Bethune!" 
 
 And the top rail was up again. But it 
 was not her presence that surprised him. 
 It was her tone. 
 
 " A dreadful ending to our day, Mr. 
 Ives ! " 
 
 " I'm glad to hear you say that," cried the 
 boy, with all his enthusiasm ; " to our day, 
 if you like, but that's all ! This is the most 
 infernally unjust and high-handed action 
 that ever was taken by the police of any 
 country ! Iniquitous — scandalous ! But 
 it won't hold water ; these squatters are no 
 fools, and every beak in the district's a 
 
 148
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 squatter; they'll see Rigden through, and 
 we'll have him back before any of the hands 
 know a word of what's up." 
 
 " But don't they know already ? " 
 
 " Not they ; trust us for that ! Why, even 
 Mrs. Duncan has no idea why he's gone. 
 But we shall have him back this time to- 
 morrow, never you fear, Miss Bethune ! " 
 
 " How far is it to the police-barracks, 
 Mr. Ives?" 
 
 " Well, it's fourteen miles to our bound- 
 ary, and that's not quite half-way." 
 
 " Then they won't be there before mid- 
 night. Is it the way we went this morning, 
 Mr. Ives?" 
 
 " Yes ; he's going over the same ground, 
 poor chap, in different company. But he'll 
 come galloping back to-morrow, you take 
 my word for it ! " 
 
 Ives leant with folded arms upon the 
 restored rail. The animals already turned 
 out hugged the horse-yard fence wistfully. 
 The lucky remnant were licking the last 
 grains of chafT from the bin. Moya drew 
 nearer to the rail. 
 
 " Mr. Ives ! " 
 
 149
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 "Miss Bethune?" 
 
 " Would you do a favour for me ? " 
 
 " Would I not ! " 
 
 " And say nothing about it afterwards ? " 
 
 " You try me." 
 
 " Then leave a horse that I can ride — and 
 saddle — in the yard to-night ! " 
 
 Ives was embarrassed. 
 
 " With pleasure," said he, with nothing 
 of the sort — and began hedging in the same 
 breath. " But — but look here, I say, Miss 
 Bethune! You're never going all that 
 way " 
 
 " Of course I'm not, and if I do it won't 
 be before morning, only first thing then, 
 before the horses are run up. And I don't 
 want you, or anybody, least of all my 
 brother, to come with me, or have the least 
 idea where I've gone, or that I've gone any- 
 where at all. See? I'm perfectly well able 
 to take care of myself, Mr. Ives. Can I 
 trust you? " 
 
 " Of course you can, but " 
 
 " No advice — please — dear Mr. Ives ! " 
 
 It was Moya at her sweetest, with the 
 moon all over her. She wondered at the 
 
 150
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 time how she forced that smile; but it 
 gained her point. 
 
 "Very well," he sighed; "your 
 blood " 
 
 " I shan't lose one drop," said Moya 
 brightly. " And no more questions? " 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 "And no tellings?" 
 
 " Miss Bethune ! " 
 
 " Forgive me," said Moya. " I'm more 
 than satisfied. And you're — the — dearest 
 young man in the bush, Mr. Ives ! " 
 
 The jackeroo swept his wideawake to 
 
 * 
 
 the earth. 
 
 " And you're the greatest girl in the 
 world, though I were to be drawn and quar- 
 tered for saying so i " 
 
 Moya returned to the house with pensive 
 gait. She was not overwhelmed with a 
 present sense of her alleged greatness. On 
 the contrary, she had seldom felt so small 
 and petty. But she could make amends ; 
 at least she could try. 
 
 Horse-yard and house were not very far 
 apart, but some of the lesser buildings in- 
 tervened, and Moya had been too full of 
 
 151
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 her own sudden ideas to lend an ear to any 
 or aug-ht but Ives and his repHes. So she 
 had missed a word or two which it was just 
 as well for her to miss, and more even than 
 a word. She did notice, however, that Mr. 
 Spicer turned his back as she passed him in 
 the verandah. And she found Theodore 
 dabbing his knuckles in his bedroom. 
 
 " What's the matter ? What have you 
 done?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing." 
 
 But tone and look alike betokened some 
 new achievement : they were self-satisfied 
 even for Bethune of the Hall. 
 
 " Tell me," demanded Moya. 
 
 " Well, if you want to know, I've been 
 teaching one of your back-blockers (yours 
 no more, praises be !) a bit of a lesson. Our 
 friend Spicer. Very offensive to me all day ; 
 seemed to think I was inspiring the police. 
 Just now he surpassed himself; wanted me 
 to take off my coat and go behind the pines ; 
 in other words to fight." 
 
 "And wouldn't you?" 
 
 " Not exactly. Take off my coat to 
 him ! " 
 
 152
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 " So what did you do ? " 
 
 " Knocked him down as I stood." 
 
 "You didn't!" 
 
 " Very well. Ask Mr. Spicer. I'm sorry 
 for the chap ; he meant well ; and I admire 
 his pluck." 
 
 "What did he do?" 
 
 " Got up and went for me bald-headed." 
 
 " And you knocked him down again ? " 
 
 "No," said Theodore, "that time I 
 knocked him out." 
 
 And he took a cigarette from his silver 
 case, while Moya regarded him with almost 
 as much admiration as disgust, and more of 
 surprise than of either. 
 
 " I didn't know this was one of your 
 accomplishments," said she at length. 
 
 " Aha ! " puffed Theodore ; " nor was it, 
 once upon a time. But there's a certain 
 old prize-fighter at a place called Trumping- 
 ton, and he taught me the most useful thing 
 I learnt up at Cambridge. The poetic 
 justice of it is that I * read ' with him, so 
 to speak, with a view to these very bush 
 bullies and up-country larrikins. They're 
 too free with their tongues when they're 
 
 153
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 in a good temper, and with their fists when 
 they're not. I suffered from them in early 
 youth, Moya, but I don't fancy I shall suffer 
 any more." 
 
 Moya was not so sure. She caught her- 
 self matching Theodore and another in her 
 mind, and was not ashamed of the side she 
 took. It made no difference to her own 
 quarrel with the imaginary champion ; 
 nothing could or should alter that. But 
 perhaps she had been ungenerous. He 
 seemed to think so. She would show him 
 she was neither ungenerous, nor a coward, 
 before she was done. And after that the 
 deluge. 
 
 Hereabouts Moya caught Theodore 
 watching her, a penny for her thoughts in 
 either eye. In an instant she had ceased 
 being disingenuous with herself, and was 
 hating him heartily for having triumphed 
 over an adherent of Rigden, however mis- 
 taken ; in another she was sharing that ad- 
 herent's suspicions ; in a third, expressing 
 them. 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Spicer was 
 quite right ! " 
 
 154
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 " In accusing me of inspiring the 
 police ? " 
 
 " You suspected the truth last night. Oh, 
 I saw through all that ; we won't discuss it. 
 And why should you keep your suspicions 
 to yourself? " 
 
 Bethune blew a delicate cloud. 
 
 " One or two absurd little reasons : be- 
 cause I was staying in his house ; because 
 you were engaged to him ; because, in spite 
 of all temptations, one does one's poor best 
 to remain more or less a gentleman." 
 
 " Then why did you go with the police- 
 men?" 
 
 " To see what happened. I don't honestly 
 remember making a single comment, much 
 less the least suggestion ; if I did it was in- 
 voluntary, for I went upon the clear under- 
 standing with myself that I must say noth- 
 ing, whatever I might think. I was a mere 
 spectator — immensely interested — fasci- 
 nated, in fact — but as close as wax, if you'll 
 believe me." 
 
 Moya did believe him. She knew the 
 family faults ; they were bounded by the 
 family virtues, and double-dealing was not 
 
 155
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 within the pale. And Moya felt interested 
 herself; she wished to hear on what pre- 
 text Rigden had been arrested; she had 
 already heard that it was slender. 
 
 " Tell me what happened." 
 
 Theodore was nothing loth : indeed his 
 day in the bush had been better than 
 Moya's, more exciting and unusual, yet 
 every whit as typical in its way. Spicer 
 had led them straight to the clay-pans 
 where Rigden had struck his alleged trail, 
 and there sure enough they had found it. 
 
 " I confess I could see nothing myself 
 when the tracker first got off; but half a 
 glance was enough for him ; and on he went 
 like a blood-hound, with his black muzzle 
 close to the ground, the rest of us keeping a 
 bit behind and well on one side. Presently 
 there's a foot-print I can see for myself, then 
 more that I simply couldn't, then another 
 plain one; and this time Billy— they're 
 all called Billy— simply jumped with joy. 
 At least I thought it was with joy, till I saw 
 him pointing from his own marks to the 
 others, and shaking his black head. Both 
 prints were about the same depth. 
 
 156
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 "'Him stamp,' says Billy. 'What for 
 him stamp ? ' 
 
 " But we pushed on and came to some 
 soft ground where any white fool could 
 have run down the tracks ; and presently 
 they brought us to a fence, which we crossed 
 by strapping down the wires and leading 
 our horses over, but not where Rigden had 
 led his. Well, we lost the tracks eventually 
 where Rigden said he'd lost them, at what 
 they're pleased to call a ' tank ' in these 
 parts ; the black fellow went round and 
 round the waterhole, but devil another foot- 
 mark could he find. So then we went back 
 on the tracks we had found. And presently 
 there's a big yabber-yabber on the part of 
 William, who waddles about on the sides 
 of his feet to show his bosses what he means, 
 and turns in his toes like a clown. 
 
 " Well, I asked the sergeant what it was 
 all about ; but he wouldn't tell me. And 
 it was then that this fellow Spicer began to 
 play the fool: he had smelt the rat himself, 
 I suppose. He made a still greater ass of 
 himself at the fence, where the blackfellow 
 messed about a long time over Rigden's 
 
 157
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 marks when we got back there. After that 
 we all came marching home, or rather rid- 
 ing hell-to-leather. And the fun became 
 fast and furious ; so to speak, of course ; 
 for I needn't tell you it was no fun for 
 me, Moya." 
 
