So at last he gave up trying to find
holes in the case, and determined to go in and win.
On the other side there was trouble in the camp--no witnesses could
be found, except Martin Doyle, and he was ready to swear to the
wedding. At last it became evident that the only chance of overthrowing
Peggy's case was to find Considine; but the earth seemed to have
swallowed him up.
The influence of the Chief of Police was brought to bear, and many
a weary mile did the troopers of the Outer Back ride in search of
the missing man. One of them followed a Considine about two hundred
miles across country, and embodied the story of his wanderings in
a villainously written report; brief and uncouth as the narrative
was, it was in itself an outline picture of bush life. From
shearers' hut to artesian borers' camp, from artesian well to the
opal-fields, from the opal-fields to a gold-rush, from the gold-rush
to a mail-coach stable, he pursued this Considine, only to find
that, in the words of the report, "the individual was not the same."
Things looked hopeless for Mary Grant, when help came from an
unexpected quarter. A letter written in a rugged, forcible fist,
arrived for Charlie Gordon from a young fellow named Redshaw, once
a station-hand on Kuryong, who had gone out to the back-country
and was rather a celebrity in his way.
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