THE GOLD STEALERS

ByEdward Dyson

CHAPTER I. 

THE schoolhouse at Waddy was not in the least like any of the trim Statebuildings that now decorate every Victorian township and mark everymining or agricultural centre that can scrape together two or threemeagre classes; it was the result of a purely local enthusiasm, and waserected by public subscription shortly after Mr. Joel Ham, B. A. , arrivedin the district and let it be understood that he did not intend to goaway again. Having discovered that it was impossible to make anythingelse of Mr. Joel Ham, Waddy resolved to make a schoolmaster of him. Ameeting was held in the Drovers' Arms, numerous speeches, all much moreeloquently expressive of the urgent need of convenient scholasticinstitutions than the orators imagined, were delivered by representativemen, and a resolution embodying the determination of the residents toerect a substantial building and install Mr. J. Ham, B. A. , as headmasterwas carried unanimously. 

The original contributors were not expected to donate money towards thegood cause; they gave labour and material. The work of erection wascommenced next day. Neither plans nor specifications were supplied, andevery contributor was his own architect. Timber of all sorts and shapescame in from fifty sources. The men of the day shift at the mines workedat the building in the evening; those on the four-o'clock shift put in anhour or two in the morning, and mates off the night shift lent a hand atany time during the day, one man taking up the work where the other leftoff. Consequently--and as there was no ruling mind and no generaldesign--the school when finished seemed to lack continuity, so to speak. As an architectural effort it displayed evidence of many excellentintentions, but could not be called a brilliant success as awhole--although one astute Parliamentary candidate did secure anoverwhelming majority of votes in Waddy after declaring the schoolhouseto be an ornament to the township. The public-spirited persons whocontributed windows, it was tacitly agreed, were quite justified inputting in those windows according to the dictates of their own fancy, even if the result was somewhat bizarre. Jock Summers gave a bell hung ina small gilded dome, and this was fixed on the roof right in the centreof the building, mainly for picturesque effect; but as there was no ropeattached and no means of reaching the bell--and it never occurred toanybody to rectify the deficiency--Jock's gift remained to the end merelyan ornamental adjunct. So also with Sam Brierly's Gothic portico. Samexpended much time and ingenuity in constructing the portico, and it wasbuilt on to the street end of the schoolhouse, although there was no doorthere, the only entrance being at the back. 

The building was opened with a tea-fight and a dance, and answered itspurpose very well up to the time of the first heavy rains; then studieshad to be postponed indefinitely, for the floor was a foot under water. Acall was made upon the united strength of the township, and the buildingwas lifted bodily and set down again on piles. When the open spacebetween the ground and the floor was boarded up, the residents weredelighted to find that the increased height had given the structure quitean imposing appearance. Alas! before six months had passed the place wasfound to be going over on one side. Waddy watched this failing withgrowing uneasiness. When the collapse seemed inevitable, the male adultswere again bidden to an onerous public duty; they rolled up likepatriots, and with a mighty effort pushed the school up into theperpendicular propping it there with stout stays. That answeredexcellently for a time, but eventually the wretched house began to slantin the opposite direction. Once more the men of Waddy attended in force, and spent an arduous half-day hoisting it into an upright position, andsecuring it there with more stays. It took the eccentric building a longtime to decide upon its next move; then it suddenly lurched forward afoot or more, and after that slipped an inch or two farther out of plumbevery day. But the ingenuity of Waddy was not exhausted: a few hundredfeet of rope and a winch were borrowed from the Peep o' Day; the rope wasrun round the schoolhouse, and the building was promptly hauled back intoshape and fastened down with long timbers running from its sides to aconvenient red-gum stump at the back. Thus it remained for many years, bulging at the sides, pitching forward, and straining at its tethers likean eager hound in a leash. 

It was literally a humming hot day at Waddy; the pulsing whirr ofinvisible locusts filled the whole air with a drowsy hum, and from theflat at the back of the township, where a few thousand ewes and lambswere shepherded amongst the quarry holes, came another insistent droningin a deeper note, like the murmur of distant surf. No one was stirring:to the right and left along the single thin wavering line of unpaintedweatherworn wooden houses nothing moved but mirage waters flickering inthe hollows of the ironstone road. Equally deserted was the wide stretchof brown plain, dotted with poppet legs and here and there a whim, acrossthe dull expanse of which Waddy seemed to peer with stupid eyes. 

From within the school were heard alternately, with the regularity of amill, the piping of an old cracked voice and the brave chanting of achildish chorus. Under the school, where the light was dim and the airwas decidedly musty, two small boys were crouched, playing a silent gameof 'stag knife. ' Besides being dark and evil-smelling under there, it wasdamp; great clammy masses of cobweb hung from the joists and spanned thespaces between the piles. The place was haunted by strange and fearsomeinsects, too, and the moving of the classes above sent showers of dustdown between the cracks in the worn floor. But those boys were satisfiedthat they were having a perfectly blissful time, and were serenely happyin defiance of unpropitious surroundings. They were 'playing the wag, 'and to be playing the wag under any circumstances is a guarantee of purefelicity to the average healthy boy. 

Probably the excessive heat had suggested to Dick Haddon the advisabilityof spending the afternoon under the school instead of within the closecrowded room; at any rate he suggested it to Jacker McKnight, commonlyknown as Jacker Mack, and now after an hour of it the boys were stilljubilant. The game had to be played with great caution, and conversationwas conducted in whispers when ideas could not be conveyed in dumb show. All that was going on in the room above was distinctly audible to thedeserters below, and the joy of camping there out of the reach of JoelHam, B. A. , and beyond all the trials and tribulations of the HigherFifth, and hearing other fellows being tested, and hectored, and caned, was too tremendous for whisperings, and must be expressed in wildrollings and contortions and convulsive kicking. 

'Parrot Cann, will you kindly favour me with a few minutes on the floor?'

It was the old cracked voice, flavoured with an ominous irony. Dickpaused in the middle of a throw with a cocked ear and upturned eyes;Jacker Mack grinned all across his broad face and winked meaningly. Theyheard the shuffling of a pair of heavily shod feet, and then the voiceagain. 

'Parrot, my man, you are a comedian by instinct, and will probably liveto be an ornament to the theatrical profession; but it is my duty torepress premature manifestations of your genius. Parrot, hold out!

They heard the swish of the cane and the school master's sarcasticcomments between the strokes. 

'Ah-h, that was a beauty! Once more, Parrot, my friend, if you please. Excellent! Excellent! We will try again. Practice of this kind makes forperfection, you know, Parrot. Good, good--very good! If you should bespoiled in the making, Parrot, you will not in your old age ascribe it toany paltry desire on my part to spare the rod, will you, Parrot?'

'S'help me, I won't, sir!

There was such a world of pathos in the wail with which Parrot repliedthat Dick choked in his efforts to repress his emotions. The lads heardthe victim blubbing, and pictured his humorous contortions after everycut--for Parrot was weirdly and wonderfully gymnastic underpunishment--and Jacker hugged himself and kicked ecstatically, and youngHaddon bowed his forehead in the dirt and drummed with his toes, and gaveexpression to his exuberant hilarity in frantic pantomime. The rough andready schoolboy is very near to the beginnings; his sense of humour hasnot been impaired by over-refinement, but remains somewhat akin to thatof the gentle savage; and although his disposition to laugh at themisfortunes of his best friends may be deplorable from various points ofview, it has not been without its influence in fashioning those good menwho put on a brave face in the teeth of tribulation. 

'Gee-rusalem! ain't Jo got a thirst?' whispered Dick when the spasm hadpassed. 

'My oath, ain't he!' replied Jacker, 'but he was drunk up afore twelve. '

It is necessary to explain here that the school committee, in electingMr. Ham to the position of schoolmaster, compelled him to sign a formalagreement, drawn up in quaint legal gibberish, in which it was specifiedthat 'the herein afore-mentioned Joel Ham, B. A. , ' was to be limited to acertain amount of alcoholic refreshment per diem, and McMahon, at theDrovers' Arms, bound himself over to supply no more than the prescribedquantity; but it was understood that this galling restriction did notapply to Mr. Ham on Saturdays and holidays. 

The noises above subsided into the usual school drone, and the boys underthe floor resumed their game. It was an extremely interesting game, closely contested. Each player watched the other's actions with an alertand suspicious eye, and this want of confidence led directly to the boys'undoing; for presently Dick detected Jacker in an attempt to deceive, andsignalled 'Down!' with an emphatic gesture. 'Gerrout!' was the wordframed by the lips of the indignant Jacker. Haddon gesticulated an angryprotest, and McKnight's gestures and grimaces were intended to convey awish that he might be visited with unspeakable pains and penalties if hewere not an entirely virtuous and grievously misjudged small boy. 

'It's a lie, ' hissed Dick; 'it was down!

'You're another--it wasn't!

''Twas, I tell you!'

'Twasn't!

'Gimme my knife; I don't play with sharps an' sneaks. '

'Won't!'

Gimme it!

All caution had been forgotten by this time, voices were shrill, and eyesspoke of battle. Dick made at Jacker with a threatening fist, and Jacker, with an adroitness for which he was famous, met him with a clip on theshin from a copper-toed boot. Then the lads grappled and commenced avigorous and enthusiastic battle in the dirt and amongst the cobwebcurtains. 

In the schoolroom above Joel Ham, startled from a dreamy drowsiness, heard with wonder fierce voices under his feet, the sounds of blows andof bumping heads, and saw his scholars all distracted. The master divinedthe truth in a very few minutes. 

'Cann, Peterson, Moonlight, ' he called, 'follow me. '

He selected a favourite cane from the rack, and strutted out with thecurious boys at his heels. 

'Now then, Peterson, ' he said, and he paused with artful preoccupation todouble his cane over and under, and critically examine the end thereof, 'you are a very observant youth, Peterson; you will tell me how thoseboys got under the school. '

'Dunno, ' said Peterson, assuming the expression of an aged cow. 

The master seized him by the collar. 

'Peterson, you have the faculty of divination. I give you till I havecounted ten to exert it. I am counting, Peterson. '

Very often the schoolmaster's language was Greek to the scholars, but hismeaning was never in doubt for a moment. 

'Eight, Peterson, nine. '

Peterson slouched along a few yards, and kicked stupidly and resentfullyat a loose board. 

'Might 'a' got in there, ' he growled. 'Why couldn't you 'a' askedMoonlight?--he don' mind bein' a sneak. '

But Mr. Ham was down on his knees removing the loose board, and for twoor three minutes after crouched at the opening like a famished yellow catat a rat-hole, awaiting his opportunity. Meanwhile the fight under theschool was being prosecuted with unabated fury. Dick and Jacker grippedlike twin bull-terriers, rolling and tumbling about in the confinedspace, careless of everything but the important business in hand. Suddenly Mr. Ham made his spring, and a smart haul brought a leg tolight. Another tug, and a second leg shot forth. 

'Pull, boys!' he cried. 

Moonlight seized the other limb, and a good tug brought the two boys outinto the open, still fighting enthusiastically and apparently obliviousof their surroundings. Two soldier ants never fought with greaterdetermination or with such a whole-souled devotion to the cause. Over andover they tumbled in the dust, clutching hair, hammering ribs, andgrunting and grasping, blind, deaf, and callous as logs; and Joel Hamstood above them with the familiar cynical twist on his blotched visage, twisting his cane and making audible comments, but offering no furtherinterference. 

'After you, my boys--after you. There is no hurry, Haddon, I can wait asyou are so busy. McKnight, your future is assured. The prize ring is yoursphere: there wealth and glory await you. Peterson, you see here howdegraded that boy be comes who forgets those higher principles which itis my earnest effort to instil into the hearts and minds of the boys ofthis depraved township. Cann, my boy, behold how brutalising isungoverned instinct. '

But, wearying of the contest, the master made a sudden descent uponJacker, and tore him from his enemy's grasp. The effort brought Dick tohis feet, panting and still eager for the fray. He could not see an inchbeyond his nose, and for a few moments moved about fiercely, feeling forhis foe. 

'D'you gimme best?' he spluttered. 'If you don't, come on--I ain't doneup!' Then he flung the curtain of cobweb from his eyes, and the situationflashed upon him in all its grim significance. For a swift moment hethought of flight, but the master's grip was on his collar. 

'Blowed if it ain't Jo, ' he murmured in his consternation, and yieldedmeekly, like one for whom Fate had proved too strong. 

The schoolmaster's white-lashed eyelids blinked rapidly for a second orso, and he screwed his face into a hard wrinkled grin of gratification. 

'Yes, Ginger, my lad, ' he said genially, 'Jo, at your service--very muchat your service; and yours, McKnight. We will go inside now, boys. Thesun is painfully hot, and you are fatigued. '

He marched his captives before him into the school room and ranged themagainst the wall, under the wide-open wondering eyes of the scholars, bywhom even the most trifling incident of rebellion was always welcomedwith glee as a break in the dull monotony of Joel Ham's peculiar system. But this was no trifling incident, it was a tremendous outrage and adelightful mystery; for the boys as they stood there presented to theamazed classes a strange and amazing spectacle, and were clothed in anoriginal and, so far as the children were concerned, an inexplicabledisguise. Fighting and tumbling about under the school house, Haddon andMcKnight had gathered much mud, but more cobwebs. In fact, they had wipedup so many webs that they were covered from head to foot in the clammydusty masses. Their hats were lost early in the encounter, and their hairwas full of cobwebs; sticky curtains of cobweb hung about their faces, and swathed them from top to toe in what looked like a dirty grey fur. Each boy had cleared his eyes of the thick veil, but so inhuman andunheard of was their appearance that there was presently a suspicionamongst the scholars that the master had captured two previously unknownspecimens of the animal kingdom, and consequently further astonishingdevelopments might be looked for. 

CHAPTER II. 

Mr. HAM, with wise forethought, carefully locked the door and pocketedthe key after disposing of the lads; and this was well, for Dick Haddon, fully appreciating the possibilities of the situation, was alreadyplotting--plotting with every faculty of an active and inventive mind. 

The master faced his prisoners, and stood musing over them like a pensivebut kindly cormorant. Mr. Joel Ham, B. A. , was a small thin man with adeceitful appearance of weakness. There was a peculiar indecision aboutall his joints that made the certainty of his spring and the vigour ofhis grip matters of wonder to all those new boys who ventured to presumeupon his seeming infirmities. He had a scraggy red neck, a long beak-likenose, and queer slate-coloured eyes with pale lashes; his hair was thinand very fine in colour and texture, strangely like that of a yellow cat;and face, neck, and nose were mottled with patches of small purple veins. To-day he was dressed in a long seedy black coat, a short seedy blackvest, and a pair of now moleskins, glaringly white, and much too long andtoo large. 

'Haddon, ' said the master in a reflective tone, 'you are not looking asneat as usual. You need dusting. I will perform that kind officepresently, and, believe me, I will do it well. Jacker, I intend to leaveyou standing here for a few moments to cool. You may have noticed, boys, that the youthful form when over-heated or possessed with unusualexcitement has not that poignant susceptibility which might be thoughtnecessary to the adequate appreciation of a judicious lambasting. Hasthat ever occurred to you, McKnight?'

Jacker shifted his feet uneasily, rolled his body, and, knowing thatnothing could aggravate his offence, answered sullenly:

'Oh, dry up!'

Mr. Ham grinned at the boy in silence for a few moments, and thenreturned to his high stool and desk. Mr. Ham never made the slightesteffort to maintain before his scholars that dignity which is supposed tobe essential to the success of a pedagogue. In addressing the boys heused their correct names, or the nicknames liberally bestowed upon themby their mates, indiscriminately, and showed no resentment whatever whenhe heard himself alluded to as Jo, or Hamlet, or the Beetle, his mostfrequent appellations in the playground. He kept a black bottle in hisdesk, at the neck of which he habitually refreshed himself before thewhole school; and he addressed the children with an elaborate and causticlevity in a thin shaky voice quite twenty years too old for him. Hishumour was thrown away upon the rising generation of Waddy, and mighthave been supposed to be the cat-like pawing of a vicious mind; but JoelHam was not cruel, and although when occasion demanded he could use thecane with exceeding smartness, he frequently overlooked misdemeanoursthat might have justified an attack, and was never betrayed intoadministering unmerited cuts even when his black bottle was empty and histhirst most virulent. 

In spite of his eccentricities and his weaknesses, and the fact that hewas neither respected nor dreaded, Ham brought his scholars on remarkablywell. There were three big classes in the room--first, third, andfifth--and a higher and lower branch of each; he managed all, with theassistance of occasional monitors selected from the best pupils. Goodorder prevailed in the school, for little that went on there escaped themaster's alert eye. Even when he drowsed at his desk, as he sometimes didon warm afternoons, the work was not delayed, for he was known to have atrick of awakening with a jerk, and smartly nailing a culprit or adawdler. 

The school to-day was in a tense and excitable condition, now heightenedto fever by the two cobwebbed mysteries standing against the wall, butthe imperative rattle of Joel's cane on the desk quickly induced aspecious show of industry. 

'Gable!'

The individual addressed, a big scholar in the Lower Third, was soabsorbed in the spectacle provided by Haddon and McKnight that he failedto hear the master's voice, and continued staring stupidly with all hiseyes. 

'Gable! This way, my dear child. '

Gable started guiltily, and then fell into confusion. He climbedawkwardly, out of his seat, and advanced hesitatingly with shuffling feettowards the master. It was now evident that Gable was not a large boy, but a little old man, slightly built, with a round ruddy clean-shavenface and thick white hair. But his manner was that of a boy of eight. 

'Hold out, my young friend!' Joel commanded, with an expressive flourishof his cane. 

Gable held out his hand; his toothless mouth formed itself into a darkoval, his eyes distended with painful expectancy, and he assumed theshrinking attitude of the very small boy who expects the fall of thecane. The situation was absurd, but no one smiled. Ham raised theextended hand a little with the end of the dreaded weapon. 

'You are going the right way to come to a dishonoured old age, Gable, ' hesaid, and the cane went up, but the cut was not delivered. 'There, 'continued the master, 'I forgive you in consideration of your extremeyouth. Go to your place, and try to set a better example to the olderboys. '

The old man trotted back to his seat, grinning all over his face, and setto work at his book with an appearance of intense zeal; and Joel Hamturned his attention to the prime culprits. Having marched the youngstersfrom the front desk of the third class, he drew desk and form forwardinto the middle of the clear space, and then beckoned to McKnight. 

'Jacker, my man, ' he said cheerfully, 'bring your slate and sit here. Ihave a little job for you. '

Dick, standing alone, watched his mate seat himself at the desk, elatedfor a moment with the idea that perhaps Jo was not going to regard theiroffence as particularly heinous after all; but his better judgmentscouted the idea, and he returned to his scrutiny of the wall. There wasa weak spot near where Hector, Peterson's billy-goat, had butted his waythrough on a memorable occasion, and escape was still a comfortingcontingency. 

The master approached McKnight with a pencil as if to set a lesson, butthis was merely a ruse; Jacker was a hard-headed vicious youth whosefavourite kick Ham wisely reckoned with on an occasion like this. To theboy's surprise and disgust he was presently seized by the neck and hauledforward on to the desk. His legs, being against the seat, which wasattached to the desk, were quite useless for defence, so that he was ahelpless victim under the chastening rod. It was a degrading attitude, and the presence of the girls made the punishment a disgrace to rankleand burn. Jacker, for pride and the credit of his boyhood made no soundunder the first dozen cuts; but his younger brother Ted, from his placein the Lower Fifth, set up a lugubrious wail of sympathy almostimmediately, and, as his feelings were more and more wrought upon by thepainful sight, his wailing developed into shrill and tearful abuse of themaster. 

'You let him alone, see!' yelled Ted, when Jacker, unable longer tocontain himself, uttered a dismal cry. 

'Hit some one yer size--go on, hit some one yer size!' screamed Ted. 

But Mr. Ham's whole attention was devoted to his task, and the youngerMcKnight's threats, commands, and warnings were entirely ignored, although the boy continued to utter them between his heart broken sobs. 

'Mind who you're hittin'! You'll suffer for this, Hamlet, you'll see!We'll get some one what'll show you! Rocks for you nex' Saterdee!

Ted howled, Jacker howled, but the master caned on until he thought hehad quite accomplished his duty in that particular; then he let the limpyouth slide back into his seat. 

Mr. Ham returned to his high stool to rest and recuperate. Thoughout theproceedings he had displayed no heat whatever, and when he addressedJacker it was with his usual bland irony. 

'You should thank me for my pains, my boy, but youth is proverbiallyungrateful. You will think better of my efforts a few years hence;meanwhile I can afford to wait for the verdict of your riper judgment, Jacker--I can afford to wait, my boy. '

Jacker's only reply to this was a long wail expressive of a greatdisgust. That outburst was too much for the already over-wroughtyoungster in the Lower Fifth; starting up with a cry, Ted snatched one ofthe leaden ink-wells from its cell in the desk, and took aim at themaster's head. The well struck the wall just above its mark, andscattered its contents in Joel Ham's pale hair, in his eyes, down hischeeks, and all over his white moles. Amazement--blind, round-eyed, dumbamazement--possessed the school, and for a few seconds a dead silenceprevailed. The spell was broken by Dick Haddon, who discovered hisopportunity, plunged like a diver at the weak spot in the wall, wentclean through and disappeared from view. Ted McKnight, who had awakenedto the enormity of his crime at the sight of the master knuckling the inkout of his eyes, and had gone grey to the lips in his trepidation, looking anxiously to the right and left for a refuge, saw Dickie'sdeparture; jumping the desk in front he rushed at the aperture the latterhad left in the wall, and was gone in the twinkling of an eye. 

The master mopped the ink from his hair and his face with a sheet ofblotting paper, and calling Belman, Cann, Peterson, Jinks, and Slogan, made for the door. Already Dick Haddon was halfway across the flat, scattering the browsing sheep to the right and left in his flight, andTed was following at his best pace. 

'After them!' cried the master. 'Two whole days' holiday for you if yourun them down. '

The pursuit was taken up cheerfully enough, but it was quite hopeless. The breakaways were heading for the line of bush, and the sapling scrubalong the creek was so thick that the boys would have been perfectlysecure under its cover, even if the pursuers were not in hearty sympathywith the pursued, and the pursuit were not a miserable and perfidiouspretence. 

Mr. Ham, recognising after a few minutes how matters really stood, returned to the school. His approach had been signalled by a scout at oneof the windows, and he found the classes all in order and suspiciouslyindustrious, and Jacker McKnight still sitting with his head sunk uponhis arms--a monument of sturdy resentment. 

'My boys, ' said the master, looking ludicrously piebald after his inkbath, 'before resuming duties I wish to draw your attention to the crassfoolishness of which our young friends Haddon and McKnight are guilty. You perceive that their action is not diplomatic, eh?'

'Ye--yes, sir, ' piped a dubious voice here and there. 

'To be sure. Had they remained they would have been caned; as they haverun away, they will receive a double dose and certain extra pains andpenalties, and meanwhile they suffer the poignant pangs of anticipation. Anticipation, Jacker, my boy, the smart of future punishments, is thetrue hell-flame. '

Jacker replied with a grunt of derisive and implacable bitterness, butthe schoolmaster seemed much comforted by his apophthegm, and stood forseveral minutes surveying the back of McKnight's head, and wearing abenignant and thoughtful smile. 

CHAPTER III. 

WADDY was soon possessed of the facts of the shameful acts ofinsubordination at the school and the escape of Dick Haddon and TedMcKnight, and nobody--according to everybody's wise assurances--was theleast bit surprised. The fathers of the township (and the mothers, too)had long since given Dick up as an irresponsible and irreclaimable imp. One large section declared the boy to be 'a bit gone, ' which wasgenerally Waddy's simple and satisfactory method of accounting for anyattribute of man, woman, or child not in conformity with the dull rule ofconduct prevailing at Waddy. Another section persisted in its belief that'the boy Haddon' was possessed with several peculiar devils oflawlessness and unrest, which could only be exorcised by means of daily'hidings, ' long abstinence from any diet more inflammatory than bread andwater, and the continuous acquisition of great quantities of Scripture. 

An extraordinary meeting of the School Committee was held at the Drovers'Arms that evening to confer with Joel Ham, B. A. , and consider what wasbest to be done under the circumstances. The men of the townshiprecognised that it was their bounden duty to support the master in anaffair of this kind. When occasion arose they assisted in the capture ofvagrant youths, and when Joel imagined a display of force advisable theyattended at the punishment and rendered such assistance as was needful inthe due enforcement of discipline. It was understood by all that theschool would lose prestige and efficiency if Haddon and McKnight were nottaken and at once subjected to the rules of the establishment and the rodof the master. 

The meeting was quite informal. It was held in the bar, and thediscussion of the vital matter in hand was concurrent with the absorptionof McMahon's beer. Mr. Ham's best attention was given to the latterobject. 

'Bring the boys to me, gentlemen, ' he said, 'and I will undertake toinduce in them a wholesome contrition and a proper respect forletters--temporarily, at least. '

Neither of the lads had yet returned to his home; but the paternalMcKnight promised, like a good citizen, that immediately his son wasavailable he would be reduced to subjection with a length of belting, andthen handed over to the will of the scholastic authority without anyreservation. Mr. McKnight was commended for his public spirit; and it wasthen agreed that a member of the Committee should wait upon Widow Haddonto invite her co-operation, and point out the extent to which her son'smental and moral development would be retarded by a display of weaknesson her part at a crisis of this kind?

Mr. Ephraim Shine volunteered for this duty. Ephraim was a tall gauntman, with hollow cheeks, a leathery complexion, and large feet. He walkedor sat with his eyes continually fixed upon these feet--reproachfully, itseemed--as if their disproportion were a source of perennial woe; hecarried his arms looped behind him, and had acquired a peculiar stoop--tofacilitate his vigilant guardianship of his feet, apparently. Mr. Shine, as superintendent of the Waddy Wesleyan Chapel, represented a party thathad long since broken away from the School Committee, which was condemnedin prayer as licentious and ungodly, and left to its wickedness when itexhibited a determination to stand by Joel Ham, a scoffer and a drinkerof strong drinks, as against a respectable, if comparatively unlettered, nominee of the Chapel and the Band of Hope. His presence at the committeemeeting to-night was noted with surprise, although it excited no remark;and his offer to interview the widow was accepted with gratitude as apatriotic proposal. There was only one dissentient--Rogers, a burlyfaceman from the Silver Stream. 

'Don't send Shine to cant an' snuffle, an' preach the poor woman into afit o' the miserables, ' he said. 

Ephraim lifted his patient eyes to Rogers's face for a moment with anexpression of meek reproof, then let them slide back to his boots again, but answered nothing. The enmity of the two was well known in Waddy. Rogers was a worldly man who drank and swore, and who loved a fight asother men loved a good meal; and Shine, as the superintendent, mustwithhold his countenance from so grievous a sinner. Besides, there was abelief that at some time or another the faceman had thrashed Shine, whowas searcher at the Stream in his week-day capacity, and for that reasonwas despised by the miners, and regarded as a creature apart. Ephraim, itwas remarked, was always particularly careful in searching Rogers when hecame off shift, in the hope, as the men believed, of one day finding asecreted nugget, and getting even with his enemy by gaoling him for a fewyears. 

As Ephraim passed out from the bar he again allowed his eyes to roll upand meet those of his enemy from the dark shadow of his thick brows. 

'Don't forget the little widow was sweet on Frank Hardy before you juggedhim, Tinribs, ' said the miner. 

Tinribs was a name bestowed upon the superintendent by the youth ofWaddy, and called after him by irreverent small boys from convenientcover or under the shelter of darkness. He found the Widow Haddon athome. She it was who answered his knock. 

'I have come from the School Committee, ma'am, ' he said, still intentupon his boots. 

'About Dickie, is it? Come in. '

Mrs. Haddon was dressmaker-in-ordinary to the township, and her otherwisecarefully tended kitchen was littered with clippings and bits ofmaterial. She resumed her task by the lamp a soon as the delegate of theSchool Committee was comfortably seated. 

'Has Richard come home, ma'am?' Ephraim was an orator, and prided himselfon his command of language. 

The widow shook her head. 'No, ' she said composedly. 'I don't think hewill come home to-night. '

'We have had a committee meeting, missus, ' said Ephraim, examining thetoe of his left boot reproach fully, 'an' it's understood we've got tocatch these boys. '

'What!' cried Mrs. Haddon, dropping her work into her lap. 'You silly menare going to make a hunt of it? Then, let me tell you, you will not getthat boy of mine to-morrow, nor this week, nor next. Was ever such a packof fools! Let Dickie think he is being hunted, and he'll be a bushranger, or a brigand chief, or a pirate, or something desperately wicked in thatamazin' head of his, and you won't get a-nigh him for weeks, not a manJack of you! Dear, dear, dear, you men--a set of interferin', mutton-headed creatures!

'He's an unregenerate youth--that boy of yours, ma'am. '

'Is he, indeed?' Mrs. Haddon's handsome face flushed, and she squared hertrim little figure. 'Was he that when he went down the broken winze topoor Ben Holden? Was he that when he brought little Kitty Green and herpony out of the burnin' scrub? Was he all a little villain when he foundyou trapped in the cleft of a log under the mount there, when the Streammen wouldn't stir a foot to seek you?

During this outburst Shine had twisted his boots in all directions, andexamined them minutely from every point of view. 

'No, no, ma'am, ' he said, 'not all bad, not at all; but--ah, the--ah, influence of a father is missing, Mrs. Haddon. '

'That's my boy's misfortune, Mr. Superintendent. '

'It--it might be removed. '

'Eh? What's that you say?'

The widow eyed her visitor sharply, but he was squirming over hisunfortunate feet, and apparently suffering untold agonies on theiraccount. 

'The schoolmaster must be supported, missus, ' he said hastily. 'Discipline, you know. Boys have to be mastered. '

'To be sure; but you men, you don't know how. My Dick is the best boy inthe school, sometimes. '

'Sometimes, ma'am, yes. '

'Yes, sometimes, and would be always if you men had a pen'orth of ideas. Boys should be driven sometimes and sometimes coaxed. '

'And how'd you coax him what played wag under the very school, foughtthere, an' then broke out of the place like a burgerler?

'I know, I know--_that's bad; but it's been a fearful tryin' day, an'allowances should be made. '

'Then, if he comes home you'll give him over to be--ah, dealt with?'

'Certainly, superintendent; I am not a fool, an' I want my boy taught. But don't you men go chasm' those lads; they'll just enjoy it, an' you'lldo no good. You leave Dickie to me, an' I'll have him home here in twoshakes. Dickie's a high-spirited boy, an' full o' the wild fancies ofboys. He's done this sort o' thing before. Run away from home once to bea sailor, an' slep' for two nights in a windy old tree not a hundredyards from his own comfortable bed, imaginin' he was what he called onthe foretop somethin'. But I know well enough how to work on hisfeelings. '

'A father, ma'am, would be the savin' o' that lad. '

Mrs. Haddon dropped her work again and her dark eyes snapped; but EphraimShine had lifted one boot on to his knee, and was examining a hole in thesole with bird-like curiosity. 

'When I think my boy needs special savin' I'll send for you, Mr. Shine--

'It'd be a grave responsibility, a trial an' a constant triberlation, butI offer myself. I'll be a father to your boy, ma'am, barrin' objections. '

'An' what is meant by that, Mr. Shine?'

The widow, flushed of face, with her work thrust forward in her lap and asteely light in her fine eyes, regarded the searcher steadily. 

'An offer of marriage to yourself is meant, Mrs. Haddon, ma'am. '

Shine's eyes came sliding up under his brows till they encountered thoseof Mrs. Haddon; then they fell again suddenly. The little widow tappedthe table impressively with her thimbled finger, and her breast heaved. 

'Do you remember Frank Hardy, Ephraim Shine?'

'To be certain I do. '

'Well, man, you may have heard what Frank Hardy was to me before he wentto--to--'

'To gaol, Mrs. Haddon? Yes. '

'Listen to this, then. What Frank Hardy was to me before he is still, only more dear, an' I'd as lief everybody in Waddy knew it. '

'A gaol-bird an' a thief he is. '

'He is in gaol, an' that may make a gaol-bird of him, but he is no thief. 'Twas you got him into gaol, an' now you dare do this. '

Shine's slate-coloured eyes slid up and fell again. 

''Twas done in the way o' duty. He don't deny I found the gold on him. '

'No, but he denies ever havin' seen it in his life before, an' I believehim. '

'An' about that cunnin' little trap in his boot-heel, ma'am?'

'It was what he said it was--the trick of some enemy. '

Mr. Shine lifted his right boot as if trying its weight, groaned and setit down again, tried the other, and said:

'An' who might the enemy ha' been, d'ye think?'

I do not know, but--I am Frank Hardy's friend, and you may not abuse himin my house. '

'You have a chance o' a respectable man, missus. ' Mrs. Haddon had risenfrom her seat and was standing over her visitor, a buxom black-gownedlittle fury. 

