“How many men does he employ, d’you know?”
“Not many, I think. Anything from six to a dozen.”
“Is sheep stealing prevalent?”
“Not at this time. Petrol rationing restricts that game. But before the war sheep stealing was very bad. You know, men operating fast trucks, pull up, over the fence, grab and grab, and off back to the city. Benson built a strong fence round his place and took other measures to defeat the thieves.”
Bony offered his hand.
“I’ll be going along to Baden Park Hotel,” he said. “Under no circumstances communicate with me. I’m a New South Wales pastoralist enjoying a long-delayed holiday. By the way, how did the guest-house people recognise Price’s car that day he passed?”
“Price had run over there twice during his stay at the hotel.”
Chapter Two
At the Baden Park Hotel
HAVING rounded Mount Abrupt, Bony drove northwards along a narrowing valley skirted by the frozen land waves. Either side of the road, the gums reached high above the dense scrub and exuded their scent into the warm, still air, but above them the menacing granite face of the ranges betrayed no secrets.
Round a bend appeared the white-painted arms of a long wooden bridge and, on the near end, a signpost standing sentinel at the junction of a track with the road. Straight on was Hall’s Gap-twenty miles. Dunkeld lay behind thirty miles. A third arm pointed to the turn-off track and stated that that way was to Baden Park Hotel-four miles-and Lake George-seven and a half miles.
Humming an unrecognisable tune, Bony took the turn-off track, narrow, rough, walled with scrub. There was a faint smile in his eyes and in his heart the thrill of expectancy which drives on the born adventurer.
There are no bushlands in the vast Interior comparable with this, but then, in the Interior, there are no easy landmarks like these ranges. The track dipped gently downwards, and Bony had merely to touch the accelerator. Now and then he passed a crack in the bush walls, cracks which could be enticing to the inexperienced hiker.