“By the way, talking of Maloney--it’s a strange thing,” said Broadhurst, “that Jack Haldane swears he saw a man as like Maloney, with ten years added to him, as could be. It was in the bush on Monday morning. Chance, I suppose; but you’d hardly think there could be two pair of shoulders in the world carrying such villainous mugs on the top of them.” “Jack Haldane’s a fool,” growled Hutton, throwing open the door and peering anxiously out into the darkness, while the wind played with his long grizzled beard, and sent a train of glowing sparks from his pipe down the street. “A terrible night!” he said, as he turned back toward the fire. Yes, a wild, tempestuous night; a night for birds of darkness and for beasts of prey. A strange night for seven men to lie out in the gully at Bluemansdyke, with revolvers in their hands, and the devil in their hearts. * * * * * The sun was rising after the storm. A thick, heavy steam reeked up from the saturated ground and hung like a pall over the flourishing little town of Trafalgar. A bluish mist lay in wreaths over the wide tract of bushland around, out of which the western mountains loomed like great islands in a sea of vapor. Something was wrong in the town. The most casual glance would have detected that. There was a shouting and a hurrying of feet. Doors were slammed and rude windows thrown open. A trooper of police came clattering down with his carbine unslung. It was past the time for Joe Buchan’s saw-mill to commence work, but the great wheel was motionless, for the hands had not appeared. There was a surging, pushing crowd in the main street before old Tom Broadhurst’s house, and a mighty clattering of tongues. “What was it?” demanded the new-comers, panting and breathless. “Broadhurst has shot his mate.” “He has cut his own throat.” “He has struck gold in the clay floor of his kitchen.” “No; it was his son Maurice who had come home rich.” “Who had not come back at all.” “Whose horse had come back without him.” At last the truth had come out; and there was the old sorrel horse in question whinnying and rubbing his neck against the familiar door of the stable, as if entreating entrance; while two haggard, gray-haired men held him by either bridle and gazed blankly at his reeking sides. “God help me,” said old Tom Broadhurst; “it is as I feared!” “Cheer up, mate,” said Hutton, drawing his rough straw hat down over his brow. “There’s hope yet.” A sympathetic and encouraging murmur ran through the crowd. “Horse ran away, likely.” “Or been stolen.” “Or he’s swum the Wawirra an’ been washed off,” suggested one Job’s comforter. “He ain’t got no marks of bruising,” said another, more hopeful. “Rider fallen off drunk, maybe,” said a bluff old sheep-farmer. “I kin remember,” he continued, “coming into town ’bout this hour myself, with my head in my holster, an’ thinking I was a six-chambered revolver--mighty drunk I was.”