The Lost Valley

I made an excellent dinner. Bryce's kitchen and the meat-safes attached proved on investigation to contain enough food for a family. First of all I had a wash, and then when I f...

Early in January, 1919, Mr. Bryce had advanced so far in his investigations that he resolved on taking a trip to the country around the Grampians. He had nothing very definite t...

"That's the peculiar part of it, Jim. They should still be in the room, because they couldn't possibly have been taken away. Yet I've hunted high and low and I can't find them."

I cannot explain why just at that instant my heart gave a thump. There was nothing for it to thump about. Cumshaw, toiling up the slope, for all his woe-begone look, was the mos...

I came upon the place quite unexpectedly. Centuries of wind and wave had carved a little nook out of the foot of the cliff and fashioned it so cunningly that I did not see it un...

I said nothing; instead I silently handed the man my cigar-case. He selected a weed with a discriminating care that I felt cast an unwarranted reflection on the quality of the c...

At first Bryce could see nothing but the dull gleam of unpolished metal from the barrel of a revolver which protruded from behind a tree, but a further scrutiny showed him the d...

"A visitor?" I said guardedly, though what on earth there was to guard against was more than I could have said just then. Some cross-grained streak in my nature made me both can...

As a matter of strict fact the place was much further away than I had anticipated. We must have wandered a considerable distance in the confusion of the evening's storm and cove...

"We've been out seven days," said Cumshaw, "we've travelled God knows how many miles, we've climbed up a Hades of a lot of mountains, and I don't think there's a blind creek for...

A body of mounted troopers left Ararat an hour or so before daylight the next morning, and by seven o'clock had reached the scene of the robbery. They had with them a capable bl...

The room was much as we had left it the evening before. The typed papers had disappeared, but a sheet which I recognised as the one I had picked up from the kitchen floor the da...

Far away to the west the fiery globe of the setting sun dropped lazily down to rest behind the quaint goblin peaks of the Grampians. Its last lingering rays touched their summit...

Abel Cumshaw caught at the bushes to save himself from slipping and turned a curious eye on the scene before him. Really there wasn't very much for him to see. Bradby had fallen...

The grey light of the early dawn found me wide awake and alert. I felt much fatigued after my exertions of the previous night, and would dearly have liked to have slept an hour...

Once we had definitely fixed the date of our departure we lost no time in making ready. As the days went by I began to see more and more clearly that it was just as well I had t...

Just as the first rays of the rising sun slanted into the hut Mr. Bradby stirred uneasily, threw out one arm, rolled over on his side, and in an instant was wide-awake. He sat u...

The police had brought the divisional surgeon with them, and he made his brief examination while the sergeant questioned Moira and myself. My story was the simple one that I had...

Unaccountably enough Bradby went no further than the dying embers of the fire. His first act was to build a big blaze, for he was already becoming afraid. He could not define ev...

Hitherto events had moved so swiftly that I hadn't had time to look calmly at the situation, but once we settled down in the car and Barwon Heads dropped into the dust behind us...

"Three foot, maybe three foot six," Cumshaw said once, in a voice that was curiously hoarse. The remark puzzled me for a moment, and then in a flash I recollected that his fathe...