THE VANISHING HORSEMEN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 172, 4 May 1937, Page 3

THE VANISHING HORSEMEN

:: SERIAL STORY ::

By A. E. YARRA.

:: Copyright. ::

CHAPTER XIX

CHECKMATED.

Bruce was startled out of his usual, smiling, confident self by the amazing success of his morning’s venture. He wrung the hand of Brian again and

again. . , . J , “Thanks awfully, said that youth, grinning. “By Gad, I’m glad 1 came.” . . Maggie and Charlie were executing a tribal dance in the centre of the cattleyards, laughing like children for their boss’ troubles had become their troubles, and his triumphs their triumphs. “Me an* Maggie tracken that feller ghost, too right, boss ? Whattamethinksol” , Bruce slapped Charlie on the back heartily. “Charlie,” he said, “when we get back to the station I’m going to tell George to teach you to drive the motor truck!” Charlie heard the news with amazement. He had secretly yearned to drive a motor truck, of which there were two on the place, hut he had never breathed a word to a soul abou it. How his master knew his thoughts was beyond him. Instead of jumping three or four feet in the an and yelling with joy, lie looked at the boss with something like fear in his eyes. “Boss,” he said, suddenly, “liow the debvil you smell out place where blackfeller been loafin’ Head of workin’ cuttin mulga for sheep? How you know Charlie want dribve motor truck? You tell me that, will you? But the boss pretended not to hear. It paid him to meet rainmaking magic with something of its own kind. And Charlie had stood with crossed toes and a world of longing in his eyes gazing at the trucks while the boss watched him through the window so often that it was no great matter to read his thoughts. “1 can tell what’s in his head by the way he crosses his leet,” Chailie s boss had once said to his mother, while the two watched him. After a short conference the party decided to make a search in the immediate neighbourhood for the tools of the cattle thieves, though it was moie than likely that the thieves would carry the branding irons away with them in case their hming places were searched. Charlie and Maggie soon picked up tracks of boot heels, some of them with marks behind where the rowels of spurs were allowed to drag in the dust. These led to a hollow tree in which was concealed a keg containing sait beef and not far away they found the head of the bullock with the hole in its horn, the only one missing from the camp on the night of the “ghost’s” recent appearance. A further search discovered another hollow tree, hidden in which were tinned biscuits, fish and vegetables. llie branding irons were nowhere to be seen. Alter a fruitless search for these, which occupied all the morning, the party decided to follow the tracks of the cattle towards Burke’s selection ; an easy matter till they came within sight of Burke’s boundary fence. A hundred yards from the fence, in a park-like stretch of country, richly grassed and surrounded by thick scrub topped by tall trees that 'reached high up into the blue sky with 4$ impressive beauty, the tracks abiupty The party stopped dead, dismounted, searched vainly for the reason anti, finally sat down in a group to think it over. The cleverness of these thieves was truly startling. “1 think I have the solution, old thing,” said Brian presently. “The bally old worship of the golden calf is at the bottom of it. Now it appears to me that these friends of ours worship the cattle so much that they are willing to risk spending their lives in the jug for them. Admitted? Well, what’s to stop them treating the jolly old things royalty. Lay down a red plush carpet from the end of this staircase affair to tlie edge of then new home, so the poor things would not get wet feet walking across the wet grass, what?” Bruce looked at him, puzzled by his mixture of earnestness and fun. “Now, Brian., don’t keep us on hot bricks. You’ve got an idea in your head. Out with it.” Brian sucked the knob of his riding crop. ' “Well, now, I don’t suppose they’d go to the expense of buying a Brussels pile runner for cattle to walk over, but what about, a couple of car loads of wool bales from Westernville? Bally good idea, what?” Bruce jumped to his feet. “By jumminie, Brian, I believe you have hit it! Bags, hundreds of bags. Let wires of the boundary fence down, and cover this strip of grass and the wires with them. Drive the cattle over the hags and then lift them up. Not a track near the fence and all the cattle on the other side bearing Burke’s brand. Brian, you’ve solved it.” “Not bad for a mere witness, what?” the Englishman grinned. “Witness be shot!” exclaimed Bruce, heartily. “There are more brains in the knob of that old whip you are sucking than in the whole of the rest of us put together.” “Well, I always did believe that two heads were better than one, and J carved this head on the bally old crop mvself, you know.” Even Charlie laughed at Brian s Ballv. “Bv Jove, I’m -glad I came,” they heard the Englishman muttering as they took up the search for some traces of the wool bales, or bags, or whatever had been used to cover the grass while the stolen cattle entered their new home. And here was found another example of the fact that the cleverest rogue leaves some small detail uncovered, and comes to grief through it. If the. gang had only stretched; their “carpet” far enough into the scrub to make it serve! for the humans as well as for the cattle it might never

