The MAN from the GULF

Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 27

The MAN from the GULF

I tyA EYARRA' 1

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. The Killer Trapped. The only sound that came from the weapon was three sharp metallic Clicks as the hammer fell on an empty chamber. The three troopers snatched their weapons and covered their other prisoners., Summers and Patterson spurred their horses forward to the inspector’s aid and drew their arms, but it was all over by the time they reached his side. The thieves’ leader, cursing the empty pistol, threw it away and ripped his big* black mount with the spurs. As it bounded forward up the broad road, Hawke put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly. The black horse, almost before it had got started, wheeled on its hind feet and dashed back to Hawke, the rider clinging to its neck almost unseated. Hawke thrust a fresh pistol in the killer’s face and said, sternly: “Move a finger and I’ll blow your brains out, Black. The fangs of that one were drawn, but this has a full set of teeth. If you want to provide an inquest wink an eyelid.” The would-be murderer saw he had been trapped,, and he submitted to be handcuffed again with a fresh pair of manacles and chained to the other prisoners. “ That was a broken set of bracelets and an empty gun I fixed for you, Black,” said the inspector. “I wanted to give you one chance to show what you were made of. Don’t take another if you don’t want to cheat the hangman out of his rights.”' He turned to his men: “Watch him and the others. If they make a break drop them. We want them at the lockup, dead or alive.” He pocketed a key and rode in between Patterson and Summers. “ You amaze me,” said the squatter. “ You take subh risks, and you seem to read his mind.” “ I’ve been reading the minds of that kind for many a Tong year now,” laughed Hawke. “ Besides, I asked him to do'that to oblige me.” “ You asked him to do it?” “ Practically. I put a pair of broken darbies on him, left the butt of my revolver sticking out from under 1 my tunic so he could get it, and rode a little in front when we came near the roa£.” , Why?” 1 “Well, he might get a smart lawyer to convince a sympathetic jury that he was here for the same purpose as our friend Barney. A trusted servant, getting information with which to earn the reward. He’s your storekeeper. And there were at- least two of the police in touch with the gang. I was stung like that before; lost a ease, where the man ought to have been convicted-and sent to gaol. I wanted Black to give us proof that would convince any jury that he is not mixing with the gang for the sake of guarding his employer’s interests. He’s done it. No jury will refuse to believe, now, that he tried to murder me in cold blood.” “ But that horse?”

Molly exclaimed with surprise as she caught sight of his face. Everybody looked at her, and then followed her fascinated gaze at the officer. They, too, had noticed it. The face of Sub-inspector Hawke was different from that of Clarence Welsby. The pink and white complexion of the bank clerk was gone, and there had come in its place a dark, sun-burned, weatherstained look. His eyes were harder, and there was a rigid set to his mouth; the mouth of a man of determination and courage, action and tenacity; a fighter who out-fights champions. His hair had touches of grey at the temples. Clarence had been a reckless pinkskinned twenty-nine; Sub-inspector Hawke was a hard-bitten thirty-five, at least. And yet, when he bowed and smiled and greeted them all in one comprehensive sentence, it was still Clarence Welsby; a newer and a better Clarence. At. last Molly found her voice, as she started on her egg. “ Where is your complexion, Mr Hawke?” Summers chuckled. Patterson smiled quietly. , Marion solved the riddle in her own way:—■ “If you run and look up the pipe from the bathroom you will see it coming down in the water, Molly.” “You should have seen the fine black beard I had to sacrifice to make room for that pink paint,” grinned Hawke. Molly sighed, with exaggerated sadrG“ And to think that I wasted my talents on a doddering old man of 40 if he’s a day. Probably he s—lll he’s got daughters as old as I am. Mrs Patterson caught a note of tear and dismay in Molly’s tone, bhe guessed the cause. “Are you married, Mr Hawke? Hawke’s face lengthened, to match Molly’s recent expression of gloom: “ I lost the only girl in the world for me ” he said. “ Molly refused to marry a man who drinks and gambles at Bobbie’s Joint with a gang of cattle thieves.” ~ There was a burst of laughter all round the table, except from Molly, whose face was flaming and whose Irish blue * eyes blazed as she rose and stamped her foot. “ You, old, old man! ” she said, vehemently, as .she left the room in a temper. Mrs O’Toole broke in: “ Mr Hawke came to me at the first and told me he would be after asking for Molly when he had carried out certain duties he had to perform. Faith, he said that I was to take no notice av drinkin’ or gamblin’, because he was gettin’ good pay from the Government to do it. An’ he shoved a bottle av Irish whisky with a Dublin label on it at me an’ asked me to taste it. Sure it was cowld tay, an’ poor tay at that. He was anxious that I should keep it a secret. Do you believe now, Inspector, that a woman can keep a secret? Hawke, who was seated next to Mrs O’Toole leaned over and kissed her ear, gallantly. “ Faith Ido that Mother Machree. And a hard job I had. convincing headquarters that you could do it. They wouldn’t hear .of my telling you, at first, and, of couise, I could never do so without permission. In the end I had to threaten to throw up, the job if they refused. I couldn’t bear to lose you and Molly both through a misunderstanding.” Molly returned and (resumed her breakfast. There were signs that she had been weeping. “And .your mother, was she a myth, too, Inspector?” Ice tinkled in the tone.

