If he had five miles start of them there, as was most likely, all the blacks in the country would never track where he got to.
He and father could live there for a month or so, and take it easy until they could slip out and do a bit of father's old trade.

That was about what I expected Jim to do, and as it turned out I was as nearly right as could be.

They ran his track for ten miles.

Then they followed his horse-tracks till late the second day, and found that the horse had slued round and was making for home again with nobody on him.

Jim was nowhere to be seen, and they'd lost all that time, never expecting that he was going to dismount and leave the horse to go his own way.
They searched Nulla Mountain from top to bottom; but some of the smartest men of the old Mounted Police and the best of the stockmen in the old days--men not easy to beat--had tried the same country many years before, and never found the path to the Hollow.