of the cupboards have been
touched."

"Whom do you suspect?" Durham asked sharply.

Brennan scratched his head and screwed up his face.

"Well, to tell you the plain, honest truth, sir, I'm bothered if I know
who to suspect. What gets over me is that white horse. No one believed
the yarn about the buggy and pair of white horses, and no one believed
the yarn about the men on white horses being seen on the Taloona road.
But here the chap comes clean through the township riding a horse of a
colour that isn't known in the district. You can't put a white horse out
of sight like you can a stray cat, sir. But where do they go when the
Riders are not on the road? It gets me, sir, I'm free to admit."

"That hat I picked up was bought at the store in the town. That suggests
someone who has been about the place."

"Well, he might have stolen it. He might have taken it from the bank, or
Taloona, or it might have been that other poor chap's--out there, I
mean," he added, nodding towards the shed where Eustace lay.

"He's no bushman," Durham said.

"He rides well enough for one."

"Oh, yes, I admit he rides well enough for one, but many men ride
besides bushmen. I know neither he nor his partner have any practical
bush experience. I know that. Just as I know the man who went through
the town to-night is a burglar who learned his craft in one of the big
cities of the world. The way that hotel door was opened was one of the
finest pieces of expert burglary I've ever seen, and there are some
pretty smart men at the game in our cities."

"He's a pretty daring chap," Brennan remarked, with a touch of
admiration in his voice.

"He's too daring. That is what puzzles me. With fifty thousand pounds in
gold and the valuables stolen from the bank, what sense is there in
dashing through the place as he did to-night and then taking a bigger
risk by doubling back past us and stealing what at the most can barely
have been a hundred pounds in all?"

"Do you think he doubled back, sir? Don't you think the dash through the
town was a trick to draw everyone away so as to leave the way clear for
a second man to do the burgling?"

"I don't see who the second man could be. The handkerchief shows Eustace
was the man who was with him at Taloona. I don't think he has another
man with him now. He is doing it single-handed and seems to be enjoying
it, too."

"We ought to be able to pick up his tracks in the morning, if he doubled
back."

"Ye