The Shadow of Larose

II—The Avenger and the Fool.-1

II—The Avenger and the Fool.Looking back in after days, I have often wondered why I so instantly determined to follow the man in the light suit. The other wretch I had seen was in every way as culpable and from all I knew would have been just as easy or just as difficult to follow. But I turned to the light suit man as a matter of course, perhaps subconsciously because it was he whom I had seen give the absolutely fatal blows, or perhaps again simply because I thought that, by reason of his light suit, he would be the easier of the two to pick out among the mallee scrub.

At any rate, after him I went at full pelt, and so enraged was I, that the heavy blanket roll upon my shoulders felt as light as a feather, and no burden at all. I ran bent down so that he should not see me if he should turn round, and I held my little rifle on the ready for anything that might happen.

I don't think, however, that I had any very clear idea as to what exactly I was going to do, but I had seen the wretch I was following participate in a brutal murder, and every instinct of good citizenship in me was insisting that he should not get away unpunished.

I soon picked him out among the scrub, for even at some hundreds of yards distance the light suit was conspicuous, and I gained upon him fast. I did not, however, run in a direct line behind him, but a good 50 yards to one side, for I was expecting him at any moment to turn round and look back.

And this was exactly what he did do when he had run, I should say, about half a mile. He almost stopped and then slewed his head round for a rapid glance behind.

But he did not catch sight of me, I was quite confident, for I had thrown myself down instantly with the first turning of his head, and I did not get up again until he was running on.

Then, about a hundred yards further in front of him, I noticed that the scrub was beginning to get very thin and soon, to my consternation, I saw it was about to disappear altogether, and give way to open salt-bush country beyond. The salt-bush grows only to about a foot in height, and in between the mallee bushes I could not glimpse it, stretching for mile upon mile towards the foot of the far distant mountain range.

How on earth then could I approach the man unawares, I asked myself, once he had left the scrub and was in the open, and I quickened my pace in my dismay.

Then suddenly I lost sight of him altogether, and for the moment I believed he must have thrown himself down to rest. But there was no sign of him on the ground anywhere, and I could see everywhere to the farthest bush.

I slackened my pace, however, at once, and approached warily to where he had seemed to disappear, just where the bushes ended, and I quickly realised that it was well I had done so, too.

Without any warning the ground broke suddenly to a little hollow, a sort of little cup that the winds had scooped among the sand, and there, all on an instant, and not ten paces away from me, I came upon the man.

He was leaning against a low bank, and with an expression of rapt attention upon his face was going over a thickish wad of banknotes that he was holding in his hand. A discarded wallet and some loose papers lay upon the sands at his feet.

He had not heard my approach, for the sound of my footstep had been deadened in the sand, and for a good half-minute at least I stood watching him.

He was not by any means a bad-looking fellow, for he had a good profile and a strong, determined face. He was quite well dressed, too.

Suddenly, then, something attracted his attention—I may have moved, or perhaps he heard me breathe—and he jerked his head round sharply and saw me standing there.

He sprang like lightning to his feet and then stood staring at me as if I were an apparition from the grave. His face was white as death, his eyes bulged, and his mouth was opened wide.

Then covertly he flashed his eyes behind me and to right and left, as if he were searching to see if I were there alone, and then a moment later his face became more composed and took on a cunning look.

He crushed up the notes he was holding, and with a sly, furtive movement thrust them into one of the side pockets of his coat.

"No good," I cut in sharply, and I spoke hoarsely from a dry mouth. "I saw where you got them from. I was watching you both from the scrub." The anger rose into my voice. "You murdered that man."

Just for the instant fear seemed to grip over him again, and then the ghost of a mocking smile crossed into his face. His eyes closed to narrow slits, so that their expression could not be seen.

He had weighed me up, I thought grimly, and was satisfied on which side the scales would turn.

But if he had been busy calculating, so had I, and I was making no mistake as to who was the stronger man.

In a rough and tumble fight the wretch would be my conqueror every time. He was about my own height, but he was much more muscular and sinewy, and looked hard as nails. Besides, I should be terribly handicapped by the blanket knapsack on my shoulder, which by now had become as if a ton in weight.

So I stepped back a pace, and with the safety catch slipped, held my rifle straight before me breast high.

Perhaps then we waited thirty seconds—it might have been less and it might have been more, and then I made the first move, and I calculated too, that I made it only just in time.

I saw the man in front of me was getting ready, and was gathering himself in for a rush. His lips had closed right together, his shoulders had sunk a little, his head was poised like a runner before a race, his hands—but then. I pressed my trigger finger and a .22 long rifle bullet crumpled him up.

I was no fool with a rifle, and had meant to take him directly over the heart, but my hands were shaking, and instead I sent the bullet high, and it struck him over the left temple. Instantly the blood spurted down his face.

He flung his hands up to his head and staggered like a drunken man. Then with a jerk he crashed backwards and dropped a quivering mass upon the sands.

