ly, "I was going to say so when you
interrupted me."

There was a hum of voices outside and half a dozen men came into the
office--Allnut, the largest storekeeper in the town; Soden, the
hotelkeeper; Gale, the local auctioneer; Johnson, the postmaster, and
two men who were strangers.

"Here, Soden," Eustace cried, as soon as he caught sight of the
hotelkeeper. "Do you mean to say that the man I told Brennan about never
came to your house last night?"

Soden, a slow-witted, heavy-built man, shook his head.

"Not a sign of him, Mr. Eustace," he answered. "But these two men came
in just now. They've got something to say," he added, turning to
Brennan.

One of the two men stepped forward.

"We didn't think much of it in a general way," he said, "leastways not
until we heard at the pub about the robbery. You see, me and my mate
camped last night about five miles out on the road. As near as we can
say, it was somewhere about midnight when Bill--my mate," he added as he
waved his hand towards his companion, "looked out of the tent. 'Hullo,
Jim,' he says, 'what's this? Here, come and look, quick.' You see, from
where our camp was we could get a view half a mile down the road. Well,
when I looked out I saw, coming along the road at racing speed, a
pair-horse buggy with two men in it. The chap who was driving had the
horses at full gallop as they passed the camp, but it wasn't him so much
that I noticed as the horses. You see, they were both white--white as
milk. The moon was up and they showed real pretty."

"White?" Brennan exclaimed.

"White as milk," the man replied. "That's what made Bill call out. We
didn't know there was a white horse in the whole of Waroona, let alone
two of them."

"Was that on the main road?" Brennan asked.

"On the main road--just about five miles out."

"I know every horse in the district, and there's not a white one among
them," Gale said.

"These were white--white as milk," the man repeated. "It was what made
us look."

"If the horses were galloping the tracks would still show in the road,"
Gale said to Brennan. "Shall I ride out and have a look?"

"If you've got a buggy, me and my mate will come too and show them to
you," Jim exclaimed resentfully.

"That would be better," Brennan said.

"Come along then," Gale exclaimed, and left the bank with the two men.

As soon as they were gone Brennan turned to Johnson.

"Two white horses can't go far in this district without being no