n
the manner of a man who has decided on the course he must take and means
to stick to it unswervingly. With quick yet noiseless steps he stole
through the trees, occasionally swinging a sharp glance to the left or
right. But it was very dark in the woods, and it was impossible to tell
shape from shadow. A regiment might have been hiding behind the boles of
the trees without him being one whit the wiser. He had profound
objections against shouting his whereabouts to his mate--his woods'
instinct warned him never to reveal his presence unless there was no
other way out--but he saw speedily enough that there was no other course
left for him to take.

He made a megaphone of his hands, and sent a long-drawn "Coo-ee" out to
wake the echoes. The sound reverberated from the hills and died rumbling
away in the hollows. For some seconds after that there was absolute
silence, and then somewhere ahead of him he caught a very faint noise as
of long grass rustling in the wind. But the air was absolutely devoid of
motion. The sound puzzled Cumshaw; the very stealthiness of it convinced
him that no animal had made it, yet he could not understand why Bradby
should exercise such unnecessary caution.

Then in an instant he knew. The black wall ahead of him was split by a
pencil of flame, the silence of the forest crackled into sound, and the
whip-like crack of a revolver echoed and re-echoed. A bullet whistled
dangerously close to Cumshaw. He swore under his breath and tugged
furiously at his own revolver. Bending almost double he sprinted towards
the shelter of the nearest tree, while at the same instant the
stranger's weapon cracked again. Something stung his ear. He put up his
hand, and the warm blood spurted through his fingers.

He compressed himself into the smallest possible space behind the tree
and then fired in the direction of the last shot. He allowed a short
interval to elapse and then fired again. The other man must have seen
the flashes, but he made no attempt to answer them. The moment the first
shot was fired Cumshaw realised, in a flash of intuition, that his
assailant was none other than Jack Bradby. The knowledge made him
extremely angry, for such black treachery was the last thing he had
expected to have to contend with. He saw now that it was the old case of
thieves falling out over the division of the spoils, and that Jack
Bradby was determined to stop at nothing, even murder, in order to gain
the whole of the p