CHAPTER III.
AT WARRANDILLA.
An hour after, Gray was riding swiftly across the plains on his way to the station. He was urging on his horse with voice and hand and spur, riding as if for dear life, yet even while he rode he was making up his mind to keep back from Mr. Morton all knowledge of Dearing's map. Of Dearing's death he was bound to tell him, but he would say nothing of the map. If Harding was found it would be so easy to say he had forgotten it in his anxiety; if Harding— Gray did not finish the sentence to himself, but he determined to keep back the map.
It was not much past noon when the plains began to give place to undulating ground, richer in vegetation, and with great clumps of dark-foliaged trees here and there; and it was soon after that that Gray caught his first glimpse of the river, and saw the roofs of the station gleaming in the sunlight.
Mr. Morton had spent the morning watching the men at work on the new cottages he was building near his own house for his head shepherds and stock-keepers. They were comfortable, roomy cottages, looking down on the river, with gardens before them, which Mr. Morton intended to be as well stocked and as pretty as his own.
"They will be finished in another week," he said to his wife. He had come back to the house across the garden, and found her sitting in the shady verandah. "And I have made up my mind, Minnie, who's to have the one we meant for Murray."
Mrs. Morton put down her needle-work, and looked eagerly at her husband. Murray had lately left them to start a run of his own, and Mr. Morton had been undecided who should take his post.
"I shall give it to Harding," he said. "I'll ride over and tell him so to-morrow. You'll like having him on the station, won't you?"
"I am very glad indeed," said little Mrs. Morton with energy. "And how delighted he will be. He will be able to get everything ready before his wife and boys get here. They don't leave England till next week. He was telling me all about them when last he was over here."
"Oh, I knew he was a great favourite of yours, my dear," said her husband with a well-pleased look. "And if he isn't as sharp as some, he is as true as steel. I thought it all over this morning, and I believe he's my best man."
Mrs. Morton was called into the house at that moment, and her husband strolled into the garden to await his summons to the mid-day meal. He had not been there many moments when his quick ear caught the sound of rapid hoof-beats on the road below the house. A gate from the garden led into the road, and Mr. Morton hurried towards it. Gray had intended to ride up to the other side of the house, but when he saw Mr. Morton at the gate he checked his horse and flung himself off. There was no need for him to speak for Mr. Morton to know he brought bad news. His whole frame was trembling as he stood steadying himself by his horse; his lips were white as death.
"Something has happened to Harding, is that it?" exclaimed Mr. Morton when Gray had twice tried to make his voice audible and failed.
"I fear so," Gray gasped out. "He has not come back. He started yesterday morning for Big Creek, and he has not come back."
Gray had determined beforehand what to say, but he had not known it would be so difficult. His eyes fell before Mr. Morton's glance, as if that glance could read his soul. But Mr. Morton had never felt so warmly towards Gray as he did at that moment. He was a better fellow than he had thought him, he said to himself, to feel Harding's disappearance so keenly.
"Look here, my lad," he said kindly, "you go into the house and ask Mrs. Morton to give you something to eat. You're just tired out, you know, and won't be fit for anything till you've had a rest. Oh, you shall go with us," he added as he saw Gray's hesitating look. "But we can't start for another hour. I must send over to Billoora for a man or two. Don't be so downhearted about it, Gray. We shall find him, never fear."
But Mr. Morton's cheerful prophecy was not destined to be verified. The search for Harding was long and thorough—and fruitless. His horse was found lying dead, with an ugly wound in its neck from the horn of a bull; but Harding and his dog were gone.
Gray grew very worn and haggard in those weeks of waiting. His youth went from him. They attributed his changed looks at the station to his grief for Harding. It was enough to unhinge any man, they said—that mysterious loss of his mate. And in this explanation they were partly right. At first, Gray's remorse was almost more than he could bear. He was one of the most eager in the search-party. He rode day after day across those barren wastes of back-country, and spared no effort to find some sign of the missing man. But when the search was at last given up as hopeless, when those on the station began to take Harding's death for granted, and life began to flow on in the ordinary channel, then Gray's mind went back to the map he had destroyed, and the treasure hidden in Deadman's Gully.
He was thinking of it one afternoon as he was riding across to Billoora on an errand for Mr. Morton. It was a clear beautiful afternoon, and the air on the grassy uplands was fresh and bracing. Gray might have taken the river road, which was a mile or two nearer, but it would have led him past the cottages, and he could not bear to look at them—the remembrance that Harding was to have had one of them was too exquisitely painful. But on the uplands there was nothing to remind him of Harding—the richly-green rolling wooded pastures were altogether unlike the gray plains round the hut.
Gray gazed about him and thought of England. If he got that money he would go back there; his mind was fully made up on that point. And though he had not yet said so in so many words to himself, he knew he intended to get the money. Only the day before he had refused a new post offered to him by Mr. Morton, and said that he wished to leave the station in a week or two. And this afternoon, for the first time since Harding's disappearance, he allowed himself to dwell on the great and wonderful change the finding of the treasure would make in his life.
