Walter Ryder, when he passed through the window, sprang from the veranda, and dashed into the garden.  A voice called to him to stand in the name of the law, and a revolver bullet clipped his shoulder, but he ran on until the thick growth of trees and shrubbery quite covered him, then, turning sharply to the left, he hid in the hollow of an old gum-tree, the creeper overgrowing which offered a perfect screen.  From here he uttered the mopoke’s call, repeating it twice.  He had made himself familiar with all the advantages the garden and orchard offered a hunted man ere he had been a week at Boobyalla.  Ryder remained in this hiding-place for some time.  He heard the thunder of Galah’s hoofs and the cries of the troopers.  Yarra had timed his break from cover to a second.  When the sound of the chase died out in the distance, Solo walked quietly to the corner of the orchard opposite to that from which the black boy had started, where a horse was standing.  This was Wallaroo.  The saddle had been hastily thrown on to the entire’s back, and the bridle was looped over a post.  Ryder fastened the girths, buckled the bridle securely, and, mounting the horse, walked him to the slip panels, keeping well under cover of the trees.  When about a quarter of a mile off, he stirred Wallaroo to a canter, but kept to the track thickly seared with new hoof-prints, so that it should be impossible for any but a clever tracker to follow him.  After riding for about three miles, he bore to the right along the course of a small creek, and made his way into the ranges up a deepening gorge, the sides of which were clothed with heath and scrub, and ribbed thickly with the trunks of tall gums as straight as lances, shooting high into the air, and spreading their branches in the moonlight over two hundred feet above him.  He turned from this gorge into a narrower ravine, which widened into a gully.  Ryder continued for another half-mile to where three or four gigantic rocks thrown together formed a sort of natural stronghold with a rampart of white gums.  Here he dismounted.  Having rolled a boulder from a niche in the rocks, he drew out a rope, and with this tethered Wallaroo.  Then, after removing the bit from his mouth and loosening the girths, he left the horse to graze.

The niche in the rocks was well stocked with food, and contained a rug, a bottle of brandy, several small parcels of ammunition, two revolvers, a few other articles, a miner’s ‘rig-out,’ and the false beards Ryder had been in the habit of using as disguises.

Having removed the suit he was wearing, Ryder bathed and dressed the wound in his shoulder as best he could.  He put on the digger’s clothes, and, wrapping himself in the rug, lay under the sloping rock on a couch of dry bracken, and slept as if in a comfortable bed and at peace with the world.

The sun was throwing oblique rays into the heath on the side of the gully when Ryder awoke.  He found his bridle-arm very stiff and painful, and dressed the wound again.  He breakfasted on biscuits and smoked fish, and drank water flavoured with brandy.  The greater part of that day he spent collecting fodder for Wallaroo, and leading the horse about to those spots where the grass was most luxuriant.  He was waiting with absolute confidence and the greatest composure.  The vicissitudes of his life had taught him patience.