. He sprang to the saddle, loosed
the reins that had tethered the animal, and setting his spurs deep into
its flank galloped up the track for a matter of a hundred yards or so,
closely followed by his companion. Then they turned sharply off into the
bush, designedly traversing the soft impressionable ground. The
heavily-laden horses floundered in the soft soil, and gradually the pace
dropped away from a gallop to a canter, and finally to a walk. When
nearly two miles of this sort of country had been covered, the two men
reined in and dismounted. Next they unloaded the stones from the
saddle-bags and hid them carefully in the undergrowth. Cumshaw then
proceeded to cut his thick blanket into strips, each of about eighteen
inches square. There were eight of these strips in all--four he kept
himself and the others he handed to his companion.

"It's a smart enough dodge, all right," the man remarked. "The only
possible flaw in it is that there might be some gentleman present who's
dealt with cattle-duffers in the past. If so, he'd be pretty sure to
scent our little game, and block it."

"Let's hope for the best," said Mr. Cumshaw, cheerfully, looking up from
his work with a smile that even the darkness of the night could not
hide. He was systematically wrapping the squares of blankets round the
hoofs of his mount and securing them in such a way that they would
remain fast even during a wild gallop over rough country. The trick
itself was an old one; it had its origin many years previous in Texas
and Arizona when the raiding Indians made their horses walk over
blankets spread on the ground in order to hide the direction of their
retreat. The idea had been adopted and developed by the Australian
cattle-duffers to meet the exigencies of the country they worked in. The
trick therefore was by no means a new one, and there was just a chance,
as the man Jack remarked, that someone might drop to it. But the false
hoof-prints were an unprecedented addition that would probably keep the
pursuers long enough on the wrong scent to enable the precious pair to
"escape" and "cache" their plunder.

It was characteristic of the two men that once they had taken all
precautions they quietly dismissed the matter from their minds and rode
slowly back to the roadway with scarce a thought for the business in
hand. Abel Cumshaw would have whistled had he dared; as it was he hummed
softly to himself. The moon was now well up in the heavens, and its