'An' I tell him to go about his business, an' that's the way. ' Thegesture the widow threw at her humble kitchen door was magnificent. 'Butstay, ' she cried, although the imperturbable Shine had not shown theslightest intention of moving. 'You've heard I went with Frank's motherto visit him in the gaol there at the city; p'r'aps you're curious toknow what I said. Well, I'll tell you, an' you can tell all Waddy fromyon platform in the chapel nex' Sunday, if you like. 'Frank, ' I said, 'you asked me to be your wife, an' I haven't answered. I do now. I'llmeet you at the prison door when you come out, if you please, an' I'llmarry you straight away. ' Those were my very words, Mr. Superintendent, an' I mean to keep to them. '

Mrs. Haddon stood with flaming face and throbbing bosom, a tragedy queenin miniature, suffused with honest emotion. Ephraim sat apparentlyabsorbed in his left boot, thrusting his finger into the hole in thesole, as if probing a wound. 

'You wouldn't think, ma'am, ' he said presently with the air of a martyr, 'that I gave fourteen-and six for them pair o' boots not nine weekssince. '

Mrs. Haddon turned away with an impatient gesture. 

'If you've said all you have to say, you might let me get on with mywork. '

'I think that's all, Mrs. Haddon. ' The searcher arose, and stood for amoment turning up the toe of one boot and then the other; he seemed to becalculating his losses on the bargain. 'You hand over the boy Richard, Iunderstand, ma'am?'

'I'll do what is right, Mr. Shine. '

'The Committee said as much. The Committee has great respect for you, Mrs. Haddon. '

Ephraim lifted his feet with an effort, and carried them slowly from thehouse, carefully and quietly closing the kitchen door after him. Abouthalf a minute later he opened the door again, just as carefully and asquietly, and said:

'Good night, ma'am, and God bless you. '

Then he went away, his hands bunched behind him, walking like a mancarrying a heavy burden. 

CHAPTER IV

DICK HADDON and Ted McKnight were still at large next morning, andnothing was heard of them till two o'clock in the afternoon, whenWilson's man, Jim Peetree, reported having discovered the boys swimmingin the big quarry in the old Red Hand paddock. Jim, seeing a prospect ofcovering himself with glory, made a dash after the truants; but theysnatched up their clothes and ran for the saplings up the creek, allnaked as they were, and Jim was soon out of the hunt--though he capturedTed's shirt, and produced it as a guarantee of good faith. 

That night three boys--three of the faithful--Jacker McKnight, Phil Doon, and Billy Peterson, stole through Wilson's paddock carrying mysteriousbundles, and taking as many precautions to avoid observation and pursuitas if they were really, as they pretended to be with the fine imaginationof early boyhood, desperate characters bent upon an undertaking ofunparalleled lawlessness and great daring. They crossed the creek andcrept along in the shadow of the hill, for the moon, although low down inthe sky, was still bright and dangerous to hunted outlaws. Off to theleft could be heard the long-drawn respirations of the engines at theSilver Stream, and the grind of her puddlers, the splashing of theslurry, and the occasional solemn, significant clang of a knocker. Theypassed the old Red Hand shaft, long since deserted and denuded of poppetlegs and engine-houses, its comparatively ancient tips almost overgrownand characterless, with lusty young gums flourishing amongst itsscattered boulders. Waddy venerated the old Red Hand as something soancient that its history left openings for untrammelled conjecture, andthe boys associated it with not a few of the mysteries of those grandfar-off ages when dragons abducted beautiful maidens and giants werequite common outside circuses. The mouth of the shaft was covered withsubstantial timbers, save for a small iron-barred door securelypadlocked. The pit now served a useful purpose as air-shaft for theSilver Stream, and the iron-runged ladders still ran down into its blackdepths. 

The boys kept to the timber, and presently found themselves climbing downthe rugged rocks where the hillside suddenly became an abrupt wall. Fromhere had been blasted the thousands of tons of rock that went to thebuilding of that grim prison in Yarraman, the town where Frank Hardy lay, a good half-day's tramp across the wide flat country faced by thetownship The quarry, too, was overgrown again; being almost inaccessibleto Wilson's cattle its undergrowth was rank and high, and as it wassheltered from the sun's rays and watered in part by a tiny spring, itwas often the one green oasis in a weary land of crackling yellow anddrab. 

After gaining the bottom of the quarry, Jacker led the way to the deepestend. Here the bottom, covered with scrub growth, sloped rather suddenlyfor a few feet up to the abrupt wall. Going on his hands and knees underthe thick odorous peppermint saplings, Jacker ran his head into a nichein the rock amongst climbing sarsaparilla, and remained so, like somestrange geological specimen half embedded in the rock. Within, where hishead was hidden, the darkness was impenetrable. Jacker blew a strangenote on a whistle manufactured from the nut of an apricot, and after afew moments a light appeared below him, a feeble flame, far down in therock. This was waved twice and then withdrawn. 

'Righto!' said Jacker in a hoarse piratical tone. 'Gimme the tucker, Black Douglas; I'll go down. You coves keep watch, an' no talkin', mind. '

Phil grumbled inarticulately, and Jacker's tone became hoarser and morepiratical still. 

'Who's commandin' here?' he growled. 'D'ye mean mutiny?

'Oh, shut up!' said Doon, bitterly. 'No one's goin' t' mutiny, but thereain't no fun campin' here. '

McKnight relented. 

'All right, ' he said, 'come down if you wanter. S'pose you'll on'y bemakin' some kind of a row 'f I leave you. '

Jacker put the growth aside carefully, and going feet first graduallydisappeared. Within there in the formless darkness he stood upon a laddermade of the long stem of a sapling to which cleats were nailed. Thesapling was suspended in a black abyss. The boy, with his bundle hangingfrom his shoulder, started down fearlessly. Presently he came to where asecond prop was fastened to the first with spikes and strong rope. Herehe paused a moment, and called:

'Hello, be-e-low there!'

Jacker's character had undergone a rapid change; he was now quite aninnocent and law-abiding person, a working shareholder in the Mount ofGold Quartz-mining Company. 

'On top!' answered a cautious voice from the depths. 

'Look up--man on!

And now, having observed the formalities, Jacker continued his descent, and in a few moments dropped from the primitive ladder and found afooting on a few planks thrown from one drive to another, across what wasreally an old shaft. At his back was a drive running into darkness;before him was a small irregular excavation lit with a single candle, andsitting in this, dressed, or, more correctly, undressed, like miners attheir work, were Dick Haddon and Ted McKnight. 

Jacker threw his bundle on the floor of the drive. 

'Crib, ' he said carelessly; and then, after examining the face of theexcavation: 'S'pose we ain't likely to cut the lode this shift, Dick?

Dick shook his head thoughtfully. 

'No, ' he said. 'Allowin' for the underlay, we should strike her aboutfifteen feet in. '

The other boys had now joined their mates. Each on his way down hadgravely followed the example of Jacker, who was supposed to be the bossof the incoming shift. As the fathers labour their sons play, and formonths these boys had been digging in this old mine, off and on, withenthralling mystery. The excavation in which Dick and Ted were seatedrepresented the joint labour of the members of the Mount of GoldQuartz-mining Company, though the very existence of the mine was unknownto a single soul outside the juvenile syndicate. 

On the surface all signs of the shaft had long since been obliterated. The quarrymen blasting into the side of the hill years back had made asmall opening into the disused pit at some distance from the top, andthis opening was accidentally discovered by Dick and Jacker one dayduring a hunt for a wounded rabbit. Investigation proved the mine to beof no great depth, and, thanks to the pumps of the Silver Stream, as dryas a bone. A company of reliable small boys was formed with exceedingcaution and a fine observance of rule and precedent; for Dick Haddon didnothing by halves, and forgot nothing that might give an air of realityto the creations of his exuberant fancy. 

The original intention of the Mount of Gold Quartz-mining Company was tostrike a reef five yards wide, composed entirely of gold, and tooverwhelm its various parents with contrition on account of pastlambastings by making them suddenly rich beyond the dreams of Orientalavarice. Time had served to dim the ardour of its hopes in thisdirection; but the mine was still an enticing enterprise when excitingnovelties in the way of adventure were wanting, and would always be ahiding-place in which a youthful fugitive from injustice might defy allauthority so long as the members of the Company remained true to theiroath. Now that oath was quite the most solemn and impressive thing of thekind that Dick Haddon and Phil Doon had been able to discover afterconsulting the highest literary authorities. 

The quarrel between Dick and Jacker McKnight that originated under theschool was quite forgotten in the resulting excitement. It was a mereincident in any case, and would have made no material difference in theirfriendship. It had not kept Jacker from visiting the Mount of Gold on thesame night with information and supplies, and now the boy was cheerfullyunconscious of the black eye that still ornamented his broad visage. There were two well-worn shovels and a miner's pick in the drive. Jackerseized the pick. 

'Might as well put in a bit of work, ' he said. 

'Hold hard, ' replied Dick, 'Smoke-ho, old man. What's goin' on on top?'

'Whips! They had a meetin' about youse last night--Jo, an' Rogers, an' mydad, an' ole Tinribs, an' the rest. They're all after you. You're fairlyin fer it. '

Dick's face became radiant with magnificent ideas. 

'What! You don't mean they're goin' t' form a band t' capture us?'

'Well, they sorter agreed about somethin' like that. '

'My word, that's into our hands, ain't it? Lemme see, we must be a bandof bushrangers what's robbed the gold escort an' the mounted p'lice'rehuntin' us in the ranges. I'll be--yes, I'll be Morgan. An' Ted--!What'll we make Ted? I know--I know. He'll be my faithful black boy, what'll rather die than leave me. You fellers bring a cork to-morrow, an'we'll pretty quick make a faithful black boy of Twitter. '

All eyes were turned upon Ted, who did not seem in the least impressed bythe magnificent prospect. Indeed, the faithful native was palpably out ofsorts; he took no part in the enthusiasm of his mates, his face was pale, and funk was legible in the diffident eye he turned upon the company. Dick noted this and put in an artful touch or two. 

'Jacky-Jacky, the faithful black boy, ' he said; 'brave as a lion, an' thebest shot in the world--better'n me!

The ruse was not successful. Ted failed to respond. 

'Twitter don't seem to want to be no black boy, ' said Phil. 

'I'll be Jacky-Jacky, ' volunteered Peterson eagerly. 

Peterson was a stolid youth with a face like a wooden doll; absolutelyreliable since he was as stubborn under adult rule as a whole team ofunbroken bullocks, and quite reckless of consequences for the reason thathe never anticipated them. Peterson would have made a most successfulJacky-Jacky, but his suggestion was overlooked in the general concerninspired by Ted's conduct. 

Feeling the eyes of the party upon him, Ted grew more uneasy, the cornersof his mouth drew down, one finger went up slowly, and Twitter began tosnivel. 

'I--I--w--wa--want to go home, ' he said. 

The mates looked at each other in amazement. Ted was little, but hispluck had been tried on many occasions, and this was a great surprise. 

'Well, he's on'y a kiddy, ' said Phil pityingly, and with the superioritytwo years may confer. 

Dick found the three were looking to him for an explanation. 

'Ted's real scared, ' he said. 'We made a discovery this afternoon--inthere. '

'In the big drive?' asked Jacker. The others looked startled. 

Dick nodded, and took up the candle. 'Come an' see, ' he said. 

Dick led the way along the opposite drive, and his mates followed, nottoo eagerly, Ted bringing up the rear. The drive was about eighty feet inextent. Having reached the end, Dick held the candle low, and madevisible to his wondering mates a black cavity about eighteen inches indiameter in one corner near the floor. 

'We were workin' in here a bit for a change this afternoon after Peetreehunted us, an' I broke through. '

'What's in there?' asked Jacker in an awed voice. 

'Look, ' said Dick. 

Jacker backed away; the other three kept a respectful distance and staredsilently. 

'It's on'y another drive, ' Dick explained. 'It must come from the RedHand, I think. '

Dick was quite undisturbed, but the others were afraid, and even whenthey had returned to their own drive cast many doubting glances back intothe darkness. In the mine as they had known it before everything wasdefinite, and there was nothing of which a boy of spirit need be afraid. The shaft was choked with dirt a few feet below their landing-planks, andthere was no spot in which a mystery might lurk; but it was verydifferent now with that black hole leading Heaven knew into what awesomedepths, harbouring goodness knew what horrors. Ted's defection hadsuddenly become the sentiment of the majority. At that moment Dick couldhave counted on Peterson alone had need arisen. 

'We'll go down there an' explore them workin's, ' said Dick, having lit apiece of dry root and composed himself for a smoke. 

'In the daytime, Morgan, ' said Jacker hastily and with diffidence. 

'All right; but it don't make no difference down here, you know. '

Jacker thought it did, for although it was always night in the drives, the consciousness that the earth above was flooded with sunlight was agreat heartener. 

'Don't you think you'd best give this up for once--this bushranger game?'ventured Jacker. 

'Why?' Dick's eyes were round with surprise. 

'Oh, well, Twitter's jack of it, an' I don't think it's much fun. ' Jackerhad assumed a careless air. 'See here, Dick, ' he continued smartly, 'theCow Flat chaps made a raid last night, an' took Butts an' threeothers--mine among 'em. '

This was an important matter. Butts was Dick's big grey billygoat, thebest goat in harness the boys had ever known or ever heard of; and the'Cow Flat chaps' were the boys of a small centre about two miles and ahalf further down the creek, between whom and the boys of Waddy thereexisted an interminable feud that led them to fight on sight, and stealsuch of each other's possessions as could be easily and expeditiouslyremoved. Dick's excitement soon evaporated; evidently root smoking wasconducive to a philosophical frame of mind. 

'We'll get them back all right--after, ' he said. 

'They'll work Butts to a shadder, ' Jacker remarked insinuatingly. 

'Then we'll go down some night, an' strip Amson's garden. ' Amson was aprominent resident of Cow Flat, and had nothing whatever to do with thegoat raid, but the boyish sense of justice does not stoop to finddistinctions. 

Jacker Mack had another string to his bow. 'They say Harry Hardy's comin'home this week, ' he said. 

'No!' cried Dick, much moved. 'Who says?'

'Gable says. '

'Pooh! Gable's a kid. '

'No matter, it's true. Mrs. Hardy had a letter, 'n Harry's coming downwith cattle. '

'Gosh! he'll make it hot for Tinribs, I bet. '

Waddy had been waiting for Harry Hardy to come home, confident that hewould do something of an exciting character to the disadvantage of thosepersons who had been instrumental in sending his brother Frank to gaol. Harry was much the younger of the two brothers; for some years he hadbeen away droving, and the news of his brother's misfortune was bringinghim home from a Queensland station. The township thought, too, therewould be a score to wipe out on his mother's account, and the return waslooked for as an important public event. 

Dick pondered over the situation for a moment. It would never do to missany entertainment that might result from Harry's return, and yet therewas Joel Ham still to be reckoned with. 

'I think we'd better wait, ' he said. 'You fellows can let on as soon's hearrives. '

Ted's face fell again, and Jacker moved uneasily. He was anxious to beout of the mine and away from the uncanny possibilities of that darkchasm, and yet it was absolutely necessary that he should show no sign offunk, leave no opening for the tongue of derision. Some day, perhaps, when the full strength of the company was available and candles werenumerous, he would follow Dick's lead in the work of exploration, but forthe present his whole desire was to get to the surface. Now recollectioncame, and with it hope. Diving into his breast pocket, he drew andcrumpled envelope, and handed it to Dick. 

A letter, ' he said, 'from your mother. '

Dick was surprised; as he took the note Jacker discovered an accusationin his eye. 

'The oath don't say nothin' agin' letters, ' said McKnight sullenly. 

'No, ' answered his mate, 'but really miners ain't supposed to havemothers runnin' after 'em, like if they were kids. '

'Well, ' said the other, on the defensive, 'your mother comes to me atdinner time, an' she says: 'I s'pose 'taint likely you'll see my Dick, Jacker. ' I said, ' No, Missus Haddon, 'taint, s'elp me. ' Then she says, 'Well, if he should come to see you, will you give him this?' So I tookit, an' there you are. '

Dick read the letter slowly; it was a very artful letter, most pathetic, and sprinkled with drops which might have been tears. The writer spokedespondingly of her loneliness and her desolation, and the fears sheendured when by herself in the house at night, knowing there was a campof blacks in the corner paddock, and so many rough cattlemen about. Shewas entirely helpless since her only protector had deserted her, and shesupposed that it only remained for her to be resigned to her fate. Shesigned her self, 'Your forsaken and sorrow-stricken mother. '

When Dick had finished reading he started to put on his clothes. 

'What's up, Morgan?' asked Phil. 

'Knock off!' was the brief reply. 

'But what yer goin' to do?'

'I'm goin' home. '

'Home!' cried Peterson. 'Why?'

'Because!'

Dick had the instincts of a leader; he demanded reasons for everything, but gave none. 

Before the lads parted that night young Haddon proffered Ted McKnightexcellent advice. 

'Your dad's night shift, ain't he?' he said. 'Well, don't you go in tillnear twelve. He'll be gone to work then, an' when he comes off in themornin' he'll be too tired to lick you much. ' This, from an orphan withpractically no experience of paternal rule, argued a fine intuition. 

CHAPTER V. 

DICK HADDON did not enter his home immediately after parting with hismates. Mrs. Haddon's little cottage, four roomed, with a queer skillionfront, was surrounded by a tumbled mass of tangled vegetation miscalled agarden, and Dick loitered in the shadow of the back fence to considerwhat manner of entrance would be most politic. He was shrewdly aware thathis mother might be tempted to make an attack on the impulse of themoment, her most pathetic letter notwithstanding, and it was a point ofhonour with him to offer no resistance and make no evasion when Mrs. Haddon felt called upon to administer corporal punishment. To be sure thematernal beatings occasioned very little physical inconvenience; but theygave rise to much unpleasantness, and were to be avoided when possible. 

As it happened, Dick was not put to the necessity of making a choiceto-night. In the midst of his cogitations he felt himself seized frombehind in a pair of long, strong arms. With the quick instinct of awrongdoer he suspected evil, and kicked sharply back ward at the shins ofthe enemy. 

'Le' go! You le' me go, see!' gasped the boy, struggling and fightingfiercely. 

Resistance was quite useless. Dick was dragged through the gate, and upto the house. The door was opened, and he was bundled unceremoniouslyinto the kitchen. Then Ephraim Shine--for it was the superintendent whohad fallen upon Dick in the darkness--thrust his sparsely-whiskered, leathery face into the well-lighted room, and said shortly:

'Your boy, ma'am!'

Shine withdrew instantly, closing the door noiselessly after him, andleft Dick flushed and furious. 

'He didn't take me, ' he cried. 'I was comin' home, an' he grabbed me justoutside there--the beast!

Dick stopped short, suddenly conscious of the presence of visitors. Mrs. Hardy was sitting opposite his mother by the wide fireplace--the tall, white-haired gentlewoman in whose society he always felt himselftransformed suddenly into a sort of saintly fellowship with theremarkably gentlemanly little boys whose acquaintance he made in thebooks provided by the chapel library. At the table sat Gable, the grey, chubby-faced third-class scholar whom Joel Ham had forgiven because ofhis extreme youth. The old man had a circular slab of bread and jam inhis left hand, and was grinning fraternally at Dick. There was a thirdvisitor, a stranger, a brown-haired, brown-skinned, bony young man, dressed after the manner of a drover. He had a small moustache, and agrave, taking face. He looked like a bushranger, Dick thought admiringly. 

'This is Richard, Henry, ' said Mrs. Hardy. 

'You don't know me, eh, Coppertop?' said the young man, taking the boy'shand. 

'Harry Hardy, ' said Dick at random. 

'Well, that's a good enough guess, young fellow

Dick fell back quietly. It was, he felt, a moment when an air of sadnessand a retiring disposition would be likely to be most becoming inhim--and most effective. He declined his mother's invitation to supperwith such meekness that the little woman found it difficult to hide herconcern. Could she have peeped into the drive of the Mount of Gold, wherewas scrap-food enough to victual a small regiment, not to mention pillagefrom Wilson's orchard, she might have been more at her ease--or havefound fresh occasion for uneasiness. Dick had none of his mother'sapple-like roundness--the widow, who was not yet thirty-five, alwayssuggested apples and roses--he had inherited his father's flame-colouredhair, and a pale complexion that was very effective in turning awaymaternal wrath when allied with an appearance of pensive melancholy and afictitious pain in the chest. 

The conversation, which had been interrupted by Dick's entrance, waspresently resumed. The women were recounting the story of Frank Hardy'sarrest and trial for Harry's information. The subject was one of profoundinterest to Dick, and from his retreat at the far end of the table, wherehe sat disregarded, his crimes tacitly ignored for the time being, helistened eagerly. When Gable kicked him to attract his attention, andgleefully exhibited a handful of loaf sugar that he had slyly abstractedfrom the basin, the small boy frowned the old man down with a diabolicalscowl. 

Gable was Mrs. Hardy's brother, and although over sixty years of age, hismind had remained the mind of a child; mentally, he never grew beyond hiseighth year. He was a child in all his ways and wishes, was happiest inthe society of children, and was regarded by them, without question andwithout surprise, as one of themselves. He was sent to school because itpleased him to go, and it kept him out of mischief, and every day helearned over again the lessons he had learned the day before andforgotten within an hour. His admiration for Dick Haddon was profound, the respect and appreciation the boy of eight has for the big brother whois twelve and smokes. 

Abashed by Dick's frown, the old man devoted himself humbly to his'piece, ' and the boy gave his whole attention to the conversation. He waseager to get an inkling of Harry's line of action. For his own part hehad thought of a desperate band, with Harry at its head and himself in aconspicuous position, raiding the gaol at Yarraman under a hail ofbullets, and bearing off the prisoner in triumph; but experience hadtaught him that the expedients of grown-up people were apt to bedisgustingly common place and ludicrously ineffective. 

'If he'd an enemy, ' said Harry, 'there'd be something to go on. Was therenobody, no one at all, that he'd had any row with--nobody who hated him?'

Mrs. Haddon shook her head. 

'Nobody, ' she said. 'But he declared the real thieves had done it, eitherto shift suspicion or to be rid of him. He thought it a disgrace that allthe men at the Stream should be marked as probable thieves because of oneor two rogues; an' he was always eager to spot the real robbers. It wasknown gold-stealin' had been goin' on for some time. That's why they puton the searcher. '

'Shine. Mightn't he have had a finger in it?'

'No, no. It doesn't seem likely. Why should he?'

'I can't say. God knows! But there is somebody. If I only knew theman--if I only had him under my hand!

Harry's face became grey through the tan; he sat forward in his chair, with a sinewy arm thrust down between his knees, and his hand closed asif upon a throat. His mother touched his shoulder. 

'Violence can only work mischief, my boy. Use what intelligence youhave--only that can help. If we can save poor Frank and clear his name, we may leave vengeance to the law. '

'Yes, mother, you are right, but I am no saint. I hate my enemies, an' itis maddening not to know who you hate--who to hit at. '

'That may be so, Henry, but passion will only blind you. If you are notcool you will fail. Remember, the true culprits may be near you while youare seeking; do nothing to set them on their guard. You may learn muchfrom the men. They are all Frank's friends, even those who believe himguilty. '

'Believe him guilty!

'O, my boy, my boy! You would want to fight them all. It is folly. Theevidence did not leave room for a doubt as to his guilt, and these menhave their own ideas as to the morality of such crimes. Many of themthink none the worse of a man who helps himself to a nugget that he mayfind on his shovel. '

'An' you are the mother of a thief, I am a thief's brother; Frank is aconvict, an' we must grin an' gammon we like it. '

'We must be discreet, we must be cunning, if we wish to prove we are nothieves and no kin to thieves. '

'Right you are, mother--always right. ' The young man spread his rough, brown hand caressingly upon the small hand upon his knee. 'My fist alwaysmoves before my head, but I know your way is best, an' I don't mean toforget it. '

'Ephraim Shine seemed to be tryin' to do his best for Frank at thetrial, ' said Mrs. Haddon. 'I think he's a well-meanin' man, if he is abit near an' peculiar in his ways. He always says it was his duty he did, an' that's true. We know Frank's not guilty, because--because we're fondof him'--here the little widow wiped her eyes, and her voice trembled--'an' know him better than others, but the case was black against him. Frank came straight up from below and into the searcher's shed, an' Shinefound the gold in his crib bag, which was rolled up, an' forced under thehandle of his billy. '

'Where it'd been for half the shift, the billy hanging in a dark drivewhere any man below might 'a 'got at it. '

'They found gold in a little box-place made in the heel of one of hisworkin' boots. '

'A boot that was always left in the boiler-house when he was off work. 

'He had sold coarse water-worn gold to a Jew at Yarraman. '

'Yes, I know, I know. Got, he said, fossicking down the creek wherenobody had ever won anything but fine gold before. Whoever put that goldin his crib bag an' faked his boot-heel salted Frank's puddling-tub. Itwas easy done. He on'y worked there now'n again when on night orafternoon shift, an' it was open to anyone. It was salted with SilverStream gold by some double-damned cunning scoundrel. '

'We know it, Harry, and we have to prove it. To do that we must have allour wits about us. '

'Yes, mother, we must; but if that man ever is found I hope I may havethe handling of him. Dick!' said the young man, turning suddenly. 

Dick came forward somewhat diffidently, like a detected criminal. 

'You know all about this business, eh?'

The boy nodded his head solemnly. 

'Who do you think worked that dirty trick on my brother?' asked Harrygravely. 

Dick had not thought of the matter in that light, but he answered, without hesitation:

'Ole Tinribs, I expect. '

'Dickie!' cried Mrs. Haddon, reprovingly. 

'Why, why, Dick?' queried the young man. 

Oh, I dunno; on'y he seems that sort, don't he?' Dick had been subjectedto a grave indignity at the hands of the superintendent, and was not in aframe of mind to form a just estimate of the character of that good man. He spoke with the cheerful irresponsibility of youth. 

'I'm afraid you won't be much good to us, Copper-top, old man, if yourush at conclusions in that desperate way, ' said Harry. 

Mrs. Hardy shook an impressive forefinger at the boy. 

'You will say nothing to anybody of our intentions, Richard. '

'No, ' said Dick simply; but that word given to Mrs. Hardy was a sacredoath, steel-bound and clamped. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE school-ground next morning at nine o'clock showed little of its usualactivity. Most of the boys were gathered near Sam Brierly's Gothicportico, now in unpicturesque ruins and hanging limply to the schoolfront like an excrescence. Here Richard Haddon and Edward McKnight werestanding in attitudes of extreme unconcern, heroes and objects ofrespectful admiration, but nevertheless inwardly ill at ease andpossessed with sore misgivings. Some of their mates were offering sageadvice on a matter that concerned them most nearly: how to take cuts froma cane so as to receive the least possible amount of hurt. Peterson wasfull of valuable information. 

'See, you stan' so, ' he said, giving rather a good imitation of anunhappy scholar in the act of receiving condign punishment, 'holdin' yerhand like this, you know, keepin' yer eye on Jo; an' jes' when his nibscomes down you shoves yer hand forwards, that sort, an' it don't hurt fersour apples. '

'Don't cut no more'n nothin' at all, ' added the boy 'who was calledMoonlight, in cheerful corroboration. 

Ted, who was very pale, and had a hunted look in his eyes, nodded hishead hopefully, and rehearsed the act with pathetic gravity. 

The little girls, who should have been at the other end of the ground, clustered at the corner and peeped round the portico, some giggling, others fully seized of the gravity of the situation. Dick in spite of hisfine air of sang froid was well aware that there was one little girlthere, a pretty little girl of about ten, with brown hair and darkserious eyes, who was suffering keenest apprehensions on his behalf, andwho would weep with quite shameless abandonment when it came to his turnto endure the torments Mr. Joel Ham knew so well how to inflict. Dick wasrather superior to little girls; his tender sentiment was usuallylavished on ladies ten or twelve years his senior; but he could not hidefrom himself the fact that Kitty Grey's affection, however hopeless itmight be, was at times most gratifying. Once he had resented itsmanifestations with bitterness, imagining that they were likely to bringhim into contempt and undermine his authority; and when she interfered inhis memorable fight with Bill Cole and fiercely attacked his opponentwith a picket, cutting his head and incapacitating him for fighting forthe rest of the day, he felt that he could never forgive her. She hadviolated the rule of battle and outraged the noble principle of fairplay; and, worse and worse, had disgraced him in the eyes of the world bymaking him appear as a weakling seeking protection behind a despisedpetticoat. He reviled Kitty for that action in such overwhelming languagethat the poor girl fled in tears, and next day it was only with thegreatest difficulty that she persuaded him to accept two pears and ablood-alley as a peace offering. 

Dolf Belman came later with a little comfort. 

'Gotter junk o' rosum, ' he said, fumbling in his school-bag. 

'Hoo! have you though?' said Parrot Cann. 'Rosum's great. Put some on myhand oust when I went to ole Pepper's school at Yarraman, an' near diedlaughin' when he gave me twenty cuts fer copy-in' me sums. '

The boys clustered about Dolf, who produced a piece of resin about thesize of a hen's egg, and waved it triumphantly. 

'You pound it up wif a rock, ' said he confidently, 'an' rub it on yerhands. '

The pounding process was begun at once, amidst a babel of opinions. Itwas a fond illusion amongst the boys that resin so applied deadened theeffects of the cane. It had been tried scores of times without in theleast mitigating the agony of Ham's cuts, but the faith of youth is noteasily shaken; so Ted's spirits revived wonderfully, and Dick developed akeen interest in the pounding. Dolf pulverised the 'rosum, ' declaringthat it should be powdered in one particular way which was a great secretknown only to a happy few. If it were powdered in any other way, theresin lost its efficacy as a protection, and might even aggravate thepain. Several boys volunteered testimony in support of Dolf's claim, telling of the strange immunity they had enjoyed on various occasionsafter applying the resin, and Peter Queen distinctly remembered 'a fellerup to Clunes' who, by a judicious use of the powder, was enabled to defyall authority and preserve an attitude of hilarious derision under themost awful tortures. 

'This here cove he useter have hisself rubbed all over wif rosum everymornin', then he'd go to school an' kick up ole boots. What'd he care? Myword, he was a terror!'

Dolf took up the theme, and enlarged upon the virtues of resin, particularly that resin of his, which was the very best kind of resin forthe purpose and had been specially commended by an old swaggie with oneeye, who gave it to him for a four-bladed knife and a clay pipe. So greatwas the effect of these representations that before Dick and Ted hadtransferred the powder to their pockets they had become objects of envyrather than commiseration, and one or two of their mates would gladlyhave changed places with them on the spot. 

'Wouldn't care if I was in fer it, 'stead o' you, Dick, ' said Peterson. 'Mus' be an awful lark to have Hamlet layin' it on, an' you not feelin'it all the time. '

'My oath I' said Jacker Mack feelingly. 

'Good morning, boys. '

Joel Ham, B. A. , had stolen in amongst them, and stood there in an oddcrow-like attitude, his mottled face screwed into an expression ofquizzical amiability, and his daily bottle sticking obtrusively from theinside lining of his old coat. The lads scattered sheepishly. 

'Peterson, ' he said, blinking his pale lashes a dozen times in rapidsuccession, 'the boy who thinks he can outwit his dear master is anegotist, and egotism, Peterson, is the thing which keeps us fromprofiting by the experiences of other fools. '

'I dunno what yer talkin' about, ' answered Peter son, with heavyresentment. 

Mr. Ham blinked again for nearly half a minute. 

'Of course not, ' he said, 'of course not, my boy. ' Then he turned to Dickand Ted with quiet courtesy. 'Good morning, Richard. Good morning, Edward. '

Ted, who was painfully conscious of the large ink-splashes on themaster's white trousers, kicked awkwardly at a buried stone, but Dickreplied cheerily enough. 

The attitude of the master throughout that morning was quite inexplicableto the scholars; he made no allusion whatever to the crimes of which Dickand Ted had been guilty, and gave no hint that he harboured anyintentions that were not entirely generous and friendly. The twoculprits, working with quite astounding assiduity, were beset withconflicting emotions. Dick, who had a vague sort of insight into themaster's character, was prepared for the worst, and yet not blind to thepossibility of a free pardon. Ted, after the first hour, was joyous andover-confident. 

Mr. Peterson called during the morning and conferred with Joel for a fewminutes. The gaping school knew what that meant, and awaited the out comewith the most anxious interest. Mr. Peterson, a six-foot Dane, anengine-driver at the Stream, and Billy's father, was volunteering forservice in case Mr. Ham should need assistance in dealing with the twoculprits; but Joel sent him away, and the boys breathed freely again. Their confidence in Dolf's 'rosum' did not leave them quite blind to theadvantages of an amicable settlement of their little difference with Mr. Ham. 

It was not until the boys were marching out for the dinner hour, satisfied at last all was well, that Joel seemed suddenly to recollect, and he called after Ted, blighting the poor youth's new-born happinessand filling his small soul with a great apprehension. 

'Teddy, ' he called, 'you will remain, my boy. I have private businesswith you--private and confidential, Teddy. '

So Ted fell out and stood by the wall, a very monument of dejection. 

When school met again the scholars noted that the ink-stains had beencarefully washed and scraped from the wall and the floor, and they foundTed McKnight sprawling in his place, his head buried in his arms, dumband unapproachable. If a mate came too close, moved by curiosity or adesire to offer sympathy, Ted lashed out at him with his heels. For thetime being he was a small but cankered misanthrope full of vengefulschemes, and only one person in the whole school envied him. That personwas Richard Haddon, whose turn was yet to come. 

