inct as a road, the marks left by the
runaways right along the bed of the stream.

As he went he worked out the direction in which he was travelling; the
stream he was following was evidently one which fed the watercourse
crossing the road in the range. It turned and twisted in and out small
flanking spurs, down the sides of which other streams had cut narrow
scars, now as dry as the stream-bed along which he was riding, but
which, in the time of the rains, would be roaring little torrents adding
their quota to that great pool dammed back by the mountain road.

Suddenly the creek took a sharp turn round a jutting bluff, and as he
passed beyond it he reined in his horse. Scarce twenty yards in front
was a sheet of water, its surface, without a ripple, reflecting the
tree-clad slopes that encompassed it. In the sand of the stream-bed the
track was so strong it might have been made only a few hours ago.

He rode warily to the water's edge. The pool stretched on both sides
away into the hills, but it was not that which made him rein in his
horse and sit motionless.

Along the margin of the pool there was a strip of sandy soil. It
extended to the right and to the left of the creek-mouth. Upon it the
marks both of wheels and hoof-prints showed.

The tracks he had been following swung sharp to the right; the
wheel-marks came from the left, crossed the creek-bed and continued to
the right.

His first impulse was to spur his horse along the track to the right,
see where it led, and then return along it to the left, but the
twenty-five thousand pounds to be paid to Dudgeon would be at the mercy
of the marauders, if, as Wallace anticipated, the old man refused police
protection.

Great as the temptation was to learn where the track led and whence it
came, Durham set his face against it.

He had stumbled on a clue, but the following it up was not for that day.
Later he would return and complete his discovery. For the present he
must leave it.

There was a long ride before him if he were to reach Dudgeon's homestead
at Taloona by sunset. That Eustace was one of the two men concerned in
the robbery of the bank he had now no doubt. The question he had to
consider was who the other man was. At the back of his mind there was a
lurking suspicion that the owner of Taloona might possess information
on the subject if he could be induced or inveigled to reveal it.

He glanced regretfully in the direction the tracks led. He would