“ Belongs to me. I never branded it with the police brand, for obvious reasons. When the gang believed that I was a thief and a drunkard, with a grudge against society, and persuaded me to let them know certain movements of your men, I told the leader I had stolen that black horse and asked him to talke it off ray hands and hide it. He sw-qpped me for this thing I am riding. Not a bad sort, either.” “What was your object, inspector?” “ Clarence to you, Mr Patterson, if you please. I have taught the horse to come at the whistle. He never failed me yet. I knew that if I ever had to chase that thief through the bush it would be better for me if he were riding my horse, one that would bring him to me whenever I gave the signal.” Patterson looked at Barney and asked: “What’s the matter with you?” The face of the Man from the Gulf was the colour of a boiled beet. He swallowed his Adam’s apple several times, before replying: “ Nothin’ at all. 1 was just thinkin’ what a bad judge of men you are. You made me promise to let that young scamp, Clarence Welsby, get clear away with a note and a cheque from you so that he could get a fresh start somewhere else. I had a nigger with a horse ready. An’ I distinctly, remember you tellin’ me that it looked as if you was wastin’ your sympathy an’ your money, but you hoped he was ■ good at the bottom an’ you had a kindly feelin’ for him on account of what he done for you an’ yours. Give a dog a-bad name, you said, an’ you might as well hang him.”

“ She asked me to give you this.” Hawke took from his pocket the photograph of a’ silver-haired lady, which Patterson had found. “ I stole your picture from your room and sent it to her a long time ago. She thinks you are too lovely to be true, and she wants you to visit her as soon as you can.” Patterson and Summers looked at each other queerly. “ Sob-stuff?” chuckled the squatter, presently, and Barney exploded into his napkin. The laughter subsided, and presently Hawke said to Patterson seriously: “ I owe you an explanation and an apology for intruding here under false pretences. I can’t tell you everything yet, of course, a lot of it is confidential. But it will be cleared up at the trial. I can tell you certain things in confidence. I did go to work in a bank and got fired for stealing the cash, but that was arranged by the manager of the bank with the Cattlemen’s Association. We suspected that certain of the hank’s clients were stealing cattle find that they would approach a crook with an offer to make him a spy for them if he was working on the station. We wanted to clean up the leaders, not the small fry, and it seemed to me the best way. The Cattlemen’s Association will share the cost of the few head of stock I helped the Night Riders.to got away with. Those men I sent to Three Hills were reputed to be cattle thieves from across the border, hiding from the police there, but they are plainclothes police, recruited from tho ranks of the stockmen, caught young, you might say.” It was Patterson’s turn to be astonished :

Arrived at the homestead the police locked the prisoners securely in the old hut which had been the first home of the _ pioneers of Red Ridges. They chained the thieves to the log walls and to themselves; and before they lay down beside them on the sandy floor they mounted a reliable guard of cattlemen and one trooper, with their firearms in their hands.” At breakfast time, with the guard doubled, and every prisoner fastened to the wall of the his log building. Hawke went to the bathroom and splashed about for 10 minutes. The Pattersons and Summers, Molly O’Toole and her mother were already seated when the sub-inspector, tall and handsome and imposing in his smart uniform, entered the breakfast room. All five rose to greet him cordially.

“ Do you mean to tell me that Inspector Mogs and the Cattlemen’s Association arranged the whole thing?” Hawke nodded: “Inspector Mogs arranged everything for me. He sent for me at once when the local men had made their report that the Night Riders were at work. I was on the job before you first met me, fishing for your patronage. I insisted from the first that even you should not know, because there was a clever spy somewhere, probably more than one, and you might let something slip, a sign or a word that would awaken their suspicion, and then, it would be good-bye. Police methods have to be cunning, and secret, Mr Patterson.” “ But,, didn’t you get drunk?” “ Never been under the weather from grog yet. I sprinkle it on my clothes for the perfume. It leaves the head clear.” CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. THE MUr.DEREK UNMASKED. In the .office at the homestead the men listened, enthralled, to Barney’s story of his investigations, which he told in detail down to the time when he discovered that the world’s worst horseman was playing 'possum. Then there was a shout of laughter, and Barney was thrown out of his stride. Apologies, and a little of what Barney would have termed soft soap, in the right place, mollified his feelings, and he resumed his story. “It was through foxin’- Welsby that

[Author of ‘The Vanishing Horsemen';’, 1 The Valley of Lagoons,’ etc. All rights reserved.]

