tralia is rid of him at last!" breathed Goelitz, not noticing that Sam's hands suddenly had clenched till the knuckles came white. "Also it means we hump it to Murriguddury, where I can get on the end of a telephone wire!"
But despite this excited phoning which Goelitz did, as soon as they reached the supply point of Murriguddury three miles west of the fence end, they never found Paxton Trenholm in South Australia. Scores of police hunted him, but he lay back in a village of the Parrabarras, west of the wire. He was planning, with cold fury, greater trouble for the white men than he ever had caused.
Goelitz also called up the provincial police, asking as a matter of routine if they had anything against a young man named Sam Houston Varney, his new rider.
When he came back there was a peculiar light, almost of respect, in his eyes. But he said nothing. He outfitted Sam with clothes, rifle, revolver, ammunition, canteens and a swag (saddle roll of blankets, cooking utensils, with salt, sugar, pepper, tea and two cans of condensed milk). Then they picked him out a mangy camel, and a saddle, both decidedly shopworn in appearance.
The more permanent parts of his outfit would go north by the next bullockie train (supply wagons, drawn by six yoke of oxen apiece, each driven by a bullockie). A railroad had started northeast from Adelaide, but it had not got far as yet. The greater part of the fence was supplied from the north and south by these ox-wagons.
Sam himself was rather white under the bronze of his cheeks. His eyes were grave. If this had been Paxton Trenholm, indeed, then should not he, Sam, try for another job in South Australia? It was fortunate for him that the stark need of eating and living forced him to shelve that idea for the time being.
He finally told the story briefly and passionately to Goelitz, warning the latter that probably he would have
Lyre Bird
to quit him some day when he had a fair stake, to take up the long hunt for Trenholm and Tom Varney.
"I 'spect Tom's dead by now, or he'd have got Trenholm," said Sam. "Just the same, we Varneys stick to what we start. That's why I'm warning you, Goelitz."
"I'm glad to have you, Sam, as long as you can stay," said the Inspector, and meant it. A young man, Yank