 " Quite sure ? Well, never mind ; go 
 on. 
 
 " There was no end of a row. Harkness 
 and Myrmidons entered the barracks, and 
 Spicer ordered them out. They insisted on 
 searching Rigden's room. Spicer swore 
 they shouldn't, and appealed to me. What 
 could I do, a mere visitor? I remonstrated, 
 advised them to wait, and so forth ; further 
 resistance would have been arrant folly ; yet 
 that madman Spicer was for holding the fort 
 with the station ordnance ! " 
 
 " Go on," said Moya again : she had 
 opened her lips to say something else, but 
 the obvious soundness of Theodore's posi- 
 tion came home to her in time. 
 
 " Well, the long and short of it is that 
 the sergeant came to me on the verandah 
 with the very pair of boots with which the 
 tracks had been made ; a heel was off one 
 
 158
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 of them ; they were too small for Rigden, 
 yet they were found hidden away in his 
 room. The astounding thing is that the 
 blessed blackfellow had spotted that the 
 tracks were not made by the man to whom 
 the boots belonged. He had turned in his 
 toes and walked on the outside of his feet ; 
 it wasn't so with the trail they followed 
 up to these pines yesterday ; and diamond 
 had cut diamond about as neatly as you 
 could wish to see it done. It was smart of 
 Rigden to run alongside his horse and make 
 it look as though he were riding alongside 
 the trail; but it wouldn't do for the wily 
 savage, and I'm afraid the result will be 
 devilish unpleasant." 
 
 There was no fear, however, in the clean- 
 cut and clean-shaven face, nor did Theo- 
 dore's tone suggest any possible unpleas- 
 antness to him or his. Moya could have 
 told him so in a manner worthy of himself, 
 but again she showed some self-restraint, 
 and was content to thank him briefly for 
 putting her in possession of all the facts. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Theodore, " I only wish I 
 could do that ! You talked a little while ago 
 
 159
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 about my suspecting the truth ; well, I give 
 you my word that I haven't even yet the 
 ghost of an idea what the real truth can 
 be." 
 
 " You mean as to motive ? " 
 
 " Exactly. Why on earth should he risk 
 his all to save the skin of a runaway convict ? 
 What can that convict be to him, Moya? 
 Or is the sole explanation mere misplaced, 
 chuckle-headed chivalry? " 
 
 " What should yoii say ? " asked Moya 
 quietly. 
 
 " I'll tell you frankly," said Theodore at 
 once ; " as things were I should have hesi- 
 tated, but as things are there's no reason 
 why I shouldn't say what I think. It's evi- 
 dently some relation ; a man only does that 
 sort of thing for his flesh and blood. Now 
 do you happen to remember, when this — I 
 mean to say that — engagement was more 
 or less in the air, that some of us rather 
 wanted to know who his father was ? Not 
 that " 
 
 " I know," Moya interrupted ; " I'm not 
 likely to forget it. So that's what you 
 think, is it?" 
 
 i6o
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 " I do ; by Jove I do ! Wouldn't you say 
 yourself " 
 
 " No, I wouldn't ; and no more need you. 
 What are your ideas, by the way, if this is 
 not the ghost of one? I congratulate you 
 upon it from that point of view, if from no 
 other ! " 
 
 Theodore stuck a fresh cigarette be- 
 tween his lips, and struck the match with 
 considerable vigour. It is not pleasant 
 to be blown from one's own petard, or 
 even scathed in one's own peculiar tone 
 of offence. 
 
 " I simply wanted to spare your feelings, 
 my dear girl," was the rejoinder, the last 
 three words being thrown in for the special 
 irritation of Moya. " Not that I see how 
 it can matter now." 
 
 The special irritant ceased to gall. 
 
 " Now ! " echoed Moya. " What do you 
 mean by now ? " 
 
 " Why, the whole thing's off, of course." 
 
 "What whole thing?" 
 
 " Your late engagement." 
 
 " Oh, is it ! Thanks for the news ; it's 
 the first I've heard of it." 
 
 i6i
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " Then it won't be the last. You're not 
 going to marry a convict's son, or a convict 
 either; and this fellow promises to be 
 both." 
 
 " I shall marry exactly whom I like," said 
 Moya, trembling. 
 
 " Don't flatter yourself ! You may say so 
 out of bravado, but you're the last person 
 to make a public spectacle of yourself; 
 especially when — well, you know, to put it 
 brutally, this is pretty well bound to ruin 
 him, whatever else it does or does not. Be- 
 sides, you don't like him any more ; you've 
 stopped even thinking you do. Do you 
 suppose I've got no eyes ? " 
 
 " Theodore," said Moya in a low voice, 
 " if I were your wife I'd murder you ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, you wouldn't ; and meanwhile 
 don't talk greater rot than you can help, 
 Moya. Believe me it isn't either the time 
 or the place. We must get out of the place, 
 by the way, the first thing to-morrow. I 
 see you're still wearing his ring. The sooner 
 you take that off and give it to me to return 
 to him the better." 
 
 " It will come to that," said Moya's heart ; 
 162
 
 Bethune v. Bethune 
 
 " but not through Theodore ; no, thank 
 you ! " 
 
 " It shall never come to it at all ! " replied 
 her heart of hearts. 
 
 And her lips echoed the " Never! " as she 
 marched to the door. Theodore had his 
 foot against it in time. 
 
 " Now listen to me ! No, you're not go- 
 ing till you listen to reason and me ! You 
 may call me a brute till you're black in the 
 face. I don't mind being one for your own 
 good. This thing's coming to an end ; in 
 fact it's come ; it ought never to have 
 begun, but I tell you it's over. The family 
 were always agreed about it, and I'm prac- 
 tically the head of the family ; at all events 
 I'm acting head up here, and I tell you this 
 thing's over whether you like it or not. But 
 you like it. What's the good of pretending 
 you don't? But whether you do or you 
 don't you shall never marry the fellow ! And 
 now you know it you may go if you like. 
 Only do for God's sake be ready in the 
 morning, like the sane person you always 
 used to be." 
 
 Moya did not move an inch towards the 
 163
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 opened door. Her tears were dry; fires 
 leapt in their stead. 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " Unless you wish me to say more." 
 
 " What a fool you are, Theodore ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid I distrust expert evidence." 
 
 " With all your wits you don't know the 
 first thing about women ! " 
 
 " You mean that you require driving like 
 Paddy's pig? Oh, no, you don't, Moya; go 
 and sleep upon it." 
 
 "Sleep!" 
 
 It was one burst of all she felt, but only 
 one. 
 
 " I'm afraid you won't," said Theodore, 
 with more humanity. " Still it's better to 
 lose a night thinking things over, calmly 
 and surely, as you're very capable of doing, 
 than to go another day with that ring upon 
 your finger." 
 
 Moya stared at him with eyes in which 
 the fires were quenched, but not by tears. 
 She looked dazed. 
 
 " Do put your mind to it — your own sane 
 mind ! " her brother pleaded, with more of 
 wisdom than he had shown with her yet. 
 
 164
 
 Bethune i'. Bethune 
 
 " And — I don't want to be hard — I never 
 meant to be hard about this again — but God 
 help you now to the only proper and sensi- 
 ble decision ! " 
 
 So was he beginning to send his juries 
 about their vital business ; and, after all, 
 Moya went to hers with as much docility as 
 the twelve good men and true. 
 
 Theodore was right about one thing. She 
 must put her mind to it once and for ever. 
 
 165
 
 XII 
 
 AN ESCAPADE 
 
 OHE put her mind to it with character- 
 istic thoroughness and honesty. Let 
 there be no mistake about Moya Bethune. 
 She had faults of temper, and fauhs of tem- 
 perament, and as many miscellaneous faults 
 as she was quick to find in others ; but this 
 did not retard her from seeing them in her- 
 self. She was a little spoilt ; it is the almost 
 inevitable defect of the popular qualities. 
 She had a good conceit of herself, and a 
 naughty tongue ; she could not have be- 
 longed to that branch of the Bethunes and 
 quite escaped either. On the other hand, 
 she was not without their cardinal merits. 
 There was, indeed, a brutal honesty in the 
 breed ; in Moya it became a singular sin- 
 cerity, not always pleasing to her friends, 
 but counterbalanced by the brightness and 
 charm of her personality. She was incapa- 
 
 i66
 
 An Escapade 
 
 ble of deceiving another; infinitely rarer, 
 she was equally incapable of deceiving her- 
 self; and could consider most things from 
 more standpoints than are accessible to 
 most women, always provided that she kept 
 that cornerstone of all sane judgment, her 
 temper. She had lost it with Rigden and 
 lost it with Theodore, and was in a pretty 
 bad temper with herself to boot ; but that is 
 a minor matter ; it does not drive the blood 
 to the brain ; it need not obscure every 
 point of view but one. And there were but 
 two worthy of Moya's consideration. 
 
 There was her own point of view, and 
 there was Rigden's. Moya took first inn- 
 ings ; she was the woman, after all. 
 
 She began with the beginning of this visit 
 — this visit that the almanac pretended was 
 but fifty hours old after all these days and 
 nights : Well, to believe it, and go back to 
 the first night : they had been happy enough 
 then, still happier next day, happiest of all 
 in the afternoon. Moya could see the 
 shadows and feel the heat, and hear Rigden 
 wondering whether she would ever care for 
 the place, and her own light-hearted replies ; 
 
 167
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 but there she checked herself, and passed 
 over the memorable end of that now memo- 
 rable conversation, and took the next phase 
 in due order. 
 
