"Don't you, Theodore," advised Rigden from his chair. "I'm not keen on turning out all hands to look for you, old chap."
"But is the place really as bad as all that?" inquired Moya, following him into the conversation for the look of the thing.
"Worse," said Rigden, and leaned forward, silent. In another moment he had risen, walked to the end of the verandah, and returned as far as Bethune's chair. "Sure you want an adventure, Theodore? Because the Assyrians are coming down in the shape of the mounted police, and it's the second time they've been here to-day. Looks fishy, doesn't it?"
Listening, they heard the thin staccato jingle whose first and tiniest tinkle had been caught by Rigden; then with one accord the party rose, and gathered at the end of the verandah, whence the three black horsemen could be seen ambling into larger sizes, among the tussocks of blue-bush, between the station and the rising moon.
"What do they want?" idly inquired Bethune.
"A runaway convict," said Rigden, quietly.
"Is it a fact?" asked Ives, turning instinctively to Miss Bethune.
"I believe so," replied Moya, with notable indifference.
"Then why on earth have you been keeping it dark, both of you?" demanded Bethune, and he favoured the engaged couple with a scrutiny too keen for one of them. Moya's eyes fell. But Rigden was equal to the occasion.
"Because the police don't want it to get about. That's why," said he shortly.
And Moya admired his resource until she had time to think; then it revolted her as much as all the rest. But meanwhile the riders were dismounting in the moonlight. Rigden went out to meet them, and forthwith disappeared with Harkness among the pines.
"No luck at all," growled the sergeant. "We're clean off the scent, and it licks me how he gave you such a wide berth and us the slip. We can't have been that far behind him. None of the other gentlemen came across him, I suppose?"
"As a matter of fact I've only just mentioned it to them," replied Rigden, rather lamely. "I thought I'd leave it till you came back. You seemed not to want it to get about, you know."
"No more I do--for lots of reasons. I mean to take the devil, alive or dead, and yet I don't want anybody else to take him! Sounds well, doesn't it? Yet I bet you'd feel the same in my place--if you knew who he was!"