The Bushranger's Secret, etc

Front matter

A TREACHEROUS BLOW. THE BUSHRANGER'S SECRET. BY Mrs. HENRY CLARKE, m.a., ILLUSTRATED BY W. S. STACET LONDON: BLACKIE & SON, Limited, 49 OLD BAILEY, E.C. GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN. CONTENTS. Chap. Page I. A Fugitive, 7 II. Tempted ! 23 III. At WARRANDILLA, 43 IV. In quest of Treasure, 62 V. Deadman's Gully, 77 VI. The Treasure Found, 97 VII. Deserted! - - 115 VIII. Lost in the Bush, 128 IX. Facing Death, 143 X. A Grim sort op Picnic, 158 XL A Ruthless Villain, 176 XII. Under Green Boughs, ILLUSTRATIONS. Page "Here, Give it me back," said the Bushranger, - 17 The Meeting in "Deadman's Gully," - - - - 95 A Treacherous Blow, - Frontispiece. THE BUSHRANGER'S SECRET.

Chapter I

A FUGITIVE. ff-if^ljWO men were sitting together in a VSlf?' small outlying hut on one of the — "' great grazing farms of South Aus tralia. The hut was a comfortless place. The floor was of beaten earth. Two bunks for sleeping were fixed to the log wall. Above one of the bunks hung the framed photograph of a comely woman, with two bright-faced lads leaning against her. It was the only picture on the walls. A rough table stood opposite the window, and behind the table was a wooden bench. Above the bench there was a shelf, and a stand for guns. The men were sitting on the bench. They had not long returned from a hard day's riding. The elder man was leaning m 8 THE BUSHRANGER'S SECRET. back against the wall in a heavy sleep. The other, a slender, dark-eyed fellow, hardly more than a lad, was looking at him with a gloomy contemptuous irritation in his glance.

"Better asleep than awake, though," he muttered to himself, after a moment. " What can he talk about but cattle and horses?" He shrugged his shoulders, and got up from his seat and stretched himself. The dog lying at the older man's feet, with its paw resting on one of them, raised its head sharply at Gray's movement, but did not attempt to get up even when Gray went to the door and opened it, letting the light of their lamp flow out in a steady stream. All round the hut stretched the gray level grass-lands, rolling away in vast monotony to a far horizon. A wide sky arched over them, in which the stars wrere shining with a soft yet brilliant splendour. Gray glanced care lessly up at that glorious sky. He believed himself to be endowed with a keen sense of the beautiful. He prided himself on his dis taste for ugly surroundings.

When he had earned the fortune he had come to Australia to earn he meant to prove to the world how keen and true his artistic tastes were. But he glanced carelessly up at the shining stars. They had no message for him. After standing in the doorway a moment he turned back into the hut, shutting the door behind him with a sudden bang that made Harding start up, rubbing his eyes. "Why, I must have been asleep!" he said with a surprised air. He drew himself up to his full height, towering like a good-tempered giant over Gray's slight figure. " I'm tired out, and that's a fact,"he added apologetically. "I think I'll turn in." Gray did not answer. He flung himself down on the bench and began to pare his finger-nails, looking at each finger critically as he finished it, and taking no notice of Harding.

The elder man regarded him doubtfully. "In a wax, old man?" he said in a depre cating voice. Gray flung him a vicious look over his shoulder, and returned to his nails. Harding's face had a very tender expression in it as he advanced a step and put out his hand to touch the young man's shoulder. " If it's anything I've done," he began in a shuffling, awkward, kindly tone — Gray turned upon him with startling suddenness. "Anything you've done?" he demanded, squaring his arms on the table, and fixing his dark glance on Harding. "You needn't flatter yourself that I care a rap for what you do or don't do. Turn in, and leave me to myself." " Come, come, Gray, don't take a fellow like that. You're tired out ; I can see you're just tired out." " I am tired out," responded Gray grimly. " Tired of it all.

