Page:Hornung - Stingaree.djvu/141

 "I am after him."

"So am I."

"Then you're going in the wrong direction."

Kilbride flushed a warm brown from beard to helmet.

"Do you know who you're speaking to?" cried he. "I'm Sub-Inspector Kilbride, and this business is my business, and no other man's in this Colony. You go back to your barracks, sir! I'm not going to have every damned fool in the force charging about the country on his own account."

The trooper was a dark, smart, dapper young fellow, of a type not easily browbeaten or subdued. And discipline is not the strong point of forces so irregular as the mounted police of a crescent colony. But nothing could have been more admirable than the manner in which this rebuke was received.

"Very well, sir, if you wish it; but I can assure you that you are off the track of Stingaree."

"How do you know?" asked Kilbride, rudely; but he was beginning to look less black.

"I happen to know the place. You would have some difficulty in finding it if you never were there before. I only stumbled across it by accident myself."

"Lately?"