The Rider of Waroona

Old Dudgeon is the richest man in the Waroona district and, since a betrayal decades back, allows no woman on any property he owns. So when an Irish widow contracts to buy his station, he plays his last card: the twenty-five thousand pounds must be paid in gold coin. The bank brings the money up quietly from head office, and by morning the safe is empty. Before the day is out the manager has vanished from a house with watchers at every door. Durham, the district’s new police sub-inspector, works from hoof-prints in ground the township has already trampled, while a masked horseman the bush calls the Rider of Waroona rides where he pleases. Firth Scott worked as a journalist in Australia before he wrote fiction, and the station country shows it.