In many respects Harry was a very ordinary young man; bush life is a wonderful leveller, and he had known no other. His father had been a man of education and talent, drawn from a profession in his earlier manhood to the goldfields, who remained a miner and a poor man to the day of his death. His wife was not able to induce their sons to aspire to anything above the occupations of the class with which they had always associated, so they were miners and stockmen with the rest. But the young men, even as boys, noticed in their mother a refinement and a clearness of intellect that were not characteristic of the women of Waddy; and out of the love and veneration they bore her grew a sort of family pride—a respect for their name that was quite a touch of old-worldly conceit in this new land of devil-may-care, and gave them a certain distinction. It was this that served largely to make the branding of Frank Hardy as a thief a consuming shame to his brother. Harry thought of it less as a wrong to Frank than as an outrage to his mother. It was this, too, that made the young man burn to take the Sunday School superintendent by the throat and lash him till he howled himself dumb in his own chapel.
Harry returned to his log in Wilson’s back paddock again in the afternoon to wrestle with his difficulties, and, with the gluttonous rosellas swinging on the gum-boughs above, set himself to reconsider all that he had heard of Frank’s case and all the possibilities that had since occurred to him. Here Dick Haddon discovered him at about four o’clock. Dick was leading a select party at the time, with the intention of reconnoitring old Jock Summers’s orchard in view of a possible invasion at an early date; but when he saw Harry in the distance he immediately abandoned the business in hand. An infamous act of desertion like this would have brought down contempt upon the head of another, and have earned him some measure of personal chastisement; but Dick was a law unto himself.
“So long, you fellows,” he said.
“Why, where yer goin’?” grunted Jacker Mack.
“’Cross to Harry Hardy. He’s down by that ole white gum.”
“Gosh! so he is. I say, we’ll all go.”
“No, you won’t. Youse go an’ see ’bout them cherries. Harry Hardy don’t want a crowd round.”
“How d’yer know he wants you?”
“Find out. Me ’n him’s mates.”
“Yo-ow?” This in derision.
“’Sides, I got somethin’ privit to say to him—somethin’ privit ’n important, see.”
This was more convincing, but it excited curiosity.
“’Bout Tinribs?” queried Peterson.
“Likely I’d tell you. Clear out, go on. You can be captain of the band if you like, Jacker; ’n mind you don’t give it away.”
Dick gained his point, as usual, and prepared for a quite casual descent upon Harry, who had not yet seen the boys. The plan brought Dicky, ‘shanghai’ in hand, under the tree where Hardy sat. The boy was apparently oblivious of everything but the parrots up aloft, and it was not till after he had had his shot that he returned the young man’s salutation. Then he took a seat astride the log and offered some commonplace information about a nest of joeys in a neighboring tree and a tame magpie that had escaped, and was teaching all the other magpies in Wilson’s paddocks to whistle a jig and curse like a drover. But he got down to his point rather suddenly after all.
“Say, Harry, was you goin’ to lambaste Tinribs?”
“Tinribs?”
“Yes, old Shine—this mornin’, you know.”
Harry looked into the boy’s eye and lied, but Dick was not deceived.
“’Twould a-served him good,” he said thoughtfully; “but you oughter get on to him when Miss Shine ain’t about. She’s terrible good an’ all that—better ’n Miss Keeley, don’t you think?”
Miss Keeley was a golden-haired, high-complexioned, and frivolous young lady who had enjoyed a brief but brilliant career as barmaid at the Drovers’ Arms. Harry had never seen her, but expressed an opinion entirely in favour of Christina Shine.
“But her father,” continued Dick, with an eloquent grimace, “he’s dicky!”
“What’ve you got against him?”
“I do’ know. Look here, ’tain’t the clean pertater, is it, for a superintendent t’ lay into a chap at Sunday School for things what he done outside? S’pose I float Tinribs’s puddlin’ tub down the creek by accident, with Doon’s baby in it when I ain’t thinkin’, is it square fer him to nab me in Sunday School, an’ whack me fer it, pretendin’ all the time it’s ’cause I stuck a mouse in the harmonium?”
Dick’s contempt for the man who could so misuse his high office was very fine indeed.
“That’s the sorter thing Tinribs does,” said the boy. “If I yell after him on a Saturdee, he gammons t’ catch me doin’ somethin’ in school on Sundee, an’ comes down on me with the corner of his bible, ’r screws me ear.”
Harry considered such conduct despicable, and thought the man who would take such unfair advantage of a poor boy might be capable of any infamy; and Dick, encouraged, crept a little nearer.
“I say,” he whispered insinuatingly. “You could get him any day on the flat, when he comes over after searchin’ the day shift.”
