All four men were lying on their backs side by side, with their eyes staring up to the sky—staring—staring! When we got close beside them we could see they had all been shot—one man through the head, the rest through the body. The two nearest to me had had their hands tied; the bit of rope was lying by one and his wrist was chafed.

One had been so close to the man that shot him that the powder had burnt his shirt. It wasn’t for anything they had either, for every man’s notes (and one had four fives and some ones) were pinned to them outside of their pockets, as if to show everyone that those who killed them wanted their blood and not their money.

“This is a terrible affair, boys,” said Starlight; and his voice sounded strange and hoarse. “I never thought we should be mixed up with a deed like this. I see how it was done. They had been led into a trap. Your father has made ‘em think they could catch him; and had Daly and Moran waiting for them—one on each side of this hole here. Warrigal”—for he had tied up his horse and crept up—” how many bin here?”

Warrigal held up three fingers.

“That one ran down here—one after one. I see ‘em boot. Moran stand here. Patsey Daly lie down behind that ole log. All about boot-nail mark. Old man Ben he stand here. Dog bite’m this one.”

Here he stooped and touched a dead man’s ankle. Sure enough there was the mark of Crib’s teeth, with the front one missing, that had been kicked down his throat by a wild mare.

“Two fellow tumble down fust-like; then two fellow bimeby. One—two—three fellow track go along a flat that way. Then that one get two horses and ridem likit Fish River. Penty blood tumble down here.”

This was the ciphering up of the whole thing. It was clear enough now. Moran and Daly had waited for them here, and had shot down the first two men. Of the others, it was hard to say whether they died in fair fight or had been taken prisoners and shot afterwards. Either way it was bad enough. What a noise it would make! The idea of four men, well known to the Government, and engaged in hunting down outlaws on whose head a price was set, to be deliberately shot—murdered in cold blood, as there was some ground for thinking to be the case. What would be the end of it all?

We had done things that were bad enough, but a deliberate, cold-blooded, shameful piece of bloodshed like this had never been heard of in New South Wales before.