ry it on horseback, and you'll see what it's like to strike a straight
line through mallee and porcupine; and after that, if you're still hard
up for an adventure, just you try it on foot."

"Don't you, Theodore," advised Rigden from his chair. "I'm not keen on
turning out all hands to look for you, old chap."

"But is the place really as bad as all that?" inquired Moya, following
him into the conversation for the look of the thing.

"Worse," said Rigden, and leaned forward, silent. In another moment he
had risen, walked to the end of the verandah, and returned as far as
Bethune's chair. "Sure you want an adventure, Theodore? Because the
Assyrians are coming down in the shape of the mounted police, and it's
the second time they've been here to-day. Looks fishy, doesn't it?"

Listening, they heard the thin staccato jingle whose first and tiniest
tinkle had been caught by Rigden; then with one accord the party rose,
and gathered at the end of the verandah, whence the three black horsemen
could be seen ambling into larger sizes, among the tussocks of
blue-bush, between the station and the rising moon.

"What do they want?" idly inquired Bethune.

"A runaway convict," said Rigden, quietly.

"No!" cried Spicer.

"Is it a fact?" asked Ives, turning instinctively to Miss Bethune.

"I believe so," replied Moya, with notable indifference.

"Then why on earth have you been keeping it dark, both of you?" demanded
Bethune, and he favoured the engaged couple with a scrutiny too keen for
one of them. Moya's eyes fell. But Rigden was equal to the occasion.

"Because the police don't want it to get about. That's why," said he
shortly.

And Moya admired his resource until she had time to think; then it
revolted her as much as all the rest. But meanwhile the riders were
dismounting in the moonlight. Rigden went out to meet them, and
forthwith disappeared with Harkness among the pines.

"No luck at all," growled the sergeant. "We're clean off the scent, and
it licks me how he gave you such a wide berth and us the slip. We can't
have been that far behind him. None of the other gentlemen came across
him, I suppose?"

"As a matter of fact I've only just mentioned it to them," replied
Rigden, rather lamely. "I thought I'd leave it till you came back. You
seemed not to want it to get about, you know."

"No more I do--for lots of reasons. I mean to take the devil, alive or
dead, and yet I don't want anybody else to take him! So