I got on to the storekeeper,” he said. “ I heard him cussin’ a dawg, in that big boomin’ voice of his, when he did not know 1 was about, an’ then 1 tumbled to his disguise. I knew who Number One was then, for I had heard him curse in that big voice, frequent and fluent, at the hut on the Old Man Plain. He was a murder type, with them red eyes an’ that dirty mouth. 1 figured it out that, if Old Man Patterson had got anybody that it would pay to commit murder to quieten him, it would be Black. But 1 had to prove it to a judge an’ jury. “An’ about this time I hears that this Sub-inspector Hawke is a-comin’ down from thb north to take charge of the police’s job of cleanin’ up the gang. I got strung there, fair an’ square. I admit it. Mr Hawke brought a dummy inspector down to yabber with Moggs, knowin’ the gang would hear of it pretty soon an’ think they had lots of time. Only for that I’d have beat you to one part of the job, Clarence.” “ I can tell you whore there are four men itchin’ to squeal on Black,” said Barney. “They cleared out at once. They’ll talk if you let them down light. Old Man Patterson come on the gang liftin’ forty head off the Lake Yards country an’ roared them up, threatenin’ to send for the police when he got back. Black followed him by a short cut an’ bushwhacked him, to keep him from it. The others didn’t have any hand in that, an’ they’ll turn on him when it comes to a judge an’ jury. They hlive hated him ever since the day of the murder for bringin’ them into it with him.” “That’s about all, Mr Hawke,” concluded Barney. He tossed over a saddle pouch, from which Hawke drew forth the contents which Barney named for him as he laid them on the table. “ That’s tho mate of the gun you took off. Black., Jt’§ the gun that killed Old Mail Patterson. Fay took it off Black in a row in the hut. I stole it from Fay’s kitchen. That’s the bullet that went through Old Man Patterson’s skull. I found it in the ground near' the body. It. fits the gun. You’ll find Black’s the owner of both the gun you took from him. to-night and that one. The store in. Mulga iWest sold them to him, an’ kept track of the numbers.” Presently Hawke excused himself and I: I hik way to Molly’s office, where she was writing furiously. She did not look up when he entered and closed the door firmly. He stood for a moment, a soft light in his eyes, admiring the back of hef head. Then he coughed, and she looked round as though tremendously surprised. Hawke laughed outright: “ You do it well, Molly!” She rose from her chair and faced him unsteadily, red of face and dangerously bright of eye. “ Have you come about that apology?” She a‘rove, unsuccessfully, to make the ice tinkle in her voice. The policeman grinned,' seating himself on the edge of her table, and dangled a long, powerful, leather-clad leg, jingling the spur chain at the end of it. “ Right, first guess!. You called me a rotten horseman, and I am a former rough-riding instructor to the Queensland police. You insinuated that lam a drunken, low-down, whisky-sucking, good-for-nothing, bleery eyed, wifestarving rascal, and on the contrary I have never been intoxicated in my life, and practically never touch strong drink, except to help me to catch thieves. You hinted that I was a weakkneed, gambling Wastrel, and yet I have never had more than a dozen bets in my life, and everyone of them was a winner at long odds, given me right out of the horse’s mouth. You told me that you wouldn’t marry me if I was the last man in the world, and yet 1 know that if ten thousand men were paraded before you, every one of them as rich as John Patterson, and I was there, looking like a horse thief, as poor as Lazarus, and you wanted to get married, you'd pick me out of the ten thousand and be glad of the chance. If your apology is sufficiently humble I -will be magnanimous and forgive you, just this once, but don’t dare to do it again.” Molly faced him with blazing blue eyes. She stamped her foot and clenched her small fists while the colour dyed her face and neck. _ “ How dare vou come here talking of apologies ! from me! Get out of the rpom this minute, or I’ll call Mr Patterson.” Hawke stretched out a leisurely hand to take hers, but she snatched it away. “ Irish as Paddy’s pigs,” he smiled approvingly. “ Faith, darlint, ye are the O’Toole to the life. All fire and spirit and temper. Apologise to me, on your bended knees, acushla, for miscalling me a drunken waster, an’ I’ll thank ye. Otherwise I’ll go out of your life forever this minute an’ ye will miss a fine chance for a husband. Say it, darlint. Say: ‘ Clarence, dear, lam a fool, an’ ye are a great, big, handsome, fine stamp of a man that never took a drink in his life, except for the betterment av his duty.’ ” Molly was speechless and helpless while he seized her swiftly in his arms. “ Say ye love me, sweetheart. I know ye do, but I want evidence that will convict you before a jury, if you try to go back on it.” She struggled fiercely, and tears of rage glistened on her eyelashes.' She found his arms too strong for and stamped on his feet till he winced. For punishment he kissed her. She slapped his face. The,n she looked into his eyes and read there what he had been hiding for months. For a moment she gazed, wonder-struck, and suddenly surrendered. “ I’m a quick-tempered fool.” she commenced, “ and you are .” But his kisses cut her shot. Presently the inspector chuckled, while they sat on one chair and said with their eyes that which their lips could not say; “ By gosh, Molly, it was hard work posing as a boozer when you started to dress me down for being a waster, but I’m glad 1 stuck to it tothe finish. It taught me that a woman’s love will live through anything.” They argued about the date of the wedding until Hawke remembered that it was time to catch up with his men, who were escorting a gang of dangerous criminals to Mulga West, and were expecting him to join them at any moment. Then he kissed her proudly, leaped to his big black horse from the ground without touching tho saddle with his hands or the stirrup with his foot, and galloped down the red lane between the mulga trees, laughing joyously, and waving his hand to her, a very gallant and handsome figure of romance. L TheTkd.