 Of course she had been angry ; anybody 
 of any spirit, similarly placed, would have 
 resented being deserted by the hour to- 
 gether for the first wayfarer. And the lie 
 made it worse ; and the refusal to explain 
 matters made the lie incalculably worse. 
 He had put her in an abominable position, 
 professing to love her all the time. How 
 could she believe in such love? Love and 
 trust were inseparable in her mind. Yet he 
 had not trusted her for a moment; even 
 when she stooped to tell a lie herself, to 
 save him, even then he could not take her 
 into his confidence. It was the least he 
 could have done after that ; it was the very 
 least that she had earned. 
 
 Most of the next day — to-day ! — even 
 Moya shirked. Why had it laid such a hold 
 upon her — the bush — the bush life — the 
 whole thing? Was it the mere infection 
 of a real enthusiasm ? Or was it but the 
 meretricious glamour of the foregone, and 
 
 i68
 
 An Escapade 
 
 would the fascination have been as great if 
 all had still been well? Moya abandoned 
 these points ; they formed a side issue after 
 all. Her mind jumped to the final explana- 
 tion — still ringing in her ears. It was im- 
 measurably worse than all the rest, in 
 essence, in significance, in result. The re- 
 sult mattered least ; there was little weak- 
 ness in Moya ; she would have snapped her 
 fingers at the world for the man she loved. 
 But how could she forgive his first deceit, 
 his want of trust in her to the end? And 
 how could she think for another moment 
 of marrying a man whom she could not 
 possibly forgive? 
 
 She did not think of it. She relinquished 
 her own point of view, and tried with all her 
 honesty to put herself in his place instead. 
 
 It was not very difficult. The poverty- 
 stricken childhood (so different from her 
 own !) with its terrible secret, its ever-hidden 
 disgrace ; small wonder if it had become 
 second nature to him to hide it ! Then there 
 was the mother. Moya had always loved 
 him for the tone of his lightest reference to 
 his mother. She thought now of the irrep- 
 
 169
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 arable loss of that mother's death, and felt 
 how she herself had sworn in her heart to 
 repair it. She thought of their meeting, his 
 sunburnt face, the new atmosphere he 
 brought with him, their immediate engage- 
 ment : the beginning had come almost as 
 quickly as the end ! Then Moya darkened. 
 She remembered how her people had tried 
 to treat him, and how simply and sturdily 
 he had borne himself among them. Where- 
 as, if he had told them all . . . but he 
 might have told her ! 
 
 Yet she wondered. The father was as 
 good as dead, was literally dead to the 
 world; partly for his sake^ perhaps, the 
 secret had been kept so jealously all these 
 years by mother and son. Moya still 
 thought that an exception should have been 
 made in her case. But, on mature reflec- 
 tion, she was no longer absolutely and final- 
 ly convinced of this. And the mere shado v 
 of a doubt upon the point was her first com- 
 fort in all these hours. 
 
 Such was the inner aspect ; the outward 
 and visible was grave enough. It was one 
 thing to be true to a prisoner and a pris- 
 
 170
 
 An Escapade 
 
 oner's son, but another thing to remain en- 
 gaged to him. Moya was no hand at 
 secrets. And now she hated them. So her 
 mind was made up on one point. If she 
 forgave him, then no power should make 
 her give him up, and she would wear his 
 ring before all her world, though it were 
 the ring of a prisoner in Pentridge 
 Stockade. But she knew what that would 
 mean, and a brief spell of too vivid fore- 
 sight, which followed, cannot be said to 
 have improved Rigden's chances of for- 
 giveness. 
 
 There was one thing, however, which 
 Moya had unaccountably forgotten. This 
 was the sudden inspiration which had come 
 to her an hour ago, among the station pines. 
 She was reminded of it and of other things 
 by the arrival of Mrs. Duncan with a tray ; 
 she had even forgotten that her last meal 
 had been made in the middle of the after- 
 noon, at the rabbiter's camp. Mrs. Duncan 
 had discovered this by questioning young 
 Ives, and the tea and eggs were the result 
 of a consultation with Mr. Bethune. 
 
 " And after that," smiled Moya, " you will 
 171
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 leave me for the night, won't you? I feel 
 as if I should never want to get up again ! " 
 
 " I'm sure you do, my dear," the good 
 woman cried. 
 
 " I shall lock my door," said Moya. 
 " Don't let anybody come to me in the 
 morning ; beg my brother not to come." 
 
 " Indeed I'll see he doesn't." 
 
 And Mrs. Duncan departed as one who 
 had been told little but who guessed much, 
 with a shake of her head, and a nod to follow 
 in case there was nothing to shake it over ; 
 for she was entirely baffled. 
 
 Moya locked the door on her. 
 
 " To think I should have forgotten ! My 
 one hope — my one ! " 
 
 And she ate every morsel on the tray; 
 then undressed and went properly to bed, 
 for the sake of the rest. But to sleep she 
 was afraid, lest she might sleep too long. 
 And between midnight and dawn, she was 
 not only up once more, but abroad by her- 
 self in the darkest hour. 
 
 Her door she left locked behind her; 
 the key she pushed underneath ; and she 
 stepped across the verandah with her riding 
 
 172
 
 An Escapade 
 
 habit gathered up in one hand, and both 
 shoes clutched in the other. 
 
 " It is dreadful ! I am as bad as he is. 
 But I can't help it. There's nobody else to 
 do it for me — unless I tell them first. And 
 at least I can keep his secret ! " 
 
 The various buildings lay vague and 
 opaque in the darkness : not a spark of light 
 in any one of them. And the moon had set ; 
 the stars alone lit Moya to the horse-yard. 
 
 Luckily she was not unused to horses. 
 She not only had. her own hack at home, but 
 made a pet of it and kept her eye upon the 
 groom. A single match, blown out in an 
 instant, showed Moya the saddle and bridle 
 which she had already used, with a water- 
 bag hanging hard by, in the hut adjoining 
 the yard. The bag she filled from the tank 
 outside. The rest was an even simpler 
 matter; a rocking-horse could not have 
 stood quieter than the bony beast which 
 Ives had left behind with the night-horse. 
 
 It proved a strong and stolid mount, with 
 a hard, unyielding, but methodical canter, 
 and only one bad habit : it shaved trees and 
 gateposts a little too closely for a rider un- 
 
 173
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 accustomed to the bush. Moya was near 
 disaster at the start ; thereafter she allowed 
 for the blemish, and crossed Butcher-boy 
 without mishap. 
 
 It was now the darkest quarter of the 
 darkest hour ; and Moya was quite thankful 
 that she had no longer a track to follow or 
 to lose. For in Big Bushy she turned 
 sharply to the left, as in the morning with 
 young Ives, and once more followed the 
 fence ; but this time she hugged it, and was 
 not happy unless she could switch the wires 
 to make certain they were there. 
 
 It was lighter when she reached the first 
 corner : absolute blackness had turned to a 
 dark yet transparent grey ; it was as though 
 the ink had been watered ; but in a little it 
 was ink no more. Moya turned in her sad- 
 dle, and a broadening flail of bloodshot blue 
 was sweeping the stars one by one out of 
 the eastern sky. 
 
 Also Moya felt the wind of her own 
 travelling bite shrewdly through her sum- 
 mer blouse ; and she put a stop to the 
 blundering, plodding canter about half-way 
 down the east-and-west fence whose eastern 
 
 174
 
 An Escapade 
 
 angle contained the disused whim and 
 hut. 
 
 It was no longer necessary to switch the 
 wires ; even the Hne of trees in Blind Man's 
 Block had taken shape behind them ; and 
 that sinister streak soon stood for the last 
 black finger-mark of the night. 
 
 Further down the fence a covey of crows 
 got up suddenly with foul outry ; and 
 Moya, remembering the merino which had 
 fallen by the way, steeled her body once 
 more to the bony one's uneasy canter. 
 
 The beast now revealed itself a dapple- 
 grey ; and at last between its unkempt ears, 
 and against the slaty sky to westward, Moya 
 described the timbers of the whim. 
 
 She reined in again, her bent head 
 puzzling over what she should say. 
 
 And again she cantered, the settled words 
 upon her lips ; but there they were destined 
 to remain until forgotten ; for it was at this 
 point that Moya's adventure diverged alike 
 from her purpose and her preconception. 
 
 In the first place the hut was empty. It 
 took Moya some minutes to convince her- 
 self of the fact. Again and again she called 
 
 175
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 upon the supposed occupant to come out 
 declaring herself a friend come to warn him, 
 as indeed she had. At last she dismounted 
 and entered, her whip clutched firmly, her 
 heart in her mouth. The hut was without 
 partition or inner chamber. A glance 
 proved it as empty as it had seemed. 
 
 Moya was nonplussed : all her plans had 
 been built upon the supposition that she 
 should find the runaway still skulking in 
 the hut where she had seen him the previous 
 forenoon. She now perceived how ground- 
 less her supposition had been ; it seemed 
 insane when she remembered that the run- 
 away had as certainly seen her — and her 
 sudden flight at sight of him. Unquestion- 
 ably she had made a false start. Yet she 
 did not see what else she could have done. 
 
 She led her horse to the whim itself. 
 Twin shafts ran deep into the earth, side by 
 side like the barrels of a gun. But this whim 
 was finally forsaken ; the long rope and the 
 elaborate buckets had been removed and 
 stored ; and the slabbed shafts ended in 
 tiny glimmering squares without break or 
 foot-hole from brink to base. 
 
 176
 
 An Escapade 
 
 Moya stood still to think ; and very soon 
 the thought of the black tracker put all 
 others out of court. It came with a sigh: 
 if only she had him there ! He would think 
 nothing of tracking the fugitive from the 
 hut whithersoever his feet had carried him ; 
 was it only the blacks who could do such 
 things ? 
 
 How would he begin? Moya recalled 
 her brother's description, and thought she 
 knew. He would begin by riding down the 
 fence, and seeing if anybody had crossed it. 
 
