This circumstance seemed to account for
his absence; he had taken too much of the liquor, was lying asleep
somewhere, and would reappear in the course of the day. Men both on
foot and on horseback roamed through the Rises, examining the hollows
and the flats, the margins of the shallow lakes, and peering into
every wombat hole as they passed. They never thought of turning over
any of the boulders; a drunken man would never make his bed and
blanket of rocks; he would be found lying on the top if he had
stumbled amongst them. One by one as night approached the searchers
returned to the hut. They had discovered nothing, and the only
conclusion they could come to was, that Baldy was taking a very long
sleep somewhere--which was true enough.

Next day every man from the neighbouring stations, and some from
Nyalong, joined in the search. The chief constable was there, and as
became a professed detector of crime, he examined everything minutely
inside and outside the two huts, but he could not find anything
suspicious about either of them. He entered into conversation with
Julia, but the eye of her husband was on her, and she had little to
say. Nosey, on the contrary, was full of suggestions as to what
might have happened to Baldy, and he helped to look for him eagerly
and actively in every direction but the right one.

For many days the Rises were peopled with prospectors, but one by one
they dropped away. The chief constable was loath to leave the riddle
unsolved; he had the instinct of the sleuth-hound on the scent of
blood. He had been a pursuer of bad works amongst the convicts for a
long time, both in Van Diemen's Land and in Victoria, and had helped
to bring many men to the gallows or the chain-gang. He had once been
shot in the back by a horse thief who lay concealed behind the door
of a shepherd's hut, but he secured the horse thief. He was a man
without nerves, of medium height, strongly built, had a broad face,
massive ears, wide, firm mouth, and strong jaws.

One night after the searchers had departed to their various homes,
the chief remained alone in the Rises, and leaving his horse hobbled
at a distance, cautiously approached Nosey's hut. He placed his ear
to the outside of the weatherboards, and listened for some time to
the conversation of Nosey and his wife, expecting to obtain by chance
some information about the disappearance of the other shepherd.
Nosey was in a bad temper, swearing and fi