A Crime of the Under-seas Part 13

"Give an eye to 'em, will you, while I slip back to the camp? I want to get something."

I had not time to protest, for next minute he was gone, and I was left alone with that awful stranger whom I could still see dodging about in the mist. When he got back, Jim reined up alongside me and said,--

"This is getting a little too monotonous to my thinking."

"What are you going to do?" I gasped, my teeth chattering in my head like a pair of castanets.

"Try the effect of this on him," he answered, and as he spoke he pulled a revolver from his pocket. "I don't care if it sends every beast across the river."

At that moment, on his constant round, the phantom came into view again.

On either side of him the cattle were sniffing and snorting at him, plainly showing that they were still wild with terror. This behaviour puzzled us completely, for we both knew that a mob would never treat an ordinary flesh-and-blood stockman in that way. When he got within twenty paces of us Spicer cried,--

"Bail up, matey--or, by jingo, I'll put daylight into you!"

Obedient to the order the figure instantly pulled up.

The moon was bright enough now for us to see his face. And, though, as I've said before, I'm not a coward as a general rule, I can tell you that it made me feel fairly sick, so white and creepy-looking was it.

Then he held up his hand as if in protest and started towards us.

This didn't suit Spicer, however, for he yelled,--

"Stand off! or by the living G.o.d I swear I'll fire. Stand off!"

But the figure continued to come towards us. Then _Crack! Crack! Crack!_ went the revolver, and next moment there was a frightful scream and the sound of galloping hoofs. I saw no more, for, as Jim fired, my horse reared and fell back, crus.h.i.+ng me beneath him.

I suppose I must have been stunned by the fall, for when I recovered my senses Spicer was leaning over me.

"Is he gone?" I asked as soon as I could speak.

"Yes! Gone like mad across the plain and the cattle with him. I must either have missed him, or the bullet must have pa.s.sed clean through him."

As there was now no further reason why we should remain where we were, we returned to the Homestead and told our tale. Then when it was light enough, we had our breakfast and mounted our horses and went out into the scrub to look for the cattle we had lost. By the time dusk fell we had collected three hundred and fifty out of the five hundred head Ruford had brought on to the plain. The poor beasts were quite knocked up; and as it was useless thinking of pus.h.i.+ng them on in that condition, we were consequently compelled to camp them for one more night on that awful plain. But to our delight we saw no more of the Phantom Stockman.

Next morning while we were at breakfast, Billy, the black boy, who had been out after the horses, came das.h.i.+ng up to the Homestead, almost beside himself with excitement.

"Me been find him," he cried. "Me been find him, all same fellow what been make debbil-debbil longa here."

"What do you mean?" asked Spicer, putting down his cup of tea. "Where have you found the man?"

"Me been find him longa billabong. My word he most like dead, mine think it."

Spicer made a sign to me, and without another word we jumped up and ran in the direction of the stockyard. Mounting our horses we followed our guide through the scrub for a distance of perhaps a mile and a half until we came to a small billabong or backwater of the main river.

Away at the further end we could see a curious white heap, and towards it we galloped, making our horses put their best feet foremost, you may be sure.

On reaching it, we found a man lying huddled up upon the ground beneath a low-growing tree. He was dressed in a complete suit of white flannel, his boots were painted the same colour, and even his hat was fixed up to match, white. Still looped over his ears was a long grey beard and moustache of false hair.

Spicer dismounted and knelt beside him. After feeling his heart he plucked the beard away and almost shouted his astonishment aloud.

"Good heavens!" he cried; "do you recognise this man?"

I stooped and looked. _I don't know whether you will believe it, but the Phantom Stockman, the person who had performed such prodigies two nights before, was none other than our friend Chudfield, the young English owner of Yarka Station, across the river, the man who had appeared to be so frightened by the ghost, and who had made it his boast that he knew nothing at all about Bush-work._ For some moments we stood and stared at him in stupefied amazement. I was the first to speak.

"Is he dead, do you think?" I asked.

"Quite," said Spicer. "Look at this mark under his chin. Galloping through the scrub in the dark the other night to get away from us, he must have been caught by that bough up there and have been dashed from his saddle. Death must have been almost instantaneous."

Round his waist was a long thin cord which ran away some twenty yards or so into the bush. We followed it up and discovered a large piece of raw hide tied to the end of it.

Spicer examined the latter carefully.

"The beast that owned this skin was only killed two days ago," he said.

"Now I know why our cattle were so restless. They smelt the blood, and, as you are aware, that invariably terrifies them. Cunning beggar! he pretended to know nothing, and yet he knew enough for this."

"Yes," I said; "but what about the other night when the phantom appeared at the garden fence, and this man was sitting in the verandah with us?"

"Why, he probably wanted to disarm suspicion, and so sent his overseer, who must be in the secret, to play the part."

"But what was his object in frightening you?"

"Can't you guess? Well, just let me find out where our friend's stockyard is situated in the Ranges up yonder, and I think I'll be able to tell you. I remember now that when I came here his cattle were all over Warradoona, and that he used the place just as if it were his own, to say nothing of having his choice of all the unbranded and other cattle that former tenants had left upon it."

Leaving the body where we had found it, to be picked up on our homeward journey, we crossed the river and plunged into the scrub beyond.

An hour later we discovered, cunningly hidden in a lonely gulley, a big stockyard _in which our lost cattle were still penned up_. There was no one in sight and nothing to prove how the animals had got there, but a clearer case of duffing could scarcely have been found. Moreover, there were branding irons in the shed adjoining, and they were those of Yarka Station.

"I think we know quite enough now," said Spicer solemnly, as we mounted our horses to return.

"Enough to lay the Ghost of the Stockman of Warradoona at any rate," I replied.

Three hours later we were at home once more, and Chudfield's body was lying in a hut, waiting for the police from Yarrapanya who would hold the inquest. A black boy had meanwhile been sent across to Yarka Station to inform the manager of the catastrophe.

Our lunch that day was a mixture of happiness and sadness. Happiness, because the mystery of the Phantom Stockman had been cleared up for good and all; and sadness, because of the pain that was inseparable from the discovery of a friend's duplicity.

When the meal was at an end we pa.s.sed into the verandah. After a little conversation there, Spicer disappeared, to return in a few moments with a pick-axe and a basket of tools.

"What are you going to do?" I inquired, as he set them down in the pa.s.sage and took off his coat.

"I want, if possible, to discover how those screams were worked," he replied. "It looks like being a long job; so if you will give me your a.s.sistance in ripping up these boards, I shall be very grateful."

"Of course, I'll help," I said, and thereupon we set to work.

But though we laboured for the best part of the afternoon, the result was disappointing in the extreme. Nothing but dry earth and wood-shavings confronted us.

"That being so, we'll take down the posts that support the walls on either side," said Jim, and as he spoke he attacked that upon which the lamp was fixed. "If we can't find anything there we'll continue to pull the house to pieces until we do."

But we were spared that trouble. On loosening the post in question we made an important discovery. It was hollow from end to end, and in the cavity reposed a lead pipe, about an inch in diameter. We consulted together for a moment, and then took the pick-axe into my bedroom and ripped up a plank in the floor. By this means we were able to see that the pipe crossed the room and pa.s.sed under the further wall. Outside we picked it up once more and traced it past the well, the kitchen, and the stockyard, into the scrub, where it entered an enormous blasted gum tree standing fifty yards or so from the house.