the marshes chill and salt-tainted, and watched the first star, white as
a diamond, prick through the vault.


Then he rose and shook his partner, waking him with voluble profanity.
The night had come, the dark that was to hide their stealthy exit. They
went different ways; Knapp by a series of trails and planks to the south
bank and thence across country, footing it through the night to his lair
near Stockton. Garland would move north to friends of his up toward the
mining camps along the Feather. They made a rendezvous for a night six
days distant. Then they would carry away the money to places of safety
which they went to prepare.

The sky was star-strewn as Garland's punt slipped away from the island.
It was intensely still, a whisper of water round the moving prow, the
sibilant dip of the paddle the only sounds. He could see the water as a
pale, winding shimmer ahead, dotted with star reflections like small,
scattered flowers. Once, rising to make sure of his course, he saw the
tiny yellow light in a ranch house far away. He stood for a moment
looking at it, and when he crouched again the light had kindled his
imagination. Its spark glowed wide till it showed the ranch kitchen,
windows open to the blue night, earth smells floating in, the table with
its kerosene lamp, the rancher reading the paper, his dog sleeping at
his feet, peaceful, unguarded, secure.

Conscious of distance to be traversed before he became a creature of wary
instincts and watchful eyes, he let his thoughts have way. They slipped
about and touched the future with a sense of ease, then veered to the
past. Here they steadied, memories rising photographically distinct like
a series of pictures, detached yet revealing an underlying thread of