"Could've swore I left Baldy at the Ridge," he said to the boy who looked after the stables at the Budda end of his journey.
"Thought he was there meself," the lad replied, imitating Ed.'s perplexed head-scratching.
At the Ridge, when he made his next trip, they were able to tell Mr. Ventry how the baldy-face happened to be at Budda when Ed. thought he was at Fallen Star, although Ed. heard some of the explanation from Potch and Michael a day or two later. Sophie had ridden the baldy-face into Budda the night he drove Mr. Armitage to catch the train for Sydney. No one discovered she had gone until the end of next day. Then Potch went to Michael.
"Michael," he said; "she's gone."
During the evening Paul had been heard calling Sophie. He asked Potch whether he had seen her. Potch said he had not. But it was nothing unusual for Sophie to wander off for a day on an excursion with Ella or Mirry Flail, so neither he nor Michael thought much of not having seen her all day, until Paul remarked querulously to Potch that he did not know where Sophie was. Looking into her room Potch saw her bed had not been slept in, although the room was disordered. He went up to the town, to Mrs. Newton and to the Flails', to ask whether they had seen anything of Sophie. Mirry Flail said she had seen her on one of the coach-stable horses, riding out towards the Three Mile the evening before. Potch knew instinctively that Sophie had gone away from the moment Paul had spoken to him. She had lived away from him during the last few months; but watching her with always anxious, devout eyes, he had known more of her than anyone else.
Lying full stretch on his sofa, Michael was reading when Potch came into the hut. His stricken face communicated the seriousness of his news. Michael had no reason to ask who the "she" Potch spoke of was: there was only one woman for whom Potch would look like that. But Michael's mind was paralysed by the shock of the thing Potch had said. He could neither stir nor speak.
"I'm riding into Budda, to find out if she went down by the train," Potch said. "I think she did, Michael. She's been talking about going to Sydney ... a good deal lately.... She was asking me about it—day before yesterday ... but I never thought—I never thought she wanted to go so soon ... and that she'd go like this. But I think she has gone.... And she was afraid to tell us—to let you know.... She said you'd made up your mind you didn't want her to go ... she'd heard her mother tell you not to let her go, and if ever she was going she wouldn't tell you...."
Potch's explanation, broken and incoherent as it was, gave Michael's thought and feeling time to reassert themselves.
He said: "See if Chassy can lend me his pony, and I'll come with you, Potch."
They rode into Budda that night, and inquiry from the station-master gave them the information they sought. A girl in a black frock had taken a second-class ticket for Sydney. He did not notice very much what she was like. She had come to the window by herself; she had no luggage; he had seen her later sitting in a corner of a second-class compartment by herself. The boy, a stranger to the district, who had clipped her ticket, said she was crying when he asked for her ticket. He had asked why she was crying. She had said she was going away, and she did not like going away from the back-country. She was going away—to study singing, she said, but would be coming back some day.