have been found. But, a few hundred yards from Burke’s fence, Charlie picked up traces of boot heels. Eellowing out his theory of the direction in which these eventually would have taken the owner, he and Maggie discovered an opening to a smaller enclosure in the “wait-a-while hushes similar to the first. There were hidden hundreds of corn sacks, wool hales and other materials which proved Brian’s theory to bo correct. I lie thing.to- do now was, clearly to get the police at once and let them finish the work. So the party rode back to Giclyeaville and sent a message in for Sergeant Hollister to come out by cai. it was dusk when they arrived, but the sergeant said he would start immediately. Hollister arrived in a big, last cai at midnight, with several other police ’ end a conference was held immediatep ly. Together the white men went j over all the details they could remember since the arrest. Finally the sergeaut summed up the ( position. “It seems to me that we have them where we want them, r now,” ha said, “providing the evidence ’ you have is as good as you say. That x we’ll see as soon as it is light enough. Now, the way I work it out is this ; Someone was following the cattle with the thieves and he was the only one .. of the party who did not have these rubber boots strapped to bis horses feet.” Bruce broke in: “So you are satisfied that there were rubber boots with bullock tracks on them.” 3 “Laddie, lam willing to bet on it!” 3 “But you have only my word that 1 believe it was so.” j “Not a bit of it, my boy. I have } the damned: car, with similar conI trivances on the tyres of the four spare j. rims hidden away in the bottom of the 3 chassis.” f “Good for you, old stager,” shouted .. Brian admiringly. “How do you do i it?” 3 “Why, dammit,” ejaculated the ser--5 geant, “didn’t you send me a message j that the car was on the road to j Westernville? You seem to have a liell of a poor opinion of my ability, 1 t must say.” “And you went straight and arrested the leader of the gang and the car?” ' “No, worse luck. We found the . car by the roadside. One tyro was J, flat. The beggar must have been get- , ting ready to fix it when he heard us coming. We were travelling witli--1 out lights and we hit it up as fast as l we could. He evidently got scared and l slipped off into the bush, and I’ll bo damned and blasted if we could find j a sign of his track. The beggar must . have boots with cattle hoofs or emu claws, or something like that on them. Wo had no tracker with us. Ours is

sick. We got the car though, and after your tip we soon found the opening in the back, though a man would never think of looking lor it unless ho was told. Damn it, Somerville, it’s the cleverest thing I’ve come across in the whole of my career. The story ol the vanishing horsemen will go clown in the history of the Queensland police as the greatest capture of all. And damn me, I believe I’ll get the credit of it, in collaboration with you fellows.”

“I say, old thing,” put in Brian impatiently. “Don’t you think we could get on with those details ? I want to hear the rest.”

The sergeant resumed: “Well, this fellow who forgot to bring his rubber boots for his horse must have been drunk. 1 take it that the others must also have been drunk before they stalled off with the cattle, or they would have noticed the tell-tale track. Supposing it was the man with the marked shoe on his horse who brought out the grog to the others and joined them as they were moving the cattle? Anyway, whoever he was or however he came to overlook the mark he was leaving behind, he must have seen it before he abandoned the cattle, for lie transferred the shoe to Bruce’s horse, which he found tied up to tlie fence. We were on the track of the gang, galloping after them, in fact, only a few miles behind, and ho got word of it just as the gang had replaced the wires of the fence after they had got the cattle out on to the stock route. It was too late to put the cattle hack. J can imagine this fellow finding ho had left tracks, and removing the siioes from his horse in a hurry. These cattlemen all carry a farrier’s hammer and knife in the stony country.- The shock of his-discovery evidently sobered him. When he got through the boundary fence, just where Mr Somerville, here, had been camped the night before, and saw four horses tied up there, anti one shod, and the trappings on the pack-horses making it evident that the owners were travellers from a good way off,' well, wen a muttonheiad would know what" to do with the marked shoe. I’ll bet ho was running round with it in his hand, trying to find a place to hide it effectively, when he saw the horses.

“Find the place where that bird bought the grog and there you arc,” suggested Brian.

“Right,” agreed the sergeant. “And, better still,” find a nearby town with a pub and a blacksmith shop in it, and we have the man who shod that thief’s horse with the marked shoe.” “Bordervillo!” shouted Bruce.

“Right again,” said the sergeant. “As soon as we clean up this business to-morrow, I am going to see wlnit there is in the way of evidence in that little township. The blacksmith there (I know there is one for I’ve had the police horses shod there more than once) is with us or against us. If he remembers whose horse it was lie put that shoe on, lie is with us. If not, we have located a member of the gang, that’ll bei all.”

