The revulsion of feeling was terrible:  it left the strong man as weak as a child, it turned the desperate criminal into a mumbling coward.  Rogers staggered to the shaft and examined the rope.  It had broken where one strand was cut; the other strands were frayed out.  The gold-stealer fell upon his knees and tried to call, but a mere gasp was the only sound that escaped his lips.  He remained for a minute or two gazing helplessly into the pitch blackness of the shaft; then, recovering somewhat with a great effort, he rose to his feet, untied the remainder of the rope from the skid and dropped it into the shaft, and turning his back on the mine fled away through the paddocks towards Waddy.  As he issued from the bush a quarter of an hour later, and crossed the open flat, a slim figure slipped from the furze covering the rail fence and followed him noiselessly at a distance.

CHAPTER XVIII.

When Rogers reached his hut he sat for some time in the dark, thinking over his position.  It had been his intention all along to make his escape from the district the moment he succeeded in recovering the gold, and now, in his horror at the consequences of his last act, he was incapable of cold reason.  His one desire was to get away as far as possible from the scene of his crimes.  He lit a candle, and the drunken drover, peeping through a crack, saw him spread a blanket on the floor and set to work hastily to make a swag.  The drover watched him for a minute and then sped off in the darkness.  Shortly after this Rogers was startled at the sound of a shrill and peculiar whistle.  Jumping up on the impulse of the moment, with the quick suspicion of a criminal, he snatched his gun from a corner and stepped out.  Standing in the light thrown from his hut door, he heard the tramp of horses’ hoofs and a voice calling: 

‘Stand and deliver!  You are my prisoner!’

Joe slipped into the shadow, sheltering himself behind the chimney, and saw two troopers riding at him.  Instinctively his gun was lifted to his shoulder.

‘Bail up!’ he cried.  ‘A step nearer an’ I fire!’

The troopers spurred their horses.  Rogers clinched his teeth, his eye ran along the barrel, he covered the leading man and fired.  The trooper was flung forward on his horse’s neck, his arms dangling limply on each side.  His horse sprang to a gallop, and a minute later the man slid over its shoulder and fell, rolling almost to Joe’s feet as the animal rushed past.

The second trooper fired a revolver, and the bullet chipped a slab at the gold-stealer’s ear.  Rogers had him covered, and his finger was on the trigger when the gun was whirled from his hands and a man who had stolen up from the back closed with him.  The newcorner was slim, and Rogers felt that he might break him between his hands if he could only get a proper grip; but the drunken drover—­for it was he—­was as sinuous as an eel, and a moment later Joe was on the broad of his back with the ‘darbies’ on his wrists and a trooper kneeling on his chest, while the drover, transformed into Detective Downy, stood over them, mopping his face with his big false beard.