An hour passed and Dick had received no hint of the trouble in store. Then Joel Ham, prowling along the desks, inspecting a task, stoppedbefore the boy and stood eyeing him with the curiosity with which anentomologist might regard a rare grub, clawing his thin whiskers thewhile. The interest he felt was apparently of the most friendlydescription. 

'Ah, Ginger, ' he said, 'I had almost forgotten that I am still yourdebtor. This way, Ginger, please. '

He stood Dick on his high stool, carefully tied the boy's ankles with astrap, and gave him a large slate, on which his faults were emblazoned inchalk, to hold up for the inspection of the classes; and so he left himfor the remainder of the afternoon, every now and again pausing in hisvicinity to deliver some incomprehensible sentiment or a sarcastichomily. This performance affected all the scholars, but it excited Gableso much that the little old man could do nothing but sit and stare atDick with round eyes and open mouth, and mutter 'Oh, crickie!' in afrightened way. The little dark-eyed girl in the Third Class bore theordeal badly, too, and every speech of the master's started a large tearrolling down her dimpled brown cheek. 

When the rest of the youngsters marched out, Dick Haddon remained on hishigh perch. Kitty Grey, who brought up the tail of the procession, turnedat the door and walked back to the master timorously and with downcasteyes; and Dick felt that a plea was to be made on his behalf, but couldnot hear what followed. 

'Please, sir, if you won't cane him very much I'll give you this, ' saidKitty. 

The bribe was a small brooch that had originally contained the letters ofthe little girl's first name. It was a very cheap brooch when new, andnow some of the letters were gone and the gilt was worn off, but it wasstill a priceless treasure in Kitty's eyes. Joel Ham examined the gift, and then looked down upon the petitioner, his face pulled sideways intoits familiar withered grin. 

Do you know this is bribery, little Miss Grey, ' he said, 'bribery andcorruption?'

Ye-es, please, sir, ' said Kitty. 

'And do you know that that fellow up there is a monster of infamy, arebel and a riotous blackguard, who must be repressed in the interests ofpeace and good government?'

'Yes, please, sir; but--but he's only a little fellow. ' The master'stremendous words seemed to call for this reminder. 

Joel screwed his grin down another wrinkle or two. 

'Yet you intercede for the ruffian try to buy him off, and at avaluation, too, that proves you to be deaf to the voice of reason andutterly improvident. '

'Oh, Mr. Ham, he didn't mean it--really, he didn't mean it!

Joel screwed out another wrinkle. His mirth always increased wrinkle bywrinkle, until at times it appeared as if he were actually going to screwhis own neck by sheer force of repressed hilarity. 

'I am incorruptible, Miss Grey, ' he said. 'Take back your precious jewel;but I promise you this, my dear, our friend Dick shall not get as much ashe deserves. Boys are like some metals, Miss Kitty, their temper isimproved by hammering. '

Kitty left the master, entirely in the dark as to the effect of herintercession; but evidently it was not of much advantage to Dick. Whenthe boy came from the school about half an hour later, he carried hischin high, his lips were compressed tightly, and he stared straightahead. Three faithful friends who had waited to know the worst joinedhim, but no words were spoken. They followed at his heels, showing bytheir silence due respect for a profound emotion. Dick did not make forhome; he turned off to the right and led the way down into one of thelarge quarries on the flat, and there turned a flushed face and a pair offlashing eyes upon his mates. 

'I'm going to have it out of Ham, ' he said. 'I don't care! He's a dog, and he ain't goin' to do as he likes with me. '

'How many, Dick?' asked Ted eagerly. 

'Dunno, ' said Dick, exposing his hands; 'he jus' cut away till he wastired, chi-ikin' me all the time. But I'll get even, you see!'

Dick's palms were very puffy; there were a couple of blue blisters on hisfingers, and across each wrist an angry-looking white wheal. The boyswere sufficiently impressed, and, in spite of his wrath against Joel Ham, Dicky could not resist a certain gratification on that account. Boys takemuch pride in the sufferings they have borne, and their scars are alwaysexhibited with a grave conceit. Ted displayed his hands, still betrayingevidence of the morning's caning, and Jacker Mack spoke feelingly ofstripes and bruises remaining since Tuesday. Peterson was the only onequite free from mark or brand of the master's, and he recollected manythrashings with extreme bitterness, and was quite in sympathy with theparty. 

'What say if we give him a scare?' said Dick. 'Are you on?'

Jacker and Ted were dubious. It was too sudden; their recent experienceshad made them unusually respectful of the master. Dick marked thehesitation, and said scornfully:

'Oh, you fellows needn't be afraid. You won't be let in for it. I know atrick that's quite safe--bin thinkin' about it all the afternoon. '

If Dick were quite sure it was safe, and if there were not the smallestpossible chance of their complicity being disclosed, Jacker and Ted werequite agreeable. Peterson was always agreeable for adventure, howeverabsurd. Dick explained:

'Hamlet's gone down to the pub. He's sure to get screwed to-night. There's a fool feller there from McInnes, knockin' down a cheque an'shoutin' mad. Hamlet'll get his share in spite of all, an' he'll be astight as a brick by ten o'clock. You know my joey 'possum? Well, I'll fixhim up into the awfullest kind of a blue devil, with feathers an' things. We'll push him into Jo's room, and when Jo comes home an' strikes a lighthe'll spot him, an' think he's got delirious trimmens again. That'll givehim a shakin'. '

'My oath, won't it!' ejaculated Peterson. 

Jacker was elated, and grinned far and wide. 

'P'raps he'll go nippin' round, thinkin' he's chased by 'em like he didlas' Christmas holidays, ' suggested the elder McKnight gleefully. 

This villainous scheme was the result of the boys' extraordinaryfamiliarity with many phases of drunkenness. Waddy was a pastoral as wellas a mining centre, and strange ribald men came out of the bush atintervals to 'melt' their savings at the Drovers' Arms. The Yarramansale-yards for cattle and sheep were near Waddy too, and brought dustydrovers and droughty stockmen in crowds to the town ship every Tuesday. These men were indiscreet and indiscriminate drinkers, and often avagrant was left behind to finish a spree that surrounded him withunheard-of reptiles and strange kaleidoscopic animals unknown to thezoologist. It must be admitted, too, that Joel Ham, B. A. , was in ameasure responsible for the boys' unlawful knowledge. Twice at holidaytimes, when he was not restricted at the Drovers' Arms, he had continuedhis libations until it was necessary for his own good and the peace ofthe place to tie him down in his bunk and set a guard over him; and onone of these occasions he had created much excitement by rushing throughthe township at midnight, scantily clad, under the impression that he wasbeing pursued by a tall dark gentleman in a red cloak and possessed ofboth horns and hoofs. 

It was nearly nine o'clock that night when the four conspirators met tocarry out their nefarious project. Dick was carrying a bag--in which wasthe joey--a bull's-eye lantern, various coloured feathers, and othersmall necessaries, and the party hastened in the direction of Mr. Ham'shumble residence. Ham was 'a hatter'--he lived alone in a secluded placeon the other side of the quarries. The house was large for Waddy, and hadonce been a boarding-house, but was now little better than a ruin. Theschoolmaster had reclaimed one room, furnished it much like a miner'sbut, with the addition of a long shelf of tattered books, and here he'batched, ' perfectly contented with his lot for all that Waddy could everdiscover to the contrary. There was no other house within a quarter of amile of the ruin, which was hemmed in with four rows of wattles, andsurrounded by a wilderness of dead fruit-trees--victims to the ravages ofthe goats of the township--and a tangled scrub of Cape broom. The boysapproached the house with quite unnecessary caution, keeping along thestring of dry quarry-holes, and creeping towards the back door throughthe thick growth as warily as so many Indians on the trail. Dick Haddoncared nothing for an enterprise that had no flavour of mystery, and waswont to invest his most commonplace undertakings with a romanticsignificance. For the time being he was a wronged aboriginal king, leading the remnants of his tribe to wreak a deadly vengeance on thewhite usurper. A short conference was held in the garden. 

'We'll go into one o' the old rooms, an' fix the joey up there. Then wecan wait till Hamlet comes, if yonse fellows 're game, ' said Dick softly. 

'I'm on, ' whispered Peterson. 

'He won't be long, I bet. McKnight, 'r Belman, 'r some o' the others issure to roust him out when he's properly tight. Foller me. '

Dick led the way up to the door, pushed it open, and entered. The otherswere about to follow, but to their horror they saw a large figure startforward from the pitch darkness beyond, heard an oath and the sound of ablow, and saw Dick fall face downwards upon the floor. Then the door wasslammed from within, and the three terrorstricken boys turned and fled asfast as their legs would carry them. 

Dick lay upon the floor with outthrown arms, and the figure stood overhim in a listening attitude. 

'Good God! 'ye you killed him?' cried someone in the far corner of theroom. 

'Sh-h, you cursed fool!' hissed the big man. 

'Who is it?' asked the other tremulously. 

The big man seized Dick, and dragged him to where the grey moonlightshone through a shattered window. 

'Young Haddon, ' he said. 'Blast the boy! a man never knows where he willpoke his nose next. '

'The others 'ye gone?'

'Yes. They were on'y boys. '

'Didn't I tell you it wouldn't do to be meetin' in places like this? Nomore of it for me. They've been listenin', an' we're done men. We'll benabbed!'

'Shut up your infernal cackle! The boys hadn't any notion we was here. They had some lark on. They couldn't have seen us--we're all right. '

'If they saw us together it'd be enough. '

'But they couldn't, I tell you. Here, clear out, the boy's comin' round. Go the front way, an' make for the paddocks. I'll go up the gully. Lookslippy!'

A few seconds after the men had left the house Dick scrambled to hisfeet, and stood for a moment in a confused condition of mind, rubbing hisinjured head. Then he took up his hat and lantern, and stumbled from theroom. As yet he had only a vague idea of what had happened, and his headfelt very large and full of fly-wheels, as he expressed it later; but afew moments in the open air served to revive him. Along by the big quarryhe met his mates returning. After talking the matter over they had cometo the conclusion that the schoolmaster had got a hint of theirintention, and had lain in wait. They gathered about Dick, whose foreheadwas most picturesquely bedabbled with blood. 

'Crikey! Dick, ' cried the wondering Jacker, 'did he hammer you much?'

'Feel, ' said Dick, guiding one hand after another to a lump on his headthat increased his height by quite an inch. 

'Great Gosh!' murmured Peterson; 'ain't he a one-er? The beggar must 'a'tried to murder you. '

Dick nodded. 

'Yes, ' he said; 'but 'twasn't Hamlet. '

'Go on!' The boys looked back apprehensively. 

'No, 'twasn't. 'Twas a big feller. I dunno who; but he must 'a' bin abushranger, 'r a feller what's escaped from gaol, 'r someone. Did youcoves see which way he went?'

'No, ' said Ted fearfully; and a simultaneous move was made towards thetownship. The boys were not cowards, but they had plenty of discretion. 

'Look here, ' Dick continued impressively; 'no matter who 'twas, we'vegotter keep dark, see. If we don't it'll be found out what we was all upto, an' we'll get more whack-o. '

The party was unanimous on this point; and when Dick returned home heshocked his mother with a lively account of how he slipped in the quarryand fell a great depth, striking his head on a rock, and being saved fromdeath only by the merest chance imaginable. 

CHAPTER VII. 

The small, wooden Wesleyan chapel at Waddy was perched on an eminence atthe end of the township furthest from the Drovers' Arms. The chapel, according to the view of the zealous brethren who conducted it, represented all that counted for righteousness in the township, and theDrovers' Arms the head centre of the powers of evil. For verbalconvenience in prayer and praise the hotel was known as 'The Sink ofIniquity, ' and the chapel as 'This Little Corner of the Vineyard, ' andthrough the front windows of the latter, one sabbath morn after anotherfor many years, lusty Cornishmen, moved by the spirit, had hurled downupon McMahon and his house strident and terrible denunciations. 

Materially the chapel had nothing in common with a vineyard; it was builtupon arid land as bare and barren as a rock; not even a blade of grassgrew within a hundred yards of its doors. The grim plainness of the olddrab building was relieved only by a rickety bell-tower so stuffed withsparrows' nests that the bell within gave forth only a dull and mufflednote. The chapel was surrounded with the framework of a fence only, sothe chapel ground was the chief rendezvous of all the goats of Waddy--andthey were many and various. They gathered in its shade in the summer andsought its shelter from the biting blast in winter, not always contentwith an outside stand; for the goats of Waddy were conscious of theirimportance, and of a familiar and impudent breed. Sometimes a matronlynanny would climb the steps, and march soberly up the aisle in the midstof one of Brother Tregaskis's lengthy prayers; or a haughty billy, imposing as the he-goat of the Scriptures, would take his stand withinthe door and bay a deep, guttural response to Brother Spence; or two orthree kids would come tumbling over the forms and jumping and bucking inthe open space by the wheezy and venerable organ, spirits of thoughtlessfrivolity in the sacred place. 

It was Sunday morning and the school was in. The classes were arranged intheir accustomed order, the girls on the right, the boys on the left, against the walls; down the middle of the chapel the forms were empty;nearest to the platform on either hand of Brother Ephraim Shine, thesuperintendent, were the Sixth Class little boys and girls, the latterpainfully starched and still, with hair tortured by many devices intodamp links or wispy spirals that passed by courtesy for curls. Verysilent and submissive were little girls of Class VI. , impressed by thelong, lank superintendent in his Sunday black, and believing in manywonders secreted above the dusty rafters or in the wide yellow cupboards. The first classes were nearest the door. The young ladies, if we makereasonable allowance for an occasional natural preoccupation induced bytheir consciousness of the proximity of the young men, were devotedstudents of the gospel a interpreted by Brother Tresize, and sufficientlysaintly always, presuming that no disturbing element such as a new hat oran unfamiliar dress was introduced to awaken the critical spirit. Theyoung men, looking in their Sunday clothes like awkward and tawdryimitations of their workaday selves, were instructed by Brother Spence;and Brother Bowden, being the kindliest, gentlest, most incapable man ofthe band of brothers, was given the charge of the boys' Second Class, aclass of youthful heathen, rampageous, fightable, and flippant, who madethe good man's life a misery to him, and were at war with all authority. Peterson, Jacker Mack, Dolf Belman, Fred Cann, Phil Doon, and DickHaddon, and a few kindred spirits composed this class; and it was sheerlust of life, the wildness of bush-bred boys, that inspired them withtheir irreverent impishness, although the brethren professed to discoverevidence of the direct influence of a personal devil. 

The superintendent arose from his stool of office and shuffled to theedge of the small platform, rattling his hymn-book for order. Ephraimnever raised his head even in chapel, but his cold, dull eyes, undertheir scrub of overhanging brow, missed nothing that was going on, as theyounger boys often discovered to their cost. 

'Dearly beloved brethren, we will open this morn-in's service with thatbeautiful hymn--'

Brother Shine stopped short. A powerful diversion had been created by theentrance of a young man. The new-corner was dressed like a drover, wearing a black coat over his loose blue shirt, and he carried in hisright hand a coiled stockwhip. His face had the grey tinge of wrath, andhis lips were set firm on a grim determination. He walked to a form wellup in front, and seated himself, placing his big felt hat on the floor, but retaining his grip on the whip hanging between his knees. 

Jacker Mack kicked Dick excitedly. 'Harry Hardy!' he said. 

Dick nodded but did not speak; he was staring with all his eyes, as wasevery man, woman, and child in the congregation. Harry Hardy had notfulfilled expectations; he had been home five days, and had done nothingto avenge his brother. He moved about amongst the men, but was reservedand grew every day more sullen. He had heard much and had answerednothing; and now here he was at chapel and evidently bent on mischief, for the stockwhip was ominous. Ephraim Shine had noticed it and retreateda step or two, and stood for quite a minute, turning his boot this wayand that, but with his eyes on Harry all the time. Now he cleared histhroat, and called the number of the hymn. He read the first verse andthe chorus with his customary unction, and, all having risen, started thesinging in a raspy, high-pitched voice. 

Harry Hardy stood with the rest, a solitary figure in the centre of thechapel, still holding the long whip firmly grasped in his right hand. Attention was riveted on him, and the singing of the hymn was a dismalfailure. The young man stared straight before him, seeing only onefigure, that of Ephraim Shine, until he felt a light touch on his arm. Someone was standing at his side, offering him the half of her hymn-book. Harry raised his hand to the leaves mechanically, and noticed that thehand on the other side was white and shapely, the wrist softly roundedand blue-veined. The voice that sounded by his side was low and musical. 

'Oh! Harry, what are you going to do?' His neighbour had ceased singing, and was whispering tremulously under cover of the voices of thecongregation. 

Harry's face hardened, and he set it resolutely towards the platform. 

'Don't you know me, Harry? I am Christina Shine. You remember Chris? Wewere school mates. '

His daughter! The young man let his left hand fall to his side. 

'Please don't. You have come to quarrel with father, but you won't do it, Harry? You saved my life once, when we were boy and girl. You willpromise me this?'

Harry Hardy answered nothing, and the pleading voice continued:

'For the sake of the days when we were friends, Harry, say you won't doit--you won't do it here, in--in God's house. '

'It was here, in God's house, he slandered my mother. ' The man's voicesounded relentless. 

'No, no, not that! He prayed for her. He did not mean it ill. '

'I have heard of his praying--how under the cover of his cant aboutsaving souls he scatters his old-womanish scandals an' abuses hisbetters. '

'He means well. Indeed, indeed, he means well. '

'An' he prays for my mother--him! Says she's bred up thieves because shedid not come here to learn better. Says she's an atheist because she doesnot believe in Ephraim Shine. He's said that, an' I'm here to make himeat his words. '

Harry's whispering was almost shrill in the heat of his passion, and thesinging of the hymn became faint and thin, so eager were the singers tocatch a word of that most significant conversation. Dick had not takenhis eyes off the pair, and already had woven a very pretty romance aboutChris and the young man. Christina Shine had only recently been raised tothe pedestal in his fond heart formerly occupied by an idol who hadbetrayed his youthful affections, disappointed his hopes, and outragedhis sense of poetical fitness. He espoused her cause with his whole soul, whatever it might be. 

The young woman in the stress of her fears had clasped Harry's arm, as ifto restrain him, and he felt the soft agitation of her gentle bosom witha new emotion that weakened his tense thews, and stirred the first doubt;but he fought it down. His revenge had become almost a necessity withinthe last three days. Nothing he had heard offered the faintest hope forhis brother's cause; he was baffled and infuriated by the generalunquestioning belief in Frank's guilt, and a dozen times had beencompelled to sit biting on his bitterness, when every instinct impelledhim to square up and teach the fools better with all the force of hispugilistic knowledge. Of late years he had been schooled in a class thataccepted 'a ready left' as the most convincing argument, and, beingbeyond the immediate province of law and order, repaired immediately withall its grievances to a twenty-four-foot 'ring' and an experiencedreferee. But whilst there was a little diffidence amongst the men inexpressing their opinions about Frank, there was no reserve when theycame to tell of Ephraim Shine's method of improving the occasion withprayer and preachment; and for a considerable time Harry had collectedbitterness till it threatened to choke him and bade him defy all hismother's cautious principles. 

Ephraim had given out the third verse, and the singing went on. 

'Are you thinking?' whispered the girl. 'Do, do think! Think of thedisgrace of it. '

'Disgrace! There's the disgrace whining on the platform, the brute thatinsults a woman in her sorrow, thinking there's no one handy to take itout of the coward hide of him!

'It was wrong, Harry. I know it was wrong and cruel. I told him that, andhe has promised me never to do it again. He has promised me that, really, truly. '

The word that slid through Harry's teeth was ferocious but inaudible. 

'Say you won't do it!

The singing ceased suddenly, and the superintendent, who all the time hadkept a lowering and anxious eye on the young couple, gave out the thirdverse again. 

'Harry, you will not. Please say it!

The hand holding the stockwhip stirred threateningly, and the hymn wasalmost lost in the agitation of the worshippers. Chris remained silent, and Harry, who had taken the book again, had shifted his stern eyes tothe slim white thumb beside his broad brown one. A stifled sob at hisside startled him, and he turned a swift glance upon the face of hiscompanion. That one glance, the first, left his brave resolution shakenand his spirit awed. 

Harry remembered Chris as a schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, alwaysrunning, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hairrarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangledsilk. She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft ofheart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as anunfortunate infirmity. She was tall still, taller than himself, withlarge limbs and a sort of manly squareness of the shoulders and erectnessof the figure, but neatly gowned, with little feminine touches of flowerand ribbon that belied the savour of unwomanliness in her size and herbearing. Her complexion was clear and fair, her abundant hair the colourof new wheat, her features were large, the nose a trifle aquiline, thechin square and, finely chiselled; the feminine grace was due to hereyes, large, grey, and almost infantile in expression. The people ofWaddy called her handsome, and no more tender term would suit; but theyknew that this fair girl-woman, who seemed created to dominate and mighthave been expected to carry things with a high hand everywhere, was inreality the simplest, gentlest, and most emotional of her sex. She lookedstrong and was strong; her only weakness was of the heart, and that was aprey to the sorrows of every human being within whose influence she camein the rounds of her daily life. 

Hardy was amazed; almost unconsciously he had pictured the grown-up Chrisan angular creature, lean, like her father, and resembling him greatly;and to find this tall girl, with the face and figure of a battle queen, tearfully beseeching where in the natural course of events she shouldhave been commanding haughtily and receiving humble obedience, filled himwith a nervousness he had never known before. Only pride kept him now. 

'Say you will go! Say it!'

Harry lowered his head, and remained silent. 

'Go now. Your action would pain your mother more than my father's wordshave done--I am sure of that. '

The hymn was finished, but Shine read out the last verse once more. Hisconcern was now obvious, and the congregation was wrought to anunprecedented pitch. Never had a hymn been so badly sung in that chapel. It was taken up again without spirit, a few quavering voices carrying iton regardless of time and tune. Chris had noted Harry's indecision. 

'Do not stay and shame yourself. Go, and you will be glad you did not dothis wicked thing. You are going. You will! You will!

He had stooped and seized his hat. He turned without a word or a glance, and strode from the chapel. The congregation breathed a great sigh, andas he passed out the chorus swelled into an imposing burst of song--apaean of triumph, Harry thought. 

Through the chapel windows the congregation could see Harry Hardystriding away in the direction of the line of bush. 

Christina, from her place amongst her girls, watched him till hedisappeared in the quarries; and so did Ephraim Shine, but with verydifferent feelings. Many of the congregation were disappointed. They hadexpected a sensational climax. Class II was inconsolable, and made notthe slightest effort to conceal its disgust, which lasted throughout theremainder of the morning and was a source of great tribulation to poorBrother Bowden. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

HARRY HARDY sought the seclusion of the bush, and there spent a verymiserable morning. He was forced to the conclusion that he had made afool of himself, and the thought that possibly that girl of Shine's wasnow laughing with the rest rankled like a burn and impelled many of thestrange oaths that slipped between his clenched teeth. The more hethought of his escapade the more ridiculous and theatrical it seemed. Itwas born of an impulse, and would have been well enough had he carriedout his intention; but, oh the ignominy of that retreat from the side ofthe grey-eyed, low-voiced girl under the gaze of the whole congregation!It would not bear thinking of, so he thought of it for hours, and swunghis whip-lash against the log on which he sat, and quite convincedhimself that he was hating Shine's handsome daughter with all thevehemence the occasion demanded. 

In many respects Harry was a very ordinary young man; bush life is awonderful leveller, and he had known no other. His father had been a manof education and talent, drawn from a profession in his earlier manhoodto the goldfields, who remained a miner and a poor man to the day of hisdeath. His wife was not able to induce their sons to aspire to anythingabove the occupations of the class with which they had always associated, so they were miners and stockmen with the rest. But the young men, evenas boys, noticed in their mother a refinement and a clearness ofintellect that were not characteristic of the women of Waddy; and out ofthe love and veneration they bore her grew a sort of family pride--arespect for their name that was quite a touch of old-worldly conceit inthis new land of devil-may-care, and gave them a certain distinction. Itwas this that served largely to make the branding of Frank Hardy as athief a consuming shame to his brother. Harry thought of it less as awrong to Frank than as an outrage to his mother. It was this, too, thatmade the young man burn to take the Sunday School superintendent by thethroat and lash him till he howled himself dumb in his own chapel. 

Harry returned to his log in Wilson's back paddock again in the afternoonto wrestle with his difficulties, and, with the gluttonous rosellasswinging on the gum-boughs above, set himself to reconsider all that hehad heard of Frank's case and all the possibilities that had sinceoccurred to him. Here Dick Haddon discovered him at about four o'clock. Dick was leading a select party at the time, with the intention ofreconnoitring old Jock Summers's orchard in view of a possible invasionat an early date; but when he saw Harry in the distance he immediatelyabandoned the business in hand. An infamous act of desertion like thiswould have brought down contempt upon the head of another, and haveearned him some measure of personal chastisement; but Dick was a law untohimself. 

'So long, you fellows, ' he said. 

'Why, where yer goin'?' grunted Jacker Mack. 

''Cross to Harry Hardy. He's down by that ole white gum. '

'Gosh! so he is. I say, we'll all go. '

'No, you won't. Youse go an' see 'bout them cherries. Harry Hardy don'twant a crowd round. '

'How d'yer know he wants you?'

'Find out. Me 'n him's mates. '

'Yo-ow?' This in derision. 

''Sides, I got somethin' privit to say to him--somethin' privit 'nimportant, see. '

This was more convincing, but it excited curiosity. 

''Bout Tin ribs?' queried Peterson. 

'Likely I'd tell you. Clear out, go on. You can be captain of the band ifyou like, Jacker; 'n mind you don't give it away. '

Dick gained his point, as usual, and prepared for a quite casual descentupon Harry, who had not yet seen the boys. The plan brought Dicky, 'shanghai' in hand, under the tree where Hardy sat. The boy wasapparently oblivious of everything but the parrots up aloft, and it wasnot till after he had had his shot that he returned the young man'ssalutation. Then he took a seat astride the log and offered somecommonplace information about a nest of joeys in a neighboring tree and atame magpie that had escaped, and was teaching all the other magpies inWilson's paddocks to whistle a jig and curse like a drover. But he gotdown to his point rather suddenly after all. 

'Say, Harry, was you goin' to lambaste Tinribs?'

Tinribs?

'Yes, old Shine--this mornin', you know. '

Harry looked into the boy's eye and lied, but Dick was not deceived. 

''Twould a-served him good, ' he said thoughtfully; 'but you oughter geton to him when Miss Shine ain't about. She's terrible good an' allthat--better 'n Miss Keeley, don't you think?'

Miss Keeley was a golden-haired, high-complexioned, and frivolous younglady who had enjoyed a brief but brilliant career as barmaid at theDrovers' Arms. Harry had never seen her, but expressed an opinionentirely in favour of Christina Shine. 

'But her father, ' continued Dick, with an eloquent grimace, 'he's dicky!

'What've you got against him?'

'I do' know. Look here, 'tain't the clean pertater, is it, for asuperintendent t' lay into a chap at Sunday School for things what hedone outside? S'pose I float Tinribs's puddlin' tub down the creek byaccident, with Doon's baby in it when I ain't thinkin', is it square ferhim to nab me in Sunday School, an' whack me fer it, pretendin' all thetime it's 'cause I stuck a mouse in the harmonium?'

Dick's contempt for the man who could so misuse his high office was veryfine indeed. 

'That's the sorter thing Tinribs does, ' said the boy. 'If I yell afterhim on a Saturdee, he gammons t' catch me doin' somethin' in school onSundee, an' comes down on me with the corner of his bible, 'r screws meear. '

Harry considered such conduct despicable, and thought the man who wouldtake such unfair advantage of a poor boy might be capable of any infamy;and Dick, encouraged, crept a little nearer. 

'I say, ' he whispered insinuatingly. 'You could get him any day on theflat, when he comes over after searchin' the day shift. '

Harry shook his head, and slowly plucked at the dry bark. 

'I don't mean to touch him, ' he said. 

Dick was amazed, and a little hurt, perhaps. His confidence had beenviolated in some measure. He thought the matter over for almost a minute. 

'Ain't you goin' to go fer him 'cause of her, eh?' he asked. 

'Her? Who d'you mean?'

'Miss Chris. '

'It's nothin' to do with her. '

Dick deliberated again. 

'Look here, she was cryin' after you went this mornin'. Saw her hidin'her face by the harmonium, an' wipin' her eyes. '

Harry had not heard evidently; he was, it would appear, devoting hiswhole attention to the antics of a blue grub. Dick approached stillcloser, and assumed the tone of an arch-conspirator. 

'Heard anything 'bout Mr. Frank?'

'Not a thing, Dick. '

'What yer goin' to do?'

'I can't say, my boy. '

'Well, I'll tell you. Know what Sagacious done?'

'Sagacious? Who is he?'

'Sam Sagacious--Sleuth-hound Sam. '

Harry looked puzzled. 

'What, don't you know Sleuth-hound Sam? He's a great feller in a book, what tracks down criminals. Listen here. One time a chap what was a mateof his got put in gaol for stealin' money from a bank where he worked, when it wasn't him at all. Sam, he went an' got a job at the same bank, and that's how he found out the coves 'at done it. '

The young man turned upon Dick, and sat for a moment following up theinference. Then he gripped the latter's hand. 

'By thunder!' he cried excitedly, 'that's a better idea than I could hiton in a week. '

Dick did not doubt it; he had but a poor opinion of the resourcefulnessof his elders when not figuring in the pages of romantic literature, buthe was gratified by Harry's ready recognition of his talent, andproceeded to enlarge upon the peculiar qualities of Sleuth-hound Sam, give instances of his methods, and relate some of his many successes. 

At tea that evening Harry broached the subject of his visit to thechapel. He knew his mother would hear of it, and thought it best sheshould have the melancholy story from his lips. 

'Do you see much of Shine's daughter, mother?' he asked. 

'I do not see her often, but she has grown into a tall, handsome girl;very different from the wild little thing you rescued from the cattle onthe common eight years ago. '

'Yes; I've seen her--saw her in the chapel this morning. '

'In the chapel, ' said Mrs. Hardy, turning upon him with surprise; 'wereyou in the chapel, Henry?'

Harry nodded rather shamefacedly. 

'Yes, mother, ' he said, 'I went to chapel, an' took my whip with me. Imeant to scruff Shine before the lot o' them, an' lash him black an'blue. '

'That was shameful--shameful!

'Anyhow, I didn't do it. She came an' put me off, an' I sneaked out as ifI'd been licked myself. I couldn't have hammered the brute before hereyes, but--but--'

'But you meant to; is that it? Henry, you almost make me despair. Haveyou no more respect for yourself? Have you none for me?'

'I couldn't stand it. You've heard. It made me mad!'

'I have heard all, and I think Mr. Shine is a well intentioned man whosefaith, such as it is, is honest; but he is ignorant, coarse-fibred, andnarrow-minded. He is doing right according to his own poor, dim light, and could not be convinced otherwise by any word or act of ours; but hispreachings can do me no injury. They do not irritate me in theleast--indeed, I am not sure that they do not amuse me. '

'Ah, mother, that's like you; you philosophise your way through adifficulty, and I always want to fight my way out. It's so much easier. '

'Yes, dear; but do you get out? Do you know that Ephraim Shine is themost litigious man in the township? He runs to the law with every littletrouble, whilst inviting his neighbours to carry all theirs to the Lord. Had you beaten him he would have proceeded against you, and--Oh! my boy, my boy! are you going to make my troubles greater? And I had such hopes. '

'Hush, mother. 'Pon my soul, I won't! I'm going to hold myself down tightafter this. An', look here, I've got an idea. I'm going to Pete Holdento-morrow to ask him to put me on at the Stream, same shift as poor Frankwas on, if possible. '

'Put on the brother of the man who--'

'Yes, mother, the brother of the thief. But Holden is a good fellow; hespoke up for Frank like a brick. Besides, d'you know what the men aresaying? That the gold-stealing is still going on. I'll tell Holden asmuch, an' promise to watch, an' watch, like a cat, if he'll only send mebelow. '

'Yes, yes; we can persuade him. I wonder we did not think of thisbefore. '

''Twas young Dick Haddon put me up to it, with some yarn of his about adetective. '

'Bless the boy! he is unique--the worst and the best I have ever known. Johnnie, how dare you?'

The last remark was addressed to Gable, who had been eating industriouslyfor the last quarter of an hour. The old man, finding himself ignored, had smartly conveyed a large spoonful of jam from the pot to his mouth. He choked over it now, and wriggled and blushed like a child takenred-handed. 

''Twas only a nut, ' he said sulkily. 

'You naughty boy! Will you never learn how to behave at table? Come here, sir. Ah, I see; as I suspected. You did not shave this morning. Gostraight to bed after you have finished your tea. How dare you disobeyme, you wicked boy!'

Gable knuckled his eyes with vigour, and began to snivel. He hated tohave a beard on his chin, but would put off shaving longer than Mrs. Hardy thought consistent with perfect neatness. The ability to shavehimself was the one manly accomplishment Gable had learned in a longlife. 