“I wish we had a better theory to explain that fellow riding with the gang carrying the marked shoe along,” sighed Bruce. “I cannot believe that even when these fiends were drunk they would be so clumsy as that. I am sine I would not make the same mistake, and I’m a baby in busherait beside that gang.” “Wliattabout that feller bein’ the one ’at rid hell-for-leatber after them, an’ tol’ ’em the police was coinin’ on hellin’, boss?” Maggie’s voice startled them from the doorway, where she had, apparently, been for some time listening to the conference.

“Got it!” shouted the sergeant triumphantly. “The missing link for the chain. Why, of course, that’s what happened. This fellow was drunk and discovered that we wore after the gang while they had the cattle in their possession. He simply galloped after them ‘hell-for-leather,’ as Maggie says, and warned them just as they had got the

cattle through the boundary fence. The sober men pointed out the track lie had been making, and the rest was easy.” The others agreed that this must be the solution of the mystery. Maggie was delighted at having contributed so valuable a suggestion, and the sergeant insisted on her accompanying them on tlrci trip they’ were about to make.

“A woman with a head like that lubia is too good to leave behind,” he explained. Before the first signs ol the dawn appeared; the party set out. “By Gad, I’m glad I came,” crooned Brian, as lie twirled tlie cylinder of his new revolver, which the sergeant had given him permission to take along with him in case of emergency.

The sergeant was positively excited. He kept biting bis grey moustache and fingering the chin strap on his hat, a habit that told those who knew him intimately that he was having all lie could do to keep a reasonable amount of self-control. It was no wonder, for while this smart officer knew that the clearing of Bruce’s name would spell disaster for him, as far as bis hopedfor promotion was concerned, tlie capture of Slim Jim’s gang would leave him famous, and would make speedy promotion certain.

As soon as it was light enough the party, with the sergeant and Bruce in the lead, set spurs to their horses and travelled at a smart canter, for, as the sergeant said, there was no use losing time and it did not matter if they were seen, providing they worked quickly.

First the black boy and his wife led them to the tracks of the mystery car and then they went to the “wait-a-while” bushes in which the “ghost” had hidden. There they picked up the tracks of the spectral night rider, to let the sergeant sec for himself how the imitation bullock bools bad been used. Then, with the sun shining and tlie birds singing, and a faint breeze fanning their cheeks in the pride of tlie morning, the party followed after the two blacks at a gallop, as they raced along, well mounted, their eyes watching the ground, never hesitating on the now plain tracks of the Ghost of Greasy River. Suddenly the aboriginal pulled up on the edge of the plain, at the farther side of which Brian liacl jumped bis horse through the wall of “wait-a-while” on the previous night, to find tlie cattle duffers’ yards. Charlie was evidently so astonished at something lie saw that he was, for once, silent, and Maggie could find nothing to say that would adequately express what she thought. When the others came up they saw that the whole of the great clump ol “wait-a-wliile” concealing the thieves’ yards had been, burnt in tlie night. Tlie evidence had been destroyed. There remained of the “wait-a-while” yards and the concealing scrub nothing but ashes and burnt sticks.

Tlie same tiling had happened to the great heap of bags hidden near Burke’s boundary fence. “.Somebody was here last night and cleaned things up,” mused' the sergeant presently, after other members of the party had expressed their astonishment. “What a damned fool I was not to warn you to leave a strong guard on the yards till I came out. Never mind. We have laid the Ghost of Greasy River, 1 hope, and we are well on the track of tlie Vanishing Horsemen. The burning of those yards doesn’t matter such a great deal, after all. It proves that we have struck a valuable clue, and now to follow it up!”

“What’s the next thing to do?” asked Bruce. “Search Burke’s place?” Tiie sergeant shook his head. “Not with a warning like this. We could search every selection on the four rivers and I’ll bet there would be no evidence when we got there. This gang’s too damned smart. We had better give it up for the present and let tilings blow over before we try any further moves. I’ll bet you a new hat there is somebody watching us at the present time, probably up a tree, or inside of one. There was someone following you yesterday and, as soon as you were out ol sight, lie got to work and destroyed the evidence. Come on home. We can’t light these people at their own game. We must think up something new.”

The party went hack to Gidyea Downs and, after a conference between the white men, the police decided to go hack to Westernville and to allow the cattle thieves to proceed in peace till their suspicions were lulled. « “Thanks awfully, old chap, for the fun,” said Brian, as he shook hands with Bruce later. “Call on me and mine any time. So Gad, I’m glad 1 came.’ 7 '

(To be continued.;