His hands clawed faintly, and he moaned just once or twice. Then his head lolled sideways, his mouth fell open wide, and he lay quite still.

Breathing painfully and leaden-footed I stepped forward and stood over him. My mind seemed numb, and I did not take in yet what I had done. The preceding moments had been so full of horrors that I felt now like some sleeper in a dreadful dream.

"Here is another man." I said to myself as if it had nothing to do with me, "and he is dead and bloody like that other one. What a mess he's in."

Then suddenly the reek of burnt cordite rose into my nostrils, and it came to my understanding that the smell was clinging round the rifle in my hands. For a moment I stared blankly at the weapon and then—like a wave my fit of dreaming passed and my mind was clear again.

Too horribly clear, and I drew in my breath with a big sob. Oh! what a madman I had been!

I had mixed myself up in a ghastly murder and with my own hands, too, I had taken life. Taken life with no witnesses present, either to prove that my action had been absolutely necessary and right.

What an interfering fool to follow the man at all! My proper course would have been to have waited by the car until help came, and then to have left the whole matter to the police. It was no business of mine to mete out punishment to the murderers, and besides, who would know that I was now speaking the truth? By my stupid interference I had involved myself, at best, in a lot of unpleasant investigations by the police and at worst—to perhaps having actually to undergo punishment for having taken the law into my own hands as I had. In any case, it would not look too well to many that I had shot down an unarmed man, as I should have to admit, without giving him a chance.

Oh, yes, I had been a fool, I had—Suddenly then my eyes fell upon something lying just near the body upon the sand. I looked carelessly and then—with startled interest. It was a banknote I saw, and one moreover, for 100 pounds. I stared at it incredibly for a moment and then stifling a cry, I stooped down and picked it up.

Yes, it was for 100 pounds, and—the thought seared through me like a red-hot iron—it was only one of a bundle that I had seen the dead man stuff into his pocket.

Without waiting a second and with no consideration now for any dangers I might have incurred, I flung myself down upon my knees to search for the other notes, and so great was my excitement, that with no repugnance at all, I turned over the body to get at the pocket in the coat. In my eager haste I got blood upon my clothing, but quite unheeding that I pulled out the wad and then jumping to my feet again proceeded to breathlessly count it.

Two hundred—three—four—five—a thousand—fifteen hundred—nearly two thousand in hundreds, fifties, twenties and quite a lot of tens. And many of them could be safely passed, too, for from their appearance they had been in circulation quite a long time, and there was no sequence either in their numbers.

It was only a rough tally that I made, but the sum of about 2,000 pounds leapt into my mind.

Two thousand! Why, it was a fortune, and it was mine if I could only get away with it.

Like a hunted animal I crouched down, and then like a man who was in deadly peril I peered round fearfully on every side. Even as the wretch I had just killed had stared behind me into the mallee scrub to see if I had come alone, so I started now with the same fearing and crime-haunted eyes.

Yes, crime-haunted, for the possession of these few slips of rustling paper, following upon the mental stress I had just passed through, had completely upset the balance of my mind, and I was now a criminal, too, though it might be in a minor and less dreadful degree than that of the blood-soaked creature lying at my feet.

I had no thought any longer for the murdered man in the car, no thought for the man I had just killed; my entire obsession now was to retain my spoil and get away with it quickly.

I had all the elation of a victorious beast of prey.

I looked round on every side. No, I was watched by no human eyes. I was alone in that lonely place. The mallee scrub lay like a dark screen behind me and before me, across the far-flung salt bush plain, not a living creature moved.

I thrust the notes into my pocket and thought quickly.

I must put as many miles as possible between me and the scene of all these happenings. No one must ever know that I had been near the spot. I must make for the uninhabited mountain range, and remain in hiding there for a few days. Then, I would return again to civilisation from quite a different direction, and no one would ever be able to link me up with anything that had occurred on the Port Augusta-Port Lincoln track.

But I had a hard trek before me. The mountain range was at least fifty miles distant, and there would be the matter of getting water on the way. I knew, however, that all the country was sheep country. I was sure of that because of the gates and fences that I had had to open and close in coming from Port Augusta, and I, of course, realised that where sheep wandered necessary provision for water had always to be made. Also, I remembered seeing on the maps that I had hurriedly gone over in the Public Library the previous evening several dams marked in the stretch below the Flinders Ranges.

All these things flashed through my mind in a few seconds, and then tightening my blanket roll upon my shoulders, and with no further thought for the man I had killed, at a slow ambling run I set off across the saltbush.

It was then nearly 5 o'clock, and I reckoned I had three hours of daylight before me. Good, then when night fell I should be 15 miles away. Then I would rest until the moon rose, and later cover another 15 miles before the dawn. It would be safer to sleep by day and travel by night. In thirty-six hours I would be in the heart of the range.