Tired and sick of you along with the rest of it. A pretty life this is to live. A pretty companion you make, don't you? " Well, wTell, things may better soon," said the other soothingly. " I wish I was more book -learned for your sake, old fellow. But that's past wishing for, ain't it? And you'll have to make the best of me for a spell." " Best or worst, I can't endure this life any longer," returned Gray impatiently. "I'll ride over to the station to-morrow and give it up; or end it quicker than that perhaps;" and he glanced up with a dark look at the loaded gun lying across the shelf. Harding knew Gray well enough to be able to disregard that look, but he spoke very seriously. " You'll not be such a foolish lad as to throw up your berth in a fit of temper. This won't last much longer. You will be called in to the station in a week or two and given a better post; and it's your duty to stick on here till you'recalled in, you see."

"Duty!" Gray flung the word at him like a missile. Harding's mild eyes looked at him in gentle reproof. " It's a fine thing to do, my lad. No man can do more if he lived in a king's palace. And a man who does his duty is greater than a king." " That's all rubbish, talk like that," returned Gray sharply. "You just drop it, Harding." He got up, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, and leant against the wall. His eyes went round the hut. "A king's palace!" he said with a hard laugh. " Verily it needs strong imagination to think of such a place here. What a hole to live in! But I'll not stand it much longer." Harding did not answer this time. He went up to his bunk and took from under the pillow his little shabbily bound Bible and sat down to read his evening chapter. Gray watched him moodily; but in a moment his attention was drawn off by the strange behaviour of the dog, which, when Harding had sat down on his bunk, had crawled under it.

But it had come out again almost at once, and now stood in the middle of the hut, with its head bent and its ears upraised in the attitude of intent listening. "What's the matter with the dog?" said Gray. " He hears somebody." Harding looked up. "Nobody ever comes this wray; it's out of the track. Come here, Watch. You're dreaming, old fellow." The dog turned its head and looked at its master, gave a slow wag of its tail to show that it heard his voice, and then with a dash it sprang at the door, barking fiercely. Harding got up and flung back the door. His movement was so sudden, that a man who had crept up to the hut and was now leaning against the door had no time to re cover himself, and staggered forward into the hut. Watch retreated, still growling fiercely, but restrained from attacking the stranger by a gesture of its master.

Gray made a clutch at the gun above his head, but the next moment withdrew his hand. That pitiful, abject, trembling fugitive was not a man to take arms against. The stranger staggered across the hut and crouched down against the opposite wall, breathing in short hurried pants. His face was painfully thin, and as white as death. From a long jagged wound, half hidden by his matted hair, blood was trickling in a dark slow stream. The clothes he wore were torn to tatters. You could see his skin through the rents. He crouched back against the wall, hugging his arms against his breast, and looking from Gray to Harding with a wild agonized en treaty in his eyes. It was the look of a hunted animal appealing for mercy rather than the look of a man asking help of fellowmen. He was evidently unable to speak.

He tried to articulate something, but his baked, blistered lips refused their office. " He's just done for," said Gray. Harding nodded, and going up to the pannikin of cold tea on the shelf took out some in a cup and held it to the stranger's lips. He drank it ap greedily and then words came to him. "Don't give me up," he cried out in a strange hoarse scream, and fell along the floor huddled up in a dreadful heap. The two men looked at each other. " It's plain enough to see what he is," said Gray with a slight shrug of the shoulders. " Shall we have to entertain the rest of the gang, do you think?" "The police, more likely, lad. They're close on his track, I fancy." He bent over the man and straightened him out. Gray did not attempt to help him ; he stood looking down at the wretched fugitive with a cold unsympathizing curiosity in his handsome face as he said: "He isn't dead, is he?"

