Robson sat puffing at his pipe for a few minutes in silence. He was thinking.
“I wonder if it spells foul play,” he said eventually. “Quite sure it was a bullet hole, Harry?”
“Well, I put it to Dickinson without mentioning my own suspicions, and he pronounced it one right away.”
“I wonder if some poor devil got lost travelling alone, and got in among a disaffected lot who made an end of him. They may have shot his horse to destroy all trace, or in trying to bring him up to a round stop. Anyway, why the deuce should they have chucked the saddle into the river? It isn’t like a nigger to destroy assetable property either. No. As you say, Harry, the thing looks devilish fishy.”
“What about the stirrup-irons being gone, Robson?”
“That makes more for my theory. Metal of any kind is valuable to them. They can forge it into assegais. Besides, anything hard and shining appeals to them.”
Stride started upright.
“By Jove!” he cried suddenly. “There’s one point I forgot. The girths were intact. That horse had never been off-saddled.”
Again the other thought a moment.
“Now we are getting onto fresh ground. The poor devil must have missed his way and got into the river. The crocs, did the rest. They took care of him and his gee, depend upon it.”