the gold robbery and the shooting of Mr. Jack Bradby, as the
reader will readily understand, passed into the police records and thus
became matters of history. Though no definite statement has been left
us, Mr. Bryce must have first come across the story during his
researches into Victorian history. He had friends in the Department, and
it is quite feasible that he had ready access to many official documents
that are usually beyond the reach of the ordinary public. He was not the
only one in this enviable position. There were other students of the
past who were moving along the same lines, and as he pieced together the
puzzle of the robbery he was followed by a pair of agile, unscrupulous
brains every whit as clever as he. The police records told Mr. Bryce
just this much:--On the first day of December, 1881, there had been a
gold robbery, and the robbers had got completely away. They had been
followed, and subsequently a man had been killed in the Grampians who
had been identified as John Bradby, a noted sheep and cattle-duffer.
When dying he refused to tell who his pals were, and had in the same
breath stated that the police would never find the gold. That in itself
was conclusive, yet the additional fact remained that the whereabouts of
the gold was still as big a mystery as ever it had been. The opinion of
the police was that the other members of the gang--they seemed to think
that it was a fairly large one--had returned when the hue and cry had
died away and recovered the plunder. Bryce, reading between the lines of
the dry official record, rather thought that they hadn't. At any rate
the element of mystery was sufficiently strong to induce him to
investigate the matter further. That was really the beginning of the
trouble.

CHAPTER VI.

THE HEGIRA OF MR. ABEL CUMSHAW.

Early in January, 1919, Mr. Bryce had advanced so far in his
investigations that he resolved on taking a trip to the country around
the Grampians. He had nothing very definite to go on beyond the facts
that the robbery had been committed at one spot and Mr. Bradby had been
killed at another, and logically the gold must have been hidden
somewhere in between. He had hopes that he might stumble on something
that in his capable hands would prove to be a clue to the long-lost
hiding-place of the gold. Before he made any preparations he inserted an
advertisement in several of the leading dailies. It ran somehow like
this:--"Wanted--A capable and