 She was doing this herself next minute. 
 And the thought that had come with a sigh 
 had already made her heart beat madly, and 
 the breath come quicker and quicker 
 through her parted lips ; but not with fear ; 
 she was much too excited to feel a conscious 
 qualm. Besides, she had somehow no fear 
 of the unhappy man, his father. 
 
 Excitement flew to frenzy when she 
 actually found the place. She knew it on 
 the instant, and was never in doubt. There 
 were several footmarks on either side of the 
 fence ; on the far side a vertebrate line of 
 them, pointing plainly to the scrub ; even 
 
 177
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 her unskilled eye could follow it half the 
 way. 
 
 The next thing was to strap down the 
 •wires, but Moya could not wait for that. 
 She galloped to a gate that she had seen 
 in the corner near the whim, and came up 
 the other side of the fence also at a gallop. 
 
 The trail was easily followed to the scrub : 
 among the trees the ground was harder and 
 footprints proportionately faint. By dis- 
 mounting, however, and dropping her 
 handkerchief at each apparent break of the 
 chain, Moya always succeeded in picking 
 up the links eventually. Now they gave her 
 no trouble for half-an-hour ; now a check 
 would last as long again ; but each half- 
 hour seemed like five minutes in her ex- 
 citement. The trees grew thicker and 
 thicker, but never any higher. Their 
 branches swept the ground and interlaced; 
 and many were the windings of the faint 
 footmarks tenaciously followed by Moya 
 and the dapple-grey. They were as divers 
 wandering on the bed of a shallow sea ; for 
 all its shallowness, the patches of sunlight 
 were fewer and fewer, and farther between ; 
 
 178
 
 An Escapade 
 
 if they were also hotter, Moya did not notice 
 the difference. She did not realize into 
 what a labyrinth she was penetrating. Her 
 entire attention was divided between the last 
 footprint and the next ; she had none over 
 for any other consideration whatsoever. It 
 was an extreme instance of the forcing of 
 one faculty at the expense of all the rest. 
 Moya thought no more even of what she 
 should say when she ran her man to earth. 
 She had decided all that before she reached 
 the hut. No pang of hunger or of thirst 
 assailed her; excitement and concentration 
 were her meat and drink. 
 
 Yet when the end came her very first 
 feeling was that of physical faintness and 
 exhaustion. But then it was an exceedingly 
 sudden and really terrifying end. Moya was 
 dodging boles and ducking under branches, 
 the dapple-grey behind her, her arm 
 through the reins, when all at once these 
 tightened. Moya turned quickly, thinking 
 the horse was unable to follow. 
 
 It was. 
 
 A gnarled hand, all hair and sinew, held 
 it by the bridle. 
 
 179
 
 XIII 
 
 BLIND man's block 
 
 T T was some moments before Moya looked 
 higher than that hand, and it prepared 
 her for a worse face than she found wait- 
 ing for her own. The face was fierce 
 enough, and it poured a steady fire upon the 
 girl from black eyes blazing in the double 
 shade of a felt wideawake and the overhang- 
 ing mallee. But it was also old, and lined, 
 and hunted ; the man had grown grey in 
 prison ; whatever his ofifences, there was 
 rare spirit in a last dash for freedom at his 
 age. Moya had not thought so before. 
 She was surprised that she should think it 
 now. The last thing that she had expected 
 to feel was an atom of real sympathy with 
 the destroyer of her happiness. And yet it 
 was the first thing she felt. 
 
 " Please don't look at me like that," she 
 begged. " I wish you no harm, believe 
 
 me!" 
 
 i8o
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 There was a pause, and then a first stern 
 question. 
 
 " Who sent you here? " 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 "Rot!" 
 
 " It's the truth." 
 
 " How else did you find me ? " 
 
 " I saw you yesterday in the hut ; you 
 know that ; you saw me." 
 
 " This is not the hut." 
 
 " No, but as you weren't there I looked 
 for your tracks. And I found them. And 
 here I am." 
 
 Shaggy brows rose above the piercing 
 eyes. 
 
 " I thought you didn't come from the 
 bush?" 
 
 " Nor do I ; but I have heard a good deal 
 about tracking, this last day or two ; and I 
 had luck." 
 
 " You've come all this way alone ? " 
 
 " Absolutely." 
 
 " Then nobody else knows anything 
 about it. That's certain. But they will 
 know! You'll be followed, and I shall be 
 found ! " 
 
 i8i
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " I don't think so ; they'll think I've gone 
 somewhere else." 
 
 The convict gave her a long look, and his 
 hawk's eye gleamed ; then he turned his 
 attention to the dapple-grey. It was over a 
 minute before he spoke again. 
 
 " Do you know who I am ? " he then 
 asked. 
 
 " Captain Bovill." 
 
 He smiled wickedly. 
 
 "And nothing else?" 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Moya, sadly ; "I know 
 what else you are, of course. His father ! " 
 
 " So he's had the pluck to tell you, after 
 all?" 
 
 " He should have told me at once." 
 
 "And lost you?" 
 
 " He hasn't lost me yet ! " cried Moya im- 
 pulsively, but from her loyal heart none the 
 less. 
 
 " Then why break away from him like 
 this ? Wasn't his word good enough ? " 
 
 " I haven't broken away," said Moya, 
 " from him. I couldn't. I've come to tell 
 you why. They've taken him to prison ! " 
 
 " Taken him! " 
 
 182
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 " On your account. They know he 
 helped you. That's all they do know." 
 
 The convict stared ; but, in the perpetual 
 twilight of the mallee that was the only fact 
 to which Moya could have sworn. She 
 could make nothing of the old man's ex- 
 pression. When he spoke, however, there 
 was no mistaking his tone. It was hard and 
 grim as a prison bell. 
 
 " In his turn ! " said he. " Well, it'll teach 
 him what it's like." 
 
 " But it isn't his turn," cried Moya, in a 
 fury ; " what has he done to deserve such 
 degradation, except a good deal more than 
 his duty by you ? And this is all the thanks 
 he gets ! As though he had taken after you ! 
 How can you speak like that of him ? How 
 dare you — to me ? " 
 
 So Moya could turn upon the whilom 
 terror of a colony, a desperado all his days, 
 yet surely never more desperate than now ; 
 and her rings flashed, and her eyes flashed, 
 and there was no one there to see ! No soul 
 within many miles but the great criminal 
 before her, whose turn it was to astonish 
 Moya. He uncovered ; he jerked a bow 
 
 183
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 that was half a shrug, but the more convinc- 
 ing for the blemish ; and thereafter hung his 
 cropped head in strange humility. 
 
 " You're right ! " said he. " I deserve all 
 you've said, and more. He has treated me 
 ten thousand times better than I deserve, 
 and that's my gratitude ! Yet if you had 
 been half a lifetime in the hulks — in irons — 
 chained down like a wild beast — why, you'd 
 he one, even you ! " 
 
 " I know," said Moya in a low voice. " It 
 is terrible to think of ! " 
 
 " And God bless you for admitting that 
 much," the old man whined, " for it's few 
 that will. Break the law, and the law breaks 
 you — on a wheel ! Talk about the wrongs 
 of prisoners ; they have neither wrongs nor 
 rights in the eyes of the law ; it's their own 
 fault for being prisoners, and that's the last 
 word." 
 
 " It is very terrible," said Moya again. 
 
 " Ah, but you little know how bad it is ; 
 and I'm not going to tell you. It's worse 
 than your worst dreams, and that must do 
 for you. The floggings, the irons, the soH- 
 tary confinement in your irons with the 
 
 184
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 blood running down your back ! No, I said 
 I wouldn't, and I won't. But it's hard to 
 hold your tongue when you're talking to a 
 lady for the first time in thirty years. And 
 to think of a young lady like you coming all 
 this way, alone too, to say a kind word to a 
 double-dyed old rogue like me! It's the 
 most wonderful thing I ever heard of in all 
 my days. I can't think why you did it, for 
 the life of me I can't ! " 
 
 " It was to tell you about your son," 
 Moya reminded him. 
 
 " Ah, poor fellow ! God help him, for I 
 can't." 
 
 " Are you quite sure ? " said Moya gently, 
 and for once rather nervously as well. 
 
 " Sure ? Of course I'm sure ! Why, what 
 can I do ? " cried the other, with sudden irri- 
 tation as suddenly suppressed. " Hiding — 
 hunted — with every hand against me but 
 yours — I'd help him if I could, but I can't." 
 
 " So he's to go to prison instead of you? " 
 
 Moya spoke quietly, but with the more 
 effect ; indeed, she was herself beginning to 
 feel surprised at her success with a des- 
 perate man in vital straits. He was more 
 
 185
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 amenable than she had imagined possible. 
 That he should parley with her at all was 
 infinite encouragement. But now there 
 came a pause. 
 
 " I see what you're driving at," he cried 
 savagely at last. " You want me to give 
 myself up ! I'll see you — further." 
 
 The oath was dropped at the last moment 
 — another strange sign — but the tone could 
 not have been stronger. Yet the mere fact 
 that he had seen her point, and made it for 
 her, filled Moya with increasing confidence. 
 
 " I don't wonder," she had the tact to say. 
 " How could you be expected to go back — 
 to that — of your own free will? And yet 
 what can be worse than waiting — waiting 
 till " 
 
 " I'm taken, eh? Is that what you want 
 to say? They shall never take me alive, 
 curse them ; don't you trouble about that ! " 
 
 The tone was stubborn, ferocious, blood- 
 curdling, but at least it was in keeping with 
 the blazing eyes and the great jowl beneath. 
 Moya looked steadily at the bushranger, the 
 mutineer, the indomitable criminal of other 
 days ; more remained of him than she had 
 
 1 86
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 fancied. And to think that he had soft 
 answers for her ! 
 