Harry shook his head, and slowly plucked at the dry bark.
“I don’t mean to touch him,” he said.
Dick was amazed, and a little hurt, perhaps. His confidence had been violated in some measure. He thought the matter over for almost a minute.
“Ain’t you goin’ to go fer him ’cause of her, eh?” he asked.
“Her? Who d’you mean?”
“Miss Chris.”
“It’s nothin’ to do with her.”
Dick deliberated again.
“Look here, she was cryin’ after you went this mornin’. Saw her hidin’ her face by the harmonium, an’ wipin’ her eyes.”
Harry had not heard evidently; he was, it would appear, devoting his whole attention to the antics of a blue grub. Dick approached still closer, and assumed the tone of an arch-conspirator.
“Heard anything ’bout Mr. Frank?”
“Not a thing, Dick.”
“What yer goin’ to do?”
“I can’t say, my boy.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. Know what Sagacious done?”
“Sagacious? Who is he?”
“Sam Sagacious—Sleuth-hound Sam.”
Harry looked puzzled.
“What, don’t you know Sleuth-hound Sam? He’s a great feller in a book, what tracks down criminals. Listen here. One time a chap what was a mate of his got put in gaol for stealin’ money from a bank where he worked, when it wasn’t him at all. Sam, he went an’ got a job at the same bank, and that’s how he found out the coves ’at done it.”
The young man turned upon Dick, and sat for a moment following up the inference. Then he gripped the latter’s hand.
“By thunder!” he cried excitedly, “that’s a better idea than I could hit on in a week.”
Dick did not doubt it; he had but a poor opinion of the resourcefulness of his elders when not figuring in the pages of romantic literature, but he was gratified by Harry’s ready recognition of his talent, and proceeded to enlarge upon the peculiar qualities of Sleuth-hound Sam, give instances of his methods, and relate some of his many successes.
At tea that evening Harry broached the subject of his visit to the chapel. He knew his mother would hear of it, and thought it best she should have the melancholy story from his lips.
“Do you see much of Shine’s daughter, mother?” he asked.
“I do not see her often, but she has grown into a tall, handsome girl; very different from the wild little thing you rescued from the cattle on the common eight years ago.”
“Yes; I’ve seen her—saw her in the chapel this morning.”
“In the chapel,” said Mrs. Hardy, turning upon him with surprise; “were you in the chapel, Henry?”
Harry nodded rather shamefacedly.
“Yes, mother,” he said, “I went to chapel, an’ took my whip with me. I meant to scruff Shine before the lot o’ them, an’ lash him black an’ blue.”
“That was shameful—shameful!
“Anyhow, I didn’t do it. She came an’ put me off, an’ I sneaked out as if I’d been licked myself. I couldn’t have hammered the brute before her eyes, but—but—”
“But you meant to; is that it? Henry, you almost make me despair. Have you no more respect for yourself? Have you none for me?”
“I couldn’t stand it. You’ve heard. It made me mad!”
“I have heard all, and I think Mr. Shine is a well intentioned man whose faith, such as it is, is honest; but he is ignorant, coarse-fibred, and narrow-minded. He is doing right according to his own poor, dim light, and could not be convinced otherwise by any word or act of ours; but his preachings can do me no injury. They do not irritate me in the least—indeed, I am not sure that they do not amuse me.”
“Ah, mother, that’s like you; you philosophise your way through a difficulty, and I always want to fight my way out. It’s so much easier.”
“Yes, dear; but do you get out? Do you know that Ephraim Shine is the most litigious man in the township? He runs to the law with every little trouble, whilst inviting his neighbours to carry all theirs to the Lord. Had you beaten him he would have proceeded against you, and—Oh! my boy, my boy! are you going to make my troubles greater? And I had such hopes.”
“Hush, mother. ’Pon my soul, I won’t! I’m going to hold myself down tight after this. An’, look here, I’ve got an idea. I’m going to Pete Holden to-morrow to ask him to put me on at the Stream, same shift as poor Frank was on, if possible.”
“Put on the brother of the man who—”
“Yes, mother, the brother of the thief. But Holden is a good fellow; he spoke up for Frank like a brick. Besides, d’you know what the men are saying? That the gold-stealing is still going on. I’ll tell Holden as much, an’ promise to watch, an’ watch, like a cat, if he’ll only send me below.”
“Yes, yes; we can persuade him. I wonder we did not think of this before.”
“’Twas young Dick Haddon put me up to it, with some yarn of his about a detective.”
“Bless the boy! he is unique—the worst and the best I have ever known. Johnnie, how dare you?”