As he spoke the man opened his eyes and gazed up at them. Wild gleaming dark eyes they were, looking all the darker for the haggard pallor of his face. He raised himself on his elbow and made a clutch at his breast. There was something hidden there, and he kept his hand closed upon it. Harding put the cup with more tea to his lips again, and again he drank greedily. Then he tried to raise himself into a sitting posture, but sank back on the floor. " I'll cheat the beaks after all," he said hoarsely. A grim smile flickered over his face. " I swore I'd never be caught." He looked from one man to the other. " They'll make no gallows-bird o' me," he added with a sort of hoarse chuckle. He still kept his hand clutched upon his breast Gray noticed the action, and a vivid curiosity rose up in him to know what the man kept so jealously hidden there.

He must have shown this in his face, for the man addressed him sharply. "What are you starin' at, eh? Do you think I've got the Kohinoor hidden about me? Well, I ain't got it." "I don't think anything about you, my man," replied Gray loftily. He turned to Harding. " What are we going to do with him?" " Lend me a hand and we'll lift him on my bunk," said Harding. " I'll lie here," broke from the man. " You just leave me alone." He pushed away the food Harding' offered him. " I can't swallow. Just leave me alone." Gray shrugged his shoulders and walked to the door. The man's eyes followed him with a suspicious glance. "Thinks himself a fine gentleman, it's plain," he muttered. Then he beckoned to Harding. "Do you know Princes Street, Adelaide, mate?" he whispered. Harding nodded. "No. 5 Princes Street, top floor.

You give two knocks. Write that down." Harding took out his worn pocket-book and wrote it down. The man lay staring up at him, then with a sudden effort, as if his mind was at last made up, he dragged a tattered scrap of yellow paper from his breast and held it up to Harding. " Send it — there" and he feebly nodded at the pocket-book in Harding's hand. "HERE, GIVE IT ME BACK," SAID THE BUSHRANGE Gray was still standing in the doorway, looking out over the level pastures. He half expected to hear the gallop of well-trained horses, the shout of authoritative voices; but all was still, the police had missed the track. He shut the door and came back into the hut. " Make your mind easy, my friend," he said in a half-sneering tone. " It's all quiet outside." The man gave him a dark look and raised himself towards Harding.

" Here, give it me back," he said, with a hasty snatch at it. " Your pal's no call to ■_ " see it. Harding had raised the paper towards the lamp-light, and was looking scrutinizingly at it. It seemed to be a rough map. There was a wavy line that evidently represented the course of a ravine or gully, and on each side were jagged marks that betokened rising ground. Right across the paper ran the words in large ill-formed characters: "Deadman's Gully." About the middle of the paper there was a sort of big blot, and underneath in smaller words was written: -' (760) B "Big gum. Dig five feet due south from hole." Gray came leisurely up to Harding's side. "What is it?" he said, holding out his hand for the paper. A scowl came over the face of the man on the ground. He flung himself upward and snatched the paper from Harding's hand with a violent oath.

The effort was too much for him, and he fell back groaning and helpless. But he still kept the paper clutched in . his right hand, and his eyes fixed them selves on Gray with something of the look of a trapped wild beast. " Keep off, can't you ! " he gasped out. " A pretty gentleman you are, pry in' and sneakin' like that." Gray stood over him, looking down upon him with a cold cynical regard that seemed to madden the man. " Better step back and leave him to me," whispered Harding. Gray laughed. ' All right! but play fair, old fellow." Harding's mild eyes looked their wonder at him, but Gray only laughed again and went back to the table, where he sat with his head propped on his hands watching the two. Harding dragged his box out from under his bunk and sat down on it. The man lay still for a moment and then painfully raised himself into a sitting posture against the wall.

" Look here," he said. " Do you think I'm dyin'?" " Yes," said Harding briefly. " Before mornin'?" " I don't believe you have many hours to live." "Right, that's what I think myself. I've cheated the beaks, eh?" Harding was silent. The man looked sharply at him. "You've got that address written down?" " Yes, but I can't send that paper." "You can't send it?" The words dropped slowly from the man's lips. " Of course I can't," returned Harding. " You know that well enough." " You won't send it," repeated the man again, with a dull rage in his voice. The paper was still clutched in his hand, and he looked at it and then up at Harding. " There's a fortin in it," he whispered under his breath. " Bill 'ull go shares. Here, you take it. You go to 5 Princes Street, top floor, and ask for Bill Clay.