 She made haste to earn another, 
 " Please — please — don't speak like that ! 
 It is dreadful. And I feel sure there is 
 some middle course." 
 
 " I'm no beHever in middle courses ! " 
 " That I know. Yet— you have suffered 
 so — I feel sure something could be done! 
 I — that is my people — have influence — 
 
 money " 
 
 " They can keep their money." 
 Moya begged his pardon. It was not an 
 act in which she excelled. Yet nothing 
 could have been sweeter than her confusion, 
 nothing finer than her frank humility. 
 
 " I was only wondering if there was any- 
 thing — anything — we could any of us do! 
 It would be understood so well. His father I 
 Surely that would be enough ! I know the 
 Governor. I would think nothing of going 
 to him. I honestly believe that he would 
 pardon you both ! " 
 
 Moya felt the black eyes burning, and for 
 once her own eyes fell ; indeed she was a 
 wondrous picture of beauty and youth and 
 
 187
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 enthusiasm, there in that place, in her dainty 
 blouse and habit, with the dull green mallee 
 above and all around her. But they were a 
 yet more extraordinary pair, the old bush- 
 ranger of a bygone day, and the Melbourne 
 beauty of the present. 
 
 " So you believe that, do you ? " said the 
 former sardonically. 
 
 " From the bottom of my heart." 
 
 " Suppose you were wrong? " 
 
 " I would move heaven and earth." 
 
 " Then jump on your horse ! " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I'm coming with you — to the police- 
 barracks ! " 
 
 It was like a dream. Moya could have 
 rubbed her eyes, and soon had to do so, for 
 they were full of tears. She sobbed her 
 thanks ; she flung out both hands to press 
 them home. The convict waited grimly at 
 her horse's head. 
 
 " Better wait and see what comes of it," 
 said he. " And think yourself lucky worse 
 hasn't come of it yet ! I'm not thinking of 
 myself; do you know where you are? Do 
 you know that this is Blind Man's Block? 
 
 1 88
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 Haven't you heard about it? Then you 
 should thank your stars you've a good old 
 bushman to lead you out; for it's like 
 getting out of a maze, I can tell you ; and if 
 you'd been warned, as I was, I don't think 
 you'd have ventured in." 
 
 Moya had never realised that it was into 
 Blind Man's Block she had plunged so 
 rashly. Nor did the discovery disturb her 
 now. She was too full of her supreme 
 triumph to dwell for many moments upon 
 any one of the risks that she had run for its 
 accomplishment. Neither did she look too 
 far ahead. She would keep faith with this 
 poor creature ; no need to count the cost 
 just yet. Moya set her mind's eye upon 
 the reunion at the police-barracks: her 
 advent as the heroine of a bloodless victory, 
 her intercession for the father, her meeting 
 with the son. 
 
 The prospect dazzled her. It had its 
 gravely precarious aspect. But one thing 
 at a time. She had done her best ; no 
 ultimate ill could come of it ; of that she 
 felt as certain as of the fact that she was 
 sitting in her saddle and blindly following 
 
 189
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 an escaped criminal through untrodden 
 wilds. 
 
 Suddenly she discovered that she was not 
 doing this exactly. She had not consciously 
 diverged, and yet her leader was bearing 
 down upon her with a scowl. 
 
 "Why don't you follow me?" he cried. 
 " Do you want to get bushed in Blind Man's 
 Block?" 
 
 " I wasn't thinking," replied Moya. " It 
 must have been the horse." 
 
 Bovill seized the bridle. 
 
 " It's a fool of a horse !" said he. " Why, 
 we're quite close to the fence, and it wants 
 to head back into the middle of the block ! " 
 
 Moya remarked that she did not recog- 
 nise the country. 
 
 " Of course you don't," was the reply. 
 " You came the devil of a round, but I'm 
 taking you straight back to the fence. Trust 
 an old hand like me ; I can smell a fence as 
 a sheep smells water. You trust yourself to 
 me!" 
 
 Moya had already done so. It was too 
 late to reconsider that. Yet she did begin 
 to wonder somewhat at herself. That hairy 
 
 190
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 hand upon the bridle, it lay also rather 
 heavily on her nerves. And the mallee 
 shrub showed no signs of thinning; the 
 open spaces were as few as ever, and as 
 short ; on every hand the leaves seemed 
 whispering for miles and miles. 
 
 " We're a long time getting to that fence," 
 said Moya at length. 
 
 The convict stopped, looked about him 
 in all directions, and finally turned round. 
 In doing so his right hand left the bridle, 
 but in an instant the other was in its place. 
 Moya, however, was too intent upon his face 
 to notice this. 
 
 " I'm afraid I've missed it," said he 
 calmly. 
 
 "Missed the fence?" 
 
 " It looks like it." 
 
 "After what you said just now? Oh, 
 what a fool I was to trust you ! " 
 
 Their eyes were joined for the next few 
 seconds ; then the man's face relaxed in a 
 brutal grin. And Moya began to see the 
 measure of her folly. 
 
 " Hypocrite ! " she gasped. 
 
 " Don't call names, my dear. It's not 
 191
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 kind, especially to your father-in-law that is 
 to be!" 
 
 Moya shuddered in every member except 
 the hand that gripped her whalebone switch. 
 The gold-mounted handle was deep in her 
 flesh. 
 
 " Leave go of my bridle," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 " Not just yet, my dear." 
 
 The whalebone whistled through the air, 
 and came slashing down upon the dapple- 
 grey's neck, within an inch of the hairy 
 fingers, which were nevertheless snatched 
 away. Moya had counted on this and its re- 
 sult. The animal was off at its best pace ; 
 but the desperate hands grabbed Moya's 
 habit as it passed, and in another instant 
 she was on the ground. In yet another she 
 had picked herself up, but she never even 
 looked for the horse ; she fixed her eye 
 upon her loathly adversary as on a wild 
 beast ; and now he looked nothing else, with 
 canine jaw and one vile lip protruding, and 
 hell's own fire in his wicked eyes. 
 
 Luckily her grip of the riding-whip had 
 tightened, not relaxed ; but now she held it 
 
 192
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 as a sword ; and it helped her to cow a 
 brute who had the real brute's dread of the 
 lash. But also she was young and supple, 
 and the man was old. The contrast had 
 never been so sharp ; for now they were 
 both in their true colours ; and every vile- 
 ness of the one was met by its own antithesis 
 in the other. It was will against will, per- 
 sonality against personality, in an open space 
 among the m.allee and the full glare of a 
 climbing sun, mile upon mile from human 
 help or habitation. And the battle was 
 fought to a finish without a word. 
 
 Moya only heard a muttering as the 
 wretch swung round upon his heel, and 
 walked after the dapple-grey, which had 
 come to a standstill within sight. But she 
 was not done with the blackguard yet. She 
 watched him remove the lady's saddle, then 
 carefully detach the water-bag, and sling 
 it about himself by means of the stirrup- 
 leather. Then he mounted, bare-back ; but 
 Moya knew that he would not abandon her 
 without his say; and she was waiting for 
 him with the self-same eye that had beaten 
 him off. 
 
 193
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 He reined up and cursed her long and 
 filthily. Her ear was deaf to that ; but Httle 
 of it conveyed the slightest meaning; her 
 unchanged face declared as much. So then 
 he trimmed his tongue accordingly. 
 
 " Sorry to take the water-bag ; but 
 through you I've forgot mine and my swag 
 too. Better try and find 'em ; they're away 
 back where I camped last night; you're 
 welcome to the drop that's left, if there is 
 one. You look a bit black about the gills 
 as it is. Have a drop to show there's no ill- 
 feeling before I go." 
 
 And he dangled the bag before her, mean- 
 ing to whisk it back again. But Moya dis- 
 appointed him. She was parched with 
 thirst, though she only realised it now. She 
 neither spoke nor moved a muscle. 
 
 " Then die of thirst, and be damned to 
 you ! Do you know where you are ? Blind 
 Man's Block— Blind Man's Block! Don't 
 you forget it again, because I shan't be here 
 to remind you ; a horse was what I wanted, 
 and was promised, so you're only keeping 
 that poor devil's word for him. Give him 
 my blessing if you ever see him again ; but 
 
 194
 
 Blind Man's Block 
 
 you never will. They say it's an easy place 
 to die in, this here Blind Man's Block, but 
 you'll see for yourself. A nice little corpse 
 we'll make, won't we? But we'll die and 
 rot the same, and the crows'll have our 
 eyes for breakfast and our innards for din- 
 ner! And do you good, you little white 
 devil, you ! " 
 
 Moya remained standing in the same 
 attitude, with the same steady eye and the 
 same marble pallor, long after the monster 
 disappeared, and the last beat of the dapple- 
 grey's hoofs was lost among the normal 
 wilds of the bush. Then all at once a great 
 light leapt to her face. But it was not at 
 anything that she had heard or seen ; it was 
 at something which had come to her very 
 suddenly in the end. And for a long time 
 after that, though lost and alone in Blind 
 Man's Block, and only too likely to die the 
 cruel death designed for her, Moya Bethune 
 was a happier woman than she had been for 
 many an hour. 
 
 195
 
 XIV 
 
 HIS OWN COIN 
 
 "pOOO-EEE!" 
 
 ^^ It was a far cry and faint, so faint 
 that Moya was slow to believe her ears. She 
 had not stirred from the scene of her late en- 
 counter, but this inactivity was not without 
 design. Moya was tired out already ; she 
 had too much sense to waste her remain- 
 ing strength upon the heat of the day. She 
 found the chewing of leaves avert the worst 
 pangs of thirst, so long as she remained in 
 the shade, and there she determined to rest 
 for the present. Sooner or later she would 
 be followed and found, and the fewer her 
 wanderings, the quicker and easier that 
 blessed consummation. Her plight was still 
 perilous enough, and Moya did not blink 
 this fact any more than others. Yet an- 
 other fact there was, of which she was finally 
 
 196
 
 His Own Coin 
 
 convinced, though she had yet to prove it ; 
 meanwhile the mere conviction was her stay 
 and comfort. She was gloating over it, a 
 leaf between her dry lips, and her aching 
 body stretched within reach of more leaves, 
 when she thought she heard the coo-ee. 
 
