Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/544

536 “Oh, of course not! and pray how did your axe come to be found there?”

“Why, I lent it to Steele last Sunday, as he had broken the handle of his own.”

“A very likely story, indeed; but it won’t go down with me; perhaps, however, you will find the Beak soft enough to believe it. But I can’t waste time talking, so just stir yourself a bit, for I must see you safe in Campbelford jail before night, and that’s a good step from here.”

“But,” I exclaimed, “will no one tell me with what I am charged?”

“Why,” said my old mate, who was amongst the crowd, “some fellows were passing by Steele’s hut this morning, and finding the door open, went in to take a look round, and there they found the owner on the floor dead, with his dog beside him, badly cut about, but still alive. The murder had been committed with an axe, and after a careful search yours was found, covered with blood, concealed in the bush close by. However, keep up your pluck. None of us who know you, believe you did it, though it is confoundedly awkward your sleeping all alone in that tent.”

“But I was not alone. Dick Vesey, whom some of you know, passed the night with me, and he can prove that I was never a yard from my tent all the night.”

“D—n your Dick Vesey,” said Brady, savagely, “what’s he to me? Come along at once, or I’ll make you.”

“Oh, but,” said several, “we know Vesey well, and if he supports Hartley’s story, that will make things look very different. Where is Dick?”

“Why, unfortunately he went off up country this morning early, and I can’t exactly say where he may be by this time, but he will be about some of the cattle-stations out west, for he is gone to buy hides.”

“Of course,” said Brady, derisively, “he must be somewhere; but I fancy he’ll not turn up time enough to save your neck, so come along.”

After a hurried talk with my mate and other friends, who promised to scour the bush on all sides in search of Vesey, I was taken down to Campbelford before Mr. Grantham, the magistrate, and lodged in the jail. It was an old, very strongly-built log-house, extremely dirty, and swarming with vermin of every kind. It had been unoccupied for some time, and every description of small plague that bites, fastened upon me, with appetites whetted by a long fast. I shall never forget the misery of the next five days. I was almost eaten up alive, and I really think that had my captivity lasted much longer, I should have been fairly tortured to death. After the first couple of days had passed without Vesey’s making his appearance, I began also to grow very uneasy. What if he had got lost in the bush; or, as he had a large sum of money about him, been stuck up and murdered. So much of my blood as my tormentors had left me, ran cold at the mere thought of such a thing. Then the suspicions that would naturally attach to me on account of my constant and well-known habit of frequenting Steele’s hut, which, it would of course be believed, must have given me an opportunity of discovering where his supposed large store of gold was concealed. When to this was added the finding of my axe, with which the murder had undoubtedly been committed, it must be evident to every one, and I was unable to conceal from myself that, innocent as I was, I must inevitably suffer the fate of the guilty, should Vesey not be forthcoming. On the sixth morning, when, worn out with anxiety and want of sleep, I had become but the shadow of my former self, the heavy door was thrown open, and in walked Grantham and Vesey. The sight was too much for me in the weak state I was in, and I fainted. When I came to myself, I was in the parlour of the little inn. Vesey’s appearance had put everything right. Steele had been seen alive about 10 p.m., and the doctor who had been called in when he was discovered at about nine in the morning, gave it as his opinion that he must have been dead about seven or eight hours, so that it was clear that I could not have been the guilty party. A good long sleep in a comfortable bed soon put me to rights again, and the next day Mr. Grantham’s man drove me over to Springfield. I got down at the Caledonian. After the first greetings were over, my mate said:

“I suppose Brady didn’t care about meeting you again, after the brutal manner he behaved to you, for he left the diggings yesterday.”

“And a good riddance, too,” said the store-keeper; “I never want to see his black muzzle any more.”

“What has become of the dog?” I inquired.

“Why the doctor bandaged up his wounds, and “he is getting all right again; but they have to take him up food to the hut, for he won’t leave it.”

After I had been up to my tent, to see that all was right, I walked over to the hut. I found the dog lying on his poor master’s bunk. He knew me at once, and after a great deal of coaxing I managed to get him to follow me. You may think that I at once shifted my abode, and as soon as we had worked out our hole, I took myself off to the Ovens. I had been there about nine or ten months, when, one Sunday morning early, I heard a row, and on stepping out I saw a crowd of fellows round a tent which had only been put up a night or two before. I walked up to have a look what was the matter, and then found that it was a dispute between a Cornishman and an Irishman, the former charging the latter with having sold him a salted hole on Bendigo, some little time before. Well, I thought I knew the Irishman’s voice, and when I came to look at him closely, sure enough it was Brady, though a long beard and a digger’s costume had made a great change in his appearance. “Oh ho! my friend,” thought I, “now I have got you, have I? We will soon settle our little difference.” Just at this moment up came Watchman, who had lagged behind to have a little quiet conversation with a neighbour’s dog, having much improved in his manners since he had been with me. We were on the skirt of the mob, but no sooner did he hear Brady’s voice than he dashed through the crowd, and in an instant pinned him by the throat. Of