n before I crossed the boundary fence, but I was
absolutely convinced before I had spent twenty minutes on his veranda."

The prisoner smiled sardonically in the moonlight. The policemen gazed
with awe upon the man who had solved a nine days' mystery in fewer
hours.

"You must remember," he continued, "that I have spent some days and
nights upon the run; during the days I have camped in the thickest scrub
I could find, but by night I have been very busy, and last night I had a
stroke of luck. I stumbled by accident on a track that led me to the
place I had been looking for all along. You see, I had put myself in
Hardcastle's skin, and I was quite clear that I should have buried a
lapful of gold and notes somewhere in the bush until the hue and cry had
blown over. Not that I expected to find it so near the scene of the
crime--I should certainly have gone farther afield myself."

"But I can't make out why that wasn't enough for you, sir," ventured the
sergeant, deferentially. "Why didn't you come in and arrest him on
that?"

"You shall see in three minutes. Wasn't it far better to catch him
red-handed as we have? You will at least admit that it was far neater. I
say I have the place. I say we are all going to it at two in the
morning. I say, let us sleep till a little after one. Was it not obvious
what would happen? The only thing I did not expect was to find him
asleep with the swag under his nose."

Then Hardcastle spoke up.

"I was not asleep," said he. "I thought I was safe for an hour or two
. . . and I began to think . . . I was wondering what to do . . .
whether to cut my throat at once . . ."

And his dreadful voice died away like a single chord struck in an empty
room.

"But Stingaree," put in Tyler in the end. "What's happened to him?"

"He also has been here. But he was many a mile away at the time."

"What brought him here?"

The crooked Superintendent from Sydney was sitting strangely upright in
his saddle; his face was not to be seen, for his back was to the moon,
but he seemed to rub one of his eyes.

"He may have wished to clear his character. He may have itched to uphold
the honor of that road of which he considers himself a not imperfect
knight. He may have found it so jolly easy to play policeman down in
Victoria, that he couldn't resist another shot in a better cause up
here. At his worst he never killed a man in all his life. And you will
be good enough to take his own word for it that