ack?"

"I do, worse luck! Cameron, Tyler, and some new joker in plain clothes."

Hardcastle finished his drink with a resigned smile, and stood on the
veranda to receive the intruders.

"After all, it will stave off the reaction I began to feel the moment
they had turned their backs," said he. "Well, well, well! I thought I'd
just got rid of you fellows, and back you come like base coin!"

"You mustn't blame us," said the sergeant, first to dismount. "We
couldn't know that Superintendent Cairns had been sent up from Sydney,
much less that we should ride right into him in your horse-paddock!"

The squatter had stepped down from the veranda with polite alacrity.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Cairns," said he. "I only wish you had come
before."

The creature in the plain clothes looked about him with a dry smile,
and a sharp eye upon the younger men and the empty glasses, as he and
the sergeant accompanied Hardcastle to the veranda, while Tyler took
charge of the three horses. The fame of Cairns had travelled before him
to Rosanna, but none had been prepared for a figure so weird or for a
countenance so forbidding and malign. His manners were equally uncouth.
He shook his bent head to decline refreshment; he pointedly ignored a
generalization of Hardcastle's about the crime; and when he spoke, it
was in a gratuitously satirical style of his own.

"May I ask, Mr. Hardcastle, if you are the owner or the manager of this
lodge in a howling wilderness?"

"I'm sorry to say I am both."

"I appreciate the sorrow. I failed to discern a single green blade as I
came along."

"We depend on salt-bush and the like."

"In spite of which, I believe, you have had several lean years?"

"There's no denying it."

"I am sorry to be one of so many intruders in such a season, Mr.
Hardcastle, but I shall not trouble you long. I hope to take the
murderer to-night."

"Stingaree?"

"Not quite so loud, please. Who else, should you suppose? You may be
interested to hear that he has been in hiding on your run for several
days, and so have I, within fairly easy reach of him. But he is not a
man to be taken single-handed without further loss of life; so I
intercepted you, sergeant, and now you are both enlightened. To-night,
with your assistance and that of your young colleague, I count upon a
bloodless victory. But I should prefer you, Mr. Hardcastle, not to
mention the matter to the very young men whom I noticed in your company
on my arri