He'll go shares, and thankful." Harding made no attempt to take the paper. He merely said : " Tear it up if you like, but if you give it to me I shall hand it over to the police." The man stared at him with a fierce incredulity in his gleaming dark eyes. " There's a fortin in it," he repeated, as if the words must convince Harding of his foolishness — " a fortin, mate. And you carn't miss the place. Bill, he knows Dead man's Gully." He held out the paper, but Harding shook his head and said: " You are wasting your words." " You won't send it? Look here, just look here." He stopped to moisten his dry lips, and then went on: " You've heard of Tom Dearino-? C_> Harding nodded. It was the name of a noted bushranger, whose last crime had been a daring robbery of the chief bank of Adelaide. "Well, I'm Tom Dearing.

Now you know." Harding gazed silently at him. He could not get the right words to speak, but it did not need words to make Dearing understand the intense ardent desire to help him that was flooding Harding's soul. It affected the man strangely. He forgot the buried treasure for a moment. The paper fluttered out of his hand and fell on the floor as he cried : " You're sorry for me; sorry for me!" " I'm dead sorry for you, lad," said Harding with slow fervent utterance. " You've been spending your life in getting trash like that" — he waved his hand toward the paper. "And now you've got to die, and go before God. He'll be sorry for you too. If I'm sorry, a man like me, what must God's sorrow be for such a life as yours has been ! Don't think about that hateful money, lad. Let it lie where you've laid it if you like."

Harding took the paper up and thrust it back into the man's fingers as he said: " Tear it up. But you've got a chance to show you're ashamed for what you've done. Give the money back to those you stole it from. 'Tis all you can do now to make amends." The man gazed irresolutely at him. "You talk mighty fine, but what's to hinder you grabbin' the whole blessed lot?" " Nothing." That single word said everything. Dearing stared fixedly at Harding for a moment, and then thrust the paper into his hand. " Here, take it," he said. " And if there's anything good you've got to say to me, let's hear it. I'll listen to you, old man. You act up to what you talk of."

Chapter II

, TEMPTED ! DEARING died next day just after sunrise. They buried him down by the creek, out of sight of the hut. " So that's the end of Mr. Tom Dearing," said Gray, as they turned away and walked back towards the hut. " He didn't manage well, did he?" Harding gave him one of his pained, wondering looks. "Don't talk like that, dear lad," he said, " you don't mean it, you know." Gray gave a laugh that had not much mirth in it. "What a fellow you are, Harding! You insist on everybody being as virtuous as yourself. But I mean exactly what I say. Why did Mr. Tom Dearing take to robbing his neighbour unless he could insure himself against being found out? It may be bad to be a rogue; it's unpardonable to be known for one." " What difference does it make in the sin, lad?" said Harding, with a sorrowful look at him.

"And it's the sin we've got to think of." " Yes, I know that's your view," said Gray, with a scarcely concealed sneer. " But it's a sadly old-fashioned one, my dear fellow." Harding was silent. " It's only the fear of being found out that keeps men honest," Gray went on after a moment. " We're told, from our youth up, that ' Honesty is the best policy,' and most of us are sensible enough to believe it — and so we're honest." "Don't you believe it, lad?" burst with emphasis from Harding ; and not even Gray's flippant rejoinder, "Not believe that ' Honesty is the best policy?' you can't mean that?" was able to check his eagerness to speak. He stopped in the path and laid his hand on Gray's arm, more moved than Gray had ever seen him before. " You wouldn't talk like that if you'd seen that poor fellow die, Gray," he said.