 She sat up and listened. It came again. 
 And this time Moya was sure. 
 
 She sprang to her feet, and, deliverance 
 within hail, realised her danger for the first 
 time fully. Sunburnt hands put a trembling 
 trumpet to her lips, and out came a clearer 
 call than had come to Moya. 
 
 The answer sounded hoarse, and was as 
 far away as ever ; but prompt enough ; and 
 now Moya was as sure of the direction as 
 of the sound itself. Nor had she occasion 
 to coo-ee any more. For the first thing she 
 saw, perhaps a furlong through the scrub, 
 was a riderless horse, bridled but unsaddled, 
 with a forefoot through the reins. 
 
 True to its unpleasant habit, the dapple- 
 grey had done noble service to the human 
 race, by swerving under a branch at full 
 gallop, and scraping its rider into space. 
 
 The wretch lay helpless in the sun, with 
 197
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 a bloody forehead and an injured spine. 
 Moya's water-bag had fallen clear, and lay 
 out of his reach by a few inches which were 
 yet too many for him to move. He de- 
 manded it as soon as she came up, but with 
 an oath, and Moya helped herself first, 
 drinking till her hands came close together 
 upon the wet canvas. 
 
 " Now you can finish it," she said, " if 
 you're such a fool. I've left you more than 
 you deserve." 
 
 He cursed her hideously, and a touch of 
 unmerited compassion came upon her as 
 she discovered how really helpless he was. 
 So she held his head while he drained the 
 last drop, and as it fell back he cursed her 
 again, but began whining when she made 
 off without a word. 
 
 " My back must be broken — I've no feel- 
 ing in my legs. And you'd let me die 
 alone ! " 
 
 " Your own coin," said Moya, turning at 
 her distance. 
 
 " It wasn't. I swear it wasn't. I swear 
 to God I was only doing it to frighten you ! 
 I was going for help." 
 
 198
 
 His Own Coin 
 
 "How can you tell such lies?" asked 
 Moya sternly. 
 
 " They're not, they're the solemn truth, 
 so help me God ! " 
 
 " You're only making them worse ; own 
 they are Hes, or I'm off this minute." 
 
 " Oh, they are then, damn you ! " 
 
 Only the oath was both longer and 
 stronger. 
 
 " Swear again, and it won't be this 
 minute, it'll be this very second ! " cried 
 Moya decisively. " So own, without swear- 
 ing, that you did mean me to die of thirst, so 
 far as you were concerned." 
 
 " You never would have done it, though ; 
 they'll be on your track by this time." 
 
 " That may be. It doesn't alter what you 
 did." 
 
 " I offered you a drink, didn't I ? It was 
 my only chance to take the horse and the 
 water-bag. I meant to frighten you, but 
 that's all. And now I'm half mad with pain 
 and heat ; you'd swear yourself if you were 
 in my shoes ; and I can't even feel I've got 
 any on ! " 
 
 Moya drew a little nearer, 
 199
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " Nearer, miss — nearer still ! Come and 
 stand between me and the sun. Just for a 
 minute ! It's burning me to hell ! " 
 
 Moya took no notice of the word, nor yet 
 of the request. 
 
 " Before I do any more for you," said she, 
 " you must tell me the truth." 
 
 " I have ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, you haven't : not the particular 
 truth I want to know. I know it already. 
 Still I mean to hear it from you. It's the 
 truth on quite a different matter; that's 
 what I want," said Moya, and stood over the 
 poor devil as he desired, so that at last the 
 sun was ofT him, though now he had Moya's 
 eyes instead. " I — I wonder you can't 
 guess — what I've guessed ! " she added 
 after a pause. 
 
 But she also wondered at something else, 
 for in that pause the blood-stained face had 
 grown ghastlierthanbefore,and Moya could 
 not understand it. The man was so sorely 
 stricken that recapture must now be his 
 liveHest hope: why then should he fear a 
 discovery more or less ? And it was quite a 
 little thing that Moya thought she had dis- 
 
 200
 
 His Own Coin 
 
 covered ; a little thing to him, not to her ; 
 and she proceeded to treat it as such. 
 
 " You know you're not Captain Bovill at 
 all," she told him, in the quiet voice of abso- 
 lutely satisfied conviction. 
 
 " Who told you that ? " he roared, half 
 raising himself for the first time, and the 
 fear and fury in his eyes were terrible to see. 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 " But I know it all the same. I've known 
 it this last half-hour. And if I hadn't I 
 should know it now. I see it — where I 
 ought to have seen it from the first — in your 
 face." 
 
 " You mean because my son's not the 
 dead spit of his father ? But he never was ; 
 he took after his mother ; he'll tell you that 
 himself." 
 
 " It's not what I meant," said Moya, 
 " though it is through the man you call your 
 son that I know he is nothing of the kind. 
 His father may have been a criminal ; he 
 was something else first ; he would not have 
 left a woman to perish of thirst in the bush, 
 a woman who had done him no harm — who 
 
 201
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 only wished to befriend him — who was go- 
 ing to marry his son ! " 
 
 There were no oaths to this; but the 
 black eyes gleamed shrewdly in the blood- 
 stained face, and the conical head wagged 
 where it lay. 
 
 " You never were in the hulks, you see," 
 said the convict ; " else you'd know. No 
 matter what a man goes in, they all come 
 out alike, brute beasts every one. I'm all 
 that, God help me ! But I'm the man — I'm 
 the man. Do you think he'd have held out 
 a finger to me if I hadn't been? " 
 
 " I've no doubt you convinced him that 
 you were." 
 
 " How can one man convince another 
 that he's his father ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I only know that you 
 have done it." 
 
 " Why, he knew me at once ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! He had never seen you be- 
 fore ; he doesn't remember his father." 
 
 " Do you suppose he hasn't seen pictures, 
 and heard plenty ? No, no ; all the rest's a 
 true bill ; but Captain Bovill I've lived, and 
 Captain Bovill I'm going to die." 
 
 202
 
 His Own Coin 
 
 Moya looked at him closely. She could 
 not help shuddering. He saw it, and the 
 fear of death laid hold of him, even as he 
 sweltered in the heat. 
 
 " With a lie on your lips ? " said Moya, 
 gravely. 
 
 " It's the truth ! " 
 
 " You know it isn't. Own it, for your 
 own sake ! Who can tell how long I shall 
 be gone ? " 
 
 " You shan't go ! You shan't go ! " he 
 snarled and whined at once. And he 
 clutched vainly at her skirts, the effort leav- 
 ing him pale as death, and in as dire an 
 agony. 
 
 " I must," said Moya. " There's the 
 horse; the saddle's quite near; you shall 
 have all the help that I can bring you, with 
 all the speed that's possible." 
 
 She moved away, and the ruthless sun 
 played on every inch of him once more. 
 
 "I'm burning — burning!" he yelled. 
 " Have I been in hell upon earth all these 
 years to go to hell itself before I die ? Move 
 me, for Christ's sake ! Only get me into the 
 shade, and I'll confess — I'll confess ! " 
 
 203
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 Moya tried ; but it was terrible ; he 
 shrieked with agony, foaming at the mouth, 
 and beating her off with feeble fists. So 
 then she flung herself bodily on an infant 
 hop-bush, and actually uprooted it. And 
 with this and some mallee-branches she 
 made a gunyah over him, though he said it 
 stifled him, and complained bitterly to the 
 end. At the end of all Moya knelt at his 
 feet. 
 
 " Now keep your promise." 
 
 " What promise ? " he asked with an 
 oath, for Moya had been milder than her 
 word. 
 
 " You said you would confess." 
 
 " Confess what? " he cried, a new terror 
 in his eyes. " I'm not going to die ! I don't 
 feel like dying ! I've no more to confess ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, you have — that you're not his 
 father — nor yet Captain Bovill." 
 
 " But I tell you I am. Why — " and 
 the pallid face lit up suddenly — " even the 
 police know that, and you know that they 
 know it ! " 
 
 It was a random shot, but it made a visible 
 mark, for in her instinctive certainty of 
 
 204
 
 His Own Coin 
 
 the main fact Moya was only now reminded 
 that Rigden himself had told her the same 
 thing. Her discomfiture, however, was but 
 momentary ; she held obstinately to her in- 
 tuition. The police might know it. She 
 knew better than the police; and looking 
 upon their quarry, and going over every- 
 thing as she looked, came in a flash upon a 
 fresh theory and a small fact in its support, 
 
 " Then they don't know who it is they're 
 after ! " cried Moya. " You're not even 
 their man ; his eyes were brown ; it was in 
 the description ; but yours are the blackest 
 I ever saw." 
 
 It was not a good point. He might well 
 make light of it. But it was enough for 
 Moya and her woman's instinct ; or so she 
 said, and honestly thought for the moment. 
 She was less satisfied when she had caught 
 the horse and still must hear the mangled 
 man ; for he railed at her, from the gunyah 
 she had built him, to the very end. And to 
 Moya it seemed that there was more of 
 triumph than of terror in his tone. 
 
 205
 
 XV 
 
 THE FACT OF THE MATTER 
 
 CERGEANT HARKNESS had his bar- 
 racks to himself. To be sure, the cell 
 was occupied ; but, contrary to the usual 
 amenities of the wilderness, such as euchre 
 and Christian names between the sergeant 
 and the ordinary run of prisoners, with this 
 one Harkness would have nothing to do. 
 It was a personal matter between them : the 
 capital charge had divided them less. Con- 
 stable and tracker had meanwhile been 
 called out on fresh business. That was in 
 the middle of the day. Since then the coach 
 had passed with the mail ; and Harkness 
 had been pacing his verandah throughout 
 the sleepiest hour of the afternoon, only 
 pausing to read and re-read one official com- 
 munication, when Moya's habit fluttered 
 into view towards four o'clock. 
 
