A body of mounted troopers left Ararat an hour or so before daylight the next morning, and by seven o'clock had reached the scene of the robbery. They had with them a capable black tracker who had figured in recent events in the Wombat Ranges. He was a silent individual who answered to the name of "Jacky," a name that seems to be the heritage of all blacks who serve in the police force. He quickly picked up the false scent, and the party turned east. It wasn't until the horses stumbled over the heap of stones that some brilliant intellect dropped to the trick that had been played on them. Then, with the better part of an hour to the bad, the party returned to the starting-point of the trail.

"Seems to me," the sergeant in charge remarked to his subordinate, "that they've laid this trail with a good reason. Now if a man wanted to put you on the wrong track, what would you think he'd naturally do?"

"Send us in the opposite direction," said the other promptly.

"Quite so," said the sergeant. "Now the false trail leads east, so it's only reasonable to suppose that they've gone west."

"That's so," the other agreed. "Get-up, you brute." The latter remark was addressed to the horse, which showed an inclination to drop into a walk.

"Here you, Jacky!" the sergeant called, and when the black came to him he said, "Those white men have gone this way," pointing westward. "Look out for their tracks, though I don't fancy we'll see any for some time."

The black grunted non-committally. He had much the same idea himself, though he could not understand how the white man had guessed. Still he knew enough of the white men to realise that they were very, very clever, and sometimes found out things that even the black trackers did not understand. The black went back to his work in silence. Presently he grunted again. His quick eyes had noticed a grey woollen thread stamped into the earth. He lifted it gingerly up in his hand and held it out to the police. The sergeant took it, examined it carefully, and then, without any comment, handed it round to the others. There was no need to ask what it meant. All knew without being told that someone had lately passed that way, and who could that someone be unless one of the rangers?

The black went back again to the trail, bending down close to the ground for all the world like a little dog following the scent of the chase. He turned sharply off into the bushes and the troop went after him. Here and there—wherever the earth had chanced to be a little softer than usual—one could see round depressions somewhat about the size of a saucer, and one patch of damp soil gave a remarkably clear imprint of the fibres of some material.

"Clever chaps, by George!" the sergeant remarked. "They've got brains among them."

"How's that?" queried one of the police.

"They've tried the old duffers' dodge of blanketing the horses' hoofs. Sort of thing that works, too, unless a man happens to have his eyes well open. Luckily I've stumbled up against this sort of thing before."

The other man, who had his own ideas about the matter, nodded his head, but otherwise made no comment.

About ten o'clock the troopers debouched from the trees into a low-lying stretch of land. One could not call it a gully; it was more of a depression, a fault in the earth due to some local subsidence. On the nearest ridge a prospector's hut was perched, from the chimney of which a wisp of smoke ascended. When one of the mounted men dropped from the saddle and opened the door he found no one in charge, though a dinner was merrily simmering away on the fire.

"Whoever he is he can't be far away," the sergeant commented. "He wouldn't leave his dinner unless he was handy. Have a look for him, boys. He might be able to tell us something."

The men scattered in different directions down the depression, and presently a shout from one of them announced that the prospector had been found. He came toiling slowly up the slope, side by side with his discoverer. He was a small wiry man, with a heavy iron-grey beard, and his age, as well as one could guess, was something near to sixty.

"You don't happen to have seen a body of men, horsemen, passing this way late last night or early this morning?" the sergeant queried.

"Nobody passed this way last night," the man answered in a colorless voice. "Why?"

"A gold escort was robbed yesterday evening," the sergeant said, "and we've got information that the robbers came this way."

The man turned slowly and studied the lower slopes of the distant range. He saw, or seemed to see, something that interested him, and he stared so long that the sergeant said impatiently, "Well, what about it?"

"I was just wondering," said the little man in the same colorless voice. "I was just wondering if that was them."

"If who was?" the sergeant demanded. "Out with it, man, and don't keep us waiting all day."

