napped near the stem, dangled, its leaves brown and withered. It
was a finger pointing where someone had forced a way through.

Durham went down on his knees beside the shrub. Near the root the bark
had been stripped for a couple of inches, the scar showing brown, while
in the soil the impression of a heavy boot was just distinguishable.

On hands and knees he pushed his way between the stems. Other footmarks,
old and faint, showed, and he crept along with his eyes on them. Some
weeks before there had evidently been much coming and going through the
scrub at this point. Looking straight ahead he saw the grey sheen of a
sun-dried log. He stood up. The thick undergrowth reached to his
armpits, but through it, a couple of yards from where he stood, and ten
from the spot where the wheel-marks turned, was the fallen trunk of an
old dead tree.

Such a log, hollow for the greater part of its length and absolutely
hidden by the shrubs growing round it, was exactly the place where
anything could be secreted, and remain secreted, for an indefinite
period.

Pushing his way carefully through the tangle of shrubs he came upon it
at the root end. It had evidently fallen in some bygone bush-fire, the
jagged charred fragments showing where it had snapped off close to the
ground. The fire had eaten its way into the heart of the timber and
there was space enough in the cavity for a man to crouch.

Stooping down, Durham peered into it. At the far end he saw,
indistinctly, a confused mass, pushed up closely. He reached in, but
could not touch it, without creeping into the opening.

He looked round for something that would serve as a rake to pull the
articles out, but there was no loose stick sufficiently long near to
hand, and he did not want to cut one. Higher up the bank he saw one that
would suit his purpose and went to get it.

As he returned with it in his hand he saw, at the other end of the log,
a patch of white on the ground. Going over to it he found it was caused
by a chalky powder which clustered thickly near the tree.

This end of the log was also hollow, and in the cavity were a couple of
bags which, when he pulled them out, he found to be full of the chalky
powder.

The white horses flashed into his mind as he looked at it.

"The cunning scoundrel!" he exclaimed. "Even the horses were disguised."

He replaced the bags, and went to the root end of the tree. With his
stick he was able to reach the objects stored in