 206
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 " Well, I'm dished ! " exclaimed the ser- 
 geant. " And alone, too, after all ! " 
 
 He hastened to meet her. 
 
 " Where on earth have you been. Miss 
 Bethune? Do you know there's another 
 search-party out, looking for you this time ? 
 My sub and the tracker were fetched this 
 
 morning. I'd have gone myself only " 
 
 and he jerked a thumb towards a very small 
 window at one end of the barracks. 
 
 " Mr, Rigden ? " said Moya, lowering her 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " So you've got him still ! I'm glad ; but 
 I don't want him to know I'm here. Stay — 
 does he think I'm lost? " 
 
 " No. I thought it better not to tell 
 him." 
 
 " That was both wise and kind of you, 
 Sergeant Harkness ! He must know noth- 
 ing just yet. I want to speak to you first." 
 
 And she urged the dapple-grey, now 
 flagging sorely, towards the other end of the 
 building ; but no face appeared at the little 
 barred window ; for Rigden was sound 
 asleep in his cell. 
 
 207
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " We're all right," said Moya, sliding to 
 the ground ; " we stopped at a tank and a 
 boundary-rider's hut, but not the Eureka 
 boundary. I didn't get out the same way I 
 got in, you see — I mean out of the Blind 
 Man's Block." 
 
 " Blind Man's Block ! Good God ! have 
 you been there ? You're lucky to have got 
 out at all ! " 
 
 " It wasn't easy. I thought we should 
 never strike a fence, and when we did I had 
 to follow it for miles before there was a gate 
 or a road. But the boundary-rider was very 
 kind ; he not only gave me the best meal I 
 ever had in my life ; he set me on the road to 
 you." 
 
 Indeed the girl was glowing, though 
 dusty and dishevelled from head to foot. 
 Her splendid colouring had never been 
 more radiant, nor had the bewildered ser- 
 geant ever looked upon such brilliant eyes. 
 But it was a feverish brilliance, and a glance 
 would have apprised the skilled observer of 
 a brain in the balance between endurance 
 and suspense. 
 
 " What on earth were you doing in Blind 
 208
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 Man's Block?" asked Harkness, sus- 
 piciously. 
 
 " I'll tell you. I'll tell you something 
 else as well! But first you must tell me 
 something, Sergeant Harkness." 
 
 " I believe you know where he is," quoth 
 the sergeant, softly. 
 
 " Do you know who he is ? " cried Moya, 
 coming finely to her point. 
 
 Harkness stared harder than ever. 
 
 " Well, I thought I did— until this after- 
 noon." 
 
 " Who did you think it was ? " 
 
 " Well, there's no harm in saying now. 
 Rightly or wrongly, I only told Mr. Rigden 
 at the time. But I always thought it was 
 Captain Bovill, the old bushranger who 
 escaped from Pentridge two or three weeks 
 ago." 
 
 " Then you thought wrong," said Moya, 
 boldly. 
 
 Nevertheless she held her breath. 
 
 " So it seems," growled the sergeant. 
 
 " Why does it seem so? " 
 
 It was a new voice crying, and one so 
 tremulous that Harkness could scarcely 
 recognise it as Miss Bethune's. 
 
 209
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 I've heard officially- 
 
 " What have you heard ? " 
 
 " You see we were all informed of Bovill's 
 escape." 
 
 "Goon! Goon!" 
 
 " So in the same way we've been advised 
 of his death." 
 
 "His— death!" 
 
 " Steady, Miss Bethune ! There — allow 
 me. We'll get in out of the sun ; he won't 
 hear us at this end of the verandah. Here's 
 a chair. That's the ticket! Now, just one 
 moment." 
 
 He returned with something in a glass 
 which Moya thought sickening. But it did 
 her good. She ceased giggling and weep- 
 ing by turns and both at once. 
 
 " So he's dead — he's dead ! Have you 
 told Mr. Rigden that?" 
 
 "No; I'm not seeing much of Mr. 
 Rigden." 
 
 " I am glad. I will tell him myself, pres- 
 ently. You will let me, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Surely, Miss Bethune. There's no 
 earthly reason why he should be here, ex- 
 cept his own obstinacy, if you'll excuse my 
 
 210
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 saying so. He was remanded this morn- 
 ing; but Mr. Cross of Strathavon, who 
 signed the warrant yesterday, and came over 
 for the examination this forenoon, not only 
 wanted to take bail, but offered to find it 
 himself. Wanted to carry him olT in his 
 own buggy, he did ! But Mr. Rigden said 
 here he was, and here he'd stick until his 
 fate was settled. Would you like to see 
 him now? " 
 
 " Presently," repeated Moya. " I want to 
 hear more ; then I may have something to 
 tell you. When and where did this death 
 occur, and what made you so sure that it 
 was the dead man who came to Eureka? 
 You will understand my questions in a 
 minute." 
 
 " Only I must answer them first," said the 
 sergeant, smiling. " I am to give myself 
 clean away, am I ? " 
 
 " We must all do that sometimes. Ser- 
 geant Harkness. It will be my turn directly. 
 Let us trust each other," 
 
 Harkness looked into her candid eyes, 
 calmer and more steadfast for their recent 
 tears, and his mind was made up. 
 
 211
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " I'll trust you," he said ; " you may do 
 as you like about me. Perhaps you your- 
 self have had the wish that's father to the 
 thought, or rather the thought that comes of 
 the wish and nothing else ? Well, then, 
 that's what's been the matter with me. The 
 moment I heard of that old rascal's escape, 
 like every other fellow in the force, I 
 yearned to have the taking of him. Of 
 course it wasn't on the cards, hundreds of 
 miles up-country as we are here, besides be- 
 ing across the border; yet when they got 
 clear away, and headed for the Murray, 
 there was no saying where they might or 
 might not cast up. Well, it seems they never 
 reached the Murray at all ; but last week 
 down in Balranald I heard a rum yarn about 
 a stowaway aboard one of the Echuca river- 
 steamers ; they never knew he was aboard 
 until they heard him go overboard just the 
 other side of Balranald. Then they thought 
 it was one of themselves, until they mus- 
 tered and found none missing; and then 
 they all swore it was a log, except the man 
 at the wheel who'd seen it ; so I pretended 
 to think with the rest — but you bet I didn't ! 
 
 212
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 I went down the river on the off-chance, 
 but I never let on who I hoped it might be. 
 And what with a swaggy whose swag had 
 been stolen, and his description of the man 
 who he swore had stolen it, I at last got on 
 the tracks of the man I've lost. He was said 
 to be an oldish man ; that seemed good 
 enough; they were both of them oldish 
 men, the two that had escaped." 
 
 " The two ! " cried Moya in high excite- 
 ment. " The two ! I keep forgetting there 
 were two of them ; you see you never said 
 so when you came to the station," 
 
 " I wanted to keep it all to myself," con- 
 fessed the crest-fallen sergeant. " I only 
 told two living m.en who I thought it was 
 that I was after. One was my sub — who 
 guessed — and the other was Mr. Rigden." 
 
 " Were the two men who escaped any- 
 thing Hke each other?" 
 
 " Well, they were both old lags from the 
 Success, and both superior men at one time ; 
 old particulars who'd been chained together, 
 as you might say, for years ; and I suppose 
 that sort of thing does beat a man down into 
 a type. However, their friendship didn't go 
 
 213
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 for much when they got outside ; for Gipsy 
 Marks murdered Captain Bovill as sure as 
 emu's eggs are emu's eggs ! " 
 
 " Murdered him ! " gasped Moya ; and 
 her brain reeled to think of the hours she 
 had spent with the murderer. But all was 
 clear to her now, from the way in which 
 Rigden had been imposed upon in the be- 
 ginning, to the impostor's obstinate and ter- 
 rified refusal to own himself as such to the 
 very end, 
 
 " Yes, murdered him on the other side of 
 the Murray ; the body's only just been 
 found ; and meanwhile the murderer's 
 slipped through my fingers," said the ser- 
 geant, sourly ; " for if it wasn't poor old 
 Bovill I was after, at all events it was Gipsy 
 Marks." 
 
 Moya sprang to her feet. 
 
 " It was," she cried ; " but he hasn't 
 slipped through your fingers at all, unless 
 he's dead. He wasn't when I left him two 
 or three hours ago." 
 
 "When you left him?" 
 
 " Yes, I found him, and was with him all 
 the morning." 
 
 214
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 "In Blind Man's Block — with that 
 ruffian?" 
 
 " He took my horse and my water-bag, 
 and left me there to die of thirst ; but the 
 dear horse turned the tables on him — ^poor 
 wretch ! " 
 
 " And you never told me ! " 
 
 " I am trying to tell you now." 
 
 And he let her finish. 
 
 But she would not let him go. 
 
 " Dear Sergeant Harkness, I can't pre- 
 tend to have an ounce of pity left for that 
 dreadful being in Blind Man's Block. A 
 murderer, too! At least I have more pity 
 for some one else, and you must let me 
 take him away before you go." 
 
 " Impossible, my dear young lady — that 
 is, before communicating with Mr. Cross." 
 
 "About bail?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What was the amount named this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Fifty pounds." 
 
 " Give me a sheet of paper and a stamp, 
 and I'll write a cheque myself." 
 
 Harkness considered. 
 215
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " Certainly that could be done," he said 
 at len^h. 
 
 " Then quickly — quickly ! " 
 
 Yet even when it was done she detained 
 him ; even when he put a big key into her 
 hand. 
 
 " Must this go further — ^before the magis- 
 trates — after you have found him ? " 
 
 Harkness hardened. 
 
