'Now what dodge has the fellow been up to?' said Walters. 'If he is skulking in this myrtle patch, hoping to double back to the creek, he is mistaken. Unless he has passed my men on the plain, which isn't likely, we'll soon have him.'
I observed Stevenson looking round for Pothook, but that youth had prudently slipped off. We afterwards questioned him as to what took place when he and Peel met each other. It seems that, cut off from his only chance, the scrub on one side of the creek, and informed, by the way, that the bed of it lower down was guarded, the black had for a few moments given up all hope of escape. He looked in despair between the trunks of the yarra trees towards the out-station hut, which lay a quarter of a mile off, hidden in a belt of myrtle and quandong bushes, some three or four hundred yards long, and extending across the bend so as to shut out the view of the great plain beyond. That plain, he knew, was carefully guarded, and, moreover, it led to the home station. But as he looked he saw an object which excited a gleam of hope, and inspired him with a desperate resolve. The sunken tree was some distance back from where he stood, and to avoid showing his return traces he jumped into the water and swam to it, emerging in the manner described, while the boy took to the creek, intending to remain concealed under the surface until the danger which he fancied menaced himself passed by. In going towards the hut, Peel ran no danger of being seen by the black stationed by the mallee, for on such a level plain the yarra trees which fringed the water-hole completely screened from those at a distance on one side whatever passed on the other side of the creek.
The open space between the part of the banks where we now stood and the belt of small timber above mentioned, was less than a quarter of a mile, and while the blacks who had been swimming in the water-hole were dressing themselves, Walters galloped across it, and through the bushes and on to the large plain beyond, to see whereabouts his sentries were. He could see two, who were riding up and down just within sight of each other, while between and beyond them, far out, was the shepherd with his flock. There was not a bush to conceal the view, and far away, by the edge of the distant timber, the blacks and their guard were still in sight, on their way to the home station. The timber opened opposite to him, and through this opening he could see miles away on to another plain beyond. The road from the punt to the upper part of the river passed that way, and came up to near where he stood, crossing the creek near the out-station hut, and going through a narrow portion of the mallee, which had been cleared for the purpose. On this road, at a considerable distance off, was a solitary horseman, apparently riding to the home station.
Meanwhile the blacks had again taken up the trail, which led straight to the brush in which the hut was concealed. Just before we reached the edge of this, Walters joined us again.
'I can't make the fellow out,' he said; 'he can't have crossed the plain; and if he is skulking here, we shall soon have him.'
The sentry across at the mallee had been called over, and, with another man, now watched in the open, to give notice if Peel doubled out and made back tracks for the creek again; and we proceeded to enter the bushes of quandong and myrtle. All at once there was a commotion amongst the trackers, who sprang to their horses, shouting something to Walters, who thereupon raged and stormed; and no wonder. The distant horseman he had a few minutes before seen was the very man he was after.
'Has either of your men here got a horse?' he asked the superintendent hastily.
'Yes,' replied Stevenson (who, I suspected, had been for some time aware of the trick Peel had played), 'the shepherd has one. He bought it to shepherd his flock with on these level plains, as he was always losing his sheep. He is a very little man, and consequently could only see a short distance.'
'But he hadn't it to-day, had he?'
'No. The fact is, he was taken in, knowing nothing about horses, and bought a thorough buck-jumper, who pitched him off as fast as he got on. And the brute won't let you catch him in hobbles; so, as he expects to sell it again, he keeps it tethered about the hut handy. I am afraid,' added Stevenson to me, as Walters, too impatient to listen further, spurred on after his men,—'I am afraid that vagabond has been up to some mischief. I hope Watkins, the hut-keeper here, is all right. Peel would be desperate, and not stick at a trifle in the fix he was in. I suspected what he had been up to.'
'So I thought,' I replied, as we rushed on after the trackers.
Just as they reached the hut door, a man was crawling out on his hands and knees. This turned out to be the hut-keeper, who was covered with blood, which had flowed from a wound on his head.
'Why, Bill! what's the matter?' said the superintendent. 'Did Peel do that?'
'Oh, is that you, Mr. Stevenson?' said the man, looking up at our party, and raising himself with difficulty. 'Yes, it was; are you after him?'
'Yes, we are; but how came you to let him do that?'
'You had best put your men on his track at once, Mr. Walters. He's got King's horse.'
'We know he has, the villain!' said Walters, as he directed the three trackers to follow instantly (Peel was still in sight, but soon disappeared in the timber), while he and the rest waited behind a few moments to hear the hut-keeper's account of the attack made on him, which he gave as I bound up his wound.
It appeared that, while engaged in his usual morning work of shifting the hurdles, after the flock had gone out at daylight, he saw some one riding (as he thought) through the bushes towards his hut, and left his work to see who it was. To his surprise, he found the shepherd's horse, which he himself had tethered out that morning at the edge of the myrtle, tied to the door, but immediately concluded that the man himself had come for it, as he was daily expecting to sell it, and that perhaps the intending purchaser had joined him while with his flock. He therefore entered the hut quite unsuspiciously; but it was apparently empty. While turning round, he was felled by a blow with his own gun; and, staggering forwards, fell close to his bed. He was not entirely stunned, and instantly rolled himself underneath it. At first he thought that Peel (whom he had recognised) was going to drag him out and finish him, but the black was in too great a hurry. He stayed long enough, however, to saddle the horse, and load himself with the tea and sugar bags, as well as the flour and half a damper which was on the table. Moreover, the man found that he had taken down his looking-glass, which hung on a nail in the wall. His object in doing this was that he might whiten his face with the dirty outside of the flour bag. With a cabbage-tree hat and a shooting coat which he put on, at a distance he would not look like a black, and he could pass the sentries unsuspected. In fact, we heard afterwards from them that he went between them, walking, and leading his horse, and pretending to read an old newspaper he had picked up off the table in the hut. It was so natural that a passing horseman coming from higher up the river should call at the out-station, and he turned his whitened, or rather whitey-browned, face towards them both so coolly, that, disguised as he was in hat and coat, and havin............