"Last night," said the man distinctly, "there was a fire up on those ranges. It wasn't a bush-fire. I know a bush-fire. It was just a tiny little glow from here. I thought it was a fire showing through the open door of a hut, until I remembered that nobody lived up there. It didn't last long; it must have burnt out in ten minutes or so, so I knew that it was started by some traveller. It wasn't a camp-fire and they weren't cooking anything."

"How do you know that?" the sergeant said quickly.

"How do I know that?" the little man repeated slowly. "It's easy enough. The fire was only alight ten minutes at the most, and you can't cook anything or boil a billy in that time, I know."

"The old chap's right," one of the troopers said in an undertone to his superior.

The sergeant nodded. He turned again to the old prospector. "You're sure you didn't see anyone pass this way?" he queried.

"No, I'm not sure," said the man. "I'm only saying that I didn't hear anyone."

"What do you mean by saying you're not sure that you didn't see anyone?" the sergeant asked curiously.

"When there's shadows in the trees," said the old man, "there's times when you can't tell whether they're men or not. That's what I mean. I'm only saying that I didn't hear anyone. I'd have heard horses."

"The man's a hatter," the sergeant remarked as the troop galloped off towards the ranges. "As mad as a March hare."

The other grinned cheerfully. "Still there's a lot in what he said," he answered. "Now that about the fire——"

"I wonder why they lighted it," the sergeant cut-in.

"Don't know," the other said. "What's the sense of worrying anyway? We'll know soon enough. But don't you think we should have brought the old chap along with us?"

The sergeant shook his head. "What'd be the good?" he said. "He couldn't do any more than he's done already."

He swung round in his saddle and faced the troop. "Now, men," he said, "we've got to put our best foot foremost. Those 'rangers are somewhere ahead of us, making for the mountains. Keep your eyes skinned, for you never know the minute we'll catch up to them. They can't have such a big start of us, and they're heavily loaded at that."

The troopers unslung their carbines and examined the loading, then, satisfied that every preparation had been made, they set spurs to their horses and cantered up the track that led to the ranges.

It was Mr. Abel Cumshaw who first discovered the pursuers. Early in the afternoon the two men commenced to ascend the mountains proper. Just before they disappeared into the belt of timber that fringed the slopes the younger man turned in his saddle and cast one last backward glance at the valley they had left beneath them. Far away below them, in among the misty shapes of the distant trees, he caught a glimpse of a collection of dark little dots whose unfamiliar look puzzled him. He called Mr. Bradby's attention to them, and that gentleman glanced at them in an offhand way and pronounced them to be kangaroos.

"Come on," he added in a different tone. "Hurry up with you there!"

Mr. Cumshaw had no intention of moving until he was fully satisfied in his own mind that the little black dots were really kangaroos. Something seemed to whisper that they weren't.

"They're not kangaroos," he said with conviction. He had caught the glint of sunlight on metal, a brass button of a man's uniform, or perhaps the polished barrel of a carbine.

"Oh," said Mr. Bradby, "so you've tumbled."

"They're police," Mr. Cumshaw stated. "That's what they are."

"Didn't you know that, Abel? I guessed it as soon as I saw them. I'd never confuse a trooper with a kangaroo. I only said that to—well, I didn't want to scare you unnecessarily."

"You needn't be afraid of that," said Mr. Cumshaw airily. "I'm in the game for good or ill, and I'm taking all risks equally with you. It's as much my funeral as yours."

"It doesn't matter whose funeral it is," Jack Bradby said impatiently. "We've got to get away and do it smart. You must remember that neither of us knows anything at all about this country, and it's ten to one that those infernal police have got a black tracker or some other imp of Satan who'll be able to follow us, even if we left as little trace as so many flies."

"Where are we heading for anyway?" Abel Cumshaw enquired as he spurred his horse alongside his companion's.

