“Yes. I will go, Miss Grant; and I will never come back till I find this man—if he is alive.”
She laid her hand on his arm.
“I know you will do all you can,” she said, “but in any case, whether you find him or not—come back again!”
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SECOND SEARCH FOR CONSIDINE.
Before leaving Hugh was fully instructed what to do if he compassed the second finding of Considine. He was to travel under another name, for fear that his own would get about, and cause the fugitive to make another hurried disappearance.
He took a subpœna to serve on the old man as a last resource.
Charlie was emphatic. “Go up and get hold of the old vagrant, and find out all about it. Don’t make a mess of it, whatever you do. Remember the old lady, and Miss Grant, and the youngsters, and all of us depend on you in this business. Don’t come back beaten. Don’t let anything stop you. Get him drunk or get him sober—friendly or fighting—but get the truth, and get the proofs of it. Choke it out of the old hound somehow.”
Hugh said that he would, and departed, weighed down by responsibility, to execute his difficult mission. He had to go into an untravelled country to get the truth out of a man who did not want to tell it; and the time allowed was short, as the case could not be postponed much longer.
He travelled by sea to Port Faraway, a tropical sweltering township by the Northern seas of Australia, and when he reached it felt like one of the heroes in Tennyson’s Lotus Eaters—he had come “into a land wherein it seemed always afternoon.”
Reeves, the buffalo shooter, was a well-known man, but to find his camp was another matter. No one seemed to have energy enough to take much interest in the quest.