Their excursions and discussions had made the twins late, and they abandoned further ideas of chasing suspicious characters for purposes of inspection, and cantered briskly across the Common. The thunderous clouds, so usual now towards evening, were rolling up over the western sky, and the heat was breathless; when, in pity for the ponies, they reined in to a walk, they almost gasped in the still, heavy air. They were thankful when at length the roofs of the Emu Plains homestead showed through the trees.
The paddock through which they were riding was next to the homestead block. A creek ran through one corner, its banks thickly fringed with scrub; and in a little nook near the dividing fence there was an old hut, built long ago by men on a timber-felling contract. It was half in ruins now, held together by the sarsaparilla and clematis that festooned it; the children used it sometimes as a place to picnic. Something moving near it caught Jean’s eye, and she brought Punch to a standstill.
“Do you see anything there, Jo? Down by the old hut?”
Jo looked.
“No,” she said. “There couldn’t be anything. Oh, you are an old duffer, Jeanie; you’ve got that escaped man on the brain!”
“Well, I did see something,” Jean persisted. “And there are no sheep or cattle in this paddock at all, so it couldn’t have been a beast. Let’s ride down and see, Jo.”
“I think it’s mad,” said Jo. “You really couldn’t have seen anything.”
“Well, it won’t take us more than three minutes to go and see,” Jean said. “Come on, old girl.”
She turned Punch from the gate and cantered towards the creek, followed by her twin—who, however she might protest, never thought of not joining in. They drew up near the hut.
There was no sign of anything there, and everything was very quiet. Jean was just about to turn her pony when something caught her eye—a freshly broken stalk of bracken.