This ludicrous incident had not served to draw Harry's thoughts from hisproject. All his life he had seen his Uncle Jonnie treated as a child, and there was nothing incongruous in the situation, even 'when thegrey-haired boy was rated for neglecting to shave or sent supperless tobed for similar sins of omission or commission. To Mrs. Hardy also it wasa simple serious business of domestic government. Ever since she was tenyears old Uncle John, who was many years her senior, had been her babybrother and her charge, and although gifted with a good sense of humour, the necessity of admonishing him did not interfere with the gravity ofmind she had brought to bear on the former conversation. 

'Mr. Holden was an old friend of your father's, Henry, ' she said. 

'I know, ' Harry replied. 'They were mates at Buninyong and Bendigo. I'llremind him of that. '

Harry Hardy found Manager Holden in his office at the Silver Stream whenhe called on the following morning. 

'Couldn't do it, my lad, ' said the old miner; 'but I'll put in a word foryou with Hennessey at the White Crow. '

'I want a job here on the Stream--want it for a purpose, ' said Harry. 

'There'd be a row. The people at Yarraman would kick up, after the otheraffair. I'd be glad to, Harry; but you'd best try somewhere else. '

'Mr. Holden, ' said the young man, 'do you believe my brother guilty?'

The manager met his eager eyes steadily. 

''Tisn't a fair question, lad, ' he answered. 'I always found Frankstraight, an' he looked like an honest man; but that evidence would havedamned a saint. '

'Do you think the gold-stealing has stopped?'

The manager looked up sharply. 

'Do you know anything?'

'I know what the men hint at; nothing more. If they could speak straightthey wouldn't do it. '

'Well, to tell you God's truth, Hardy, I believe we are still losinggold. '

'Send me below, then, an' by Heaven I'll spot the true thieves if they'renot more cunning than the devil himself. You think Frank guilty, so domost people; it's what we ought to expect, I s'pose. ' Harry's hands wereclenched hard--it was a sore subject. 'We don't, Mr. Holden; we believehis story, every word of it. Give me half a chance to prove it. You wereour father's mate; stand by us now. Put me on with the same shift asFrank worked with. '

'Done!' said the manager, starting up. 'Come on at four. Go trucking;it'll give you a better chance of moving round; and good luck, my boy!But take a hint that's well meant: if the real thief is down there, seehe plays no tricks on you. '

'I've thought of that--trust me. '

Harry Hardy's appearance below with the afternoon shift at the Streamoccasioned a good deal of talk amongst the miners; but he heard none ofit. Shine was in the searching-shed when he came up at midnight, on hisknees amongst the men's discarded clothes, pawing them over with hisclaw-like fingers. 

The searcher rarely spoke to the men, never looked at them, and performedhis duties as if unconscious of their presence. Custom had made himexceedingly cautious, for it was the delight of the men to play tricksupon him, usually of an exceedingly painful nature. The searcher is noman's friend. When putting on his dry clothes, Harry heard Joe Rogers, the foreman, saying:

'D'yer know them's Harry Hardy's togs yer pawin', Brother Tinribs?'

Shine's mud-coloured eyes floated uneasily from one form to another, butwere raised no higher than the knees of the men, seemingly. 

'Yes, search 'em carefully, Brother. I s'pose you'd like ter jug thewhole family. 'Taint agin yer Christian principles, is it, Mr. Superintendent, to send innocent men to gaol? Quod's good fer morals, ain't it? A gran' place to cultivate the spirit o' brotherly love, ain'tit--eh, what? Blast you fer a snivellin' hippercrit, Shine! If yer looksidelong at me I'll belt you over--'

Rogers made an ugly movement towards the searcher; but Peterson andanother interposed, and he returned to the form, spitting venomous oathslike an angry cat. Shine, kneeling on the floor, had gone on with hiswork in his covert way, as if quite unconscious of the foreman's burst ofpassion. 

CHAPTER IX. 

JACKER MACK'S report having been entirely favourable, the invasion ofSummers' orchard was under taken at dinner-time on the Tuesday following. The party, which consisted of Dick Haddon, Jacker McKnight, Ted, BillyPeterson, and Gable, started for the paddocks immediately school was out, intending to make Jock Summers compensate them for the loss of a meal. Itwas not thought desirable to take Gable, but he insisted, and Gable wasexceedingly pig-headed and immovable when in a stubborn mood. Dick triedto drive him back, but failed; when the others attempted to run away fromhim the old man trotted after them, bellowing so lustily that the safetyof the expedition was endangered; so he was allowed to stand in. 

'He'll do to keep nit, ' said Dick. 

Gable could not run in the event of a surprise and a pursuit, but thatmattered little, as it was long since known to be hopeless to attempt toextract evidence from him, and his complicity in matters of this kind wasgenerously overlooked by the people of Waddy. 

The expedition was not a success. Dick planned it and captained it well;but the best laid plans of youth are not less fallible than those of miceand men, and one always runs a great risk in looting an orchard in broaddaylight--although it will be admitted, by those readers who were onceyoung enough and human enough to rob orchards, that stealing cherries inthe dark is as aggravating and unsatisfactory an undertaking as eatingsoup with a two-pronged fork. 

Dick stationed Gable in a convenient tree, with strict orders to cry'nit' should anybody come in sight from the black clump of fir-treessurrounding the squatter's house. Then he led his party over the fenceand along thick lines of currant bushes, creeping under their cover towhere the beautiful white-heart cherries hung ripening in the sun. Dickwas very busy indeed in the finest of the trees when the note of warningcame from Ted McKnight. 

'Nit! nit! NIT! Here comes Jock with a dog. '

Dick was last in the rush. He saw the two McKnights safe away, and wasfollowing Peterson, full of hope, when there came a rush of feet behindand he was sent sprawling by a heavy body striking him between theshoulders. When he was quite able to grasp the situation he found himselfon the broad of his back, with a big mastiff lying on his chest, one pawon either side of his head, and a long, warm tongue lolling in his facewith affectionate familiarity. The expression in the dog's eye, henoticed, was decidedly genial, but its attitude was firm. The amiable eyereassured him; he was not going to be eaten, but at the same time he wasgiven to understand that that dog would do his duty though the heavensfell. 

A minute later the mastiff was whistled off; Dick was taken by the earand gently assisted to his feet, and stood defiantly under the stern eyeof a rugged, spare-boned, iron-grey Scotchman, six feet high, and framedlike an iron cage. Jock retained his hold on the boy's ear. 

'Eh, eh, what is it, laddie?' he said, 'enterin' an' stealin', enterin'an' stealin'. A monstrous crime. Come wi' me. '

Dick followed reluctantly, but the grip on his ear lobe was emphatic, andin his one short struggle for freedom he felt as if he were grapplingwith the great poppet-legs at the Silver Stream. Summers paused for amoment. 

'Laddie, ' he said, 'd'ye mind my wee bit dog?'

The dog capered like a frivolous cow, flopped his ears, and exhibitedhimself in a cheerful, well-meaning way. 

'If ye'd rather, laddie, the dog will bring ye home, ' continued the man. 

'Skite!' said Dick, with sullen scorn; but he went quietly after that. 

At the house they were met by Christina Shine, and Dick blushed furiouslyunder her gaze of mild surprise. Christina had been a member of theSummers household for over five years, ever since the death of hermother, and had won herself a position there, something like that of abeloved poor relation with light duties and many liberties. 

'Dickie, Dickie, what have you been doing this time?' asked Miss Chris. 

'Robbin' my fruit-trees, my dear. What might we do with him, d'ye think?'

Miss Chris thought for a minute with one finger pressed on her lip. 

'We might let him go, ' she said, with the air of one making rather aclever suggestion. 

'Na, na, na; we canna permit such crimes to go unpunished. '

'Poor boy, perhaps he's very fond of cherries, ' said Chris inextenuation. 

Summers regarded the young woman dryly for a moment. 

'Eh, eh, girl, ' he said, 'ye'd begin to pity the very De'il himself if yethought maybe he'd burnt his finger. '

Dick was greatly comforted. As a general thing he writhed under sympathy, but, strangely enough, he found it very sweet to hear her speaking wordsof pity on his behalf, and to feel her soft eyes bent upon him withgentle concern. Probably no young woman quite understands the deepdevotion she has inspired in the bosom of a small boy even when sherealises--which is rare indeed--that she is regarded with unusualaffection by Tommy or Billy or Jim. Jim is probably very young; his hairas a rule appears to have been tousled in a whirlwind, his plain face isnever without traces of black jam in which vagrant dust finds rest, andin the society of the adored one he is shy and awkward. The adored onemay think him a good deal of a nuisance, but deep down in the dark secretchamber of his heart she is enshrined a goddess, and worshipped withzealous devotion. Men may call her an angel lightly enough; Jim knows herto be an angel, and says never a word. His romance is true, and pure, andbeautiful while it lasts--the only true, pure, and beautiful romance manywomen ever inspire, and alas! they never know of it, and would not prizeit if they did. 

That was the feeling Dick had for Christina Shine. Thore had beenothers--Richard Haddon was not bigoted in his constancy--but now it wasMiss Chris, and to him she was both angel and princess; a princess stolenfrom her royal cradle by the impostor Shine under moving and mysteriouscircumstances, and at the instigation of a disreputable uncle. It onlyremained for Dick to slaughter the latter in fair fight, under the eyesof an admiring multitude, in order to restore Chris to all her royaldignities and privileges. 

Jock Summers had not relaxed his grip on the boy's ear. He led him to asmall dairy sunk in the side of the hill and roofed with stone. 

Ye may bide in there, laddie, ' he said, 'till I can make up my mind. Ithink I might just skin ye, an' I think maybe I might get ye ten years toYarraman Goal, but I'm no sure. '

Dick had to go down several steps to the floor of the dairy, and when thedoor was shut his face was on a level with the grating that let air intothe place. He passed the first few minutes of his imprisonment makingoffers of friendship to the dog that sprawled out side, opening itscapacious mouth at him and curling its long tongue as if anxious toamuse. The boy had no fears as to his fate; he felt he could safely leavethat to Miss Chris; and, meanwhile, the dog was entertaining. The animalwas new to Dick: had he known of its existence, his descent upon theorchard would have been differently ordered. In time Maori came to beintimately known to every boy in Waddy as the most kindly and affable dogin the world, but afflicted with a singularly morbid devotion to duty. Ifsent to capture a predatory youth he never failed to secure the marauder, and always did it as if he loved him. His formidable teeth were notcalled into service; he either knocked the youngster down and held himwith soft but irresistible paws, or he gambolled with him, jumped on him, frisked over him, made escape impossible, and all the time seemed toimply: 'I have a duty to perform, but you can't blame me, you know. There's no reason in the world why we shouldn't be the best of friends. 'And they were the best of friends in due course, for Maori bore nomalice; there came a time when youngsters invaded Jock's garden for thepleasure of being captured by his wonderful dog. 

Ere Dick had been in his prison ten minutes Chris came to him with teaand cake and scones, and when he had finished these she showered cherriesin upon him. This time she whispered through the grating:

'You haven't got a cold, have you, Dick?'

'No, miss; I never have colds. '

'Oh, dear, that's a pity! I thought if you could catch a cold I might beable to get you out. '

'Oh!' Dick thought for a moment, and then coughed slightly. 

'It will have to be a very bad cold, I think. '

Dick's cough became violent at once, and when Chris led Summers into thevicinity of the dairy a few minutes later the cold had developedalarmingly. Summers heard, and a quizzical and suspicious eye followedChristina. 

'He--he doesn't appear to be a very strong boy, Mr. Summers, ' said theyoung woman with obvious artfulness. 

'Strong as a bullock, ' said Summers. 

'He looked very pale, I thought, and that place is damp--damp anddangerous. '

Summers dangled the keys. 

'Let the rascal go, ' he said. 'Justice will never be done wi'in range o'those bright eyes. Let the young villain loose. '

Chris liberated the boy, and filled his pockets with fruit before sendinghim away. 

'My word, you are a brick, ' murmured Dick, quite overcome, and thenChris, being hidden from the house by the shrubbery, did an astoundingthing; she put her arm about the boy's neck and kissed him, and Dick'sface flamed red, and a delicious confusion possessed him. If he were herworshipper before he was her slave now--her unquestioning, faithfulslave. 

'You know, ' she said, 'I must be your friend, because if it had not beenfor you my father might have died out there. '

Dick had recalled the incident several times lately, but always, it mustbe regretfully admitted, with a pang of angry compunction. There wereoccasions when he felt that it would have been wise to have left thesuperintendent to his fate. He wondered now, casually, why the daughtershould entertain sentiments of gratitude that never seemed to find aplace in the arid bosom of her sire. 

'Oh, that ain't nothin', ' he said awkwardly, digging his heel into theturf, all aglow with novel emotions. Never had he felt quite so grandbefore. 

'Dick, will you take a message from me to--to--' The young woman wastoying with his sleeve, her cheeks were ruddy, and the girlish timidityshe displayed was in quaint contrast with her fine face and commandingfigure. 

'To Harry Hardy?' said Dick, with ready conjecture. 

'Yes, ' said Chris. 'However could you have guessed that? Tell him I amvery thankful to him--'

'Fer clearin' out Sunday. Yes, I'll tell him. I say, Miss Chris, do youknow I think he's awful fond o' you--awful. '

'No, Dick, he is not. He hates us--father and I. '

'No fear, he don't. He was at our place Sunday night, lookin' at thatphoto of you in our albium. He looked at it more'n he looked at all therest put together, an' kep' sneakin' peeps, an' that don't show hate, ifyou ask me. '

Dick was half an hour late for school that afternoon, but he never facedJoel ham with a lighter heart or more careless mien. The master pretendedto be absorbed in a patch on the roof till Dick had almost reached hisseat; then he beckoned the boy, took him on the point of his cane, like apiece of toast, and backed him against the wall, where he held himtransfixed for a few moments, blinking humorously. 

'Ginger, my boy, I regret to have to say it, but you are late again. '

'Never said I wasn't, ' said Dick, accepting the inevitable. 

'True, Ginger, perfectly true. Any explanation? But let me warn youanything you may say will be taken down as evidence against you. '

'I was visitin'--visitin' Mr. John Summers up at The House' (Summers'residence was always 'The Rouse '), 'an'--an' he detained me. '

Joel's face suddenly fell into wrinkles, and his disengaged fingersclawed his sparse whiskers. 

'And you used to be quite a clever liar, Ginger, ' he said withphilosophical regret. 

'Arsk Jock Summers yerseif if you don't believe me, ' growled the boy. 

'No, no, ' said the master shaking his head sadly, 'you are lying verybadly to-day, Ginger. You have the heart to do it, but not the art. Holdup!

Dick's hand went out unfalteringly. 

'One, ' said the master. 'Two! Hurt, eh? Well, be consoled with thereflection that all knowledge is simply pain codified. Three! Four--no, Iwill owe you the fourth. '

Jacker Mack, and Ted, and Peterson were prey to the wildest curiosity. Peterson risked cuts with criminal recklessness in his efforts tocommunicate with Dick when the latter took his seat, and Jacker, who satnext, edged up close to Dick and whispered excitedly:

'What happened? What'd he do? Where yer been?'

'Been, ' said Dick, 'oh, just havin' dinner up at The House. '

'Wha-at--with ole Jock?'

'With Mr. And Mrs. Summers, J. P. '

'Gerrout! yer can't stuff me. '

'Oh, all right, Jacker, don't excite yerseif. Perhaps they didn't give mea load o' cherries to bring away, an' strawberries--thumpin' ripestrawberries, hid somewhere what I know of. Oh, I think not. An' maybe Iwasn't told to come up to The House Sundays an' help myself. Very likelynot. ' All this in an airy whisper. 

'Halves!' hissed Jacker. 

'Quarters!' murmured Peterson from his hiding place behind the desk. 

'P'raps I don't know somethin' too, ' continued Jacker mysteriously. 

Dick Haddon cocked his eye. 

'Pompey, the woodjammer, tol' me he see that bandy whimboy what youfought at the picnic ridin' your billy down to Cow Flat, an' Butts seemedto like it. '

This was serious. The idea of Butts becoming attached to another mastergave Dick a real pang. Already he had suffered many twinges of consciencein consequence of his neglect of the goat in captivity. 

'Wait till r get hold o' that cove, ' he said bitterly. 'I'll murder him. '

'Ain't we never goin' after them goats?' asked Jacker. 

Dick nodded emphatically. 

'My oath, I'll fix it. '

'An' you'll shell out wif the strawb'ries?'

Dick nodded again; Jacker went peacefully to his work and Petersoncrawled back to his seat. Confidence was restored. 

CHAPTER X. 

HARRY HARDY'S first few shifts below only served to convince him of thedifficulties of the task he had set himself. The Silver Stream was a bigalluvial mine working two levels, and there were close upon a hundredhands below on each shift. All these he could not watch; but he wasworking in the same drive and with the set of men Frank had worked with, and was always alert for hint or sign that would give him a clue, whilstat the same time being careful not to set the thieves on their guard. Hemust watch closely without letting it be seen that he was watching atall. Keen as he was in the pursuit of his object, he found, with someself-resentment, that his mind frequently reverted to another subjectaltogether; and that subject was Miss Christina Shine. When he caughthimself absorbed in a reverie in which Miss Chris was the centre ofinterest, he metaphorically took himself by the neck and shook himselfup, and during the next few minutes reviewed with quite extravagantferocity the excellent reasons he had for hating Chris for her father'ssake. It was a melancholy pleasure to him to see the searcher pawing hisclothes about, digging into his pockets and his billy, and examining hisboots. His old instinct would have prompted him to attack Ephraim on thefloor of the shed, but now, with lamentable unreason and injustice, henursed the insult as good and sufficient cause for contemning thedaughter. He had seen Chris once since Sunday, and then only from therecesses of a clump of scrub into which he had retreated on seeing herapproach; but he felt, without admitting the knowledge even to himself, that he would need all the excuses he could find, just or unjust, reasonable or otherwise, to battle with something that was rising upwithin him to drive him on his knees to the feet of this grey-eyed girl, a humble and abject penitent. 

For an hour or two each day Harry was fossicking in the creek on the spotwhere Frank had been working, with the idea of satisfying himself whetheror not such gold as Frank had sold was obtainable there; and here thesearcher's daughter came upon him one morning shortly after the incidentof the Sunday School. Harry had his cradle pitched near the crossing, andto ignore the young woman would be an avowal of enmity. Here was hisopportunity. Harry set his face over the hopper and cradledindustriously. He thought he was displaying proper firmness, but his handtrembled, his heart beat like a plunger, and he was the victim of anignoble bashfulness. Chris approached with some timidity; but Maoribounded up to the young man, making elephantine overtures offriendliness, which were resented by Harry's cattle-dog Cop, who walkedround and round the mastiff in narrowing circles, bristling like a catand snarling hoarsely. Maori treated the challenge with a lordlyindulgence. Cop went further, he snapped and brought blood. There weresome things Maori could not stand: this was one. Out of a small storm ofpebbles, chips, leaves, and dust, the two dogs presently came into viewagain, Cop on his back, pawing wildly at the unresisting air, and Maoriat his throat, pinning him with a vice-like grip. 

Harry rushed to the rescue, tore his dog free, and held back the furiousanimal up-reared and exposing vicious fangs. Chris laid a trembling handon the collar of the penitent Maori, and in this way the young peoplefaced each other. Their eyes met for a moment, Harry's frowning blackly, hers anxious and beseeching. 

'I'm sorry, ' she said. 'Is he hurt?'

'No, ' replied Harry sulkily. 'No thanks to that brute of yours, though. '

'Oh!' This very reproachfully. 

Harry looked up and encountered her eyes again, and they shattered him, as they had done in chapel, giving him a sense of having exerted hisstrength to hurt something sweet and tender as a flower; and yet the girlseemed to tower above him. Nature, in putting the fresh sympathetic soulof a child into the grand body of a Minerva, had set a problem that wastoo deep for Harry Hardy. 

'Beg pardon, ' he said, humbly; ''twas my dog started it. Down, Cop! Toheel--!'

He checked himself suddenly on a 'stock term. ' There were tones of hismaster's that Cop never dared to disobey; he went down at full length andlay panting, regarding Maori fixedly with a sidelong and malevolent eye. Harry returned to his cradle, and Chris approached the stepping-stonesand paused there. 

'Did Dickie Haddon give you my message?' she asked in a low voice. 

Harry nodded. 

'It's all right, ' he said. 

There was another pause, broken at length by Chris. 

'You ought not to be angry with me. It isn't fair. '

She was thinking of the day years ago when she was carried, all tatteredand torn, from the midst of that mob of sportive cattle. She was a verylittle girl then, but the incident had remained fresh and vivid in hermind, and ever since Harry Hardy had been a hero in her eyes. He onlyremembered the affair casually and without interest. 

'I am really very grateful to you for--for going away, because I know youhad good cause for your anger. '

Oh, that's all right, ' said Harry again, inaptly. 

'But you ought not to be angry with me. It pained me very much--the trialand your mother's sorrow, and all the rest. It hurt me because it seemedto set me on the side that was against Mrs. Hardy, and I--I alwaysadmired her. I knew she was a good woman, and it was easy to see thetrouble cut into her heart although she bore it so proudly. '

'Oh, that's all right. ' Harry was fumbling with the gravel in the hopper. He was conscious that his replies were foolish and trivial, but for thelife of him he could do no better. 

She waited a few moments, then bade him good morning and went across thecreek and away amongst the trees beyond; and Harry, resting upon thehandle of his cradle, watched her, absorbed, a prey to a set of newemotions that bewildered him hopelessly. He was still in this positionwhen Chris looked back from the hill, and half an hour later Dick Haddonfound him day-dreaming amongst the tailings. 

Day-dreams were not possible in the vicinity of Richard Haddon. The boywas an ardent fossicker, and loved to be burrowing amongst old tailings, or groping in the sludge of an auriferous creek after little patches. Hewas soon peering into the ripples of Harry's cradle. 

'Poor, ' he commented, with the confidence of an expert. 

'Not up to much, Dick, ' said Harry. 'I've just been prospectin' a bitround here. '

'Frank was tryin' that bank. 'Tain't no good. Say, I can lay you ontersomethin' better not far from here. '

'Yes--where is it?'

'Tellin's. What'll you give us?

'Depends. What's it worth?'

'Got half a pennyweight prospect there onst. Look here, you lend me yerdog t'-night, an' I'll show where. '

'What do you want with Cop?'

'You won't split? Well, some coves down to Cow Flat come up an' stole mygoat, Butts, an' a lot of others, an' me an' some other fellers is goin'after 'em t'-night, late. A good sheep-dog what's a quiet worker 'd bespiffin. Cop's all right. He'd work fer me. '

Harry had not forgotten the time when a lordly billy was the pride andjoy of his own heart, and his sympathies were with Dick; so Copaccompanied the band of youthful raiders that assembled with much mysteryin the vicinity of the schoolhouse late that night. The desperadoes hadstolen from their beds while their parents slept, and were ripe foradventure. Dick, who had Cop in charge, put himself at the head of therising with his customary assurance, and gave his orders in a low, sternvoice. According to his authorities, a low, stern voice was proper to thecommand of all such midnight enterprises. 

But before starting for Cow Flat it was necessary to forage forammunition. Two or three of the boys were provided with bags. It wasproposed to fill these with such vegetables as would serve to allure thecoy but gluttonous goat, and a silent, systematic descent was made uponseveral kitchen gardens of Waddy. 

Go fer carrots an' cabbages, specially carrots, ' whispered thecommandant, whose experience of goats was large and varied, and taughthim that the average nanny or billy would desert home and kindred and gothrough fire and water in pursuit of a succulent young carrot not largerthan a clothes-peg. 

When the boys turned their backs on Waddy the expedition carried with itvegetables enough to bribe all the goats in the province. The garden ofMichael Devoy was a waste place, desolation brooded over the carrot bedsof the Canns and the Sloans, and Mrs. Ben Steven's cabbage-patch lay inruins. 

For this night only Dick had assumed the role of Moonlighter Ryan, anotorious Queensland cattle duffer, recently hanged for his part in adisputation with a member of the mounted police. The dispute ended withthe death of the policeman, who succumbed to injuries received. AsMoonlighter Dick was characteristically remorseless, his courage andcunning were understood to verge upon the inhuman, and his band wascomposed of the most utterly abandoned ruffians the history of thecountry afforded; only two of them had not been hanged, and these twojustified their inclusion by having richly deserved hanging several timesover. 

Across the flat and past the toll-bar, where the light sleep of Dan, thetollman, was not disturbed by the creeping band, Moonlighter led hisoutlaws warily, then struck the long bush road between two lines ofstraggling fence running with all sorts of lists and bends, going on andon endlessly, according to the belief of the boys of Waddy. The road wasoverhung by tall gums and nourished many clumps of fresh green saplings, about which the tortuous cart-track wound in deep yellow ruts, baked hardin summer, washed into treacherous bog in winter. Here caution was notnecessary, and there were divers fierce hand-to-hand attacks on clumps ofscrub representing a vindictive and merciless police, out of whichMoonlighter and his men issued crowned with victory and covered withglory. A scarecrow in a wayside orchard was charged with desperatevalour, and only saved from instant destruction as a particularly hatefulpolice spy by the sudden intervention of the leader. 

'Back, men!' he cried imperiously. 'Moon lighter never makes war on women!'

He pointed to the protecting skirt in which the scarecrow was clad, andhis bold bad men drew off and retired abashed. 

For the next half-mile Moonlighter led his men in stealthy retreat froman overwhelming force of troopers armed to the teeth. Tracks had to becovered and diversions created, and there was much hiding behind logs andin clumps of scrub; indeed, the police were only foiled at length by theexertion of that subtle strategy for which Moonlighter was notorious. 

It was after one o'clock in the morning when Cow Flat was reached. Thelittle township slept, steeped in darkness, beside its sluggish strip ofcreeping 'slurry' miscalled a creek. Beyond, on the rise, a big mineclattered and groaned, and puffed its glowing clouds of steam against thesky; but Cow Flat had settled down into silence after the midnight changeof shifts, and a mining township sleeps well. For all that it was astealthy and cautious band Moonlighter led down to the old batteredengine-house by the edge of the common, where the goats of Cow Flat wereknown to herd in large numbers. Sure enough here were goats of bothsexes, and all sorts and sizes--sleeping huddled in the ruinedengine-house, on the sides of the grass-grown tip, in the old bob-pit, and upon the remains of the fallen stack. Carefully and quietly theanimals were awakened; slyly they were drawn forth, with gentle whisperedcalls of 'Nan, nan, nan!' and insidious and soothing words, but moreespecially with the aid of scraps of carrot, sparingly but judiciouslydistributed. An occasional low, querulous bleat from a youthful nannyawakened from dreams of clover-fields, or a hoarse, imperious inquiry ina deep baritone 'baa' from a patriarchal he-goat, was the only noise thatfollowed the invasion. Then, when the animals within the ruin were fullyalive to the situation and awake to the knowledge that it all meantcarrots, and that outside carrots innumerable awaited the gathering, theystreamed forth: they fought in the doorways, they battered a passagethrough the broken wall; faint plaintive queries went up from scores ofthroats, answered by gluttonous mumblings from goats that had beenfortunate enough to snatch a morsel of the delectable vegetable. Downfrom the tips and up from the bob-pit they came, singly and in sets, undemonstrative matrons with weak-kneed twins at their heels, skittishkids and bearded veterans, and joined the anxious, eager, hungry mob. 

'Away with them, my boys, ' ordered Moonlighter. 'Head 'em fer the common. We'll have every blessed goat in the place. '

He sent away three bands in three different directions, fullyprovisioned, and commissioned to collect goats from all quarters. 

'Bring 'em up to the main mob on the common, an' the man what makes a rowI'll hang in his shirt to the nearest tree. Don't leave the beggars anykind of a goat at all. '

Dick had undertaken a big contract. Cow Flat was simply infested withgoats; every family owned its small flock, and the milk-supply of thetownship depended entirely upon the droves of nannies that grubbed forsustenance on the stony ridges or the bare, burnt stretch of common land. Probably Cow Flat was so called because nobody had ever seen anythingremotely resembling a cow anywhere in the vicinity; consequently goatswere hold in high esteem, for ten goats can live and prosper where onecow would die of hunger and melancholy in a month. 

Jacker Mack, Peterson, and Parrot Cann had recognised their billies inthe heard, but Butts was still missing. On an open space near the road bywhich Moonlighter's gang had come, and at a safe distance from thetownship, a few of the raiders held the main body of the goats. ParrotCann, with a bag of cabbages on his shoulder, was the centre ofattraction, and the dropping of an occasional leaf kept the goats pushingabout him, some uprearing and straining toward the tantalising bag, others baa-ing in his face a piteous appeal. Suddenly, however, an astutebilly with a flowing beard came to the rescue. He drove at Cann from therear with masterly strategy and uncommon force, and brought him down;then in a flash boy and bag were hidden under a climbing, butting, burrowing army of goats, from the centre of which came the muffled yellsof poor Parrot clipped in a hundred places by the sharp hoofs of thehungry animals. 

Moonlighter promptly led a desperate charge to the rescue, and after ahard struggle Cann was dragged out, tattered and bleeding; but the bagwas abandoned to the enemy. 

In about twenty minutes Jacker Mack and a couple of subordinates broughtup a herd gathered from the hill on the left bank of the creek; Petersoncame soon after with a good mob from the right, and Dolf Belman andanother followed with a score or so from about the houses. But stillButts had not been captured. 

'You fellers take 'em on slowly, ' said Moonlighter. Me an' Gardiner'll goback an' have a try after Butts. ' Ted McKnight represented Gardiner inthis enterprise. 

The hunt for Butts had to be conducted with great circumspection. Theboys crept from place to place; Dick called the goat's name softly at allouthouses and enclosures, and won a response after a search of over aquarter of an hour, Butts's familiar 'baa' answering from the interior ofa stable in a back yard. Ted was stationed to keep 'nit, ' and Dick stoleinto the yard, broke his way into the stable, and was leading the hugebilly out of captivity when the savage barking of a dog broke thesilence; and then an adjacent window was thrown up and a woman's voicecalled 'Thieves!' and 'Fire!

Dick had given Butts the taste of a carrot and now fled, dangling theinviting vegetable, Butts following at his heels. 

'Go for it, Ted!' he yelled, and the two rushed over the flat ground, upthe hill, and across the thinly-timbered bush to the road. A good runbrought them up to the main flock, Butts still ambling gaily in the rear, making hungry bites at the carrot hitched under Dick's belt at the back. 

'Rush 'em along!' cried the panting Moonlighter. 'We've waked the blessedtown. Heel 'em, Cop, heel 'em!

Peterson and Jacker went ahead dangling cabbages; the dog entered intothe spirit of the thing with enthusiasm and worked the flock in his verybest style; and so the boys of Waddy, hot, excited, very frightened ofprobable pursuers, but wondrously elated, swept the great drove of goatsup the road in the light of the waning moon. The pace was warm for amile, but then, the dread of pursuit having evaporated, the maraudersslowed down, and for the rest of the journey they were experienceddrovers bringing down the largest lot of stock that had ever been handledby man, full of technical phrases and big talk of runs, and plains, andflooded rivers, and long, waterless spells. It was Jacker Mack whosounded the first note of dismay. 

'Jee-rusalem! How 'bout the toll?'

Nobody had thought of the toll-bar, and there were the big, white gatesalready in sight, stretching across the road, threatening to bring dismalfailure upon the expedition when complete success seemed imminent. 

'Down with the fence!' ordered the implacable Moonlighter. 

In two minutes the boys had found a weak set of rails in the fence, andshortly after the goats were being driven across Wilson's paddock, cutting off a great corner, and heading for the farmer's gates thatopened out on to the open country on which Waddy was built. Through thesegates the flock was driven with a racket and hullaballoo that setWilson's half-dozen dogs yapping insanely, and started every rooster onthe farm crowing in shrill protestation. Then helter-skelter over theflat the goats were swept in on the township and left to their owndevices, whilst a dozen weary, dusty, triumphant small boys stole back tobed through unlatched windows and doors carefully left open for astealthy return. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THERE was great wonder in Waddy next morning, and much argument. Neighbours discussed the sensation with avidity. Mrs. Sloan, uncombed andin early morning deshabille, with an apron thrown over her head, carriedthe news to Mrs. Justin's back fence, and Mrs. Justin ran with it to theback fence of Mrs. McKnight, and Mrs. McKnight spread the tidings as faras the house of Steven; so the wonder grew, and families were called upat an unusually early hour, and sage opinions were thrown from sidewindows and handed over garden gates. An invasion of goats had happenedat Waddy, a downpour of goats, an eruption of goats: goats were all overthe place, and nobody knew whence they came or when they arrived. Waddy'sown goats were many and various, but the invasion had quadrupled them, and goats were everywhere--bold, hungry, predatory goats--browsing, sleeping, battling, thieving, and filling the air with incessantpleadings. They invaded gardens and broke their way into kitchens andlarders; they assaulted children and in some cases offered fight to themothers who went to eject them; and here and there the billies of Waddyfought with the bearded usurpers long unsatisfactory contests, rearingand butting for hours, and doing each other no morsel of injury thatanybody could discover. A few of the women were out with buckets, makingthe most of the opportunity, milking all the nannies who would submit;and Devoy, with characteristic impetuosity, was already on the warpath, seeking vengeance on the person or persons whose act had led to thepillage of his vegetable beds. 