"There's TEMPTED ! 25 more difference between doing right and doing wrong than just that you get punished for wrong-doing if you're found out. Sin drags a man down, lad; it eats the manhood out of him. It makes a ruin of what's best in him." The words fell on ears dull to their mean ing. And Harding was quickly silent ; speech was always a difficult thing to him. He had never spoken so earnestly to Gray before. When they came back to the hut Harding took out the tattered sheet of yellow paper from his breast-pocket and placed it in the small desk upon the shelf. " One of us must take that over to the station," he said. " The bank authorities will be glad enough to get it." Gray had heard enough of the conversation between Harding and Dearing to know what the paper was about, though Harding had not mentioned it before.

He stood at the door, swinging his heavy stock-whip in his hand. " I should like to have a look at it," hf said carelessly. " So you shall, lad. And I think you'd better go over with it. But we'll talk of that to-night." " What made him hide the money, do you know?" he asked. "He didn't say. The police were after him, I expect, and he hoped to be able to get back sometime and dig it up." " I wonder if he had told any of his friends and acquaintances?" said Gray, looking up at the desk where Harding had put the map. " If so, I wouldn't give much for the bank's chance of getting the money." " He hadn't told a soul," was Harding's answer. " He wanted me to send the map to some mate of his, but he thought better of that afterwards." " Better?" Gray lifted his dark eyebrows. " What does the bank want with the money ?

It's rich enough to stand the loss. It isn't as if he had robbed a poor man, you know. It's the best thing I've heard of him, his wTanting to send that map to his mate." " Stolen money does no good to anybody," said Harding rather shortly. " It didn't do any good to him at anyrate," said Grav. He moved from the door to let tempted! 27 Harding pass. "I suppose we must start," he went on with a yawn. " Another day of this hateful stock-riding! and another day of it to-morrow, and the next day, and the next day! How am I going to stand it, I wonder?" Harding had disappeared into the stable, and Gray said the last words to himself. There wTas a heavy frown on his handsome young face, bitter discontent in his dark eyes. When Harding brought his horse to him he scarcely thanked him, and he rode away by his side in sullen silence.

When they returned that night, Harding was too fagged out to talk of anything. He went off into a heavy sleep directly after supper, and Gray found it impossible to wake him sufficiently for rational conversation. The desk in which he had placed the paper was not locked, and Gray took out the paper and sat down by the lamp to study it. It was very easy to understand. Anyone who knew Deadman's Gully could not fail to find the treasure, Gray thought to himself. And his thoughts ran on something like this: " Suppose I had found this map, not knowing whose it was, and had gone to dig in Deadman's Gully on the chance, what a wonderful and blessed change it would have made in my life? No more hateful stock riding; no more dreary days spent with this dull-witted Harding; but a glad return to civilized England, and a rich cultured life in congenial society.

If it only had happened so! Yet, even now — ?" But there Gray's thoughts took pause. The secret was not his alone. It was shared by Harding. Even if Harding would allow him to — But Harding would not, and there was an end of it. They arranged at breakfast next morning that Gray should ride over to the station the day after and carry the paper with him. From the station it could be easily sent in to the inspector of police with the report of Dearing's death. Gray got the paper down for another look at it. " I believe I've heard you speak of Dead man's Gully, Harding." " That's most likely, old man. I know the TEMPTED ! 29 place welL I was stationed within a mile of it once. You know Rodwell's Peak?" "Haven't the honour," said Gray flip pantly. He got up and put the paper back in the desk. "Rodwell's Peak and Dead man's Gully!

The Australian mind isn't gifted with imagination in regard to names." "Deadman's Gully got its name rightly enough. It was the haunt of a gang of bushrangers. A track runs right by the mouth of it, and they buried the travellers there that they waylaid. That wasn't in my time, but I've heard old Jebb speak of it. He went with the police there once. A lonely dismal spot, he said, between high rocks, with a few trees in the middle." " Our friend Dearing knew the spot well, it seems." "Yes;. but he didn't belong to that lot. He used it as a hiding-place, I fancy. He'd had a miserable life from what he told me." Gray was putting on his boots, and ap parently paying but little attention to Hard ing's remarks. " I suppose you could find it, though?" he said carelessly. " Easily enough. You've just got to follow the track till Rodwell's Peak is right in front of you.