"That's more than I can say," Bradby retorted. "If we'd had any gumption we'd have explored the place before we took on this last job. But we hadn't the time, and that's all there is to say about it. It's my impression that this section of the State is as full of hiding-places as ever the Blue Mountains or the Wombats were. If we only keep up this spurt of ours we'll make a gully or a valley where we can hide for months without a soul being a whit the wiser."

"I hope so," said Cumshaw, in the manner of a man who has very grave doubts.

"Hold your breath for your work," Mr. Bradby advised. "You might need it all yet."

They had made good headway by this, and the path that they had picked out took them every hour deeper into the unexplored heart of the country. On every side of them stretched the unbroken fastnesses of the primeval wilderness, sheer precipices dropping suddenly into infinite space, jagged peaks towering dizzily into the misty vault of heaven, quaintly situated valleys so masked by timber and brushwood that one came across them only by accident. There is something in the naked face of Nature, in the sheer magnificence of incredible heights and the marvellous massiveness of big timber that somehow dwarfs man into insignificance and makes him realise the puniness of his strength. There was something in the scenes now opening up before the rangers that subdued them and beat them into silence. There was beauty in the sight, the soft eternal beauty of an unravished land, but over and above that was the suggestion that the travellers were fighting not merely against their kind but against the untrammelled forces of an all-powerful wilderness.

The time was early December, and the golden wattle in full bloom. From end to end the ranges were a blaze of color, near at hand deep gold, fading away in the distance into that hazy blue-grey peculiar to Australian mountains. Hour by hour the men rode on in silence, at times galloping down the slopes, at others crawling slowly and painfully up hills that stretched apparently to heaven, hills that yet dropped suddenly into space when one had almost given up all hope of ever reaching the summit.

They had lost all sight of the pursuers, though once Bradby caught a glimpse of smoke far away to the east, smoke that he fancied came from the mid-day fire of the troopers.

They halted at sunset in the shadow of a clump of red gums and made the first meal since morning. As a result of a hurried consultation they decided to press on until midnight. But the horses were wearied with the rough and constant travelling, and it took the better part of two hours for them to cover a little under three miles.

"They've got to have a rest and so have we," Bradby said finally. "The pace is killing, and I'm quite satisfied that the police are taking it fairly easy. We've got scared over nothing. They might not even be on our track. At any rate I suggest we finish for the night and get what sleep we can."

Abel Cumshaw raised no objection to this—as a matter of fact he was almost falling from his mount out of sheer saddle-weariness—so a halt was called, the horses were unsaddled, the men unrolled their blankets and settled down to slumber just as the silver ghost of the moon flooded the place with its cool white light.

It was broad daylight when they awoke, and the sun was already high up in the heavens.

"Somewhere about nine or ten o'clock," Cumshaw guessed. "We've slept in, Jack."

Bradby ruefully admitted that this was so, but excused it on the ground that they would be better fitted for the day's work.

"I'm hanged if I like this game," Cumshaw growled as they made a meagre breakfast on almost the last of their rations. "The food's running short, and it's only a matter of time until they wear us down. You know what it means for us, Jack, if they catch us with the gold. Now I've got an idea, and if we carry it out I see a chance of escaping scot-free. The gold's weighing us down, so what we've got to do is to get rid of it."

"You're surely not going to throw it away after all we've gone through," said Bradby, aghast at the proposal.

"No, I'm not," Cumshaw told him. "What I suggest is that we hide it somewhere handy, make a note of the spot, and then clear out of this particular section for a time. We can easily keep afloat for a couple of months, and when the hue and cry has died down, we can come back and dig it up at our leisure. We'll gain nothing by sticking to it now and we'll run a chance of losing everything."

"Not a bad idea," Bradby agreed. "But the trouble's to find a suitable spot."

"We passed dozens of such places already, Jack. We're just as likely to strike something as good or even better during the course of the day. The whole country-side is honeycombed with hiding-places; it's like a rabbit-warren."

"There's nothing like being an optimist," Bradby said. "Have it your way, Abel. Now the sooner you find some nice secure little spot the better for us, I'm thinking. For one thing the food's running short, as you just remarked, and for another I don't intend keeping up this dodging game for ever. We can't last; they'll wear us down."

