THE SLIP-RAILS AT RILEY'S.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 177, 25 July 1908, Page 6

THE SLIP-RAILS AT RILEY'S.

(COMPLETE STORY.);

By Wil H. Ogilvie. CHAPTER I. The sun was going down behind the drooping myall trees in a llood of gold and crimson glory, and far away to the eastward the reflection stained the cloudy sky -with. a royal purple. A girl, dressed in- a light-coloured gown, leaned over the slip-rails and watched the lurid beauty of tlie sky and the first shadows gathering on the range. "Clop-clop, clop-clop" —the level footfall of a cantering horse broke upon the weird stillness. A rider came up from the shadows of the myall trues and reined his horse in front of the rails._ He was a till handsome man with fair hair and moustache and blue eyes and a suntanned honest face. His horse caught sight of the white figure at the rails, and blew through his nostrils in a long whistling snort. His chest and neck were black with sweat which had churned to a creamy white under breastplate and rein, and' flecks of foam dropped from his snaffle-rings as ho played with the bit. Loyal Heart had been ridden far and fast. The man shouted from his saddle: — "Quick, ISess, warn your father and brother! Not a moment to )o3e—the troopers fire topping the Red Ridge now. Hark! you can hear the jingle and hoofs! Xo! —Don't wait to thank mc! Good-bye, darling!" He touched the beautiful chestnut with the spur and galloped off at right angles to the road by which he had come, and was soon lost among the shadows on the ridge. Five minutes passed. The girl who had rushed up to the house, came quickly back and leaned in her former careless attitude against the slip-rails. The clatter of hoofs rang louder, and in the gathering dusk a little squad of men galloped up to the gateway; a black tracker rode a length before the rest with a loose rein and keen eyes searching the ground. He put up his hand to stop the others, and snatched his mare back upon her haunches. —"Baal him go further," lie said in the broken English of the Australian aboriginal, "Stop here; go that-a-way!" pointing out to where the dark scrub lined the sky.

A tall trooper, wearing a sergeant's stripes, hammered out a hasty oath, and said: "I thought so. Just stopped long enough to warn 'em. That'll do, Jncky; if he's the man I think he is it's no use trying to follow him on that horse to-night." Hulloh!" as he caught sight of the girl; "Good evening, Miss RUey! Js vnur father at home?"

"He was at home when I was up at the house, last!" said the girl in a meaning tone, with a note of triumph in her voice which was not lost upon the sergeant. "Drop those rails!" He changed his oivil tone to one of masterful authority. "Xo? Then mind yourself!"

The girl sprang back, not a moment too soon, us he faced his horse at thn four-foot rails; though a poor jumper that horse was used to going wherever he was asked by the resolute man who rode him, and never hesitating ho crash, ed into the rails, breaking the top one and blundering through. The sergeant pulled him together with practised hand, and in a moment the four men were riding at full speed up the narrow track to the house. The girl looked after them with quiet scorn.

"Yes! Mr. Sergeant -Anson you've a splendid chance of catching them with night coming on and their five minutes' start. Thanks to dear old Iloctor!" she added, to herself.

The Sergeant made a hurried se.irch of the house and stable and outbuildings, and Jacky took up the fresh tracks through the Scindy pine-ridge at the back of the houfto. For half a mile he followed them, r:din« in and out in heavy timber; then a wire fence delaped them. While opening this the futility of further pursuit in the gathering darkness appealed to tho Serjeant, and he gave the word to return. They rode slowly back to the house. An elderly woman —Mrs. Biley herself—met them with a studied irony. 'Is it kangaroos ye're chasm', Mr. Anson. at this time o' the night? Yez'll be fallin' over some of thini wire fences if yez are not careful!" The Sergeant bit his chin-strap, and rode by without a word. Just beyond the house he met the girl. "Did you find father at home, Mr. Anson?" she asked sweetly. "You were in such a hurry that I hadn't time to tell you that he and Tim were just going out to catch bull-frogs in the Big Swamp!" "None of your cheek, my lass! It will pay you to keep a civil tongue in your head. And let mc tell you this, I know the man who gave your father the tip to-night, and he's easy run to ground, even if he does ride the best horse on the Border Line. Mind, that, my little sweetheart!" The girl flushed, then turned deadly pale, and went on towards the house. The Sergeant turned to his men, "Nothing for it, my bo}'S, but to camp near here and pick up the tracks first thing in the morning. We'll get no hospitality here" he added grimly. Then they rode out on to the ridge to spend a cheerless night waiting for the first streak of dawn and those hooftracks in the sand. CCHAPTEB. EL It ttos nearly midnight when n, man rode through' the horse paddock at Bullion Bend, and the foam-covered chestnut which he was riding whinnied through the starlight to a mate in tho paddock. The rider dismounted at the gate, and pulling off his saddle and bridle let his horse go. Then hfi walked up to the house carrying his saddle. As he stepped on to the verandah with a clink of spurs a man's voice called, "That you, Hector?" "That's mc," answered the other, ungrammatically but cheerily, as he dropped his saddle and bridle in a corener with a jangle of stirrup-irons and snaf-fle-rings. "Come in here, Hee!" said his brother sleepily. "Wherever have you been all this time?? Not in the township, surely? Don't say you've been over seeing that Riley girl again! Look here, Hee!" the elder man went on, with more vehemence as he roused himself from his half-sleep, "it's a dangerous game you're playing in having anything to do with that lot. D d sheep-stealers and common thieves. No—no, I don't say the girl is; she has been long enough away from them all to be as I straight as a die. But they are all outlaws; it's in the blood; and look here, it cani fio on! Why, d n it, man, you don't know the moment when we may have to prosecute the men of the uiraily f or stealing our stool;, and yet you go there and let her name be cou- ! p M with yours,. Only yertc-.cclai- Aupon wns saying to me—" "J*t Sergeant Ansci, mind his own busing the yoaag laan caresesiay J

