atrons in the bar were
quite ignorant of the proximity of the prisoner and of the presence of
the guardian angel sitting patiently in the next room, tenderly nursing a
broken head and a six-barrelled Colt's revolver.

Harry and Downy searched Waddy from end to end in quest of Ephraim Shine,
and saw nothing of him. Downy interviewed Christina without betraying his
identity or his object, but could get no inforination of any value; and
when the missing man failed to put in an appearance at the Silver Stream
to search the miners from the pump coming off work, the hunt was
abandoned for the time being.

'He's got wind of my game and cleared,' said Downy, 'but we'll have him
before forty-eight hours have passed.'

'But how could he know?' asked Harry, impatient to lay Shine by the
heels.

'May have heard the shots. May have been hiding anywhere. But, never
fret, we'll round up your friend, my boy. Men of his make and shape are
as easy to track as a hay waggon.'

In the early hours of the morning Downy drove his prisoner into Yarraman,
and that day's issue of the local Mereury contained a thrilling
description of the capture of the Waddy gold-stealer--a description that
created an unprecedented demand for the Mercury, and quite compensated
the gifted editor for, the heartburnings he had endured over the
bushranging fiasco.

Waddy was dumbfounded when the Mercury came to hand, and horribly
disgusted to think the stirring incident described had happened right
under its nose, without its having the satisfaction of witnessing the
least moving adventure or catching even a glimpse of the prisoner. Joe
Rogers a free man was a familiar and commonplace object, but Joe Rogers
handcuffed and leg-ironed in the custody of the law was a person of
absorbing interest, and Waddy would have turned out to a man and woman to
give him an appropriate send-off.

There, before their eyes, set forth in the columns of the Mercury, were
the details of Detective Downy's ruse, and valuable remarks enlarging
upon the almost superhuman astuteness of the officer in question; the
story of Dick's capture by Rogers, the flight to the Piper shaft and all
that happened there, the fight between the gold-stealer and the troopers,
the shooting of Casey, the overthrow of Rogers, and the hunt for Ephraim
Shine; all these things had happened in a small township within the space
of a few hours, and Waddy, that had always found its Sunday nights hang
so heavily