"That's supposing they don't get tired and go home," said the cheerful Mr. Cumshaw.

"Not much chance of that," Mr. Bradby retorted. "I only wish they would."

During the morning Bradby's horse developed lameness, and, though the two men slackened the pace in order to give it every chance, by mid-day it could barely limp along.

"This won't do," said Bradby in despair. "We're losing time we can ill afford. All the same this old crock'll have to struggle on until nightfall, and then we'll see whether we'll have to shoot it."

"I don't like shooting a horse," Cumshaw remarked. "It's like murder."

Bradby's only answer was a muttered oath. The trials of the Journey were bringing out the worst side of the man, a side that Cumshaw had never seen before. He eyed his companion thoughtfully. If the wilderness was to get on Bradby's nerves at this early stage, Cumshaw could see that there was likely to be very serious trouble before the end came. The air in the highlands was laden with a freshness which, while it stung the men to action, at the same time put a keen edge on their tempers. Both of them were children of the warm, sun-kissed lowlands, and the difference of even a few degrees of temperature had a remarkable effect on them. With Abel Cumshaw it was such as to send a warm glow into his cheeks; the cold bite of the air made his blood sparkle like new wine and urged him on to fresh efforts. It affected Mr. Bradby in another and a worse way. He became sullen, and there was a certain marked vindictiveness in the way he spurred his lame horse on to exertions that were plainly too much for it. Once or twice Abel was on the point of remonstrating with him, but for the sake of peace he held his tongue and waited, in the hope that the day would bring forth some measure of relief. But nothing happened that morning, and the hope died within him.

Late that day, when the pace had slowed down almost to a crawl, they stumbled across the place by the simplest kind of accident. They had been dropping down to lower levels the greater part of the day, and somewhere about three o'clock in the afternoon—they were not quite sure of the hour, since the sun was masked by the trees—they found themselves in what looked like a narrow gully. Both sides of it were lined with thick bushes of golden wattle that shut out all view on either hand. There were shadows galore in this narrow gully, and the place itself looked almost as dark as the entrance to the Pit. Cumshaw, who had a classical education and had not been able to forget it, any more than the fact that he had once been a gentleman, murmured under his breath.

"What's that?" Bradby asked sharply.

Cumshaw repeated his quotation. "Facilis est descensus Averno," he said.

"What does that mean?" Bradby enquired, in the tone of a man who imagines he is being insulted in a language he does not understand.

"It's easy to go to hell," Cumshaw translated.

Bradby shot one sharp curious glance at him, but made no comment on what he had said. They rode on in silence.

Presently they came to a patch of ground that had been broken by the wind or the rain, or perhaps both together. The shadows so fell that the travellers did not realise the treacherous nature of the soil until they were right in the middle of it. Cumshaw's horse floundered and would have fallen on its knees had he not reined in sharply. This caused him to cannon into his companion's mount. Bradby pulled back sharply, in some way jarring his animal's sore leg as he did so. It reared up on its haunches with the pain, and in the most approved manner bucked its rider off. He shot up in the air, described a beautiful half-circle, and sailed through the barrier of wattle like a human projectile.

Cumshaw slipped off his horse with the quickness of thought. He had enough presence of mind to tether both his own and Bradby's mount, and then he cautiously parted the bushes. For the moment he could see nothing but a great wall of golden blossoms, and then out of the depths came Bradby's furious voice. He was cursing the horse and the slope and everything and everyone within hearing in the simple and forceful fashion of the Australian bushman.

Cumshaw called to him and was answered with an oath.

"Where are you?" he repeated.

"Down here," said the voice, this time modifying its language. "Step carefully or you'll come a cropper."

Mr. Cumshaw pulled the bushes apart and found that he was standing on the verge of a sheer descent.

"Mind your eye," said the voice of the still invisible Mr. Bradby. "I've found the very place we've been looking for."