plains and the downs never know. For neither beast nor bird break the eternal stillness, nor mark the eternal snow. Flint and red granite, the little grey cotton-plant and the swaying snow-grass held the wastes for their own, and at Murray’s elbow one long-dead black pine creaked in the frost-grip. The white spurs were naked in the moonlight; but the gullies were dark as waiting graves. Danny chuckled as he climbed to the saddle again.
“The squad will now perceed ter investigatin’ on its own bloomin’ ’ook,” he said. “I hope it ain’t me ter find him, that’s all. Young Art’s apt ter be lively.”
Lou dropped away on Randal’s quarter. For him it was to stalk the stalker; and for two fierce hours he played a waiting game, by gully-top and shingle-slope and green spring-heads that the frost had made into skating-rinks. And ever, through the stern white silences, he kept touch of the black shadow that sought and called and sought for hoof-prints again on the frozen snow. By a warm spring in the toi-toi Randal found the hoof-prints. They headed straight for the Big Bush beyond. His teeth shut with a snap, and the mare sprang as the heels slapped her sides. Rotten slag slid away from the hoof; crisp tussock and crackling white spray. The mare’s feet made fierce red writing on the flint, and the underway was suddenly slippery with the
