"We get ours very late, and haven't always time to read them then. I knew nothing about it."
"Well, then, you knew about as much as is known in Victoria from that day to this. The police down there have lost their end of the thread, and it was my great luck to pick it up again by the merest chance last week. I'll tell you about that another time. But you understand what it would mean to me?"
"Rather!"
"To land him more or less single-handed!"
"I won't tell a soul."
"And don't you go and take the man himself behind my back, Mr. Rigden!" the policeman was obliged to add, with such jocularity as men feign in their deadliest earnest.
But Rigden's laugh was genuine and involuntary.
"I can safely promise that I won't do that," said he. "But ask the other fellows if they've seen the kind of man you describe; if they haven't, no harm done."
The unprofitable inquiry was conducted in Moya's presence, who abruptly disappeared, unable to bear any more and still hold her peace. Thereupon Rigden breathed more freely, and offered supper with an improving grace; the very tracker was included in the invitation, which was accepted with the frank alacrity of famished men.
"And it's not the last demand we shall have to make on you," said Harkness, as he washed in Rigden's room; "we've ridden our cattle off their legs since we were here in the afternoon. We must hark back on our own tracks first thing in the morning. Beds or bunks we shall want for the night, and fresh horses for an early start."