You've never been in the uplands, have you, Gray?" Harding broke off to say. " It's grand scenery. You ought to go there one day." " Suppose we go there now." Gray had finished putting on his boots, and was taking his whip down from the nail. He said it laughingly, looking back at Harding over his shoulder. Harding, who was washing the dishes at the table, returned his laughing look with a wondering glance. "How could we? Who'd look after the stock?" " Leave them to take care of themselves, the ugly brutes," went on Gray in the same laughing way. " Let us run up to Deadman's Gully and appropriate that coin, Harding. What do you say to that plan, eh?" Harding laughed, but half-sadly. " I believe you'd make a joke of anything, lad. But don't joke about that money. It don't seem right." " It isn't a joke the bank would appreciate TEMPTED! 31 at any rate," returned Gray, with another laugh.

He did not continue the subject. " You get a talk with Mr. Morton, lad," said Harding to him, as they stood outside the hut, ready to start for their day's work. "He'll listen to you, I know. Tell him you're tired of the work here." " What's the good of telling him that?" returned Gray, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm tired of work everywhere — tired and sick of this horrible country, and everything and everybody in it." " Well, Morton might help you to a post in Adelaide," said Harding, who had been much troubled by Gray's constant despond ency of late. " You'd have better company there. It's more like England, you know." " What post could he get me in Adelaide?" returned Gray, with a bitter irony in his tone. " And do you think it would be any pleasure to me to sit in an office and see the carriages driving by ?

I had enough of that in England. No, I'd be off to the diamond fields if I'd the cash for the journey. Do you think Morton would lend me that?" Harding shook his head sorrowfully. "I wish I knew how I could help you, lad. I can't bear to see you like this. I wish Polly was here. She'd know how to talk to you better than I do." Gray cast a scornful look at his companion's troubled face. It rankled in his heart that Harding should pity him. "Are we going to stand talking here all day?" he said irritably. "Aren't you going to get the horses out?" They rode off in different directions that morning. Gray went on a long round. His ride took him to a distant part of the run, from which he could get a glimpse of the far-off mountains. The peak towering up in the blue air so far above its fellows was Rod well's Peak.

Gray remembered now that Harding had pointed it out to him when they had been together at this spot. He checked his horse and paused for some time gazing at the peak. Close under it was Deadman's Gully! Gray knew well enough how deceptive distance was in that clear air. He knew how far off those hills really were; TEMPTED ! 33 but the sight of Rodwell's Peak seemed to bring the money close within his grasp, to give the convict's story a reality it had wanted before. It was with a darker face, and a heart overflowing with bitterness, that he left that spot and turned his horse's head homewards. Harding was not at home when he returned. This was a new cause for vexation, for Gray had to light the fire and prepare the tea, a task he hated. It was with a muttered curse against Harding that he set about it, and he was ready with a very unpleasant greeting for him when he should at last appear.

Gray was very slow and awkward over his unaccustomed work; but tea was at last got ready. Gray finished his meal, and still Harding had not come. It was getting dark now; the stars were coming out; the wide outlines of the pas tures were growing indistinct. Gray wTent outside the hut and looked searchingly in the direction from which he expected Hard ing to come. But there were no signs of him. ( 760 ) C Up to this point Gray had not even won dered at his lateness; he had only felt an noyed at it. But now a wild thrill went over him. Had something happened? Had Harding met with some accident? Gray caught hold of the top rail of the fence to steady himself as the thought swept over him. It brought such a throbbing of wild hope with it that Gray recoiled at his own feelings, but the feelings remained.