Before the women went to bed that night they had found Dick guilty of
robbing the Silver Stream of thousands of ounces of gold and perpetrating
a murderous assault on Harry Hardy. The news brought Joe Rogers and
Ephraim Shine together at their secret meeting-place in the corner
paddock--Rogers much disturbed and puzzled, Shine shaken almost out of
his wits.
'I'm goin' to bolt, I tell you!' cried the searcher.
Rogers gripped him roughly.
'Bolt,' he said, 'an' you're doomed--done for. Hell! man, can't you see
you'd be grabbed in less'n a day? With that mug an' that figure you'd be
spotted whatever hole you crept into.'
'I know, I know; but it'll come anyhow--it'll come!
'Not so sure, unless you blab in one of these blitherin' fits. What does
that kid know? Nothin'. He's found our gold, an' he's hid it away. He
wants to keep it, an' you know what a stubborn devil he is. This is just
a try on, an' they'll get nothin' out o' Dick Haddon. If they do they get
the gold, an' we're all right if we don't play the fool.'
Rogers's reasoning was very good as far as it went; but the discovery of
the boy's footprints in the drives had been kept a close secret, or even
he might have admitted the wisdom of bolting without delay.
Dick spent a day and two nights in the cell at the watch-house in
Yarraman. Public report at Waddy was to the effect that every influence
short of torture had been used in the effort to induce him to divulge the
truth, and not a word had he spoken.
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