The last remark was addressed to Gable, who had been eating industriously for the last quarter of an hour. The old man, finding himself ignored, had smartly conveyed a large spoonful of jam from the pot to his mouth. He choked over it now, and wriggled and blushed like a child taken red-handed.
“’Twas only a nut,” he said sulkily.
“You naughty boy! Will you never learn how to behave at table? Come here, sir. Ah, I see; as I suspected. You did not shave this morning. Go straight to bed after you have finished your tea. How dare you disobey me, you wicked boy!”
Gable knuckled his eyes with vigour, and began to snivel. He hated to have a beard on his chin, but would put off shaving longer than Mrs. Hardy thought consistent with perfect neatness. The ability to shave himself was the one manly accomplishment Gable had learned in a long life.
This ludicrous incident had not served to draw Harry’s thoughts from his project. All his life he had seen his Uncle Jonnie treated as a child, and there was nothing incongruous in the situation, even “when the grey-haired boy was rated for neglecting to shave or sent supperless to bed for similar sins of omission or commission. To Mrs. Hardy also it was a simple serious business of domestic government. Ever since she was ten years old Uncle John, who was many years her senior, had been her baby brother and her charge, and although gifted with a good sense of humour, the necessity of admonishing him did not interfere with the gravity of mind she had brought to bear on the former conversation.
“Mr. Holden was an old friend of your father’s, Henry,” she said.
“I know,” Harry replied. “They were mates at Buninyong and Bendigo. I’ll remind him of that.”
Harry Hardy found Manager Holden in his office at the Silver Stream when he called on the following morning.
“Couldn’t do it, my lad,” said the old miner; “but I’ll put in a word for you with Hennessey at the White Crow.”
“I want a job here on the Stream—want it for a purpose,” said Harry.
“There’d be a row. The people at Yarraman would kick up, after the other affair. I’d be glad to, Harry; but you’d best try somewhere else.”
“Mr. Holden,” said the young man, “do you believe my brother guilty?”
The manager met his eager eyes steadily.
“’Tisn’t a fair question, lad,” he answered. “I always found Frank straight, an’ he looked like an honest man; but that evidence would have damned a saint.”
“Do you think the gold-stealing has stopped?”
The manager looked up sharply.
“Do you know anything?”
“I know what the men hint at; nothing more. If they could speak straight they wouldn’t do it.”
“Well, to tell you God’s truth, Hardy, I believe we are still losing gold.”
“Send me below, then, an’ by Heaven I’ll spot the true thieves if they’re not more cunning than the devil himself. You think Frank guilty, so do most people; it’s what we ought to expect, I s’pose.” Harry’s hands were clenched hard—it was a sore subject. “We don’t, Mr. Holden; we believe his story, every word of it. Give me half a chance to prove it. You were our father’s mate; stand by us now. Put me on with the same shift as Frank worked with.”
“Done!” said the manager, starting up. “Come on at four. Go trucking; it’ll give you a better chance of moving round; and good luck, my boy! But take a hint that’s well meant: if the real thief is down there, see he plays no tricks on you.”
“I’ve thought of that—trust me.”
Harry Hardy’s appearance below with the afternoon shift at the Stream occasioned a good deal of talk amongst the miners; but he heard none of it. Shine was in the searching-shed when he came up at midnight, on his knees amongst the men’s discarded clothes, pawing them over with his claw-like fingers.
The searcher rarely spoke to the men, never looked at them, and performed his duties as if unconscious of their presence. Custom had made him exceedingly cautious, for it was the delight of the men to play tricks upon him, usually of an exceedingly painful nature. The searcher is no man’s friend. When putting on his dry clothes, Harry heard Joe Rogers, the foreman, saying:
“D’yer know them’s Harry Hardy’s togs yer pawin’, Brother Tinribs?”
Shine’s mud-coloured eyes floated uneasily from one form to another, but were raised no higher than the knees of the men, seemingly.
“Yes, search ’em carefully, Brother. I s’pose you’d like ter jug the whole family. ’Taint agin yer Christian principles, is it, Mr. Superintendent, to send innocent men to gaol? Quod’s good fer morals, ain’t it? A gran’ place to cultivate the spirit o’ brotherly love, ain’t it—eh, what? Blast you fer a snivellin’ hippercrit, Shine! If yer look sidelong at me I’ll belt you over—”
Rogers made an ugly movement towards the searcher; but Peterson and another interposed, and he returned to the form, spitting venomous oaths like an angry cat. Shine, kneeling on the floor, had gone on with his work in his covert way, as if quite unconscious of the foreman’s burst of passion.