not pall as the secret task approached
conclusion; but he was subjected to much chaff and questioning from the
other young bloods of Glenranald. He felt from the first that it was
what he must expect. He was a groom with a place at his master's table;
he was a jackeroo who introduced station life into a town. And the
element of underlying mystery, really existing as it did, was detected
soon enough by other young heads, led by that of Fowler, the keen bank
clerk.

"I was looking at you both together, and you do favor the old man, and
no error!" he would say; or else, "What is it you could hang the boss
for, Fergy, old toucher?"

These delicate but cryptic sallies being ignored or parried, the heavy
swamp of innuendo was invariably deserted for the breezy hill-top of
plain speech, and Fergus had often work enough to put a guard upon hand
and tongue. But his temperament was eminently self-contained, and on the
whole he was an elusive target for the witticisms of his friends. There
was no wit, however, and no attempt at it on the part of Donkin, the
cantankerous cashier. He seldom addressed a word to Carrick, never a
civil word, but more than once he treated his chief to a sarcastic
remonstrance on his degrading familiarity with an underling. In such
encounters the imperturbable graybeard was well able to take care of
himself, albeit he expressed to Fergus a regret that he had not
exercised a little more ingenuity in the beginning.

"You should have come to me with a letter of introduction," said he.

"But who would have given me one?"

"I would, yon first night, and you'd have presented it next day in
office hours," replied the manager. "But it's too late to think about it
now, and in a few days Donkin may know the truth."

He might have known it already, but for one difficulty. They had digged
their pit to the generous depth of eight feet, so that a tall prisoner
could barely touch the trap-door with extended finger-tips; and
Stingaree (whose latest performance was no longer the Yallarook affair)
was of medium height according to his police description. The trap-door
was a double one, which parted in the centre with the deadly precision
of the gallows floor. The difficulty was to make the flaps close
automatically, with the mouse-trap effect of Macbean's ambition. It was
managed eventually by boring separate wells for a weight behind the
hinges on either side. Copper wire running on minute pulleys let into
grooves