It appeared that, while engaged in his usual morning work of shifting the hurdles, after the flock had gone out at daylight, he saw some one riding (as he thought) through the bushes towards his hut, and left his work to see who it was. To his surprise, he found the shepherd's horse, which he himself had tethered out that morning at the edge of the myrtle, tied to the door, but immediately concluded that the man himself had come for it, as he was daily expecting to sell it, and that perhaps the intending purchaser had joined him while with his flock. He therefore entered the hut quite unsuspiciously; but it was apparently empty. While turning round, he was felled by a blow with his own gun; and, staggering forwards, fell close to his bed. He was not entirely stunned, and instantly rolled himself underneath it. At first he thought that Peel (whom he had recognised) was going to drag him out and finish him, but the black was in too great a hurry. He stayed long enough, however, to saddle the horse, and load himself with the tea and sugar bags, as well as the flour and half a damper which was on the table. Moreover, the man found that he had taken down his looking-glass, which hung on a nail in the wall. His object in doing this was that he might whiten his face with the dirty outside of the flour bag. With a cabbage-tree hat and a shooting coat which he put on, at a distance he would not look like a black, and he could pass the sentries unsuspected. In fact, we heard afterwards from them that he went between them, walking, and leading his horse, and pretending to read an old newspaper he had picked up off the table in the hut. It was so natural that a passing horseman coming from higher up the river should call at the out-station, and he turned his whitened, or rather whitey-browned, face towards them both so coolly, that, disguised as he was in hat and coat, and having the horse as well, it was no wonder that, at several hundred yards distance, they should be deceived.
I felt rather queer when I saw the hut-keeper's condition, and reflected that, had he been killed, I should have been indirectly the cause of his death. And what if the black, driven to desperation, committed more murders? There was no chance now of their catching him. He was making straight for the large reed-bed, which extended miles down the river below the head station.
'I don't see the use of following him any longer. He has got off clear!' said Stevenson, after we had gone some miles. 'Upon my word, he deserves his liberty too.'
We at last reached the reeds, and followed the traces along their margin, thick timber with brush being on our right. In passing the head station all but two of the most expert of the troopers were sent away. With these, the superintendent, Walters, and I, continued the chase, although with very slight hopes of capturing the fugitive, now that he had succeeded in reaching the neighbourhood of the reedy swamps, which communicated with the main body of the mallee, extending in the direction of South Australia for hundreds of miles down the river.
'Dodged me once more!' said Walters. 'Oh, if I had only thought of telling one of my men to call as he passed the hut where he stole the horse! We should have had him, for they would have been on the look-out. But now— What's the matter, Doolibut?'
The track had hitherto led for several miles in a straight line, parallel with the river; but now the leading black pulled up his horse and looked about him. The hoof-marks had changed their character, and swerved from their former course, zigzagging in different directions; these signs indicating that a severe struggle had here taken place between the horse and his rider.
'His horse has been playing up!' said the superintendent. 'These are the marks made by his hack jumping about. I wonder the beast went so far with the black on his back without doing so before, for he is a regular brute. No one on the station will ride him.'
It seemed, however, that Peel had conquered, for presently the tracks of the horse once more galloping were taken up, and we followed them on. But again we came to the marks of a struggle; and these increased in number at every mile or so, until we came to a place about half a mile from the scrub for which the black was making, and where the reeds and the timber, mingled with brush, approached each other closely. We were passing along a narrow, winding opening or path between these, having the reeds on our left, when once more the leading black pulled up, and after a brief glance at the ground, dismounted.
The sandy, loose soil on which the trees grew was margined by and intermingled with the soft boggy ground on which were the reeds, here five or six feet in height, and very dense. The spot was thickly overgrown with ferns and small bushes, which in several places were broken and trampled, while the ground was deeply imprinted with hoof-marks. Besides these, however, the blacks evidently saw other signs; for, pointing to one particular place, and speaking eagerly to each other, they stooped down to examine it more narrowly; and then, walking on a few steps, came to the foot of an immense tree, which, growing on the very margin of the swamp, had one portion of its roots bathed by its waters, there being hardly room for a man to pass between the reeds and the trunk on that side. On the other were some bushes, which concealed the view immediately beyond.
'Why, there is the horse!' said the superintendent suddenly, pointing to the right amongst the trees. 'He has left it, and taken to the swamp on foot. He's safe now.'