as he took a seat on his brother's bed and began to fill his pipe. "All the same, I know, Jack, old man, that it's d n awkward about her people; I wish she could get away to Sydney again. It's hard on the little girl, you know." "It'll be hard on you, Hector, if you don't drop the whole business. It's a miserable game from end to end, and I wish to God yon had never seen the \voman." "I won't give her up, Jack; not even for you, old boy, and you know there's nothing in reason I would not do for you." Jack turned over in bed as a hint that the interview was ended, and Hector finished his pipe on the vine-covered verandah. In tlie morning, just as they finished breanfast, Sergeant Anson rode up and fastened his horse to the little garden gate. ' Good morn in g, Sergeant!" said Jack jCledhill, who had gone out to meet him; "had breakfast yet?" "No sir, not yet," said the Sergeant. "Come in then, and sit down to it J" said the manager genially. "We've just finished, but you'll find chops under that cover. I'll ring for some fresh tea." "Is Mr. Hector at home?" asked the Sergeant presently, when he had taken the rough edge off a fourteen hour fast. "Just went to catch his horse ac you rode up. He'll be away by this time. Do you want to see him?" "No matter, sir," said the Sergeant with his mouth full of toast and niarnrala.de, "another time will do. But I would like -to have a talk with you, Mr. Gledhill, if you can spare mc a few minutes." "Certainly. Take that big chair in the corner; there's tobacco on the mantelpiece; matches beside you. Kick that dog out of your way! Come here, Barry; here dot! Go outside there! — now, Sergeant." The brond-shouklerod representative of the law filled his pipe and lit it, then lie told liis tale in a few words, as in the manner of the back-block men, whose motto is mostly, "Say little, and saw wood!"—He told the manager of Bullion Bend how more sheep had been missing from Crosscut Plains; how suspicion long centred upon the Riley's, had become certainty; how he, with two troopers and a black boy, had started from the township the previous night to arrest the thieves; how a man on horseback whom they easily tracked from the town to Riley's slip-rails, had galloped ahead and warned the outlaws—and how in the darkness of night they had lost the tracks. "We camped on the ridges last night—a cold camp, sir, as you may imagine, without tucker or blankets; and this morning I sent Rieharrl?cfri, Kevin and the blackboy after the others; and came through myself on the tracks of the man who worned them." Thp Sergeant paused. "Ah!" said Olcclhill, intcrcrted, "and do they pass through here?" "They don't p.iss.'' remarked the Sergeant quietly. Gledhill sprang up from his chair, ho was wont to form conclusions quickly. "Do you mean to say that my brother Hector warned those blackguards?" he asked. "Well, you see, Mr. Gledhill, the mischief ia there is a woman in the matter." "D n women!" said the manager with sweeping fervour. "Tell mc," he went on, "did my brother know you were leaving town to take the Rileyet" "Yes, sir! For, when I had everything ready for a start, I stepped over to Hannah's Hotel to get a pair of spurs which I had left in the bar parlour. When I went in I found your brother there talking to young Mr. Loslie, of Crosscut, and when Mr. Leslie saw mc he said, 'Ilulloh! Sergeant! Are you off after Riley?' and your brother got up and left tlio room, and I had a drink with Leslie before I left. It was start enough for the chestnut horse," added the officer grimly. CHAPTER HI. "Sergeant!" said Gledhill, after a pause, "let mc speak to you as man to man; you know well enough that my brother, if he confesses to doing this tiling—and his word one way or the other will satisfy me—has been actuated by no desire to shield the Rileys from justice, but simply to protect the name of the woman ho loves!" "Mistaken kindness!" said the Sergeant shortly; "the girl is as bad as the rest; at first when she came back from Sydney she certainly seemed to belong to a diifcrcnt world from her low Irish parents. A civil-spoken, decent girl as one would meet; but now she is just as sharp as the rest, and is simply a spy and an outpost for them." GledhfD kicked a log down in the fire, then he faced his visitor who had also risen. "What do you intend to do?" "It is aiding and abetting a criminal to escape justice; if I prove Mr. Hector to be the man, as soon as I get hold ef the Rileys I must get him bonnd over to appear at their trial. After that, if things are proved—it will be serious." "Did the trades cross the creek at Allen's yard?" asked the squatter somewhat irrevelantly. "Yes, sir!" "It was my brother then, none of the men we have at present know -that crossing!" The Sergeant mounted his horse and rode away, and Jack Gledhill went back to the dining-room in a state of mind disturbed, to say the least of it. Two years before this he and his younger brother had bought Bullion Bend between them, and the elder managed the station, while the younger acted as his overseer, or as manager in his absence. They kept a bachelor establishment of some pretensions, and, having plenty of means, entertained a good deal, a.nd were much sought after and very popular on the Border. Jack Glodhill was a steady man of business; his brother Hccter, younger and fonder of sport and society, was inclined to live more loosely and in a faster way than Jack, and this entanglement of his with the daughter of a neighbouring selector was only the natural outcome of his frequent visits to the township dances. The name of Gledhill was held in honour and esteem in the district as that of men whoso word was their bond, and whoso dealings -were above reproach, and Jack, as he pondered over this trouble which had beset them, scarcely exaggerated when he looked forward to its development as absolute ruin to them in the district where they were so well and favourably known. In the evening Hector Gledhill came home, and greeted his brother affectionately; ho was very fond of his brother Jack, and would willingly have fought any man who spoke disparagingly of him. "iloc!" said the manager, when they hud finished tea and hod lit their pipes in the ?ozy little smoking room, ''there's I bad business on foot. I'm not going to 1 say '1 told you so.J' —but it is all some

