Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/199

 fear they might miss the road and not find it again till they'd ate off a mile or two of his best grass. All of a sudden a mob of the Baranco weaners ran across a plain and nearly boxed with 'em. Mr. Belton gallops for his life—I expect he swore a bit, too—and was just in time to head 'em off into the pine-scrub by the sandhill. They took the old cattle-track over towards the water-hole, he following them up, till all of a sudden he comes plump on a hawker's cart!

'This pulled him up short. He let the sheep run on to the frontage and got off his horse. He knew the Colemans' cart. They always stayed a night at Baranco. When they passed, a week since, they were to make Waranah that night. What the deuce were they doing here? Hang the fellows! were they spelling their horses? Feed was scarce. No! they were not the men to do that. Honest, straight-going chaps they'd always been.

'He walked over to the cart. Something wrong surely! The big slop-chest was open. The cash-box, with lock smashed, was empty. Boots, clothes, tobacco, which they always had of the best, lying scattered about. Where were the poor fellows themselves? If they had been robbed, why hadn't they gone to the police at Waranah and complained? Whoever had done this must have camped here in the middle of the scrub. Then there'd been a fire over by the big pine-stump—an "old man" fire too. Wonder they hadn't set a light to the dry grass? No rain for the half-year to speak of. No; they had been too jolly careful. Swept in the twigs and ashes all round. Curious fire for bushmen to make too—big enough to roast an ox. He stares at the ashes; then gropes among them with his hand. My God! What are these small pieces of bone? Why, the place is full of them. And this? and this? A metal button, a metal buckle—one, two, three—twelve in all.

'It comes back to him now that three travellers left the Baranco men's hut the same morning as the Colemans—one a tall, dark, grey-haired old hand, with a scar across his face. He gets his horse with a long sort of half-whistle and half-groan and rides slow, in a study like, toward the township. The next day the magistrate, Mr. Waterton (he's a squatter, but sits most times when the Police Magistrate isn't on hand), goes out with the Sergeant of Police and the best part of the