During all this the innocence of the boys of Waddy, particularly thoseboys who had composed Moonlighter's gang, was quite convincing. They hadkept their secret well, and for some time no act of vandalism wassuspected. In school during the morning they were most attentive, andparticularly assiduous in the pursuit of knowledge; and when the echoesof a disturbance in the township penetrated the school walls, RichardHaddon and his friends may have exchanged significant winks, but nothingin their general demeanour would have betrayed them to the ordinaryintelligence. However, Joel Ham's intelligence was not of the ordinarykind, and after looking up two or three times and catching the master'slittle leaden eye fixed upon him with a glance of amused speculation, Dick began to feel decidedly uncomfortable. 

The first hint of the truth was brought to Waddy by an infuriated femalefrom Cow Flat. She drove up in an old-fashioned waggon drawn by a livelyand energetic but very ancient and haggard bay horse, with flattenedhoofs and a mere stump of a tail. She was tall and stout, with greatmuscular arms bare to the shoulder, and her face was pink with righteousindignation. This woman drove slowly up the one road of Waddy, andstanding erect in her vehicle roundly abused the township from end toend. Crying her cause in a big strident voice, she insulted theinhabitants individually and in the mass, and wherever several peoplewere assembled she pulled up and poured out upon them the vials of herwrath in a fine flow of vituperation; and after every few sentences sheinterpolated an almost pathetic plea to somebody, she did not care whom, to step forward and resent her criticism that she might have anopportunity of hammering decency and religion into the benightedinhabitants of an unregenerate place. 

'Who stole the goats?' she screamed, and, receiving no answer, screamedthe question from house to house. 

'Waddy's a township of thieves an' hussies!' she cried, 'thieves an'hussies! Gimme me goats or I'll have the law on you all--you low, meanstealers an' robbers, ye! Who stole the goats? Who came by night an'robbed a decent widdy woman of her beautiful goats? Who? Who? Who? Sayyou didn't, someone! Gi' me the lie, you lot o' gaol-birds an'assassinators!'

All Waddy turned out to hear, and many followed the woman up the road. The school children heard the noisy procession go by with amazement andregret, and the visitor grew shriller and fiercer as her searchprogressed. At length she discovered what she declared to be one of hergoats in the possession of Mrs. Hogan, and she left her waggon andcharged the latter, who fled in terror, bolting all her doors andthrowing up a barricade in the passage. But the stranger was not to befoiled: she sat down on the doorstep and proclaimed the house undersiege, announcing her intention to remain until she had wreaked hervengeance on Mrs. Hogan, and offering meanwhile to fight any four womenof Waddy for mere diversion. 

It was not till the tired miners off the night shift had secured all thegoats she pointed out as hers, tied their legs and packed them on herwaggon, that the woman could be induced to leave; and as she drove awayshe heaped further insult on the township, and from the distant toll-barsignalled a final gesture of contempt and loathing. 

This woman took back to Cow Flat her own explanation of the mystery ofthe lost goats, and in due time deputations from the rival township beganto reach Waddy, so that the Great Goat Riot developed rapidly. It waslong since friendly feeling had existed between Waddy and Cow Flat. Therewas a standing quarrel about sludge and the pollution of the waters ofthe creek; there were political differences, too, and a fierce sportingrivalry. By the majority of the people of Cow Flat the purloining oftheir goats was accepted as further evidence of the moral depravity andlow origin of the people of Waddy, and the feeling between the townshipswas suddenly strained to a dangerous tension. 

The first few skirmishing parties from Cow Flat were composed of womenand boys, and an undisciplined and rash pursuit of goats followed eachvisit. The nannies and billies, under stress of the new excitement, ransuddenly wild and developed a fleetness of foot, an expertness inclimbing, and powers of endurance hitherto all unsuspected by theirowners; so very few animals were recovered by the visitors. 

The hunt was continued throughout the next day. Goats were rushing wildlyabout the place from morning till midnight pursued by their wrathfulowners, to the detriment of the peace of Waddy and the undoing of thetractable local milkers; and at last a great resentment took possessionof the matrons of the township--there were counter-attacks among thehouses, rescue parties beset the women carrying off prizes, and a fewskirmishes happened on the flat. Now the men were induced to take a hand, and there was talk of battle and pillage and sudden death. 

Devoy, pugnacious and vengeful, provoked the first serious struggle. Discovering a man of Cow Flat who claimed a small family of aggressivebrown goats which he had marked out as the vandals that had wrought ruinamongst his well-kept beds, Devoy bearded the stranger and spoke ofdamages and broken heads, and his small son, Danny, a young Australianwith a piquant brogue and a born love of ructions, moved round andincited him to bloodshed. 

'Go fer him, daddy. Sure, ye can lick him wid one hand, dear, ' pleadedDanny. 

'Yer dir-rty goats have ate me gar-rden, sor. D'ye moind me now? It'sruined me gar-rden is on me, ' said Devoy aggressively. 

'Hit him, daddy, ' screamed Danny. 

Devoy accepted the advice and struck the first blow. The man from CowFlat was very willing, and they fought a long, destructive battle; andthrough it all Danny danced about the ring, bristling with excitement andcrying fierce and persistent encouragement to his sire. 

'Let him have it, daddy!' 'Now ye have him!' 'Good on you, daddy!' 'Sure, you'll do him!' 'One round more, daddy, an' ye have him beat!' Thesephrases, and shrill inarticulate cries of applause and astonishment andjoy, Danny reiterated breathlessly until his father was pronounced thevictor; then he took the battered hero fondly by the hand and led himaway to be bathed and plastered and bandaged by a devoted wife andmother. 

The downfall of Devoy's opponent brought other champions from Cow Flat;there were open fights in Wilson's paddocks by day and assaults andsallies by night, and the bitterness deepened into hatred. Waddy nowresisted every attempt to carry off the stolen goats, and parties comingfrom Cow Flat by night were content with any animals they could lay theirhands on; so for nearly a week the township was beset with alarums andexcursions, and Jo Rogers, as its admitted champion, had more engagementson his hands than he could reasonably be expected to fulfil in a month. 

Dickie and his accomplices were amazed at the developments, and watchedthe trouble grow with the greatest concern. The contests on the openground beyond the quarries were frequent and free, and then there came alull; but from Cow Flat came rumours of a grand coup meditated by theleaders on that side. Preparations were being made for an attack by alarge body, and the forcible abduction of all the goats, irrespective ofindividual rights. The excitement had now reached fever heat, and therewere few men in Waddy who were not ready, even anxious, to strike a blowfor the preservation of the flocks and herds and the credit of thetownship. 

On the side of approach from Cow Flat Waddy was protected for the greaterpart of the distance by the string of quarries; under the command of BigPeterson, who as an ex-soldier had some military reputation, logs weredragged from the bush, and the space between the end of the quarries andthe fence of Summers' south paddock was smartly barricaded. The defenderswere armed with light sticks, and it was understood that these were to beused only if the enemy refused to abide by Nature's weapons. 

All the mines in the vicinity of Waddy worked short-handed on the day ofthe Great Goat Riot; the men, under the command of Captain Peterson, weresitting in bands, hidden from view in the quarries, smoking, discussingthe situation, and patiently awaiting the attack. They did not wait invain. At about eleven o'clock a scout came in with the intelligence thata large body was advancing in irregular order through Wilson's paddock, and a quarter of an hour later the men of Cow Flat swarmed out of thebush and over the fence and charged Waddy at a trot. 

'Toe the scratch, men!' yelled Peterson; and the defenders of Waddyclimbed out of the holes and presently turned a solid front to the enemy. The Cow Flat commander, who had expected to take the place by surprise, wavered at the sight of organised opposition and called a halt at theother edge of the quarries; and invaders and besieged faced each otheracross the broken ground while the Cow Flat leaders held a council ofwar. On the level behind the entrenched army the women of Waddy and theirfamilies were picknicking gaily on the grass, for it was accepted as agreat gala day in the township, and flags of all shapes and colours, devised from all kinds of discarded garments, fluttered from tree-tops, chimneys, posts, clothes-props, and any other eminence to which astreamer could be fastened. 

Perceiving their opponents reluctant to charge, Peterson's commandpresently developed a fine flow of sarcasm. 

'Won't ye stip over, ye mud-gropers?' cried Devoy. 'It's a nice littlericiption we've arranged for yez. 

'Who stole the goats?' retorted the enemy. 

'Sure, is it the bits of goats, then? Ye might come an' take them if yewon't be stayin' all day there dishcussin' polemics. ' Devoy wasunderstood to be a man of learning and unequalled in argument. 

'Kidnappers an' goat-stealers!' yelled the foe. 

Devoy posed on a rock in an oratorical attitude. 

'Ye came suspectin' t' have a foine aisy time the mornin', ' he said. 'Yezcontimplated playin' the divil wid a big shtick among the weemin an' thechildther. Tom Moran, ye thunderin' great ilephant av a man, d'ye thinkye cud fight a sick hen on a fince?'

Moran replied with uproarious profanity and frantic pantomime, and theabuse became general and vociferous. Devoy mounted a larger rock andcommenced a scathing harangue; but a sod thrown by an invader took him inthe mouth and toppled him over backwards, so that he arose gasping andspitting and clawing dirt out of his beard, and made a rush for hisenemy, mad for battle; friends grappled with him and held him back, andhe could only shriek defiance and rash challenges as the two partiesmoved along the quarries towards the log barricade. Here the men of CowFlat halted again and their leaders conferred, but the rank-and-file wererapidly losing temper and restraint under the black insults heaped uponthem by the besieged. They scattered along the row of logs into a longthin line and the men of Waddy followed, till the two parties were almostman to man, facing each other, exchanging jibes and gestures of contempt. 

'Moran, ye scut! don't be skirmishin' an' in thriguin' t' get forninat ashmall man. My meat ye are, an' come on, ye--ye creepin' infor-r-mer, ye!

It was the last insult. Moran led the charge, roaring like a goadedbullock, the two parties clashed over the logs, and in an instantcomparative silence fell upon the men. The yelling, the derisive voices, and scoffing laughter ceased, and nothing was heard but the sharp rattleof the strokes. The fight was fierce, earnest, and bloody; all thoughtsof the absurdity of the cause of contention had long since beenforgotten, and the battle was as remorseless as if it were waged for anempire. 

The women had never expected anything serious to happen, and now theywere dreadfully afraid. A valiant few took arms and joined in the fray bythe sides of their husbands; but the rest, finding after a few minutesthat the fight raged furiously, gave way to bitter tears, and wailedprotests from a safe distance, while the children followed their examplewith all the vigour of young lungs. 

In time Peterson and Devoy and Rogers found voice and yelledencouragement to their men, and sticks and fists worked grievousmischief. The Cow Flat men were at an enormous disadvantage in having toscale the logs to make headway; whenever a hero did succeed in gainingthe top, Big Peterson, who moved swiftly and tirelessly up and down theline, was there to cope with him, and he was hurled down, bruised andbroken. The besiegers struggled valiantly, but it dawned on them in thecourse of ten minutes that they were waging a vain and foolish fight. Arally and a rescue of Moran, who was on the point of being captured bythe enemy, gave them an excuse to draw off, dragging their defeatedleader beyond harm's reach. A few moments later, in the midst of excitedcheering and jeering, a number of the men became aware of a small, bare-headed, red-haired, white-faced boy standing on the logs between thefoes, where he had stood whilst the fight was still waging, whirling hishat, and crying something at the top of his voice:

'The troopers! The troopers! The troopers!

It was Dick Haddon, very frightened apparently, and ablaze withexcitement. 

'Don't fight, don't fight!' he cried. ''Twas me took the goats, an' thetroopers're comin'! Look, the troopers!

Sure enough, far off across the level country leading down to Yarraman, asmall body of mounted police could be seen riding at a canter towardsWaddy, their swords and cap-peaks glittering in the sun. The men staredin the direction pointed by Dick in silence, wondering what thisdevelopment might mean. Devoy was the first to move. Gripping Dick, helifted him from the logs. 

'Run, run, ye bla'gard!' he said. 'Fetch yer school football. '

Then as Dick hastened away Devoy took a commanding position on thebarricade. 

'Hear me, all of yez, ' he cried. 'Down wid yer sticks, every divil ofyez! You Cow Flat min, too, down wid 'em! Look it here--the troopers iscomin'. Shine have infor-rmed on us in Yarraman. Moind, now, this is jista bit of divarsion we've been havin'. '

The Waddy men had dropped their weapons, so also had most of their foes, and all gathered closer about Devoy. 

'T'row away thim shticks, ' he yelled. 'D'ye want tin years fer riot, an'murther, an' dish turbin' the peace? Look peaceable, an' frindly, an'lovin', if it's in yez so to do. Moran, ye sulky haythen, wud ye behangin' the lot av us? Shmile 'r I'll black the other oye of ye! Shmile, ye hi-potomus!

At this instant the line of troopers rode in between the parties, with aclattering of scabbard and chain. The sergeant drew his foaming bay upsharp and confronted Devoy. 

'What is the meaning of this, my man?' he demanded. 

'Meanin' which, sor?' Devoy cocked a black and swollen eye at theofficer, and smiled innocently over a lacerated chin. 

'Meaning this. ' The trooper waved a white glove over the congregation. 

'Sure, it's a bit of a game only--a bit of a friendly game o' football, as ye may see wid the own eyes of ye. '

Dick's football had just bounced in between the opposing bodies. Theofficer ran an eye over the crowd, noting the bloodstains. 

'You play football in a funny way at Waddy, ' he said. 

'We play it wid enthusiasm. '

'Enthusiasm! I should say you played it with shillelahs. Do you alwaysget cracked skulls and black eyes when you play football?'

'It's our pleasant way, sor. '

'Is it? Well, how the devil do you play football? What is the meaning ofthis pile of logs?'

'Meaning the fines, sergeant? It's this way: we of Waddy stands on thisside, an' thim of Cow Flat forninst us on the other side, an' we kicks itover t' thim, an' they kicks it back to ourselves, an', sure, the sidewhat kicks it over the most frequent wins. Would you like t' see, sergeant?'

The miners grinned, the troopers giggled, and the sergeant began to feelhuffy. 

''Tention!' he cried. 'Who won this precious game?'

Devoy pinched hi chin tenderly and grimaced. It was hard to abandon theglory of a well-won battle, but there was no option. 

'It was a dthraw, ' he said manfully. 

'And what were you playing for?'

'Playin' for? Oh, fer natural love an' affection, nothin' more, barrin' afew goats. '

'Goats, eh? Now look here, my fine fellow, we were told there was to beriot and fighting here over those goats. I don't believe a word of yourcock-and-bull story about football, and for two pins I'd clap a few ofyou where you wouldn't play again for some time to come. Now you'd allbetter settle this goat business while my men are here, and take myadvice and drop football if you want to keep on the comfort able and airyside of a gaol. Now then, you fellows from the Flat, round up your goatsand look slippy in getting out of this. '

Devoy was the picture of outraged innocence. 

'Tut, tut, tut!' he said mournfully, 'an' see how they take off thecharacther of dacent, paceable, lovin' min. 'Twas a tinder an' frindlygame we was playin', sergeant, but if ye will break it up, sure I'm alaw-abidin' man. We did intund t' axe the min av Cow Flat t' have thebite an' sup wid us at the banquit this night, but we rispict the law, an' we say nothin' agin it. But, sor, if ever yer men would be likun' agame of football, we--'

'Get down, you ruffian!' said the sergeant, grinning, and rode his horseat Devoy. 

So the Great Goat Riot was settled, and under the eye of the sergeant andhis troopers the goats of Cow Flat were drafted from those of Waddy. Itwas a difficult task, and was not accomplished without trouble andargument and minor hostilities: but the judgment of the sergeant, whoseemed to be aware of the whole merits of the case, was final, so that indue time the men of Cow Flat departed driving their goats before them, and comparative peace fell upon Waddy once more. 

CHAPTER XII. 

ALL through the next day Waddy was very calm; it was repenting recentrash actions and calculating laboriously. At the Drovers' Arms thatevening several members of the School Committee compared conclusions andresolved that something must be done. It was evident that the youth ofthe township, under the leadership of 'the boy Haddon, ' had dragged Waddyinto a nasty squabble, some of the results of which were unpleasantlyconspicuous on the faces and heads of prominent committeemen. Then theravaged gardens had to be taken into consideration. Calmer judgment hadconvinced the residents that the destruction wrought was not all due togoats, and there was a general desire to visit the responsibility on thetrue culprits, whose identity was shrewdly suspected. 

Friday was rather an eventful day at the school. The boys had heard ofthe meeting and expected serious developments. Mrs. Ben Steven called inthe morning. She was a tall heavily-framed woman, short-tempered, andastonishingly voluble in her wrath. She had selected Richard Haddon asthe vandal who had despoiled her cabbage-patch, and was seeking a justrevenge. Already she had called upon Mrs. Haddon and delivered a long, loud, and fierce public lecture to the startled little widow on the moralresponsibilities of parents, and the need they have of faithfully andregularly thrashing their sons as a duty they owe to their neighbors. Nowit was her intention to incite Joel Ham to administer an adequate caningto the boy, or to do herself the bare justice of soundly spanking theculprit. She bounced into the school, angry, bare-armed, and eager forthe fray, and all the children sat up and wondered. 

'I've come about that boy Haddon, ' said Mrs. Ben. 

Joel Ham blinked his pale lashes and regarded her thoughtfully, inpeaceful and good-humoured contrast with her own haste and heat. 

'Have you, indeed, ma'am?' he said softly. 

'Have I, indeed! 'cried the woman, bridling again at a hint of sarcasm;'can't you see I have?'

'Madam, you are very obvious. '

'Am I, then! Well, look here, you; you've got to cane the hide off thatboy. '

'You surprise me, Mrs. Steven. For what?'

'For breakin' into my garden an' robbin' me. Nice way you're teachin'these boys, ain't you? Makin' thieves an' stealers of 'em. Now, tell me, do you mean to thrash him?'

Joel considered the matter calmly, pinching his under lip and blinking atMrs. Ben in a pensive, studious way. 

'No, ma'am, I do not. '

'For why?' cried the woman. 

'I am not the public hangman, Mrs. Steven. '

Mrs. Steven could not see the relevance of the excuse, and her anger roseagain. 

'Then, sir, I'll thrash him myself, now an' here. '

The master sighed heavily and clambered on to his high stool, took hisblack bottle from his desk, and deliberately refreshed himself, obliviousapparently to the lady's threat and forgetting her presence. 

'Do you hear me, Joel Ham?' Mrs. Ben Steven beat heavily on the desk withthe palm of her large hand. 'I'll whack him myself. '

'Certainly, ma'am, certainly--if you can catch him. '

Dick accepted this as a kindly hint and dived under a couple of desks asMrs. Steven rushed his place. The chase was obviously useless from thefirst; the woman had not a possible chance of catching Dick amongst theforms, but she tried while her breath lasted, rushing in and out amongstthe classes, knocking a child over here and there, boxing the ears ofothers when they got in her way, and creating confusion and unboundeddelight everywhere. The children were overjoyed, but Gable was muchconcerned for Dick, and stood up in his place ejaculating 'Crickey!'in aloud voice and following the hunt with frightened eyes. 

Meanwhile Joel Ham, B. A. , sat at his desk, contemplating the roof withprofound interest, and taking a casual mechanical pull at his bottle. Joel was in a peculiar position: he was selected by the people of Waddyand paid by them, and had to defer to their wishes to some extent; and, besides, Mrs. Ben Steven was a large, powerful, indignant woman, and he asmall, slim man. 

Mrs. Steven stood in front of the classes until she had recoveredsufficient breath to start a fierce tirade; then, one hand on her hip andthe other out-thrown, she thundered abuse at Richard Haddon and all hisbelongings. The master bore this for two or three minutes; then he slidfrom his stool, seized his longest cane, and thrashing the desk--hisusual demand for order--he faced Mrs. Ben and, pointing to the door, cried:

'Out!'

The woman backed away a step and regarded him with some amazement. He wasnot a bit like the everyday Joel Ham, but quite imperious and fierce. 

'Out!' he said, and the long cane whistled threateningly around and overher. 

She backed away a few steps more; Joel followed her up, cutting allaround her with the lightning play of an expert swordsman, just missingby the fraction of an inch, and showing a face that quite subdued thevirago. Mrs. Steven backed to the door. 

'Out!' thundered Ham, and she fled, banging the door between her and thedangerous cane. 

'Oh crickey!' cried Gable in a high squeak that set the whole schoollaughing boisterously. 

Mrs. Ben Steven reappeared at one of the windows, and threatened terriblethings for Ham when her Ben returned; but Joel was consoling himself withhis bottle again and was not in the least disturbed, and a minute laterthe school was plunged in a studious silence. 

Peterson and Cann called late in the afternoon, as representatives of theSchool Committee. 

'We've come fer your permission to ask some questions of the boy Haddon, Mr. Ham, sir, ' said Peterson. 

Joel received a great show of respect from most of the men of Waddy inconsideration of his position and scholarship. 

Dick was called out and faced the men, firm-lipped and with unconquerableresolution in the set of his face and the gleam of his eye. 

''Bout this job o' goat-stealin'?' said Cann, with a grave judicial air. 

'They stole my billy. I went to fetch him back, an' all the other goatscome too, ' Dick answered. 

'Who helped?'

'Just a dog--a sheep an' cattle dog. '

'What boys?'

'Dunno !'

The examination might as well have ended there. It is a point of honouramongst all schoolboys never to 'split' on mates. The boy who tells iseverywhere regarded as a sneak--at Waddy he speedily became a pariah--andDick was a stickler for points of honour. To be caned was bad, butnothing to the gnawing shame of long weeks following upon a cowardlybreach of faith. To all the questions Cann or Peterson could put with theobject of eliciting the names of the participators in the big raid, Dickreturned only a distressing and wofully stupid 'Dunno!

Peterson scratched his head helplessly, and turned an eye of appeal uponthe master. 

'Very well, ' said Cann, 'we'll just have to guess at the other boys, an'their fathers'll be prevailed on to deal with 'em; but this boy what'sbeen the ring leader ain't got no father, an' it don't seem fair to theothers to leave his punishment to a weak woman, does it?'

Peterson's eye appealed to the master again. 'Not fair an' square to theother boys, ' he added philosophically. 

Joel Ham shook his head. 

'I teach your children, ' he said. 'I neither hang nor flagellate yourcriminals. '

'No, no, a-course not, ' said Peterson. 

'Might you be able to spare us this boy fer the rest o' the afternoon, inthe name o' the committee?' asked Cann. 'We'll go an' argue with hismother to leave the lickin' of him to the committee. '

'As a question o' public interest, ' said Peterson. 

The master consented to this, and Dick was led away between the two men. The interview with Mrs. Haddon took place in the widow's garden. Mrs. Haddon quite understood what it meant when Peterson entered with Dick incustody. 

'Good day, Mrs. Haddon, ' said the big man gingerly. 'O' course you knowall 'bout the trouble o' those goats. '

'Made by you stupid men, mostly, ' said Mrs. Haddon. 

Peterson stammered and appealed to Cann--he had not expected argument. 

'What we men did, ma'am, ' said Cann, 'was to protect our property. If thegoats hadn't bin brought here there wouldn't 'a' bin any need fer that. Not to mention garden robbin' before, an' broken fences an' such. '

'The School Committee, ma'am, ' said Peterson, 'has drawed up a list ofsuspects, an' the fathers of the boys named will lambaste 'em allthorough. Now it occurred to the committee that your boy, bein' the worsto' the pack, an' havin' confessed, oughter get a fair share o' thehammerin'. '

'An' you've come to offer to do it?'

'That's just it, ma'am, if you'll be so kind. '

Mrs. Haddon had a proper sense of her public duties, a due appreciationof the extent of Dick's wickedness, and a full knowledge of her owninefficiency as a scourger. She looked down and debated anxiously withherself, carefully avoiding Dick's eye, and Dick watched her all thetime, but did not speak a word or make a single plea. 

'Can't I beat my own boy?' she asked angrily. 

'To be certain sure, ma'am, but you're a small bit of a woman, an' itdon't seem altogether square dealin' fer the others to get a properhidin' an' him not. 'Sides, 'twould satisfy public feelin' better if oneof us was to lam him. Sound, ma'am, but judicious, ' said Cairn. 

'Au' 'twould save you further trouble, ' added Peterson. ''Twould ease themind o' Mrs. Ben Steven. ' This latter was a weighty argument. Mrs. Haddon's terror of the big woman with the terrible tongue was very real. 

'Well, well, well, ' she said pitifully. 'You--you won't beat himroughly?'

'I'm a father, as you know, ma'am, ' said Peterson, 'an' know what's afair thing by a boy. '

Cann was unbuckling his belt, and the widow stood trembling, clasping andunclasping her hands. It was a severe ordeal, but public spiritprevailed. Mrs. Haddon turned and fled into the house, and shuttingherself in her bedroom buried her head in the pillows and wept. 

Ten minutes later she was called out, and Dick was delivered into herhands. 

'Better lock him up fer the night, ' said Peterson, looking in a puzzledway at Dick. 

The boy bad not shed a tear nor uttered a cry. He stood stock still underthe flailing, and the heart went out of Peterson. Had Dick fought orstruggled, it would have been all right and natural; but this was such acold-blooded business, and a strange but strongly-felt superiority ofspirit in the boy awed and confused the big man, and the beating was butgingerly done after all. 

'Come, Dickie, dear, ' said Mrs. Haddon, in a penitent tone and with muchhumility. 

She led the boy into his room, and there addressed a diffident andhalting speech to him. There were times when Mrs. Haddon had a sense ofbeing younger and weaker than her son, and this was one of them. She feltit her duty to tell Dick of the sinfulness of his conduct, and to try tojustify the punishment, but her words fell ineptly from her lips, --sheknew them to be vain against the power that held Dick silent andtearless, and yet without a trace of boyish stubbornness. She was not avery wise little woman, or her son's force of character might have beenturned early to good works and profitable courses. 

In truth the thrashing had had an extraordinary effect on Richard Haddon. For a boy to be kicked, or clouted, or tweaked by strange men is thefortune of war--it is a mere everyday incident, the natural and acceptedfate of all boys, and is swiftly resented with a jibe or a missile andforgotten on the spot; but to be taken in cold blood by one strange man, not a schoolmaster or in any way privileged, and deliberately andsystematically larruped with a belt under the eyes of another, is burningshame. It tortured all Dick's senses into revolt, and awakened in him ahatred of what he looked upon as the injustice and cowardliness of theoutrage that was too deep and too bitter for trivial complaints. 

Dick's temperament was poignantly romantic, and the natural tendency hadbeen fed and nourished by indiscriminate reading. The Waddy PublicLibrary, in point of fact, was largely responsible for many of the minorworries and big troubles Dick had been instrumental in visiting on thetownship. The 'lib'ry' was in the hands of a few men whose literarytastes were decidedly crude, with a strong leaning towards piracy on thehigh seas, brigandage, buccaneering, and sudden death. Dick read allprint that came in his way. Once he started a book he felt in honourbound to finish it, however difficult the task. To set it aside would bea confession of mental weakness. For this reason he had once, during aweek of humiliation, fought his way stubbornly through Tupper's'Proverbial Philosophy. ' But it was the rampant fiction that influencedhim most directly. He took his romance very seriously; his vividsympathies were always with the poor persecuted pirate driven to lawlesscourses by systematic oppression at school, or by a cold proud father'sfailure to appreciate the humour of his youthful villainies. Thebushranger, too, urged from milder courses of crime by the persecutionsof the police, found in Dick a devoted friend. It never occurred to theboy that the excuses given were anything but adequate and satisfactoryjustification for pillage and arson and homicide. 

On leaving Dick's room, Mrs. Haddon locked the door very carefully andquietly. She suspected that he was planning mischief that would lead tofurther trouble, and hoped that by next morning he would be in a frame ofmind to be won over by a little motherly strategy. But she went about herwork with a heavy heart. Later she took the impenitent young 'duffer' atea cunningly designed to appeal to his rebellious heart, and spread itneatly on the big dimity-covered box in his bedroom; but Dick wasimplacable. 

In the evening the widow had a visitor in whom she could confide withoutreservation. Christina Shine had called about her new dress for theSunday School anniversary, and the weakest and most indulgent of motherscould not have wished for a more sympathetic confidant than big MissChris, who saved all her tears for other people's troubles. 

'You know, dear, ' murmured Mrs. Haddon. 'I can't change Dickie's nature. He's wild, an' he thinks he's all kinds of ridiculous people, an' theylead him into mischief. '

'Poor Dick! I shouldn't have let them beat him, ' said Chris, flushingwith indignation. 

'An' he just as eager for good, you know, ' continued the widow, 'but thennobody makes any fuss over him when he does something really creditable. '

Chris nodded her head reproachfully. 'Even father forgets, ' she said. 

Miss Chris had enormous faith in her father and a great affection forhim, and his want of consideration for the boy who she believed had savedhim from much suffering, if not a slow and terrible death, was a trait inhis character that gave her a good deal of concern. 

'Dickie thinks a lot of you, Christina, ' said Mrs. Haddon. 'P'r'aps ifyou went an' spoke a few words with him he might be persuaded to overlookwhat's past. '

'Yes, yes, ' said Chris brightly. 

'Tell him how much trouble he is givin' his poor mother, who'd be alonebut for him. You might dwell on that, my dear, will you?

'I will, of course; and it's true, too. '

'It always seems to soften him. If it doesn't, you can hint I'm not verywell to-night. '

Miss Chris, who stood head and shoulders above her friend, laid anaffectionate hand upon the plump and rosy widow. 

'When he's unmanageable other ways I take ill for a little while, youknow, ' said the widow mournfully. 'Come in, ' she cried in answer to asharp knock at the door. 

The caller was Harry Hardy. He stopped short in confusion on beholdingChristina Shine, and Chris blushed warmly in answering his curt 'Goodevening. '

'I called to see Dick 'bout that tin dish, ' he said, beating his leg withhis hat in an obvious effort to appear at his ease. 

Mrs. Haddon glanced sharply from Harry to Chris and conceived a newinterest. 

'I will go to Dickie, ' said Chris, taking the key from the widow. 

Mrs. Haddon explained to Harry when they were alone, and addedinsinuatingly:

'That's a dear good girl. '

'Shine's daughter?' said Harry with emphasis. 

'Yes, Shine's daughter, an' she's as good as he pretends to be. '

Harry contrived to look quite vindictive and gave no answer, and a minutelater Chris returned. Dick had barred his door on the other side andwould give her no reply. 

'The window!' cried Mrs. Haddon. 

Harry hastened out and around the house. Finding the window of Dick'sroom unlatched he threw it up and climbed into the room. The door wasbarred with a chair; this he removed, and Mrs. Haddon entered with acandle. There was no sign of the boy, but pinned on the wall was a largestrip of paper on which was written in bold letters:

'Good-bye for ever. I've run away to be a bushranger. --DICK HADDON. P. S. --Pursuit is useless. '

The widow sank upon the edge of the bed and mopped her tears with asnow-white apron. 

'That means that I sha'n't see him for two days at least, ' she said, 'unless I'm either taken very ill or attacked by a burglar. Why, whycan't a poor woman be allowed to bring up her own children in her ownway?'

Chris was soothing and Harry reassuring. 

'He knows how to take care of himself. He'll be all right, ' cried theyoung man heartily. 

'If you could get some o' the boys to let him know I wasn't safe from asundowner, or a drunken drover, or someone, I'd be much obliged, ' saidMrs. Haddon. 

'Very well, ' replied Harry, laughing. 'I'll manage that. '

Mrs. Haddon smiled through her tears, much comforted, and turned her mindto other things. Within the space of about two minutes she had satisfiedherself that no woman in all the world would make Harry Hardy a betterwife than Christina Shine, and, being convinced, it was manifestly herduty to help the good cause. 

'Won't you stay awhile an' keep me company, Christina?' she asked. 'Harry'll see you home. '

Miss Chris would stay with pleasure, but she couldn't think of troublingMr. Hardy, and she said so with a girl's shyness. Mr. Hardy stammered alittle and tried to say that it would be no trouble at all, but theeffort was not a brilliant success considered as a compliment. He longedto stay, and yet hated and feared to stay. This anomalous frame of mindwas new; it confused and staggered him. He seemed to be swayed by anexternal impulse, and resented it with miserable self-deceit. But hestayed. 

Harry did not greatly enrich the conversation during the hour spent inMrs. Haddon's kitchen, but he found his eyes drawn to the handsomeprofile of Christina Shine, standing out in its soft fairness against thedark wall like a wonderfully carven cameo. Her hair, turned back inbeautifully flowing lines, helped the queenly suggestion. Harry lookedresolutely away; then he heard her voice, sweet and low, and recollectedthat beside himself no man, woman, or child in Waddy was mean enough tocherish a hard thought of Miss Chris. Beside himself? He turned fiercely, as if for refuge, to his dislike for her father. His failure to find thesmallest clue to justify his opinion and that of his mother as to thereal merits of the crime at the Silver Stream left him more bittertowards the searcher, the one man whose words and actions had convictedFrank. He would not admit his hatred to be unfair or unreasonable, andhis moroseness deepened as time showed him how heavily the disgrace andsorrow lay upon his mother, although her words were always cheerful andher faith unconquerable. 