Absorbed in these thoughts he did not notice the approach of a man along the grassy track. The man was walking slowly and painfully, carrying a bundle over his shoulder. He was a small, wiry, narrow-shouldered man, with a thin peaked face, from which a pair of small eyes looked keenly out from under thick reddish eyebrows. He had caught sight of Gray long before Gray saw him, and after walking some distance towards him, he sat down on the bank and waited for him to come up. Gray checked his horse to speak.
"You look tired, my man."
Gray's tone of cool superiority was not resented by the wayfarer. He got up and came nearer.
"I've had a longish tramp," he said in a thin, not unpleasant voice. "I'm bound for Warrandilla, Mr. Morton's place. I've begun to fear as how I've missed my road."
"Oh, you're all right!" Gray returned indifferently; "the station is just over the rise there. You'll see it in a mile or so."
The man looked in the direction Gray pointed, and then turned his eyes again on Gray's face. Curious, shifty, cunning eyes they were—eyes that went well with the narrow, cruel mouth, and the sharply-pointed chin.
"Perhaps you're Mr. Morton yourself, sir," he said ingratiatingly. "You deserve to be, I'm sure."
"No such luck," said Gray with a laugh, not ill pleased at the man's suggestion. "But you'll find him at home if you go on. I've just left him."
Gray was about to ride on, when the man spoke again.
"I won't detain you a minute, sir, but perhaps you can tell me if I've got a chance of some work over there."
"It depends on what you can do, and who you are, you know," said Gray, with a brief comprehensive glance over the man's figure.
"You'd better not try to play any tricks with Morton if you want him to help you. That's a friendly bit of advice I'll give you."
"Thank you, sir; I'll remember it," was the humbly-spoken answer, though there was a sudden gleam in the pale blue eyes that Gray did not see. "I've heard along the road what a good employer he is. They were tellin' me at Billoora last night about the poor cove what was lost. I suppose there's no chance that he'll ever be found now, sir?"
Gray felt the colour going out of his cheeks at the sudden reference to Harding.
"I'm afraid not," he said hurriedly. "But I must go on. There's your road straight in front of you. You can't miss it."
The man had put his hand on the neck of the horse, and he still kept it there.
"I'm sorry I spoke, sir. I can see as how you're a friend of his, and I wish I'd held my tongue. But 'tis his mate I pities most. How's he bearin' it now, sir? They was tellin' me he's nigh broken-hearted."
Gray stared blankly at the man for a moment without answering. Then he recovered himself and said with some haughtiness, "I would rather not talk of it, my man. Just let my horse go, will you? I'm in a hurry."
The man stepped back instantly with a word of apology, and Gray rode on without looking back. If he had turned his head he would have seen his late companion gazing after him with a satirical smile on his crafty face.
"We'll have some more talk afore long, my fine gentleman," he was saying. "You didn't think, did you, that I knowed who you was? Them men at Billoora aren't half-bad at a description."
And with a laugh Mr. Lumley, as he chose to call himself at that particular moment, went on his way.
He was bent on staying at Warrandilla for a time, and would have tried his hand at any work offered to him, but as it turned out the work he could do best was just the work that was wanted, and he got regular employment at once. Mrs. Morton was devoted to her garden, and Lumley was really a clever gardener; so that, though she could not help agreeing with her husband's verdict about the man, she was eager to keep him.
Lumley made no secret of his past "misfortunes."
He had been shipped to the colony while it was still a convict station, and his record was by no means a good one since his first term had been worked out.
"But I have never had a good chance before, madam," he said to Mrs. Morton, trying to keep his shifty eyes fixed in a straightforward look upon her face. "I've never had a good kind friend like you before. Please God, I'll do well now."
And though Mrs. Morton distrusted his professions of reform, she found him a clever steady workman, and one most anxious to please. He became one of the most frequent attendants at the religious services which Mr. Morton held two or three times a week in the little chapel next his house.
If Mr. Morton had been a different sort of man the new gardener might have gone on to worse hypocrisy still, but there was something in his employer's strong keen face that kept him back from that.
As Lumley put it to himself, "Shammin' religion is no go with him."
It was about three weeks after Lumley's appearance at the station that Gray's time for departure came. Everyone was very kind to him; their kindness and sympathy cut him to the heart. They tried to comfort him by telling him that no one could have shown more energy in the search than he had, that nothing had been left undone, and that Harding himself would have been the last to wish that his friends should grieve too much. In some such strain Mr. Morton talked to him when he went to the house to bid him good-bye.
"You must cheer up, my lad," he said kindly. "You have done all you could. No man can do more."
Gray made no reply, nor did he raise his gloomy eyes to meet the pleasant kindly glance of his employer. Mr. Morton went on: "So you are thinking of going back to the old country, Gray. Well, there ought to be room there for a man like you; and I don't wonder at your wanting to get away from here after what's happened."
"I am not sailing for a month or so," said Gray. He spoke hurriedly, clearing his throat before he could articulate the words properly. "I think of taking a trip into the mountains. I don't feel equal to the voyage just now."
"Well, take care of yourself; and let us know how you get along." He took Gray's hand and pressed it warmly. "God bless you, my lad!"
