A RED HERRING
Rigden cantered to the horse-paddock gate, and on and on along the beaten track which intersected that enclosure, and which led ultimately to a wool-shed pitched further from the head-station than wool-shed ever was before or since. Rigden rode as though he were on his way thither; he certainly had not the appearance of a man come to cut out horses in a horse-paddock. His stock-whip was added to the bulging contents of the dust-coat pockets, instead of being ready as a lance in rest. The rider looked neither right nor left as he rode. He passed a mob of horses in the moonlight, not without seeing them, but without a second glance.
Suddenly he left the track at a tangent; but there was no symptom of the sudden thought. Rigden sat loosely in his saddle, careless but alert, a man who knew every inch of the country, and his own mind to an irreducible nicety. A clump of box rose in his path; a round-shot would have cut through quicker, but not more unerringly. Rigden came out on the edge of a chain of clay-pans, hard-baked by the sun, and shining under the moon like so many water-holes.
Rigden rode a little way upon the nearest hard, smooth surface; then he pulled up, and, looking back, could see scarcely any trace of his horse's hoofs. He now flung a leg across the saddle, and sat as the ladies while his quiet beast stood like bronze. A night-horse is ex officio a quiet beast.
Rigden wondered whether any man had ever before changed his boots on horseback. When he proceeded it was afoot, with his arm through the reins, and the pockets of the dust-coat bulging more than ever. From his walk it was manifest that the new shoes pinched.
But they left no print unless he stamped with all his might. And that was a very painful process. Rigden schooled himself to endure it, however, and repeated the torture two or three times on his way across the clay-pans. On such occasions the night-horse was made to halt (while the stamping was done under its nose) and to pirouette in fashion that must have astonished the modest animal almost as much as each fresh inspiration astonished Rigden himself.
On the sandy ground beyond he merely led the horse until a fence was reached. Here some minutes were spent, not only in strapping down the wires and coaxing the night-horse over, but in some little deliberation which ended in the making of mock footprints with his own boots, without, however, putting them on. Rigden had still another mile to do in the tight shoes for this his sin. It brought him to the pouting lips of a tank (so called) where the moon shone in a mirror of still water framed in slime. Here he gave his horse a drink, and, remounting, changed his boots once more. A sharp canter brought him back to the fence; it was crossed as before; the right horses were discovered and cut out with the speed and precision of a master bushman; and at half-past eleven exactly the thunder of their hoofs and the musketry of Rigden's stock-whip were heard together in the barracks, where the rest had gathered for a final pipe.
"Good time," said the sergeant, who was seated with his subordinate on the storekeeper's bed.
"Not for him," said Spicer. "He said he'd be back by eleven. He's generally better than his word."
"A really good man at his work—what?"