The walk home that night was not a pleasant one to Chris. She waspiteously anxious to have him think kindly of her, and this made itselffelt through Harry's roughest mood; then he had an absurd impulse tothrow out his arms and offer her protection and tenderness. Absurdbecause, turning towards her, he was compelled to look upwards into hereyes, and the tall, strong figure at his side, walking erect, with firmsquare shoulders, dwarfed his conceit till he felt himself morally andphysically a pigmy. 

Their conversation drifted to dangerous ground. 

'Have you found nothing to help poor Frank?' she asked. 

'Nothing, ' he said sharply and suspiciously. 

'I am sorry. Oh! how I wish I could aid you!'

'There's one man that might do that, but he won't. '

'One man? One? You said that strangely. One man? Who would be so brutal?'

His silence stung her. She turned sharply. 

'Oh, you don't mean--surely, surely you don't mean father?'

Again he did not answer. 

'It is not right, ' she cried out. 'You can have no reason to think that. You say it to hurt me. '

'I didn't say it. '

'You meant it--you mean it still. '

She quickened her pace and they exchanged no more words until the walkwas ended, then she gave him her hand over the gate. 

'Good-night, ' she said. 'You were more generous as a boy, Harry. '

He took her hand. It was ungloved, and felt small and tender in his hardpalm. The touch awoke a sudden passion in him. Both of his hands heldhers, his head bent over it, and he blurted something in apology. 'Don'tmind me! I didn't mean it! Please, please--' He did not know what he wassaying, and the words were too low and confused to reach her ears; butshe went up the garden path with an elate bird in her heart singing sucha song of gladness that the world was filled with its music, and the girlknew its meaning and yet wondered at it. 

Harry stood nervously gripping the pickets of the gate and gazed afterher, and continued gazing for many minutes when she had gone. Then heswung off into the bush, walking rapidly, and was glad in a sternrebellious way--glad in spite of his mission, in spite of his brother, inspite of and defiance of every thing. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

MEANWHILE matters of interest were progressing below at the Mount of Goldmine. The juvenile shareholders of the Company had done a fair amount ofwork in the soft reef of the new drive at odd times during the lastfortnight; and the drive, which diminished in circumference as itprogressed, and threatened presently to terminate in a sharp point, hadbeen driven in quite fifteen feet. But to-night the young prospectorswere not interested in mining operations. On top Dick Haddon's bigbilly-goat was feeding greedily on the lush herbage of the Gaol Quarry;below, Dick and his boon companions were preparing for a tremendousadventure. 

After escaping from his room Dick had hunted up Jacker Mack, Phil Doon, and Billy Peterson. He came upon the two former at a propitious time, when both were slowly recovering from the physical effects of an 'awfuldoing' administered by their respective fathers at the instigation of theSchool Committee; when they were still filled with bitterness towards allmankind, and satisfied that life was hollow and vain, and there was nohappiness or peace for a well meaning small boy on this side of thegrave. Peterson had succeeded in avoiding the head of his house so far, but was filled with anxiety. Dick easily persuaded all three to accompanyhim to the mine, there to discuss the situation and plot a fittingrevenge. 

His proposal was that they should all turn bushrangers on the spot, forma band to ravage and lay waste the country, and visit upon society thejust consequences of its rashness and folly in tyrannising over its boys, misunderstanding them, and misconstruing their highest and noblestintentions. 

'When anyone shakes our goats, ain't we a right to demand 'em back at thepoint o' the sword?' asked Dick indignantly. 

The boys were unanimous. They had such a right--nay, it was a boundenduty. 

'Very well, then, what'd they wanter lick us fer?' continued Dick. 'Won'tthey be sorry when they hear about us turnin' bushrangers, that's all!

'D'ye really think they will, though?' asked Jacker McKnight dubiously. He had found his parents very unromantic people, who took a severelycommonplace view of things, and retained unquestioning faith in the strapas a means of elevating the youthful idea. 

'Why, o' course!' cried Dick. 'When our mothers read in the papers 'boutthe lives we're leadin', it'll make 'em cry all night 'cause o' the waywe've been treated; an' you coves' fathers'll hear tell o' yer greatadventures, an' they'll know what sort o' chaps they knocked about an'abused, an' they'll respect you an' wish you was back home so's theycould make up for the fatal past. '

Jacker looked doubtful still; he could not imagine his parents in thatcharacter; but Peterson was delighted with the prospect, and Phil Doon, whose mother was a large, stout woman, who spent half her day in bedreading sentimental stories, was quite impressed, and enlisted on thespot. 

'You'll be my lieutenant, you know, Jacker, ' said Dick; 'an' we'll callyou Fork Lightnin'. '

'Hoo! Will you, though?' cried Jacker. 

Dick nodded and made an affirmative noise between his closed lips. 

'Fork Lightnin', ' said Jacker, trying the name. 'Sounds well, don't it?What sorter feller will I be? Brave, eh?'

'Frightened o' neither man nor devil, but awful cruel, 'cause you wascrossed in love. '

Jacker was delighted. He was naturally a combative youth, with a finecontempt for rules that would deny him the advantages to be derived fromhis ability as a swift and vigorous kicker; so a bloodthirsty andrebellious character was quite to his taste. 

'Not crossed in love, though, ' he complained. 'That seems measley, don'tit? S'pose I shot a man once, an' the p'lice won't let me have no peace. '

'Good enough!' said Dick. 

'Then I'm in. When do we start?'

'To-morrer night. We want one more. Twitter will come. That'll be five. Five is a fine gang; sides, we don't want fellers what ain't got billies. Bushrangers ain't no account on foot. My men must be all mounted. So Ipropose we meet on the toll-bar road just when it's gettin' dark, allriding our billy-goats an' armed to the teeth; an' we'll stick up all theCow Flat people goin' home from Yarraman. '

'My word!' cried Phil ecstatically. 'We owe it to that lot. '

'Couldn't we start now?' said Peterson, who had been sitting with wideeyes and open mouth, and was consumed with impatience. 

'Oh, no, ' said Dick; 'we gotter prepare our arms an' ammunition an'things. An' Saturdee night's best, 'cause the Cow Flats what have been toYarraman buyin' things come up to the Drovers' Arms on the coach, an'walk home from there. '

It was agreed that Peterson should stay with Dick in the mine that night. The boys had no longer any fear of the black hole discovered at the endof the main drive. An exploring party had made its way through theopening and into the workings beyond, and had found itself in a drivecommunicating with the Red Hand shaft. Dick, who once in an emergency hadserved as tool-boy in the Silver Stream for a fortnight, knew that at alower level there was another and a much longer Red Hand drive by whichaccess to the Silver Stream No. 1 workings was possible; but he kept thisknowledge to himself. 

Shortly after midnight Dick and Billy ventured to return to Waddy, withthe idea of securing Billy's goat, Hector, a sturdy black brute muchadmired as the most inveterate 'rusher' in the country. With the boys ofWaddy a goat that butted or 'rushed' was highly prized as an animal ofspirit. Peterson caught his goat, and then Dick, with unnecessarywariness and great waste of stratagem, 'stuck up' his own home, andsecured a parcel of food carefully left for him on the table near theunlatched window by a thoughtful mother. 

On Saturday the other boys turned up at the appointed time. There wererules commanding the utmost caution in entering the mine by daylight. Every care had to be taken to satisfy the shareholders that no strangerwas in sight, and the last boy was compelled to keep a vigilant look-outwhile the others were descending, and then to make his way to the openingby a roundabout route, exercising a vigilance that would have puzzled anarmy of black-trackers. 

Dick, who before leaving home had rifled his small savings bank, hadprovided Jacker Mack with money for supplies, and Jacker brought with hima pound of candles, some black material for masks, and half a dozenpackets of Chinese crackers. The Chinese crackers represented cartridgesfor the pistols of Red Hand's gang. Dick had decided to be known as RedHand. The pistols were made by fashioning a piece of soft wood in theshape of a stock, and securing to this a scrap of hollow bone for abarrel. Into the barrel a cracker was thrust, the wick was ignited at apiece of smouldering 'punk '--which could be carried in the pocket in atin matchbox--and it only needed the exercise of a little imagination tosatisfy oneself that the resulting explosion spread death and desolationin the ranks of the enemy. 

All preliminaries were arranged during the afternoon: in the evening, just before night fell, Dick and Peterson, hidden with their trustysteeds amongst the saplings about three hundred yards beyond thetoll-bar, awaited the coming of their companions in crime. They had notlong to wait; in a few minutes Jacker Mack, Ted, and Phil Doon cameriding up the dusty track on their brave billies. They were accompaniedby a pedestrian, an interloper, who lurked behind and evidently did notanticipate a friendly reception. It was Gable. 

'He saw us comin' an' he would foller, ' explained Jacker. 

'Yah!' cried Dick in disgust; 'why didn't you boot him?'

'So I did. Fat lot o' good that done. He otl'y bellered like a bullock, an' kep' on follerin'. We pretended we wasn't goin' nowhere, but he justhung round an' couldn't be fooled. '

Dick approached the old man threateningly. 

'Clear out!' he said. 

Gable put up a defensive elbow and backed away, knuckling his eyepiteously the while. 

'Are you goin'?' cried Dick, and kicked Gable just as he would havekicked any inconvenient and mutinous youngster in the same case. 

'You look out whatcher doin', ' muttered the old man, skipping about toavoid the second kick. I'll get someone what'll show you, ' he addeddarkly. 

Dick ran at him with a big stick, but Gable only retreated a few yards. He threw stones, knocking up the dust about the old man's feet, and Gablehopped and skipped with the agility of a kid; but after each attack hereturned humbly to the heels of the party like a too faithful dog. 

'Better let him come, I s'pose, ' said Dick at last. 'Come on, nuisance!

Gamble jigged up, radiant, and grinning all over his face. 

Red Hand selected a suitable clump of saplings about half a mile from thetoll-bar, and the gang secreted themselves and made preparation for thefirst attack. They carried their 'cartridges' loose in small bags hungfrom their belts, in which were thrust three or four of thebone-barrelled pistols. Black masks were donned, Fork Lightning wasstationed on a stump near by to give warning of the approach of a victim, and the others took up suitable positions, while Dick fitted Gable with amask so that his appearance might not discredit the gang. 

'There, ' said Dick. 'you're a bushranger now, re member. '

'Crickey!' cried the old man, delighted. 

'An'; you'll be hanged if you're caught. '

'Oh, crickey!' Gable was more delighted still, and danced up and down, clapping his hands. 

Suddenly there was a warning whistle from Fork Lightning, and that blackscoundrel crept stealthily in amongst his mates. 

'Someone's comin', ' he said. 

'To horse!' cried Red Hand. 'When I give the word, gallop into the roadan' cut off their retreat. Don't fire till I give orders, an', mind, spare the women an' children. '

Sounds of horses' hoofs were heard approaching. The gang, masked, andmounted on bridled and saddled goats, anxiously awaited the word ofcommand. 

'Back, men, back for your lives!' cried Dick. 'It's the p'lice, fifteenthousan' strong, an' they're hot on our track; but Red Hand's gang willnever be taken alive. '

The bushrangers cowered back into the shadow as a party of three youngmen riding tired horses ambled slowly by, singing dolorously andbrandishing bottles. Red Hand was discreet if valiant. However, anotherwarning came not a minute later. This time it was a solitary man in afarmer's cart; his old horse was shuffling wearily through the dust at ajog-trot, and the boys could just discern the tall gaunt figure of thedriver. 

'Surround him, my lads!' yelled Red Hand. 'Bail up!' he cried ridingforward on Butts and presenting what passed very well for a pistol in thedusk. 'Your money or your life!

The driver snatched a stick out of the cart and, uttering a great yell, began to belabour his poor horse mercilessly. 

'Fire!' shrieked the implacable Red Hand; and a few seconds later sixcrackers exploded about the unhappy farmer, who instantly fell upon hisknees and, still pounding at his horse, was whirled away amongst thetrees by the startled brute. For some time the bush-rangers could hearhim still hammering his old horse, and catch the sound of his voiceencouraging the poor animal to more reckless speed, and the crashing ofsaplings as the dray pounded its way through the undergrowth. The boyswere delighted; this was noble sport; the lust of victory was upon them. Gable was waving his arms and ejaculating 'Oh, crickey!' and the otherscapered about on their goats, and felt themselves to be very large andterrible persons indeed. 

'Bushrangin's easy ez snuff, ' said Peterson. 

'Course it is, ' said Phil. 'Wisher few p'lice'd come along and let's havea go at 'em. '

'That was splendidly done, men, ' said Red Hand with superior coolness. 'Back to your places. Someone's comin'. '

The next corner was a man on a grey horse. 

'Bail up!' cried Red Hand from the cover of the saplings. 'Stir a footan' you're a dead man. '

The rider waited for no more, but threw himself forward on his horse'sneck, dug in his spurs, and galloped furiously away in the direction ofCow Flat, hearing the reports of the boys' crackers only when he was farout of range. The next victim was a small boy on a pony, who, as soon ashe heard the terrible command, fell plump on to the road and then jumpedup and fled in terror after his bolting horse. The gang had now spreadconsternation and dismay along quite two miles of the highway, and werejubilant in consequence and primed for any adventure however desperate. 

Dick entertained his men with talk of the glory they had earned by theiractions that night, and predicted a reputation for them beside which thereputation of every other gang of bushrangers Australia had known wouldfade into insignificance. 

The boys listened soberly, very elated and perfectly happy. 

'But we mustn't let the nex' one go so easy, ' said the leader. 

'Here is someone, ' whispered Fork Lightning. 

Sure enough, a pedestrian could be dimly discerned approaching from thedirection of the toll-gate. 

'To yer horses! commanded Red Hand. 

'Why, it's a woman, ' said Peterson. 

'Who cares?'

'Thought bushrangers never did nothin' to the women?'

'Oh, ' said Dick, 'that's on'y when they're young an' pretty. If thisone's young an' pretty I'll 'polo gise, an' it'll be all right. Thereain't no reason not to bail 'em up when they're big an' strong an' ableto take care o' themselves. '

This seemed quite reasonable to the gang, and they saw as the ladyapproached that her size did not give her any claim upon their gallantry. She was very tall and stout. In point of fact she was the woman who haddriven through Waddy on the day after the goat raid, calling down infamyon the township. 

'Bail up!' cried Red Hand. 

Phil, Ted, and Peterson rode up in front, barring the way. Red Hand andFork Lightning approached from either side, and all presented pistols. The woman backed away a few paces, staring at the goat-mounted, maskedapparitions that seemed to have started out of the ground under her verynose, but the bushrangers followed her up. 

'Be not afraid, madam, ' said Dick in his best literary style; 'I am RedHand, an' if you obey no injury'll be done you. '

The woman threw up her hands in amazement. 

'Well I never, ' she muttered. Without the least warning she darted atTed, seized him, pulled him from the back of his billy, and in spite ofhis wild struggles promptly bent him over her knee; then, with a handlike that of a navvy, backed by a great muscular arm, began to spank theterrible outlaw. 

'You look out! You le' me alone!' gasped Ted, struggling and writhingwith all his power; but the flailing went on, bat--bat--bat--with blowsthat might have disturbed an elephant. Ted's feelings became too strongfor words; he started to howl, and the night re-echoed with the cries ofthe outraged bushranger. The rest of the gang stood mute, staring at thisshocking scene, amazed and deeply offended. It was all so incongruous, soutterly opposed to rule and precedent; they could scarcely believe theirsenses. Dick was the first to recover. 

'Fire!' commanded Red Hand. 

Cracker-wicks were ignited and four explosions followed, but when thesmoke was gone the gang still beheld the terrible woman beating away attheir unhappy comrade, too absorbed in a congenial occupation to care asolitary button for the fire of the outlaws. This was too much forJacker. The brothers were always ready to fight each other's battles, letthe odds be what they might, and the elder rushed to the rescue. Theonslaught did not seem to make the least difference, however; the womansimply dropped Ted and grasped his brother. Jacker Mack was a strong boyand a fierce one, but strength and tricks availed him nothing againstthose powerful arms; in ten seconds he was in Ted's place, and themassive hand was dealing with him, heavily and with startling rapidity. 

'Charge!' shrieked Red Hand. 

But the gang was demoralized. Peterson and Doon moved back from thedanger, and only one member obeyed the order--Peterson's formidable goat, Hector. Goodness knows what inspired the animal; possibly a gratefulinstinct, probably the sight of means to do an ill deed. Anyhow, hecharged. He rushed the woman from a commanding position, with force andjudgment, and a second later Jacker, woman, and goat were rolling andstruggling in the dust. Red Hand and the faithful Ted dragged Jacker fromthe hands of the enemy, and the gang fled to a safe distance, and watchedthe shadowy form of the woman as she gathered herself up and shook thedust out of her dress. Then for two minutes she stood and addressed themthrough the darkness in strident tones and language that would haveshocked an old drover or a railway ganger. 

'Bushrangin' ain't up to much, ' whimpered Ted, rubbing himself with bothhands. 

'It's rot!' said Jacker fiercely. 

Peterson and Doon muttered words of approval, and Dick felt that fourpairs of reproachful eyes were turned upon him. Gable was still hoppingabout ecstatically murmuring 'Crickey! Oh, crickey!' as he had been doingall through the encounter. 

'How'd I know?' said Dick in self-defence. 'You fellers oughter hadbetter sense'n to let her get hold o' you. '

'You started it!' groaned Ted. 

'Pretty lot o' bushrangers you are, anyway, ' Dick sneered, 'howlin''cause a woman gave you a bit of a doin'. '

'How' d you like it?' asked Jacker sullenly. 

Dick disdained to reply; indeed his attention was occupied with moreimportant things. Out of the night came the sound of galloping hoofs andcalling voices. The boys listened anxiously for a minute or so, and thenrealised their danger. 

'They're after us!' exclaimed Dick. 'Scatter an' run for the scrub. Meetat the mine!'

The pursuers dashed up on their horses just as the boys swarmed over thefence into Wilson's paddock. It was the party of young men who firstpassed the bushrangers, and the man on the grey horse. They were armedwith bottles, three parts drunk, and bent on making an heroic capture. Some of them sprang from their horses and pursued the flying bushrangersthrough the trees. 

Dick and Peterson reached the Gaol Quarry safely, and sat in dolefulsilence waiting for their mates, and wondering if any had been taken. Tedand Jacker joined them a few minutes later, and Phil Doon came limping upin the course of a quarter of an hour. He had bad news. 

'They've got Gable!' he cried from a distance. 

'No. Go on!'

'S'help me. I fell gettin' over the fence an' sneaked into a hollow tree, an' saw 'em snavel him. 'Here's one of 'em' said one, an' they put him ona horse an' tied his legs under its belly, an' they've gone into Yarramanwith him. '

'Gee-rusalem! An' what'd he say?' gasped Dick. 

'Nothin' 'sept 'Oh, crickey!''

'Well, he won't split on us. He won't know a word about it in themornin'. We're all right if none of us blabs. You fellers goin' to stay?'

'I ain't. I'm sick o' bein' a bushranger, ' said Jacker, with a reflectiveand remorseful rub at his hurt place. 

'So'm I, ' said Ted. 

Phil Doon, it appeared, had pressing reasons for returning home, butPeterson remembered that he had still an account to settle with hisfather, and resolved to share Dick's fortune. 

'Right you are, ' said Dick. 'You fellers bring some crib to-morrer, an'if you see Parrot Cann tell him to fetch some too--an', mind, noblabbin'. '

Reverses of this kind did not depress him; he had experienced manyfailures, but the wreck of one enterprise only implied the necessity ofstarting another. 

'Say, ' he said mysteriously, 'there's a big reason why we should keepthings darker'n ever. Listen. We've struck the reef!

The others stared incredulously. 

'You're havin' us, ' said Jacker. 

'Am I? Tell 'em, Billy. '

'No, he ain't, ' said Peterson. 'It's true, strike me breath. We got aspecimen this mornin' wif three colours in it. '

'So if anyone's told where we're hidin' they'll see the stone an' go an'jump the mine, ' said Dick artfully. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

NEITHER of the McKnights nor Parrot came to the boys on the Sundaymorning, and Dick and Billy, whose larder had run short, were compelledto make a raid on Wilson's garden--which yielded little in the way offruit, but carrots and turnips were not despised. At about eleveno'clock, from an outlook amongst some scrub on the Red hand tip, Dick andhis mate could see that something unusual was going on in Waddy. They sawa crowd gathering near the Drovers' Arms, and could catch the glitter ofthe accoutrements of a couple of troopers. A little later a mountedpoliceman actually came cantering into the paddock and forced them tocreep stealthily to their safe retreat at the bottom of the mine. Herethey sat and talked, prey to the most torturing curiosity. Dick'stheories to explain the apparent sensation were fine and large, investinghimself and his companion with profound dignity as the heroes of athrilling adventure; but Billy's for a wonder were somewhat gloomy, reckoning with parental castigations and ten years in gaol. This unusualframe of mind was induced, no doubt, by a limited and strictly vegetariandiet. Dick took into account the possibility that Jacker, Ted, or PhilDoon might divulge the Company's great secret, although his faith in theloyalty of his mates was strong. If the worst came to the worst hemeditated a retreat through the hole into the Red Hand drive, and flightfrom thence down the ladder-shaft and into the spacious workings of theSilver Stream. 

To help pass the time the two worked a little in the drive, breaking downabout a hundredweight of the quartz ridge that had cut in across thenarrow face. The stone showed gold freely. At another time this wouldhave occasioned the wildest jubilation, but now everything was secondaryto the wonder inspired by what they had seen in Waddy, combined withtheir dread of the results of last night's work. It was well on in theafternoon when they were joyfully startled by the sound of a whistle inthe shaft. 

'Hello, below there!' cried a voice, and a few seconds later Parrot Cann, too excited to go through the usual formalities, rattled down and landedin a heap at Dick's feet. 

'What's up?' asked Dick eagerly, as Parrot crept into the drive. 

'Oh, I say, ' gasped Parrot, 'youse fellers are in fer it!'

'How? Who split? What're the troopers doin'?'

'They're after youse. '

'After us!' Peterson's face paled at this corroboration of his worstsuspicions. 

'My oath! Gable's in gaol at Yarraman; Phil an' Jacker an' Ted's beentook, an' now they're after you. '

Fer what?'

'Rob'ry under arms, the feller said, an' shooting with intent' rsomethin'. 

Dick whistled incredulously. Here was fame, here was glory. His favouriteauthors were justified, and yet there was the dark side; thought of hismother came with a sharp twinge. 

'Who went an' split--Ted?'

'None o' the Company, ' said Parrot. 'The troopers came to arrest Gable'smates, thinkin' they was men, an' Toll-bar Sam told who you was. He sawyou all last night. '

'Did they take Ted, an' Jacker, an' Phil right away?'

'Um. Off to Yarraman. You don't know what a row's on. It's awful. Themfellers what captured Gable told a yarn about a gang o' bushrangers'n aterrible fight, an' swore Gable was the blood thirstiest of 'em all. TheYarraman Mercury printed a special paper this mornin', with all about theoutbreak of a new gang o' bushrangers in great big type, an' every one'snear mad about it, 'sept those what's laughin'. '

The boys gazed at each other for a few moments in silence. It took sometime to grasp the astounding facts. They were real bushrangers, theirescapades had been printed in the papers, they were actually beingpursued by bona fide troopers on flesh-and-blood horses--what more couldambitious youth demand?

Dick's unconquerable romanticism upheld him; he had achieved distinction, and the prospect of deluding and outwitting the police after the mannerof his most brilliant heroes filled him with delight; but Billy Petersonwas awed and out of spirits. 

'It's all right, Billy, ' said Dick, 'they'll never find us here. We candefy 'em all fer weeks. '

'Yes, ' said Billy bitterly, 'but I'm hungry!'

'You didn't bring no crib, Parrot. ' Dick had made it a rule that thenecessities of a shareholder temporarily in difficulties and hiding inthe mine were to be attended to by the free members of the Company orothers who, like Parrot Cann, were admitted to the Company's councils. 

'Wasn't game, ' answered Parrot; 'they'd 'a' watched me. Had to sneak awayas it was. '

Dick puckered his face wisely. It was a very dirty face just now; his redhair, long neglected, hung in wisps over his forehead and about his ears, giving him an elfish look in the candlelight. 

'Never mind, ' he said, 'bring us some to-night, first chance you get; butbe cunnin'. We'll shake some fruit soon ez it's dark, to keep us goin'. '

'What's the good o' fruit?' groaned Peterson. Fruit ain't grub. '

Dick looked anxiously at his mate. There was an immediate danger that theoutlaws might be starved out. 

'Parrot's goin' to fetch some, ' he said brightly. 

Parrot promised to do his best for them, but, although they waited tillnearly nine o'clock in hungry anticipation, he did not return that night. The last carrot was eaten, and a cautious excursion to Summers' orchardproduced nothing, Maori's warning bark driving the boys back to the GaolQuarry, empty and disconsolate. Billy could hold out no longer, but hedid not meditate an open desertion. 

'I'll jes' sneak round our house till I get a chance to slip in an' shakea junk o' bread or somethin'; then I'll come right back an' we'll gohalves, ' he said. 

'Sure you'll come back, are you?'

''S that wet? 'S that dry?'

Dick accepted the oath. He would have gone home himself with burglariousintentions, but feared that the official anxiety to catch the notorioushead of the new gang must have concentrated police vigilance about hismother's house, and the risk was too great. 

'Hurry back ez quick's you can, ' he commanded. ''N you'll have to beslyer 'n a black snake 'r they'll nab you. '

Dick spent the first hour alone under the saplings in the quarry, andthen, as Billy had not returned and the time hung heavily on his hands, he crept out and up the hill towards the Red Hand. He prowled aboutamongst the old tips for a time, then seated himself at the foot of adead butt and gave himself up to thought. He began to fear that Petersonwould prove unfaithful, or, worse still, that he had fallen into thehands of the enemy; and the idea made him very uneasy. He hesitated aboutreturning to the drive. 

Although he was singularly free from the superstitious fears that wouldmake such a place a haunt of horrors to the average youngster, the notionof sleeping alone below there did not please him, and he had still somehope of hearing Billy's signal. 

He was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger, too, and now that it wastoo late recollected that he might have found a ministering angel in MissChris. It would have been an easy matter to have met her when comingthrough the paddock from chapel at nine o'clock, and an easier matter tohave appealed to her tender sympathies with a story of hunger andmisfortune. The boy's thoughts lingered with Miss Chris; he found amelancholy satisfaction in the belief that she would pity him, andprobably shed a few tears over the sorrows of a noble and generous youthdriven to crime by persecution, and outlawed through the machinations ofan unscrupulous constabulary. So real could he make these sentimentalfancies that her keen sorrow for him filled him with acute emotions ofself-pity, and a large tear actually rolled down his freckled nose. 

Suddenly romance was swept out of his mind, and wonder and fear possessedhim. Throwing himself forward, he crept noiselessly to a rotten trunkover grown with suckers that lay between him and the Red Hand shaft, and, raising himself on his hands, peered through the bushes. A belt of palegolden light, thrown by the rising moon between the converging tips, layright across the mouth of the shaft; and up through the rusty bark of thedoor were thrust a thin long hand and a bony arm. As Dick gazed, trembling and amazed, a second hand appeared. He heard the rattle of achain, the click of a lock; then the door was thrust upwards and letnoiselessly back upon the timber. Now a man's head came into view, and upout of the shaft crawled a figure that Dick recognised in spite of theprecautions taken. Reaching into the darkness of the shaft, the man, whoremained on his knees in a crouching position, drew up a skin bagcontaining something of considerable weight apparently; then came anotherhead, and a second man slid, snake-like, from the shaft. At the sight ofthe second, Dick, whose heart seemed to have swollen within him to anenormous size, gasped aloud; he heard a warning 'Hush!' from the shaft, and lay perfectly still. The door was closed, the lock clicked again, andwhen he ventured to look the two men were stealing away towards thequarry. The boy crept after them to the extent of the trunk behind whichhe was hidden, and when he looked again they had disappeared. Creepingsilently in the shadows and amongst the scrub ferns, Dick followed until, resting a moment, he heard distinctly the words:

'Why did you hit him again? Good God! did you want to kill him?' Thevoice was Ephraim Shine's. 

'No. That won't kill him. Don't be so blasted chicken-hearted I didn'twant to be seen, you ass!' Dick knew the voice for that of Joe Rogers, whose face he had seen in the moonlight. 

'The lick I gave him was enough; it must 'a' stunned him. ' Shine spoke ina low voice. 

'D'yer think he recognised you?' asked Rogers hoarsely. 

'No, I was in the shadder. I d'know, though--I d'know. '

'Listen here, an' take a grip on that screamin' woman's tongue o' yours. It don't matter whether he saw you 'r didn't see you, 'cause he won'tlive t' tell it. '

'Oh, Heaven! Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! I didn't mean that--I swear to Heaven, Ion'y meant to stun him!'

'I know yer didn't. Pull yerself together, you quiverin' idiot. D'yethink I meant to do murder?'

'No, no, no; o' course not. P'raps he ain't hurt ez bad ez you think. '

'Tain't the hurt, it's this. I on'y thought of it comin' up the ladders. Did yer notice where he fell? He went back down the incline, fallin' withhis head a few feet up from the pumps. Know what that means? HarryHardy'll be found drowned!'

Dick heard Shine gasping for breath, and Rogers went on coolly:

'He was in the Sunday afternoon shift at the pumps. The water in theincline'll rise up over him before the first workin' shift goes down. '

'Let's go back, an' drag him out. Let's go back!

'Sit still, damn you! Go back an' be trapped, or be recognised if hissenses return? His candle was burnin'. '

'But it's murder--it's murder!

'Is it? Listen here. I noticed a lump o' rock had fallen out o' the roof. It'll be thought he was stunned by it, an' drowned in the water as itrose. '

'Man, it's terrible. Two brothers! My sin is findin' me out, Joe Rogers!

'Shut up cant, d'you hear! It served him thunderin' well right. What'd hewant to come pokin' into the mine at all fer? What the devil did theother one interfere in what didn't concern him fer? But we've got it inspite of 'em. ' Rogers had plunged his hands into the skin bag. 

'All, Rogers, all!' For the moment Shine's cupidity triumphed over hisfears. 'Every blessed ounce. All the stuff I've been puddlin' away in thefloor o' that drive fer weeks. An' the nugget, ain't it a beauty--ain'tit a beauty? An' to think I've been shepherdin' that daisy fer tenshifts!

Dick crept closer and, peering through a slit in the great hollow trunkof the tree, saw that Rogers was handling the contents of the bag. On hisknee lay a gleaming mass that the boy knew to be a beautiful nugget. 

'What devil's luck brought that young fool to the 'T' drive?'

'He must 'a' heard you splashin'. You wasn't careful. '

'Ez careful ez I could be. I had to scoop the stuff outer holes in thewet floor o' the drive where I'd puddled it away in the mud. '

'Ain't there a chance fer him--not a single hope?'

'Oh, yes, but it's a bad un fer us if he recognised you. There's thechance o' him recoverin', an' draggin' himself out o' the water. Hullo!what in hell's name's happenin' now? Quick, cut for the scrub; someone'scomin'. I'll hide the bag here. Come back when they've passed. '

Dick heard Rogers throw the calfskin bag into the hollow of the tree andscrape the loose rubbish over it, and then both glided away in the shadowof the Red Hand tips. From beyond the tips came the beat of a horse'shoofs, and the sound of human voices. Dick's first thought was of hispursuers, the troopers; his second of his escape; his third sent theblood surging through his veins and his heart beating like a piston. Agrand thought, a magnificent thought! He could have cried out withexultation as it swept into his mind. Creeping around the tree hesilently unearthed the gold-stealers' bag and dragged it after him, retreating to the quarry. At the edge of the incline he let the bagslide, and it went to the bottom with the noise a cow might have mademoving through the scrub. Dick followed, scrambling down the rocks. Having recovered the bag, he dragged it under the scrub to the opening inthe wall, hastily concealing his tracks. There was some difficulty ingetting the bag through the space in the rock but he managed well; thenhe swung it free of the ladder, so that it dropped into the shaft and onto the broken reef below. He clambered through on to the ladder, drew theloose scrub ferns into their places, and fitted into the crevice thewedge-shaped stone, kept as a last concealment of the retreat. 

Standing on the ladder Dick waited, and presently heard sounds of menmaking their way into the Gaol Quarry. His suspicions were correct: theparty was seeking him. Presently he heard a voice he recognised as thatof Jim Peetree, saying:

'This is the spot, boss; I've seen him here scores o' times. If he ain'there I give it up. '

Dick heard the jingle of spurs, and an authoritative voice. 

'Search all about amongst the scrub and the rocks. Keep my horse ready incase the boy makes a bolt for it. '

There were three or four men, Peterson and McKnight amongst them. Theysearched industriously, coming pretty close to Dick's hiding place morethan once. 

'We should have let the other lad go and have followed him, ' said theauthoritative voice. 'Fancy three troopers being kept a whole day andhalf the night dancing after a bit of a kid. '

Dick's heart thrilled at this. 