of those d d Rileys. Last night you ■were tracked to their gate, and then bere, and Anson, who was here this morning, tells,me he suspects you of letting the Eileys know he was after them. Speak up, old man! Did you?" "Did I?" said Hector, merrily, "that's just what I did!" "But, d n it, Hec, don't you see it's aiding and abetting a horse thief to evade the law?" said the other impatiently. "A nice position for us both —a very serious one for you, let mc tell you!" Hector stopped laughing. "But there was the little girl," he said, "I couldn't let them take her people!" Jack Gledhill put his hand on his brother's shoulder: "I'll stick by you, Hec!" . he said, "but I wish you had never seen these low thieves of Rileys." i That night Hector saddled up the chestnut horse—he had been riding : another horse during the day—and as soon as it was fully dark he cantered oil through the horse paddock. Two hours later he rode cautiously up to the sliprails at Rileys. ; Bess Riley was sitting in the rough bush-kitchen, reading a tale of bush-ran-gers, when she heard a teal-duck call from the direction of tbe slip-rails. She put down the book, slipped out of tho house quickly, and; in a minute was standing by her lover's side in the star- ; light. Hector tied his horse to the fence and i crossing over he took the slim figure in his strong arms. He kissed her passionately again and again. "Bess," he said, "it's all up. They know it was I who gave you the word last night. I would stay and see it out, I'm not afraid; but you see there's poor . old Jack, and an arrest in our position ; wonld make things very uncomfortable. If I go there's no arrest, you see. >fo . one will know I have not gone to Sydney for a spell. The Sergeant is very close , about these things. I'll Avrita from Bourke and explain to Jack." "But, Hector, arc you going now—now on L/oyal Heart?" "Yes! little woman; right away." ; "Then I'll come too." "Mv darling, my darling—do you mean . it?" ,' CHAPTER IV. 1 It was in the afternoon of the followi ing day when a girl on a ragged gray pony, and a tall handsome man on a leg- . weary chestnut horse, whose game head and plucky finish to what had evidently been a long journey attracted the notice . of all horse-lovers who saw him pass, i crossed the white Bourke bridges, and i stopped at an hotel in Mitchell Street. ■ The horsee were paddocked near the town to be sent for by Mr. Gledhill, of Bullion Bend, a wire was despatched . from the post office, and the couple left for Sydney by the evening train. That day jack Gledhill met Sergeant Anson in the township—there was no 1 subterfuge about Jack. "It was my brother," he said, "who warned the Rileys—nnd he has gone!" i "NoT I have not the slightest idea, nn my honour!" he added to tho Sergeant's obvious question. A wire was handed to the squatter, he read it and passed it over to Anson. "Bess and I leave for Sydney to-night. ■ Send for horses to Absalom'?." Tlie next day another telegram arrived by the coach. , "Harried this morning."