"Marmot's store's afire!" he shouted.
Helter-skelter the men rushed out, Tony and his mates in front. On the rise at the end of the township the flames gleamed as they flared from the wooden building, which burned like matchwood. From the distance in the opposite direction came the sounds of horses, galloping away from the township.
Peters sprang towards the paddock fence.
"Our gold!" he yelled. "They've biffed us!"
The slip-rails In the paddock fence were down, and two of the horses were missing. While most of the men rushed away up to the burning store, five stayed behind—Tony, Peters, Murray, and two young selectors who had come in to join the fun.
"It's a tough ride. Who knows the country best?" Peters asked, as he swung into the saddle.
"Teddy Morton," some one answered shortly; and the selector named, slim, active, and sunburned, wheeled his horse to the front without a word and drove his spurs home.
Out along the road he raced, sitting tight in the saddle with the reins hanging loose, catching rather than hearing on the air as it rushed past his ears the thud of the horses' hoofs galloping away ahead. Behind him the others rode, silent, the horses following the leader of their own instincts. Two miles farther on the faint sounds ahead ceased, and each one of the five knew that the fugitives had turned from the roadway into the open bush. They knew the place—there was rugged, broken country a mile from the road, deep cross gullies with treacherous banks, and patches of wattle scrub close-growing and dark, where a man might ride to his death at every stride of his horse. And down the road they raced, till they saw by the loom of the open bush where the boundary fences ceased. The leader turned his horse in his stride, and the four behind turned theirs. A fallen log; a rut; a snag; and one rider's race would be done; for the pace they were going left no escape if once a horse came down. Through the low-grown brush they crashed. A rider ducked to miss a branch that was level with his head; a horse swerved sharp to the right to dodge an old and charred tree-stump; another propped as it caught its step to clear a fancied jump—and the riders gripped their saddle-pads and rode with their hands low down. Somewhere ahead their quarry raced—and three of them thought of their gold—somewhere ahead their coming was heard, and murder might lurk in the shade. It might be a bullet; it might be a spear; it might be a shattered spine; but Morton stuck to his racing lead, and the four pressed close behind.
Away ahead three others rode, two on stolen mounts. They had seen the gleam of the fire burst out as they galloped past the Rest; they heard the shouts of the laughter, and they laughed as they rode away, for they had robbed the store and set it on fire, and every man of the township was in at the Rest drinking to the success of the diggers whose gold was being carried off. They had no plans beyond the robbing of the store, and now, as it was necessary to divide the spoil, they made for the broken country so as to be able to carry the division through without fear of interruption. The man who was on his own horse had the gold strapped in front of him; the others were one on each side, watchful lest he should slip away with the prize. The man on the left watched his companion so carefully that he failed to see a sudden break-away of the ground. His horse stumbled, and its rider was jerked forward out of the saddle on to its neck. The noise startled the horse in the middle, and it swung on one side just at the edge of the break-away. Before it could check itself, it slipped, and the effort made to recover carried it over the edge, causing it to fall heavily on its side and on its rider. The scream of the horse and the yell of the rider echoed through the bush. The man's companions reined in their horses, and one of them dismounted.
"Make a blaze of twigs if you can't see," the one who remained in the saddle called out, and, to help, he also alighted.