'Well, he's not here, that's certain sure, ' said Peterson. 'My boy saidhe left him in the paddock, an' I s'pose he can't be fur, but I tell youyou won't get him, he's that cunnin'. He's fuller o' wickedness an'wisdom, an' good an' bad, than any boy you ever see, sergeant. '

'Ah, well, we'll move on and try the other spot; but I would like to havethe dear boy for five minutes now, while I feel in the humour to knocksome of the bad out of him. '

They started off again, and when the beat of hoofs was lost in thedistance Dick crept from his hiding-place and climbed up out of thequarry. He now stole to a position from which he could command a view ofthe hollow tree, whilst remaining under thick shelter and leaving himselfan excellent opening for retreat. His blood was full of the excitement ofthis new adventure, a true adventure dealing with theft and murder. Hewas afraid, terribly afraid, but it seemed to him that all his emotionswere held in abeyance: he was conscious of their existence, but they nolonger ruled him. One thing was paramount, his determination to knoweverything of the crime that had been perpetrated in the main drive ofthe Silver Stream. Fragments of thoughts seemed to flicker up like flameswithin him and die out again instantly, and he repeated constantly underhis breath without knowing why:

'Her father! Her father! Her father!'

There was something to be done--much to be done, and one important thing, one thing that meant life or death; but these must come after. Now he waswild to know all that the thieves might tell. 

Rogers was the first to come crawling back to the tree. He scattered theloose rubbish in the hollow trunk, and uttered a fierce oath. 

'It's gone, gone, gone!' he almost shouted as Shine joined him. 

'You lie, you lie! You want to rob me!' the long searcher had flown athis throat, and for a few seconds they struggled together, but Rogersthrew the older man off fiercely and dragged him by the throat to thetree. 

'Feel, search, look for yourself, you hound!' he cried. 'Could I eat it?'

Shine, going on his hands and knees, clawed amongst the rubbish; then, whining and muttering, went scratching about like a dog, seeking high andlow, and Rogers followed him blaspheming with insensate fury. 

'It's no good, I tell you, you snuffling, whimpering, white-livered cur!'he said. 'Those men have got away with it, curse them!'

But Ephraim continued his search, creeping under the scrub, scratching inthe grass; and as he searched his whimper grew louder and louder, and hecried like an old woman at a wake. 

'An' we killed a man, we killed a man!' he wailed again and again. 

Rogers rushed at him viciously, and kicked him heavily in the ribs. 

'Get up, you dog!' he cried hoarsely, with a string of oaths. He draggedShine to his feet, and continned: 'Listen to me. Go home an' go to bedfer a while. Turn up at the mine all right at one, and in the mornin'. Keep your mouth shut, an' wait till you hear from me again, or--or--' Hedid not finish his threat. After a moment he continued, in a morecomposed tone: 'We're in no danger if we've not been seen. That was thetrooper after the cub Haddon. He's got the gold all right. Bury the key. Get back to your house, an' lie down fer a while. Be careful--p'rapswe're watched now. '

The two men moved off together. After they had passed the tips Dickquickly made his way into the quarry, and from thence to the drive of theMount of Gold. 

CHAPTER XV. 

HER father did it! Her father! Her father! Dick continued to repeat thesewords as he procured candles and prepared himself for a journey into thedeep mines. He was conscious of a double duty; he must rescue Harry Hardyfrom the rising waters and save the father of Christina Shine from aterrible crime, and yet he went about his task as if moved by an externalimpulse. The work had been mapped out for him by someone or somethingapart, and he undertook it without a thought of its dangers or a hint ofrevolt. In fact, he was feverishly anxious to face the black Red Handshaft and the great, lone workings beyond. He lit one candle, put severalpieces in his pocket with the matches, and started on his journey. He wasoblivious to his surroundings, oblivious to everything but the object ofhis quest--Harry Hardy, lying far below in the dripping main drive of theSilver Stream. His large dark eyes, staring unblinkingly, seemed as ifset on a vision of his friend prone on the muddy floor of the drive, withthe treacherous waters stealing amongst his hair. The present mission hadnothing in common with those fanciful adventures that had served to makethe boy the wonder and despair of his native township. Richard Haddon wasentirely forgotten for the time being, and this concentration of mind andenergy served to carry the boy bravely over every obstacle. 

Dick made his way through the opening he and Ted had fashioned, droppedinto the Red Hand drive beneath, and then turned with familiar feet andhastened towards the shaft. A few centres had been knocked out and thrownacross the pit as a staging, so that access to the ladder was possible, but not with out some risk. The boy paused at nothing, reached the ironrungs with a bound, and started down the perpendicular ladder. Down, downhe went for many minutes, his candle feebly illuminating a blurred patchabout his head. Above, through a bewildering space of darkness, thegrated opening at the surface shone like a faint star in another sphere;below was solid blackness; about him the slime of the dripping timberssparkled in the candle's rays. Down, down, down! The journey might haveseemed interminable--a long pilgrimage into the earth's blackdistances--had the boy had a mind for it, but he thought nothing of thetask; at length his feet struck the slabs over the well, and turning heflashed his light into the cavernous depth of a big drive. 

He plunged into the drive without a pause, and now the way was familiaragain. Voyages of discovery made during crib time when he officiated astool boy in the Silver Stream had often brought him up the jump-up intothe Red Hand drive. Down that jump-up he scrambled now, and stood in thefirst level of the Silver Stream where the rich gutter had dipped away. Ashort journey brought him to a balance shaft. Down this to the lowerlevel he travelled without any difficulty, and his journey was almostcompleted. He was in the bottom drive hastening towards the face whereRogers and Shine had left their victim. He could hear the far-offthrobbing of the plunger in the big Stream pumps as it drew the waterinto the lifts, and above it all the strange murmur of a great mine, likethe voice of a distant sea. 

Finding an empty truck the boy ran it before him on the rails. He wasexperienced miner enough to know that one can only travel quickly in thisway in a wet drive full of ruts and pitfalls. Passing the 'S' drive, where the robbers had done their work, Dick found Harry Hardy just asRogers had described him, on his back a few feet up the incline from thehand-pump that served to drain the low-lying part of the drive. His armswere thrown out, and his deadly pale face turned up, the chin pointing tothe roof. Upon his forehead were stains of blood, and he lay like acorpse in the black water. The flood had risen above his ears, and theboy knew he had come only just in time. 

Dick stuck his candle in the soft clay, ran to Harry's head, and liftedit from the water, and kneeling gazed intently into the cold white face. He thought his friend dead. 

'Her father done it!' he murmured. 'Her father! Her father!

He looked and listened for signs of life; he called Harry's name againand again, and felt for the beating of his heart, having at the same timeonly a vague idea of the location of that organ. He tried to lift theyoung man away, but his strength was not equal to the task; and so, aftercollecting some pieces of reef to keep Harry's face above the water, heattempted to drag him out of the reach of the flood. By putting forth allhis power he contrived to draw his inanimate friend a few feet up theincline; then, by lifting the shoulders an inch or two at a time, hesucceeded in turning Hardy right round with his head farthest from therising stream. The boy was now smothered from head to foot with yellowclay and his lustrous eyes shone from a face daubed with a puddled reef;and he crouched in the slurry of the drive holding Hardy's head upon hisknee, gazing intently into his face, muttering ever, in a half-puzzledway the same words:

'Her father! Her father!

The sound of a lump of reef falling from the roof somewhere far down thedrive brought Dick sharply to his feet. His work was not yetaccomplished. The scheme that had come to him without volition wasnevertheless clearly set forth in his mind. He started dragging at Hardyagain, and gradually drew him to the ordinary level of the drive. Oncethe water attained this height it would flow away towards the shaft, anddo the young man no harm. Dick feared Harry was dead; but he did notreason, he only obeyed the instinct that possessed him and that also badehim avoid the incoming shift. If the men found him there he would have totell all, and her father had done it--her father! A swift panic seizedDick; he snatched up his candle and ran back the way he had come. It washours, he imagined, since he lay listening to Rogers and Shine above thequarry, and he wondered that the night-shift men were not below long erethis. He reached the balance shaft without having seen a man, and climbedswiftly to the upper level. His race was continued along these workingsto the jump-up. Once in the Red Hand drive he was safe from discovery, but the feverish activity still possessed him. How he climbed thatfearful flight of ladders up the black wet shaft he never knew. Heremembered nothing of the agony of the toil the day after, when allseemed like a dream. 

He made his way into the Mount of Gold drive again. An impulse moved himto block the opening connecting the two drives with loose reef, and thesame impulse led him to hide the skin bag containing the gold away underthe dirt in the shaft of the Mount of Gold. The excitement that haddriven him to the rescue of Harry Hardy sustained him till he had crawledout into the quarry; then his strength all went out of him, and left himsick and wretched. He was famished, all his limbs ached with a dullinsistent pain after he had rested for a few minutes, and his wearinesswas so great that it was a terrible task to drag himself out of thequarry. But he succeeded in gaining the hillside at length, and hastenedas quickly as he could through the trees in the direction of the SilverStream, stumbling as he went, and sobbing quietly in utter collapse ofstrength and spirit. 

When Dick reached the vicinity of the big mine he was surprised to findthe brace deserted. He stole up and peered through the engine-housewindow at the driver's clock, and saw with dull amazement that it was notyet half-past twelve. It had taken him little over half an hour to reachHarry Hardy and return--it seemed to him that he had been toiling formany hours. He crept in between the long stacks of firewood, made a bedon the soft bark, and waited. The first night shift of the week did notstart work till one o'clock on Monday morning, and the mine was silentsave for the slow puffing of the pumping engine and the deliberaterumbling of the bob. 

Lying on his stomach on the bark, the boy fixed his eyes upon the mineand suffered through the slow dragging minutes. He wept incessantly, andhis teeth chattered, although the night was warm. A new fear had takenpossession of him, a fear that Harry Hardy, if alive, would perhaps moveand roll down the incline into the water again before the miners reachedhim. He waited in an agony of anxiety, and his eyes never moved from thecage at the surface. 

The miners began to come in at length, with heavy footsteps, swingingtheir crib billies, calling to each other in gruff voices. Lamps were litupon the brace, and in the boiler-house and changing shed, and Dick sawthe first cageful of men drop out of sight, as the engine groaned and themine took up its busy duties again. 

One cage-load after another went down, and still Dick waited. At lastthere came a wild, unusual beat of the knocker. The boy knew the signaland started up on his knees. A man rushed past the end of the stacks toknock up Manager Holden. Others gathered excitedly about the mouth of theshaft, and the long flat ropes spinning over the pulleys travelled at topspeed. 

Soon Harry was brought to the surface, and placed upon a hurdle, and fourmen carried him away across the paddocks towards Waddy. Dick followed ata safe distance. Locky McRae, the boss of the shift, had run on ahead, probably to warn Mrs. Hardy. 

The boy saw Harry carried to his mother's house, saw a man hurry by tocall Mrs. Haddon, and waited for some time after she arrived, hidden in agutter near at hand, listening for every word. After about a quarter ofan hour Pete Holden drove his trap to the door, and Dick heard themtalking of the hospital and Yarraman; then he knew that Harry was notdead, and dragged his worn, aching limbs to his own home, stupefied withsuffering, hunger, and fatigue. 

When Mrs. Haddon entered her kitchen an hour later, carrying a flamingmatch in her fingers, she was shocked to see a small, yellow-clad figurecrouched in her own particular armchair near the chimney, and surmountingit a small white face in which burned two astonishing eyes. The littlewidow screamed and dropped the light and then screamed again, but afeeble voice reassured her. 

'Richard Haddon, is that you?' she said severely. 'Oh! you wicked, bad, vicious boy! Where have you been? What've you been doing?'

She was busying herself preparing the lamp, and her tongue ran on. 

'You're breakin' your poor mother's heart--breakin' my heart with yourbushrangin' an' villainy, bringin' down the police, an' trouble, an'sorrow on me. '

The little woman's nerves had been sorely tried of late with her owntroubles and her neighbours', and she broke down now and wept. 

'An' you don't care, ' she sobbed, 'you don't care a bit how I suffer!

Now the lamp was lit, and the widow turned her streaming eyes upon herincorrigible young son, and instantly her whole expression changed. Sheforgot to weep, she ceased to complain; she gazed at Dick and her bosomwas charged with terror, pity, and remorse. Truly he was a pitiful andghostly object, sitting there in his mud, looking very small and pinched, with unaccustomed hollows in his pale cheeks, and here and there a nastybloodstain showing brightly against the yellow clay. 

'Dick!' screamed Mrs. Haddon. 

The next moment he lay in his mother's arms, clinging to her withtenacious fingers, crying hysterically, utterly unlike the Dick shethought she knew so well; and she kissed him, and wept over him, andmurmured to him as if he were really a baby again. She ascribed all toterror aroused by the knowledge that the police were after him. He hadcovered himself with slurry in strange hiding-places, and had had a fallprobably or a blow. He was fed, his clothes were put in water, andfinally he fell asleep in his own bed with his mother sitting by hisside, her hand clasped in his. If Dick had been told a week earlier thathe would ever go to sleep clinging to his mother's hand, he would havescouted the idea with indignation and scorn; and he remembered the actlater with a blush as something shamefully effeminate or infantile, betraying a weakness in his character hitherto quite unsuspected. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

DICK'S limbs were all stiff and sore when he awakened, but he waswolfishly hungry, and that fact satisfied his mother that he had sufferedno particular physical injury. He was still much paler than usual andsuspiciously reserved, but he ate a good breakfast, and would have givenhis mother even more gratifying evidence of the perfect state of hishealth Had not Miss Chris interrupted his meal by a sudden anddisconcerting entrance. The young woman came into the room breathless, eager-eyed, and white to the lips. She drew herself up by the door, andmade a poor pathetic effort to compose herself, to frame her plea inconventional words; but she was too agitated to remember customarygreetings. 

'Tell me! Tell me!' she said faintly. 

Dick sat stock still, wondering what new thing had happened, askinghimself how much Chris knew of his secret; but sympathetic little Mrs. Haddon started up in astonishment. 

'Tell you what, my dear?' Then light came to her. 'About the accident?'

'Yes, oh, yes! Is it true? They say he is dying!'

'It isn't true. He is not very badly hurt. His mother went to thehospital with him, an' has come back. It's concussion, the doctors say, an' nothin' serious. '

Miss Chris was plucking nervously at the bosom of her dress with her lefthand, steadying herself against the table with her right; now that sheknew there was no occasion for her great alarm, woman-like she trembledon the verge of tears. Mrs. Haddon had resumed her seat, and for a momentthe eyes of the two women met; then, much to the boy's astonishment, MissChris covered her face with her hands and darted forward and knelt by hismother's side, and there was a repetition of the incident in which he hadfigured a few hours earlier. Mrs. Haddon clasped Christina to her tenderbreast, and spoke little soothing speeches over the fair head, whilstChris wept a little, and laughed a little, and clung tightly to herfriend. 

'Yes, yes, I know, my dear, ' whispered Mrs. Haddon. 'I know, I know. Butdon't you fret. It'll all come out right. '

The women seemed thoroughly to understand each other, but to Dick thiswas quite inexplicable. He perceived, however, that Miss Chris wastroubled in some way, and all his romantic chivalrous feelings werestirred, and his determination to spare her at all costs was strengthenedagain. Looking at the pair, and remembering the consolation he hadderived from his mother's strong embrace, the boy wondered what peculiarvirtue lay in that kindly bosom that seemed to make it the natural refugeof the afflicted; and, wondering, he stole out and left the two together. 

When the women of Waddy had anything exceptional to talk about theytalked amazingly, and on this particular Monday there was so much ofinterest to be discussed that even the most voluble could only do justiceto the subjects by neglecting domestic duties and devoting themselves toback-gate arguments. Harry Hardy's accident was considered and debatedfrom many points of view. Harry was twice reported dead during themorning--on the authority of Mrs. Ben Steven and Mrs. Sloan--but this wascontradicted by Mrs. Justin, who declared that the young man stillbreathed, but was suffering from many and various injuries which shealone was able to minutely describe. Then Mrs. Hardy arrived home fromYarraman, and it became known that the injuries were not likely to provemortal; so the subject lost interest and was abandoned in favour ofRichard Haddon and his blood thirsty gang. 'The boy Haddon' had beencaptured after a desperate encounter, and would be called upon to standhis trial, along with the poor lads he had so grievously misled, atYarrarnan next day. It was conceded that he was about to meet his desertsat last; but there was some slight difference of opinion as to the exactnature of Dick's deserts. Some of the ladies thought ten years'imprisonment with various floggings and other heavy penalties in the wayof solitary confinement, leg-irons, and an unvarying diet of dry breadand water would be the severest punishment with which the youthfulmalefactor could reasonably be afflicted. Mrs. Ben Steven stood outresolutely for hanging, and, taking into account the thrilling report ofhis crimes supplied by the extraordinary issue of the Yarraman Mercury, many of the ladies were compelled to admit that this extreme view wasprobably the correct one; besides, it possessed the advantage ofcoinciding admirably with long-established popular opinion about Dick'send. They generously admitted, however, that they were sorry for hismother, poor lady. 

The Mercury could not very well have made more of what it called 'TheOutbreak of a New Gang' in its Sunday extraordinary. A whole page wasfilled with various accounts of the depredations of the gang, theterrifying appearance of its members, and certain moral reflectionsthrown in by the editor for the benefit of the Government and the police. There was 'Mr. Bilison's account, ' 'Mr. Hogan's account, ' and 'theaccount given by Master Mathieson. ' Each of these persons had been stuckup by the gang, and had escaped most miraculously after displaying greatdaring in the face of a bloodthirsty fire. The Mercury exhausted all itsresources in the way of large black capitals and display type to dojustice to the biggest sensation that had come in its way for years, andthe appearance of the paper created the most profound amazementthroughout the town and district. Gable was described as a cunningscoundrel whose affectations of almost imbecile simplicity might easilyhave deceived intelligences less keen than those at the service of theMercury, and neither Messrs. Billson and Hogan nor Master Mathiesonhinted that their assailants were anything less than grown men of thelargest size and most ferocious type. 

Alas! in Monday morning's Mercury the editor was reluctantly compelled torepudiate the most enthralling portions of Sunday's story, but he stilltook a very serious view of the affair, and vehemently contended thatrecent facts did not in any way tend to relieve the Government of itsresponsibilities in the matter of increased police-protection forYarraman and district. It had transpired that the perpetrators of theseries of outrages on the Cow Flat road were boys, undisciplined anddangerous youths, fully armed and led by the man Gable, whose mentalinfirmities were of such a nature as to render him unfit to be at largein a civilised community. The Mercury was informed that all the youngruffians who had taken part in the sticking-up incidents were in custody, and would appear in the police court on the following morning. 

Mrs. Haddon, who still believed Dick's strange reserve and lack ofspirits to be due to his fear of the law and the dread prospect of havingto appear in court, endeavoured indirectly (and very cleverly, as sheimagined) to ease his mind. She did not wish him to think he had done nowrong, or that she did not regard his conduct as most reprehensible; buthis mute misery appealed to her motherly heart, and she heaped derisionon those 'fool men' who had been deluded by the silly pretence of a packof boys, and who would be the laughing-stock of the whole countrysidewhen the truth was made known in court and the magistrates abused themfor cowards and simpletons. This was comforting to Dick; but in truth hethought little of the pending court case, and it gave him no concern evenwhen he found himself in the troopers' hands. His secret weighed heavilyupon him, and the sight of Mrs. Hardy, erect and brave and composed asever, but with traces of suffering in her face that the boy could notfail to detect, brought home to him an aspect of the case that he had notconsidered up to now. Her son Frank was a prisoner suffering for a crimecommitted by Ephraim Shine: in protecting Shine for Christina's sake hemust sacrifice Mrs. Hardy, Frank, and Harry. 

The problem tried Dick sorely, but he had plenty of time to think it overand he determined to wait for Harry's story. He must be true to Chris inany case, and he knew her love and admiration for her father were deepand sincere. He could not understand it: he admitted to himself thataffection for such a man as the searcher was quite absurd and uncalledfor; but he knew full well that the blow would fall upon the girl withcrushing force, and his heart fought for her, and every romantic impulsehe cherished bade him be leal and bold in the cause of the queen of hersex. In the end he resolved that if Harry had not recognised hisassailants he would warn Shine in some way, and when the searcher hadmade good his escape he would tell the whole truth. This, according tohis boyish logic, was fair treatment to all parties, so the resolutionbrought him some peace of mind. 

The appearance of the Waddy bushrangers in the police court excitedextraordinary interest at Yarraman, and Tuesday morning witnessedsomething very like an exodus from Waddy. Every man and woman who couldpossibly get away made the journey to Yarraman, all as partisans of theprisoners. In Waddy Dick and his fellow imps could not be too severelycondemned; but Waddy refused to recognise the right of outsiders to abusethem, and however vicious they may have been, it was felt to be the dutyof the township to stand by its own as against the 'townies' and thewitnesses from Cow Flat. 

The court was packed, and most of the people of Waddy had to be contentto stand with the crowd that filled the street. An attempt had been madeat the last moment to alter the charge against the boys to insultingbehaviour, or something equally trivial, and all in court looked for muchamusement. In fact, the tremendous bushranging sensation had degeneratedinto something very like a farce. 

The witnesses for the prosecution were the three young men from McIvor'srun, who made the gallant attack upon the gang and captured Gable;Billson, the farmer who had been bailed up in his cart; Hogan, thehorseman; the boy Mathieson, the tollman, and the woman, Cox by name. 

The young men were now sober and subdued, and the evidence they gavediffered materially from the story told to the police on Saturday nightwhen they cantered into Yarramnan with their prisoner, drunk andvainglorious. They admitted now that the gang did not make a verystrenuous resistance to their gallant charge, but insisted that the boyswere armed with revolvers, and that Gable struggled like a demon; and theold man, standing amongst his fellow prisoners, evidently immenselydelighted with the part he was playing, smiled brightly upon the courtand ejaculated 'Oh, I say! Oh, crickey! 'a propos of nothing inparticular. 

Bilison testified to having been bailed up on the Cow Flat road by a gangof bushrangers, who demanded his money or his life and fired upon him. Hedescribed his hairbreadth escape with primitive eloquence, and wascertain the gang meant to murder him. He was too agitated at the time tonotice whether the bushrangers were men or boys. It was he who overtookthe three young men, but they could not be induced to turn back till theboy Mathieson came up with them and declared the highwaymen to be a mobof boys. 

Hogan was equally positive about the firearms, and thought he heard thebullets whistling past his ears, but could not swear to it. At this stagethe defendants' lawyer, who had been harrowing the witnesses with manyquestions and heaping ridicule upon their devoted heads, called for theprisoners' arms to be produced, and the sight of the toy pistols withtheir mutton-boned barrels provoked yells of laughter in the court, whichwere presently echoed in the streets. 

But it was not till brawny Mrs. Cox took her stand in the witness-boxthat the absurdity of the Meroury's story and the charge was exposedfully to a delighted audience. Mrs. Cox marched into the box in anaggressive way, saluted the book with an emphatic and explosive kiss, andthen stood erect, square-shouldered and defiant, giving the court and allconcerned to understand by her attitude that it must not be imagined anyadvantage could be taken of her. She told her story in a bluff dogmaticway. She was bailed up by the miscreants and scared out of her sevensenses. They demanded her money or her life, and she believed that it wastheir intention to leave her 'welterin' in her gore'; and having said asmuch she squared round upon the lawyer, arms akimbo and head thrown back, inviting him to come on to his inevitable destruction. 

'Come, come, madam, ' said the barrister, 'you must not tell us youimagined for a moment you were ever in any serious danger from theseterrible fellows. '

'Mustn't! mustn't!' cried Mrs. Cox. 'An', indeed, why not, sir? Who'reyou to tell me I musn't?'

Mrs. Cox stopped deliberately and carefully rolled up both sleeves of herdress. Then, unhampered and in customary trim, she smote the cedar infront of her and cried:

'Mustn't, indeed!

'No offence, ma'am, ' said the small lawyer in a conciliatory tone; 'nooffence in the world. Please explain what you did when attacked by theprisoners. '

'What' d I do? First I said a prayer for me soul. '

'And then?'

'And then I grabbed one o' the young imps, an'

I--, Here Mrs. Cox's actions implied that she had a struggling bushranger inher grip. She drew him over her knee, and then, for the education andedification of the court, went through the task of enthusiasticallyspanking a purely imaginary small boy. 

The pantomime was most convincing, and provoked roars of laughter thatcompletely drowned the shrill pipe of the policeman fiercely demandingorder; when the noise had subsided Gable, flushed with excitement andwith dancing eyes and jigging limbs, cried out 'Oh, crickey!' with suchgusto that the laughter broke loose again in defiance of all restraint, and was maintained until the chairman of the bench, himself almostapoplectic from his efforts to swallow his mirth, arose and talked ofclearing the court; then the crowd, fearful of missing the fun to come, quietened in a few seconds and the case was resumed. 

'You thrashed the young rip, Mrs. Cox, ' said the lawyer. 'You did well. Apity you did not serve them all alike and save us the folly of this mostridiculous case. '

'I did grab another, ' said the witness, 'an' I--' Mrs. Cox repeated hereloquent pantomime. 

'Oh, crickey!' cried Gable. 'Oh, I say, here's a lark!'

'Silence in court, ' squealed the asthmatical policeman. 

'Excellent, ' said the lawyer. 'And so, madam, you drove off thisdesperate and bloodthirsty gang by simply slapping them all round?'

'Yes, after I'd been assaulted with a goat, ' cried the witness, flushingwith a recollection of her wrongs and shaking a formidable fist at theprisoners. 'After I'd been assaulted with a goat sooled on by one o' thebla'guards. '

The lawyer spoke a few soothing words:

'You deserve the thanks of the community, Mrs. Cox, for the businesslikeway in which you suppressed this diabolical gang. Your method is inpleasing contrast with the ridiculous effeminacy of the previouswitnesses. I have no doubt you would treat an adult bushranger in exactlythe same way. '

'Or a lawyer either, ' said Mrs. Cox, detecting sarcasm. 

The case was practically decided when Mrs. Cox stepped down. The benchdesired to have some evidence as to Gable's character, and leadingresidents of Waddy described his infirmity, and spoke of him asunentirely harmless and innocent old man. The case was dismissed; but thechairman, in acquitting the prisoners, took occasion to remind theirparents that if the excellent example set by Mrs. Cox were followed bythem all, it would probably tend to the moral advantage of the boys andthe benefit of society at large. 

The return to Waddy was something in the nature of a triumphal march inwhich the late prisoners figured as heroes, but they lost importanceimmediately after reaching the township. A new topic of great interesthad sprung up during the absence of the crowd; news had arrived of HarryHardy's recovery, and it was known that his injuries were not the resultof a fall of reef, but were inflicted by gold-stealers who had got intothe mine in some mysterious way and had escaped again just asmysteriously. Already Waddy had decided upon the identity of the culpritswho, it was confidently asserted, would be found amongst the smallcommunity of Chinamen whose huts were situated on the bank of the creekat a distance of about two miles from the township, and who made aprecarious living by fossicking and growing vegetables. Waddy alwayssettled matters of this kind out of hand, and the presence of thoseChinamen saved it much mental trouble in accounting for thefts small orgreat. 

Late that night Joe Rogers and the searcher sat together in a hiddenplace in the corner paddock discussing the turn events had taken. Thelast three days had told upon Shine, who was pallid, hollow-cheeked, andnervous; he fumbled always with his bent bony fingers bunched behind him, and when in the presence of others twisted and turned his curious feetcontinuously with a dull anxiety that irritated the men beyond bearing. Now, crouched amongst the scrub by the side of his mate, he whined abouttheir danger. 

'We should 'a' cleared. We oughter clear now. We'll be nabbed if westay. '

'We'll be nabbed if we bolt, ' replied Rogers. 'The man as cleared nowwould be spotted as the guilty party, an' half the p'lice in the country'd be up an' after him. No, here we are, an' here we stick fer better orworse. '

'But if they've got the gold, why don't they do somethin'? There's noword of it. Rogers, if you're foolin' me over this--'

'Will you stop twiddlin' those cursed feet of yours an' listen to me?They haven't got the gold, but I think I've guessed who has. That youngwhelp Haddon. '

'Dickie Haddon? How, how? Where's it now?'

'How in thunder should I know? But I know the troopers didn't get it. They would have made some noise about it afore this. See here, they werehuntin' that kid when they went into the quarry. He must 'a' hidsomewhere about when he heard them comin'; p'raps in that very tree. Thenhe dragged the gold away before we got back, an' hid it. That's my idea. '

'An' d'ye think he saw us?'

'I don't. He'd 'a' split at once. '

'Well, well, an' what'll you do?'

'Collar young Haddon, an' frighten the truth out o' him or break everybone in his cursed skin. '

'But he'd know then, you fool. '

'Will he? I'll take all sorts o' care he doesn't know me, you can takeyour colonial oath on that. '

'An' if you get the gold back, no dirty tricks. It's halves, youknow--fair halves!'

'Yes, an' haven't you always got your share all fair an' square? An'what' ye you ever done fer it but whimper an' cant an' snuffle, like thecur you are?'

'I was goin' to give it up after this, ' whined Shine, disregarding Joe'soutburst, 'an' get married again, an' live God-fearin' an' respectable. '

Rogers glared at him in the darkness, and laughed in an ugly way. 

'Marry! 'he sneered. 'Man, the little widow wouldn't have you. She'swaitin' fer Frank Hardy; an', as fer yer God-fearin' life, you're such anall-fired hippercrit, Shine, that I believe you fool yourself that you'rea holy man in spite o' everythin, ' 'pon me soul I do!

'Ah, Joseph Rogers, the devil may triumph fer a while, but I'm naturallya child o' grace, an' if you'd on'y turn--'

Rogers uttered an oath, and drawing back struck the searcher in the facewith his open hand. 

'Enough o' that!' he cried. 'None o' your sick'nin' Sunday-school humbugfer me, Mr. Superintendent. We've talked o' that before. '

Shine arose, and moved back a few paces. 

'I'd better be goin', ' he said. ''Taint fer us to quarrel, Joseph. Leavethe usual sign when we're to meet again. '

Bent over his unconscionable feet, he stole away amongst the trees, and afew minutes later Rogers moved oft slowly in another direction, towardsthe lights of the Drovers' Arms. His thoughts as he strolled were notvery favourable to his fellow criminal. 

'Let me once get my hands on that gold, ' he muttered, 'an' I'll bolt for'Frisco. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

DICK remained very subdued throughout the next day; his head was full ofthe oppressive secret, and he had no heart for new enterprises. At schoolhis mates found him taciturn and uncompanionable, and Joel Ham wasastonished at his obedience and industry. Harry Hardy returned home onthe Wednesday evening, and visited Mrs. Haddon's kitchen that night. Hishead was swathed in bandages, and he was pale and hollow-eyed. Dick feltstrange towards his friend and shrank from conversation with him, butlistened eagerly when Harry described his experiences in the mine on thenight of the attack. 

'I'd stopped the pump for a spell, ' he said, 'an' presently thought Iheard sounds like someone working in the 'T' drive. I crept quietly tothe mouth of the drive, an' could see a man with a candle crouched downat work on the floor. I was making towards him when another darted out ofthe darkness beside me, an' brought me a fearful lick on the head. Istaggered back into the main drive an' had a sort o' confused idea ofrunning feet an' loud voices, an' then came another welt an' over I went. They must have dragged me up above the water level, an' I ought to thankthem for that, I s'pose. '

'An' you couldn't recognise either of them?' asked Mrs. Haddon. 

'No, I haven't the slightest notion who it was hit me, an' the figure ofthe other was just visible an' no more. I could swear to nothing exceptthis. ' He touched his head and smiled. 

'The cowardly wretches!' cried Mrs. Haddon, her bosom swelling withindignation. 

'They're all that, ' said Harry, 'but this is something to be gratefulfor. Can't you see what it means? It means that everyone is ready tobelieve Frank's story now, an' a broken head's worth having at thatprice, ain't it?'

'You're a good fellow, Harry, ' said the little widow softly. 'Do youthink they might let Frank go now?

'No, worse luck, not without further evidence; but the company'llprobably go in for a big hunt, an' that may be the saving of him. '

This latter piece of news gave Dick further cause for agitation, and hismother's distress grew with his deepening melancholy. She was alarmed forhis health, and had been trying ever since the return from Yarraman toinduce him to drink copious draughts of her favorite specific, camomiletea, but without success; the boy knew of no ailment and could imaginenone that would not be preferable to camomile tea taken in large doses. 

On the following morning at about eleven o'clock a visitor called uponMr. Joel Ham at the school, a slightly-built skinny man in a drab suit. He carried a small parcel, and this he opened on the master's desk as hetalked in a slow sleepy way, the sleepiness accented by his inability tolift his eyelids like other people, so that they hung drowsily, almostveiling the eyes. After a few minutes Joel stepped forward and addressedthe Fifth Class:

'Boys, attend! Each of you take off his left boot. '

The boys stared incredulously. 

