hes when Mr. Bradby stopped him.

"Don't do that," he said, "we'd better destroy them outright."

"How?" queried Abel.

"Burn 'em, I should say," Mr. Bradby answered. "You make a good job of
it, and you don't leave anything behind. If you throw them away
someone's sure to find them just when it's most awkward for you. No,
Abel, burn them and hurry up about it."

So it came about that presently a tiny spot of light glowed like a red
warning beacon from the lower slopes of the range. A lonely prospector,
a few miles to the east, saw the spark and wondered at it. He knew that
no one lived in that part of the country. The more he thought of it the
more it puzzled him, though with the morning there came an unexpected
solution.

CHAPTER II.

THE PURSUIT.

A body of mounted troopers left Ararat an hour or so before daylight the
next morning, and by seven o'clock had reached the scene of the robbery.
They had with them a capable black tracker who had figured in recent
events in the Wombat Ranges. He was a silent individual who answered to
the name of "Jacky," a name that seems to be the heritage of all blacks
who serve in the police force. He quickly picked up the false scent, and
the party turned east. It wasn't until the horses stumbled over the heap
of stones that some brilliant intellect dropped to the trick that had
been played on them. Then, with the better part of an hour to the bad,
the party returned to the starting-point of the trail.

"Seems to me," the sergeant in charge remarked to his subordinate, "that
they've laid this trail with a good reason. Now if a man wanted to put
you on the wrong track, what would you think he'd naturally do?"

"Send us in the opposite direction," said the other promptly.

"Quite so," said the sergeant. "Now the false trail leads east, so it's
only reasonable to suppose that they've gone west."

"That's so," the other agreed. "Get-up, you brute." The latter remark
was addressed to the horse, which showed an inclination to drop into a
walk.

"Here you, Jacky!" the sergeant called, and when the black came to him
he said, "Those white men have gone this way," pointing westward. "Look
out for their tracks, though I don't fancy we'll see any for some time."

The black grunted non-committally. He had much the same idea himself,
though he could not understand how the white man had guessed. Still he
knew enough of the white men to realise that they were very, very
clever,