"It's right into our hands," he said to himself, as he rode along in the direction of the Three-mile.
He followed the track, dimly defined in the evening gloom, with the certainty of one who traverses a well-known route. The red flicker of firelight showed through the simple window as he approached the hut, and he went up to the door, after turning his horse loose in the paddock, and pushed it open. Inside, the firelight showed two men sitting on rough-made stools in front of the fireplace, while a third lay on a stretcher at the far end of the room.
One of the two men turned round quickly.
"Hullo, Barber, I didn't know you were back," Tap said in a subdued voice. "But I'm so glad, because——"
"Shut the door," the man interrupted abruptly.
"All right," Tap answered, as he turned and did the man's bidding. "Walker hasn't turned up, but there's a lot of them come in, and they've all got gold," he went on, as he came over to the fire.
The man lying on the stretcher half raised himself, and the firelight fell on his face.
"Oh, you're there," Tap said, as he saw and recognized Gleeson. "I was going to say——"
Barber turned round again and fixed his eyes on Tap's face.
"What about Gleeson's men?" he asked.