Gray looked up into his face with such a strange, wild, miserable glance that Mr. Morton started. He put his hand on the young man's shoulder and looked earnestly at him.
"What is it, Gray? There is something troubling you. Can I help you?"
But Gray drew back.
"There is nothing," he said coldly.
"But there is something," Mr. Morton said to his wife that evening. "Can Gray be keeping back something about Harding, Minnie? I confess I am not altogether satisfied with the result of the search. Harding was not a man to get lost in the Bush; he knew the country too well. And yet—"
"You don't suspect Harding of pretending to be lost?" said his little wife with an amazed look.
"No, no; Harding was not a man to do that sort of thing. I never suspected anything till I saw Gray's face this afternoon. But there is some mystery; and Gray knows more than he has told. I feel sure of that."
"What shall you do?" asked Mrs. Morton, with a startled look on her pretty face.
"What can I do?"
"You don't think Gray—"
"Don't put it into words, Minnie. I have no right to think anything. But his face startled me. No man ever looked like that who hadn't got some great trouble weighing on him. And he wasn't so devoted to Harding as all that, you know. It surprised me to see how much he felt it."
"I always thought he patronized Harding; believed himself too good for him."
"Oh, I know you never liked Gray much," returned her husband, "Harding liked him though. He must have something in him."
To get back to his own quarters Gray had to cross the garden. It was looking its loveliest this afternoon. The turf was as green if not as smooth as the turf of an English lawn, and the glow of colour was more brilliant than any English garden could show. Gray loved flowers. But he passed through that beautiful garden without a glance right or left, with his eyes bent upon the ground.
Not far from the gate which he would have to pass through Lumley was busy cutting the grass with a hand-machine. He had been working in another part of the garden when Gray had gone up to the house, but had caught sight of him as he crossed to the verandah steps. Soon after he left the work he was about in order to cut the grass by the gate.
It was a curious trait in his vicious character that he really loved his gardening work. He had come to the station for a definite purpose, a purpose nearly fulfilled—he was leaving the place at dawn next morning—yet he was working busily still in the pleasant evening light, anxious to leave the grass in perfect order. Mrs. Morton never had such a good gardener again. He was not working too busily, however, to be unmindful of Gray's approach. He watched him with a crafty sidelong look as he came swinging down the path, and when he was quite close to him he touched his cap as an English servant might have done in respectful greeting. He had saluted Gray in the same manner before, and Gray had been curiously pleased by it.
"Good evening, my man," he said loftily and would have passed on. But Lumley stepped out on the path. He had taken off his cap and he turned it round and round in his hands as he spoke.
"Beggin' your pardon, sir," he said humbly, "But I was wantin' to speak to you. I took the liberty of callin' on you this afternoon, but you was out."
"What is it you want?" said Gray. "I am leaving the station to-morrow, you know."
"That's the very reason, sir." He looked up suddenly from under his bushy eyebrows. "I'm leavin' the station too. Perhaps you didn't know that, sir?"
"I hadn't heard it," said Gray indifferently. "Aren't you comfortable here, then?"
"It isn't what I've been used to, sir. I've been a gentleman's servant. Gentlemen as knows how to treat a servant. Real gentlemen." Then came again the sudden crafty look.
"That was in England, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir, before my 'misfortunes' came upon me. I had many good places; and that's the sort of work which suits me best. I'm goin' to try to get a place again, sir."
"Indeed," said Gray, a little impatient at all this.
"And when I heard as you'd come into a fortune, sir, I says to myself, 'Mr. Gray'll be wanting a servant, and if he would take me on how blessed I should be!'"
Gray's face had turned an ashy white.
"What are you talking of?" he said sharply. He recovered himself with an effort, and added in a milder tone: "I expect I'm poorer than you are, Lumley. I've hardly enough to live on myself, let alone a servant."
"Indeed, sir! I'm very sorry, for if anybody would grace a fortune 'twould be you, sir."
He turned his cloth cap round and round in his hands as he added:
"Then you don't want a servant, sir?"
Gray laughed out.
"Most decidedly not, my man. But I must go on, I'm busy."
Lumley stood in his way and did not move.
"If I didn't want any wages, sir? I'd like to go along with you, if only for the journey down to Adelaide. I'd serve you faithfully, sir."
"It's utterly impossible—out of the question," exclaimed Gray with a wave of the hand. "Besides, I'm not going to Adelaide."
"Indeed, sir!"
It had been a slip of the tongue, which Gray repented at once.
"It's altogether out of the question, my good fellow," he said. "You must have been dreaming to think of it. Now, will you let me pass? I have a great deal to do."
Lumley stepped aside.
"I wish you humbly good-bye, sir, and good luck. There's riches in your face, sir; I see 'em as plain as can be. You'll think of me when the good times come."
Gray turned a quivering face upon him.
"What do you mean?" he gasped, and then he stopped and gave an unsteady smile. "I'll certainly think of you when my riches come, my man. It's an easy promise to make."
He waved his hand in hurried farewell and hastened along the path. Lumley stood looking after him with an evil glance.
"You will think of me, my fine gentleman, and no mistake."
And he chuckled harshly to himself.