 " The offence is the same. I'm afraid it 
 must." 
 
 " It will make it very unpleasant for me," 
 sighed Moya, " when I come up here. And 
 when I've found him for you — and undone 
 anything that was done — though I don't 
 admit that anything was — I — well, I really 
 think you might! " 
 
 "Might what?" 
 
 " Withdraw the charge ! '* 
 
 " But those tracks weren't his. Mr. 
 Rigden made them. He shouldn't have 
 done that." 
 
 " Of course he shouldn't — if he did." 
 
 " But of course he did, Miss Bethune. 
 I've known Mr. Rigden for years ; we used 
 to be very good friends. I shouldn't speak 
 
 2l6
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 as I do unless I spoke by the book. But — 
 why on earth did he go and do a thing Hke 
 that ? " 
 
 Moya paused. 
 
 " If I tell you will you never tell a soul? " 
 
 " Never," said the rash sergeant. 
 
 " Then he was imposed upon. The 
 wretch pretended he — had some claim — I 
 cannot tell you what. I can tell you no 
 more." 
 
 It was provokingly little to have to keep 
 secret for lifetime ; yet Harkness was glad 
 to hear even this. 
 
 " It was the only possible sort of explana- 
 tion," said he. 
 
 " But it won't explain enough for the 
 world," sighed Moya, so meaningly that the 
 sergeant asked her what she did mean. 
 
 " I must really get off," he added. 
 
 " Then I'll be plain with you," cried the 
 girl. " Either you must withdraw this 
 charge, and pretend that those tracks were 
 genuine, or I can never come up here to 
 live ! " 
 
 And she looked her loveliest to em- 
 phasise the threat. 
 
 217
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " I must see Mr. Rig-den about that," was, 
 however, all that Harkness would vouch- 
 safe. 
 
 " Very well ! That's only fair. Mean- 
 while — I — trust you, Sergeant Harkness. 
 And I never yet trusted the wrong man ! " 
 
 That was Moya's last word. 
 
 It is therefore a pity that it was not 
 strictly true. 
 
 • • • • 
 
 It was a wonderful ride they had together, 
 that ride between the police-barracks and 
 the station, and from drowsy afternoon into 
 cool sweet night. The crickets chirped 
 their welcome on the very boundary, and 
 the same stars came out that Moya had 
 seen swept away in the morning, one by one 
 again. Then the moon came up with a 
 bound, but hung a little as though caught 
 in some pine-trees on the horizon, that 
 seemed scratched upon its disc. And Moya 
 remarked that they were very near home, 
 with such a wealth of tenderness in the 
 supreme word that a mist came over 
 Rigden's eyes. 
 
 " Thank God," said he, " that I have lived 
 218
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 to hear you call it so, even if it never is 
 to be." 
 
 " But it is— it is. Our own dear home ! " 
 
 " We shall see." 
 
 " What do you mean, darling? " 
 
 " I am going to tell Theodore the whole 
 thing." 
 
 " After I've taken such pains to make it 
 certain that none of them need ever know a 
 word?" 
 
 " Yes ; he shall know ; he can do what he 
 thinks fit about letting it go any further." 
 
 Moya was silent for a little. 
 
 " You're right," she said at last. " I know 
 Theodore. He'll never breathe it ; but he'll 
 think all the more of you, dearest." 
 
 " I owe it to him. I owe it to you all, 
 and to myself. I am not naturally a fraud, 
 Moya." 
 
 " On the other hand, it was very natural 
 not to speak of such a thing." 
 
 " But it was wrong. I knew it at the time. 
 Only I could not risk " 
 
 Moya touched his lips with her switch. 
 
 " Hush, sir ! That's the one part I shall 
 never — quite — forgive." 
 
 219
 
 The Shadow of a Man 
 
 " But you have taught me a lesson. I 
 shall never keep another thing back from 
 you in all my life ! " 
 
 " And I will never be horrid to you again, 
 darling! But of course there will be ex- 
 ceptions to both rules ; to yours because 
 there are some things which wouldn't be my 
 business (but this wasn't one of them) ; to 
 mine, because — well — we none of us have 
 the tempers of angels." 
 
 "But you have been my good angel 
 already — and more — so much more ! " 
 
 They came to the home-paddock gate. 
 The moon was high above the pines. 
 Underneath there were the lesser lights, 
 the earthly lights, but all else was celestial 
 peace. 
 
 " I hope they're not looking for me still," 
 said Moya. 
 
 " If they are I must go and look for 
 them." 
 
 " I won't let you. It's too sweet — the 
 pines — the moonlight — everything." 
 
 They rode up to the homestead, with each 
 roof beaming to the moon. 
 
 220
 
 The Fact of the Matter 
 
 " Not much of a place for the belle of 
 Toorak," sighed Rigden. 
 
 " Perhaps not. But, of all places, the 
 place for me ! " 
 
 " You're as keen as Ives," laughed 
 Rigden as he helped her to dismount. 
 " And I was so afraid the place would 
 choke you ofif 1 " 
 
 221
 
 OTHER BOOKS BY MR. HORNUNG 
 
 '"Peccavi* is at once the most serious and the 
 strongest novel that has issued from Mr. Homung's 
 engaging pen. ... A striking and admirable 
 story." — The Spectator. 
 
 PECCAVI 
 
 i2mo, $1.^0 
 
 "It must be said that the erring parson is a 
 fine figure, standing aloof, yet never passive in 
 his awful solitude. He works out a grand and 
 unselfish salvation in an heroic way." 
 
 — The Athenceum. 
 
 ' ' One of the strongest novels published this 
 autumn. In it Mr. Hornung has taken a long 
 step forward in his work as a novelist. 
 Here at last is a novel of power and purpose. 
 , . In vividness of writing the book is 
 remarkable. ' * — TJie Outlook. 
 
 " One of the strongest and most touching of 
 recent novels. Describes the moral fall of an 
 English clergyman and his strange, brave, 
 victorious struggle to win back public respect 
 and confidence." — The Congregationalist. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
 
 OTHER BOOKS BY MR. HORNUNG 
 
 The 
 Amateur Cracksman 
 
 30th Thousand. i2mo, $i.2j. The titles of 
 the stories are : 
 
 I. The Ides of March V. Wilful Murder 
 
 II. A Costume Piece VI. Wine Points of the Law 
 
 III. Gentlemen and Players VII. The Return Match 
 
 IV. Le Premier Pas VIII. The Gift of the Emperor 
 
 '' For sheer excitement and inventive genius 
 the burglarian exploits of ' The Amateur Cracks- 
 man ' carry off the palm. Raffles is as distinct 
 and convincing a creation as Sherlock 
 Holmes." — The Bookman. 
 
 " Raffles is amazing ; his resource is perfect ; 
 he talks like a gentleman and acts like one, 
 except when occupied with pressing business in 
 another man's house, at midnight, and naturally 
 he has a ' cool nerve,' a nerve positively arctic. 
 They all have nerves like that, these Raffleses." 
 
 — New York Tribune. 
 
 Dead MenTell NoTales 
 
 A Novel. i2mo, $1.2^ 
 
 " In this novel, as in the previous ones from 
 Mr. Hornung's pen, there is a wealth of well- 
 handled incidents. It is story-telling of the 
 most direct kind and holds the attention from 
 the first page to the last. Mr. Hornung seems 
 to us in each succeeding book from his pen to 
 gain in confidence and authority, and we do 
 not hesitate to place him among the first of the 
 comparatively new writers who must be reck- 
 oned with." — Literature.
 
 OTHER BOOKS BY MR. HORNUNG 
 
 The Rogue's March 
 
 A Romatice. i2mo, $1.30 
 
 " Mr. Hornung has succeeded admirably in 
 his object : his Austrahan scenes are a veritable 
 nightmare; they sear the imagination, and it 
 will be some time before we get Hookey Simpson , 
 the clank of the chains, and the hero's degrada- 
 tion off our mind." — London Saturday Review. 
 
 *' Vividly and vigorously told." 
 
 — London Academy. 
 
 Each i2mo, $1.25 : 
 
 My Lord Duke 
 
 "Mr. Hornung is a natural humorist, and 
 has the art of telling a story." 
 
 — Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 
 
 "It is pleasant to turn to a real story by a 
 
 real story-writer. Such is ' My Lord Duke.' 
 
 Its story is its own, both in plot and 
 
 in characterization. It is a capital little novel. ' ' 
 
 — The Nation. 
 
 Young Blood 
 
 " Whether Lowndes be entirely realized or 
 not does not much matter ; the conception of 
 him is already a distinction. He is an advent- 
 urer of genius, but not built on the usual lines. 
 . And his vitality is inexhaustible. We 
 leave him, not without a stain upon his char- 
 acter, but with considerable regret in our 
 minds." — The Bookman.
 
 OTHER BOOKS BY MR. HORNUNG 
 
 Some Persons 
 Unknown 
 
 ' ' In about half-a-dozen cases the scene is laid 
 in Australia, and the dramatic and tragic aspects 
 of Colonial life are treated by Mr. Hornung 
 with that happy union of vigor and sympathy 
 which has stood him in such good stead in his 
 earlier novels." — London Spectator. 
 
 In the Ivorv Series. Each i6mo, /j" cents : 
 
 The Boss of Taroomba 
 
 "There are passages in E. W. Homung's 
 latest story, 'The Boss of Taroomba,' which 
 remind us by their vividness and fantastic quality 
 of Stevenson in some of his South Sea Island 
 tales. . . . The hero is an uncommon 
 creation even for fiction." 
 
 — Chicago Times-Herald. 
 
 A Bride from the Bush 
 
 " Mr. E. W. Hornung is one of the most 
 successful delineators of Bush life." 
 
 — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 Irralie's Bushranger 
 
 " A capital little story of Australian love and 
 adventure. There is no flagging in the press 
 and stir of the story." — The Nation. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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