'Your left boots, ' repeated the master. 'This gentleman is--eh--achiropodist, and eh--come, come!' Joel Ham slashed the desk: the boyshastened to remove their left boots, handed them to the stranger, andwatched him curiously as he examined them at the desk. The astonishedscholars could see little, but the man in drab had two plaster castsbefore him and he was deliberately comparing the boys' boots with these. When he came to Dick's boot he turned carelessly to the master and said:

'This is our man. '

'Richard Haddon, the first boy on the back seat. '

The chiropodist did not look up. 

'Boy with red hair, ' he said. 'Mixed up in that Cow Flat road affair. Evidently an enterprising nipper, on the high road to the gallows. '

Joel Ham drew thumb and forefinger from the corners of his mouth to thepoint of his chin, and blinked his white lashes rapidly. 

'No, ' he said, quite emphatically; 'I don't often give advice--sensiblepeople don't need it, fools won't take it--but you might waste time byregarding that boy's share in this business from a wrong point of view. If he has had a hand in it--and I have no doubt of it since his footappears--think of him at the worst as the accomplice of some scoundrelcunning enough to impose upon the folly of a romantic youngster stuffedwith rubbishy fiction, and gifted with an extraordinarily adventurousspirit. '

This was perhaps the longest speech ever made by Joel Ham in ordinaryconversation since he came to Waddy, and it quite exhausted him. Thestranger yawned pointedly. 

'Where does he live?' he asked. 

'Third house down the road. Mother a widow. '

'Right. You might make an excuse to send him home presently. You are adiscreet man, Mr. Ham. '

'In everybody's business but my own, Mr. Downy. 

The stranger took up his parcel and marched out, and the boots havingbeen restored to their owners work was resumed. About twenty minuteslater Dick was called out, and Joel presented him with an envelope. 

'Take that note to your mother, Ginger, will you? Stay a moment, ' hesaid, as Dick turned away. He took the boy by the coat and blinked at himcomplaisantly for a moment. 

'When in doubt, my boy, always tell the truth, ' he said. 

Noting a puzzled expression in Dick's face, he condescended to explain. 

'When you're asked many questions and want an answer, tell the truth. Lies, my boy, are for fools and rogues--remember, fools and rogues. '

Dick set his lips and nodded; and the master, after regarding himcuriously for a moment, actually patted his head--an uncommon exhibitionof feeling on his part that caused the scholars to gape with wonderment. 

When Dick reached his home he was astonished to find his mother seated inthe front room with her handkerchief to her eyes, crying quite violently. Opposite her sat the man in drab, swinging his hat between his knees andlooking exactly as if he had just been awakened from a nap. The manwalked to the door, locked it, and then resumed his seat. 

'Now, my lad, ' he said, 'attend to me. My name is Downy. I am adetective, and I have found you out. '

The admission was not a wise one; it blanched Dick's lips, but it closedthem like a spring-trap. 

'I have found you out, ' continued the detective. 'He has been arrested. 'The detective emphasised the 'he, ' and watched the effect. Dick stoodbefore him, white and silent, his heart beating with quick blows, and hisblood humming in his ears, 'Who? Who? Who?'

'The man who went down with you has been arrested, my lad, and now youmust tell me the whole truth to save yourself. He says you hammered HarryHardy on the head with an iron bar, and if you do not clear yourself Imust take you to gaol. '

Dick answered nothing; his eyes never moved from the green bee on thewall even to glance at his mother sobbing in the corner. 

'Come, come, come!' cried Downy impatiently, 'it's no good your denyingthat you were in the mine on Sunday night. You came home covered withslurry, marked with blood, and very frightened. Your mother admits that, and we have found your footprints in the clay of the Silver Stream drivesat both levels. Besides, the man says you were there. Now, tell me this, and I will let you go free: who has the key of the grating over the mouthof the old Red Hand?'

'Oh! Dickie, my boy, my poor boy--why don't you answer?' sobbed Mrs. Haddon. 

The detective tried again, threatened, pleaded, and cajoled, and Mrs. Haddon used all her motherly artifices; but not one word came from theboy's locked lips. Dick was possessed by a vivid hallucination; he seemedto be standing in the centre of a whirlwind. Downy and his mother weredim figures beyond, seen through the dust; and like shreds of paperwhirled in the vortex, visions of Miss Chris's face, netted in fair hair, passed swiftly before his eyes, and the expression on each face wasbeseeching and sorrowful. Nothing could have dragged the truth from himat that moment. 

Downy stood up and hung over Dick, scratching his head in a despairingway. 

I'm sorry, ma'am, ' he said, 'but I'll have to take him. '

'He's shieldin' some villain, ' moaned Mrs. Haddon. 

The detective took the widow aside and whispered with her for a fewminutes, with the result that she dried her eyes and was much consoled. 

Dick was taken away in Manager Holden's trap and lodged in gaol atYarraman; and when the news leaked out, as it did towards evening, Waddyhad a new sensation, and quite the most startling one in its experience. Before the women went to bed that night they had found Dick guilty ofrobbing the Silver Stream of thousands of ounces of gold and perpetratinga murderous assault on Harry Hardy. The news brought Joe Rogers andEphraim Shine together at their secret meeting-place in the cornerpaddock--Rogers much disturbed and puzzled, Shine shaken almost out ofhis wits. 

'I'm goin' to bolt, I tell you!' cried the searcher. 

Rogers gripped him roughly. 

'Bolt, ' he said, 'an' you're doomed--done for. Hell! man, can't you seeyou'd be grabbed in less'n a day? With that mug an' that figure you'd bespotted whatever hole you crept into. '

'I know, I know; but it'll come anyhow--it'll come!

'Not so sure, unless you blab in one of these blitherin' fits. What doesthat kid know? Nothin'. He's found our gold, an' he's hid it away. Hewants to keep it, an' you know what a stubborn devil he is. This is justa try on, an' they'll get nothin' out o' Dick Haddon. If they do they getthe gold, an' we're all right if we don't play the fool. '

Rogers's reasoning was very good as far as it went; but the discovery ofthe boy's footprints in the drives had been kept a close secret, or evenhe might have admitted the wisdom of bolting without delay. 

Dick spent a day and two nights in the cell at the watch-house inYarraman. Public report at Waddy was to the effect that every influenceshort of torture had been used in the effort to induce him to divulge thetruth, and not a word had he spoken. His mother and Mrs. Hardy and Harryhad all visited him in the cell, and had failed to persuade him to openhis lips. His callousness in the presence of his poor mother's distresswas described in feeling terms as unworthy of the black and naked savage. All this was much nearer the truth than speculation at Waddy was wont tobe; and when Dick was restored to his home in the flesh on Saturday atnoon and permitted to run at large again without let or hindrance, Waddywas amazed and indignant, and Waddy's criticism of the methods of thepolice authorities was scathing in the extreme. 

The boy was driven home by the sergeant, the same who had beencommissioned to quell the Great Goat Riot. 

'He's looking pulled down, ' said the trooper, delivering him into hismother's arms. 'It's the confinement. Let him run about as usual, Mrs. Haddon; let him have lots of fresh air, particularly night air, and he'llsoon be all right. At night, Mrs. Haddon, the air is fresh and healthy. Let him run about in the evenings, you know. '

Mrs. Haddon was very grateful for the advice and promised to actupon it. But Dick was a new boy; he remained in doors all Saturdayand Sunday, wandering about the house in an aimless manner, tryingto read and failing, trying to divert himself in unusual ways andfailing in everything. He presented all the symptoms of a guilty, conscience-stricken wretch; and his mother, who had been priminghim with camomile surreptitiously, began to lose confidence in thatwonderful herb. 

Meanwhile a very interesting stranger had made his appearance at Waddy;he was believed to be a drover, and he was on the spree and 'shouting'with spontaneity and freedom. His horse, a fine upstanding bay, stoodsaddled and bridled under McMahon's shed at the Drovers' Arms by day andnight. His behaviour in drink was original and erratic. He wouldfraternise with the man at the bar for a time, and then go roaming atlarge about the township in a desultory way, sleeping casually in allsorts of absurd places; but Waddy had a large experience in 'drunks' andmade liberal allowances. 

Miss Chris called in at Mrs. Haddon's home on evening shortly after tea. She had not been to chapel, and was anxious about her father, who hadabsented himself from his duties as superintendent of late and whosebehaviour had been most extraordinary when she called on him on two orthree occasions during the week. She was afraid of fever, and soughtadvice from Mrs. Haddon, who unhesitatingly recommended camomile tea. Then Dick's ailment was discussed and Chris, much concerned, went and satby the boy, who cowered over his book, too full to answer her kindinquiries. She put an arm about him and talked with tender solicitude;she sympathised with him in his troubles, and was angry with all hisenemies, more especially the police, whose folly amazed her. Here a largetear rolled down Dick's nose and splashed upon the open page, and whenshe pressed him to tell all he might know and not to suffer abuse andshame to shield some wicked villain, he quite collapsed, and sat with hishead sunk upon his arms, sobbing hysterically. This was so unlike the boythat Christina was quite amazed, and her eyes travelled anxiously to andfrom Dick's bowed head and his mother's distressed face. Then the women, to give him time to recover himself, sat together talking of othermatters--Harry Hardy mainly--and Dick, ashamed of his tears, crept awayto bury his effeminate sobs amongst the Cape broom in the garden. 

Dick had not sat alone more than a minute when he heard a sharp whistlefrom the back. It was Jacker Mack's whistle and at first Dick did notrespond, but sat mopping his tears with his sleeves. The whistle wasrepeated three or four times, and at length he determined to meet Jacker, thinking there might be some news about the reef in the Mount of Gold. Hepassed out through the side gate, and along to the fowl-house at thecorner, behind which he expected to find his mate sitting. But when hereached the corner a pair of strong arms snatched him from the ground, and he was borne away at a rapid pace in the direction of Wilson'spaddock. His face was crushed against the breast of the man who held him, in such a way that it was impossible for him to utter the slightestsound. 

Across the flat in the shallow quarry he was thrown to the ground, andfor a moment he caught a glimp of his captor in the darkness, apowerfully built man, wearing a viator cap that covered the whole of hisface and head, with the exception of the eyes. 

'Let one yelp out o' you an' I'll crush yer head with a rock!' whisperedthe man ferociously. 

Dick was blindfolded and gagged, and his arms and legs were tied withrope, his enemy kneeling on him the while and hurting him badly in hisbrutal haste. 

The boy was caught up again and thrown on the man's shoulder, and thejourney was continued at a trot. He knew when the bush was reached, because here a fence had to be climbed. He tried to understand what thisadventure might mean, but his thoughts were all confused and the gag madebreathing so difficult that once or twice he feared he was going to die. 

When at last the man stopped and Dick was dropped to the ground, they hadtravelled about a mile and a half into the bush. He heard the sound oftimbers being moved, and presently was caught up again; after muchfumbling and an oath or two from his companion the latter withdrew hissupport, and Dick felt himself to be dangling in the air from the ropethat tied his limbs. Now the bandage was pulled from his eyes, and theboy, after staring about through the starlit night for a few moments, terrified and amazed, began to realise his position. 

'Know where you are, me beauty?' asked the big man who stood before him, and who spoke as if with a pebble on his tongue. 

Dick knew where he was. He was hanging over the open shaft of the PiperMine, another of Waddy's abandoned claims, suspended from one of theskids by a stout rope. 

'Look down, ' commanded the man. 

Dick obeyed and saw only the black yawning shaft. 'Know she's deep, don'tyer? There's three hundred feet o' shaft below you there. That's theshort road to hell. Now look here. '

He flashed the bright blade of a large knife before the eyes of hisprisoner; then, seating himself on a broken truck near the shaft he begandeliberately to sharpen the knife on his boot. The operation was not inthe least hurried--the man was desirous of making a deep impression. 

'There, ' he said at length, 'that's beautiful. Feel!' He cut the skin ofDick's nose with a touch of the keen edge. 'Now, listen here. I'm goin'to take this bandage off yer mouth, 'cause I've a few perticularquestions to ask an' you must answer 'em, but understand first that onelittle yell from you, an'--' He made a blood-curdling pretence of cuttingat the rope above Dick's head. 'You'd go plug to the bottom an' besmashed to fifty bits!'

The man removed the gag and reseated himself on the old truck. As hetalked he toyed with the ugly knife, making occasional passes on the sideof his left boot resting on his knee. 

'Look here, young feller, ' he said, 'if you tell me lies down you go, understand? D'ye believe me?' he asked with sudden ferocity. 

'Yes, ' whispered Dick. 

'Well then listen, an' answer quick an' lively. Where's the bag of goldyou stole outer that big tree beyond the Bed Hand?'

Dick's heart jumped like a startled hare. He recognised his enemy now inspite of his cap and his disguised voice. It was Joe Rogers. 

'D'ye deny takin' it?' asked the man sharply. 

'Yes, ' said Dick, cold at heart and quaking in every limb. 

'Damn you for a young liar! Fer two pins I'd send you straight to smash. I know you've got that gold stowed somewhere. Where?'

The boy gave him no answer, and Rogers sprang to his feet, and tickledhim again with the knife. 

'You whelp!' he said hoarsely. 'I'd think ez much of slaughterin' you ezI would of brainin' a cat. Speak, if you want to live! Where's thatgold?'

Dick was convinced that the man would be as good as his word, but hestill lingered, casting about helplessly for an excuse, a hope of escape. 

'Blast you, won't you speak?'

Dick felt the knife cut into the rope above his head, and shrieked aloudin a paroxysm of terror. 

'Stop, stop! I'll tell!'

'Tell then, an' be quick. That's one strand o' the rope gone; there's twomore. Speak!' He raised the knife threateningly. 

'It's under that big flat stone near the spring in the Gaol Quarry. ' Thelie came almost involuntarily from the boy's lips in instantaneousresponse to a new impulse. But he was doomed to disappointment. 

'Good!' ejaculated the man. 'Now, you go with me. I don't trust you;you're too smart a kid to be trusted. ' As he spoke he twisted the gaginto Dick's mouth again. 'No, ' he cried with a sudden change ofintention, 'you'll stay where you are. You're safe enough here. While I'maway think o' what's below you there, an' pray yer hardest in case you'velied to me, because if you have you're done fer. I'll kill you, s'elp meGod, I will!'

Rogers took a bee line through the scrub in the direction of the quarry, leaving Dick hanging over the open shaft. The Gaol Quarry was not morethan half a mile off, and Rogers ran the whole of the distance. He madehis way clumsily down the rocky side from the hill, falling heavily fromhalf the height and bruising himself badly, but paying no attention tohis injuries in the anxiety of the moment. He found the big flat stoneafter a minute's search, and succeeded in turning it only after exertinghis great strength to the utmost. There was nothing underneath. Yes, there was something; a snake hissed at him in the darkness and slid awayamongst the broken rock. Rogers fell upon his knees and groped aboutblindly, but the ground was hard. There was no sign of the gold anywhere, and not another stone in the quarry that answered to the boy'sdescription. Possessed with a stupid blundering fury against Dick, Rogersturned back towards the Piper. He breathed horrible blasphemies as heran, and struck at the scrub in his insensate rage. He was a man offierce passions, and meant murder during those first few minutes-swiftand ruthless. He reached the Piper breathless from his exertions and wildwith passion. He did not even pause to resume his disguise, but ran tothe shaft, cursing as he went. There he stopped like a man shot, hisfigure stiffened, his arms thrown out straight before him; his eyes, wideand full of terror, stared between the skids rising from the shaft to thebrace above. 

Dick Haddon was not there. The space was empty, the rope's end movedlazily in the wind. 

The revulsion of feeling was terrible: it left the strong man as weak asa child, it turned the desperate criminal into a mumbling coward. Rogersstaggered to the shaft and examined the rope. It had broken where onestrand was cut; the other strands were frayed out. The gold-stealer fellupon his knees and tried to call, but a mere gasp was the only sound thatescaped his lips. He remained for a minute or two gazing helplessly intothe pitch blackness of the shaft; then, recovering somewhat with a greateffort, he rose to his feet, untied the remainder of the rope from theskid and dropped it into the shaft, and turning his back on the mine fledaway through the paddocks towards Waddy. As he issued from the bush aquarter of an hour later, and crossed the open flat, a slim figureslipped from the furze covering the rail fence and followed himnoiselessly at a distance. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

WHEN Rogers reached his hut he sat for some time in the dark, thinkingover his position. It had been his intention all along to make his escapefrom the district the moment he succeeded in recovering the gold, andnow, in his horror at the consequences of his last act, he was incapableof cold reason. His one desire was to get away as far as possible fromthe scene of his crimes. He lit a candle, and the drunken drover, peepingthrough a crack, saw him spread a blanket on the floor and set to workhastily to make a swag. The drover watched him for a minute and then spedoff in the darkness. Shortly after this Rogers was startled at the soundof a shrill and peculiar whistle. Jumping up on the impulse of themoment, with the quick suspicion of a criminal, he snatched his gun froma corner and stepped out. Standing in the light thrown from his hut door, he heard the tramp of horses' hoofs and a voice calling:

'Stand and deliver! You are my prisoner!'

Joe slipped into the shadow, sheltering himself behind the chimney, andsaw two troopers riding at him. Instinctively his gun was lifted to hisshoulder. 

'Bail up!' he cried. 'A step nearer an' I fire!'

The troopers spurred their horses. Rogers clinched his teeth, his eye ranalong the barrel, he covered the leading man and fired. The trooper wasflung forward on his horse's neck, his arms dangling limply on each side. His horse sprang to a gallop, and a minute later the man slid over itsshoulder and fell, rolling almost to Joe's feet as the animal rushedpast. 

The second trooper fired a revolver, and the bullet chipped a slab at thegold-stealer's ear. Rogers had him covered, and his finger was on thetrigger when the gun was whirled from his hands and a man who had stolenup from the back closed with him. The newcorner was slim, and Rogers feltthat he might break him between his hands if he could only get a propergrip; but the drunken drover--for it was he--was as sinuous as an eel, and a moment later Joe was on the broad of his back with the 'darbies' onhis wrists and a trooper kneeling on his chest, while the drover, transformed into Detective Downy, stood over them, mopping his face withhis big false beard. 

The wounded trooper had recovered somewhat, and was on his hands andknees, with down-hanging head, in the light of the open door. 

'How are you, Casey?' asked the detective anxiously. 

'Aisy, sor. I'm jist wonderin' if I'm dead or alive, ' said the trooper ina still small voice, watching the blood-drops falling from his forehead. 

'Then the devil a bit's the matter with you, Casey. '

'Thank you, sor, ' said the trooper, with a trained man's confidence inhis superior. 'Thin I'd best git up, p'raps. ' And he arose and stooddubiously fingering the furrow plowed along the top of his head by thegold stealer's bullet. 

'Get him into the hut, ' said Downy, indicating Rogers with a nod; 'andhobble the brute--he's dangerous. '

Rogers, sitting on the edge of his bunk, handcuffed and leg-ironed, gazedsullenly at the detective. 

'Well, ' he said, 'an' now you've got me, what's the charge?'

'A trifle of gold-stealing, ' replied Downy, 'and this, ' indicatingCasey's bleeding head. 'To say nothing of the murder of your accomplice. '

Rogers blanched and glared at the detective, his face contorted and hiseyes big with terror. 

'Shine, ' he murmured, 'd'ye mean Shine? It's a lie; he's not dead!'

Harry Hardy, who had just come upon the scene and was standing in thedoorway, cried out at this. 

'Great God!' he said. 'Then it was Ephraim Shine after all!'

'Pooh!'' cried Rogers, 'it was a trick to trap me into givin' his name. You needn't 'a' troubled yerself. I don't want to shield him--damn him!'

'Do you know where this Shine's to be got at?' asked Downy, appealing toHarry, who had been working in concert with the detective ever since hisappearance in Waddy. 

'Yes, ' was the reply. 'I know his house. He'll be easily taken. '

'Then go with the sergeant. Take Casey's horse. It'll be with the other. Here, ' he threw Harry a revolver. 'Case of need, you know, but noshooting if it can be avoided. '

Harry thrust the weapon in his belt, and a minute later he and SergeantMonk rode off in company to take Ephraim Shine in the name of the Queen. 

Meanwhile Dick was not at the bottom of the Piper shaft, as Rogersconcluded in his haste. Joe had not left the boy half a minute when asecond man made his appearance on the other side of the shaft. This wasDowny, in his drover disguise. The detective, whose sole object inassuming the disguise was to watch Dick, believing that the boy would besure to communicate with the real thieves, had witnessed his capture byRogers and had followed in the latter's tracks; and now, after beingentertained and instructed by the words that had passed between Rogersand his captive, he cut Dick down, quickly frayed the end of the ropebetween two stones, and cut away Dick's bonds, throwing the rope and gaginto the shaft. 

'Now, my lad, ' he said sternly, 'after that man. Take me the nearesttrack to the quarry you spoke of as quick as you can cut, and don't makenoise enough to wake a cat or I'll hand you over to him when we getthere. '

Dick did as he was bid; and they were in time to overlook Rogers as hesearched amongst the stones, and to overhear some of the language thatannounced his failure. At this stage the detective, who had retained hisgrip of Dick's wrist, whispered:

'You can go now, but you must take a message from me to Harry Hardy. Gostraight to his house and say, 'Downy says 'Ready. '' Can I trust you?'

Dick nodded. 

You're a plucky lad, ' said Downy, 'and I'll take your word. Off you go, but make no noise. '

Dick crept quietly along the grass till he was well beyond hearing, andthen ran down by Wilson's ploughed land and out into the open country. Heunderstood that the career of Joe Rogers as a gold-stealer was drawing toa close, and the knowledge brought him a certain sense of relief in spiteof the fact that he quite realised Shine's danger, and was more than everdevoted to the searcher's daughter, more than ever pleased with the ideaof her hearing some day how faithful and bold he had been, how true aknight to his liege lady. 

He burst into the room where Mrs. Hardy and Harry and Mrs. Haddon wereseated, hatless and breathless, and filled his friends with alarm. 

'Please, Harry, Downy says 'Ready!'' blurted Dick. 

Harry sprang to his feet and made for the door. 

'That mens he's discovered something important, mother. ' he said as hepassed out. 

Dick followed, leaving the women astonished and curious, slipped awayaround the fence enclosing Harry's home, and made off towards the otherend of the township. His intention was to warn Ephraim Shine of thedanger that threatened. He did not doubt but that Rogers, if he fell intothe hands of the troopers, would tell all. 

There was a light burning in Shine's skillion, and Dick's knock wasanswered by Miss Chris, who wore her hat and was on the point of leavingfor her home at Summers'. 

'I want your father, ' said Dick quickly. 'The troopers 'r' after him. Tell him to bolt. '

'Dickie--Dickie, whatever do you mean?' cried Christina, greatlyagitated. 

The next moment she was thrust aside and Shine appeared, showing a drawngaunt face, the skin of which looked crinkled and yellow in the candlelight, like old parchment. 

'What's that?' he gasped. 'Who wants me?'

'You're found out, ' said Dick, drawing back, shocked by the ghastlyappearance of the man. 'They're after Rogers. They've got him by this, Iexpect, an' they'll soon have you if you don't make a bolt fer it. '

Shine uttered a wailing cry and Dick turned and fled again, afraid ofbeing seen in the vicinity of the searcher's abode by Downy or any of hismen. Looking back he saw that the house was now in darkness, and surmisedthat Ephraim had taken advantage of his warning to escape into the bush. 

When Harry Hardy and the trooper rode up to Shine's house half an hourlater, they found the place deserted. The door was on the latch, and theinterior gave no indication of a hurried departure, but the searcher wasnowhere to be seen. 

'It's all right, ' said Harry, 'he'll be somewhere about the township. I'll take a trip round an' see if I can hit on him, if you'll stay herean' keep watch. '

'Right, ' said the sergeant, 'but you'd best drop in on Downy and let himknow. If our man gets wind of what's happened he'll skedaddle. '

'If he doesn't we'll nab him at the mine at one. '

Harry found that Downy had disposed of his prisoner, having converted thecellar at the Drovers' Arms into a lock-up for the time being, andsmuggled Joe Rogers in so artfully that McMahon's patrons in the bar werequite ignorant of the proximity of the prisoner and of the presence ofthe guardian angel sitting patiently in the next room, tenderly nursing abroken head and a six-barrelled Colt's revolver. 

Harry and Downy searched Waddy from end to end in quest of Ephraim Shine, and saw nothing of him. Downy interviewed Christina without betraying hisidentity or his object, but could get no inforination of any value; andwhen the missing man failed to put in an appearance at the Silver Streamto search the miners from the pump coming off work, the hunt wasabandoned for the time being. 

'He's got wind of my game and cleared, ' said Downy, 'but we'll have himbefore forty-eight hours have passed. '

'But how could he know?' asked Harry, impatient to lay Shine by theheels. 

'May have heard the shots. May have been hiding anywhere. But, neverfret, we'll round up your friend, my boy. Men of his make and shape areas easy to track as a hay waggon. '

In the early hours of the morning Downy drove his prisoner into Yarraman, and that day's issue of the local Mereury contained a thrillingdescription of the capture of the Waddy gold-stealer--a description thatcreated an unprecedented demand for the Mercury, and quite compensatedthe gifted editor for, the heartburnings he had endured over thebushranging fiasco. 

Waddy was dumbfounded when the Mercury came to hand, and horriblydisgusted to think the stirring incident described had happened rightunder its nose, without its having the satisfaction of witnessing theleast moving adventure or catching even a glimpse of the prisoner. JoeRogers a free man was a familiar and commonplace object, but Joe Rogershandcuffed and leg-ironed in the custody of the law was a person ofabsorbing interest, and Waddy would have turned out to a man and woman togive him an appropriate send-off. 

There, before their eyes, set forth in the columns of the Mercury, werethe details of Detective Downy's ruse, and valuable remarks enlargingupon the almost superhuman astuteness of the officer in question; thestory of Dick's capture by Rogers, the flight to the Piper shaft and allthat happened there, the fight between the gold-stealer and the troopers, the shooting of Casey, the overthrow of Rogers, and the hunt for EphraimShine; all these things had happened in a small township within the spaceof a few hours, and Waddy, that had always found its Sunday nights hangso heavily on its hands, had been cheated out of every item of thebewildering list. It was a shame, an outrage. Detective Downy was voted apublic enemy, and his name was execrated from the chapel yard toMcMahon's bar. 

The only satisfaction available to the people was in going over theground, and they flocked to Joe's hut and congregated there, discussing, arguing, and predicting; examining with owlish wisdom the bullet mark onthe hut chimney, and counting the blood spots on the worn track near thedoor where the hero Casey bled in defence of his country's laws. Ofcourse, 'the boy Haddon' was a favourite theme, and now Dick appeared asa public benefactor. The matter of the stolen gold had yet to be settled, but the most generous view of this business was popular, and theconfidence in Richard Haddon was complete. The women declaredemphatically and without a blush that they had always believed in thehonesty and intelligence and brave good heart of the boy. To be sure hewas a bit wild and a little mischievous--but, there, what boy worth hissalt was not? and, in spite of everything they had all seen long ago thatWidow Haddon's young son was a good lad at bottom. His conduct indeluding Joe Rogers in the face of so terrible a danger reflected creditupon Waddy, and Waddy gratefully responded by being heartily proud ofhim. A crowd marched to Mrs. Haddon's back fence expressly to cheer Dick;and cheer him they did, in a solemn, matter-of-fact way, like a peopleperforming a high public duty. Dick was not in the least moved by thisdisplay of feeling, but his mother was delighted and kissed him heartily, and responded on his behalf by shaking a towel out of the back windowwith great energy and much genuine emotion. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE detective had asked Harry to keep careful watch upon Dick, but theboy betrayed no inclination to roam, and when he did venture out it wasto call upon Harry himself. Dick's spirits had recovered marvellously, and if it were not for an occasional fit of sadness (induced by thoughtsof Christina Shine) he would have been quite restored to his formerhealthy craving for devilment, and eager to call together theshareholders of the Mount of Gold with a view to arranging furtheradventures. Harry, too, no longer felt the ill effects of his injuries, and intended returning to work in the course of a few days. The recentdiscoveries had served to lighten his heart, and yet thoughts ofChristina welled bitterness; but his mother was happy in the confidencethat at last justice would be done and her son restored to her. 

Dick found Harry moodily smoking in the garden, and addressed him throughthe fence. 

'What d'ye think?' he said, with the air of one propounding a conundrum. 

Harry was not in a guessing mood; he gave it up at once and Dick tookanother course. 

'I got somethin' p'tickler to tell you, ' he said. 

'Have you, Ginger?' Harry was quite alert now. 'About thisgold-stealin'?'

'No--o, not quite about that. I'm goin' to tell all that to Downy, butit's somethin' jist as p'tickler--about a reef we found. '

'A reef? Nonsense, Dick. How could you find a reef?'

'By diggin' fer it, I s'pose. What'd you think if I said we fellers' yegot a mine--a really mine--me an' Jacker Mack, an' Ted McKnight, an'Billy Peterson, an' Phil Doon? What'd you say, eh?'

'I'd say you didn't know what you were talking about, Ginger, my boy. '

'But if I took you down the shaft an' showed you the reef, an' showed youstone with gold stickin' in it--suppose I done that, how then?'

'Where is this reef?' asked Harry, becoming impressed by the boy'searnestness. 

'Tellin's!'

'But didn't you come to tell me?'

'Come to tell you we'd found it, an' to ask what to do, so's no one canjump it. We want it took up on a proper lease, all right fer me an' therest o' the fellers, an' we'll let you stand in. '

'I can't take up a lease unless I know where the reef is, can I?'

'Well, it ain't far from the Bed Rand. '

'Nonsense, Dick! The bottom must be over three hundred feet deep there. You couldn't cut a reef any shallower than that. '

'On'y we have. '

Harry sat for a moment lost in thought. He had suddenly recalled old talkabout mysterious indications of a shallow reef in that locality, a reefthe existence of which would have been in open opposition to miningtraditions, and contrary to all locally known theories of scientificmining. He remembered hearing of a shaft that had been put down by a fewbelievers, in defiance of local derision; he recalled, too, the eccentricand unheard-of drive thrown out by the Red Hand in some such absurdquest, and his respect for the boy's opinion grew into something likeconviction. 

'It's very queer, Dick, ' he said; 'but if you'll show it to me I'll doall I can for you. '

'That's good! You see we're all in it. We're the Mount of GoldQuartz-minin' Company--me an' Jacker an' them--but it's on'y amake-believe company, an' I'd like Mr. McKnight, an' Mr. Peterson, an'Mr. Doon to come, an' the detective cove too, cause there's somethin'else there--somethin' else p'tickler too. '

'Very well, we can go an' see McKnight an' Peterson, but they'll laugh atus. '

'When they laugh we'll show 'em this, ' said Dick, producing a lump ofquartz. 

Harry took the stone in his hand; it was not larger than a hen's egg andof a dark colour, but studded thickly with clean gold, and as he gazed atit his pipe fell from his mouth and his eyes rounded. He pursed his lipsto whistle his astonishment, and forgot to do it; he lifted his hand toscratch his head and it stuck half-way; he turned and turned the stone, stupid with surprise. 

'By the holy, your fortune's made if there's much o' this!' he blurted atlength. 

'Think there's heaps of it, ' said Dick coolly. 

'When can we go to it?'

'When the detective cove comes, an' I've told him 'bout somethin'. '

'Somethin' good for us, Dick?' asked Harry anxiously. 

Dick nodded his head slowly several times. 

'Well, if this don't lick cock-fighting. Have you told your mother?'

'No, ' said Dick. 

'Nothing about this either? How's that?'

'Oh, ' said Dick with a man's superiority, 'she wouldn't understand. Shedon't know nothin' 'bout minin', you know. '

Harry looked down upon his young friend curiously for a moment. 

'D'you know, ' he said, 'you're a most amazing kind of a kid?'

'How?' asked Dick shortly. 

'Why in the way you get mixed up in things. '

'Tain't my fault if things happen, is it?' asked the boy in an injuredtone. 

'S'pose it ain't, ' replied Harry with a grin; 'but they all seem to comeyour way somehow. Look here--it can't matter now--tell me how you came tobe in the Stream drive that night?'

Dick kicked up a tuft of grass, bored one heel into the soft turf, andanswered nothing. 

'Come on, old man, I won't turn dog. '

'I'm goin' to tell it to Detective Downy first. 'Twasn't nothin' muchanyhow. I jes' went down. '

Dick would say nothing more. He found himself on the side of the law forthe first time, and felt he owed a duty to Downy, whom he regarded asalmost as great a man as Sam Sagacious. Downy had come to his rescue inan hour of dire peril, Downy had trusted him and taken him into hisconfidence to some extent, and he was determined to do the fair andsquare thing by the detective, at least so far as he could do so withoutinterfering with his sacred obligation to handsome, unhappy ChristinaShine. 

The detective returned to the township in the afternoon to prosecute thesearch for Ephraim, of whom nothing had yet been heard. In the presenceof his mother and Mrs. Hardy and Harry, Dick faced the officer to tellhis story; but he found it hard to begin. 

'Well, my lad, ' said Downy, 'you're going to tell all you know?'

Dick nodded, abashed by his new importance. 

'Out with it then. You were in that drive?'

'Yes. '

'You went down with Rogers and Shine?'

'I didn't. '

'Very well, my boy, how did you go?'

'Went by myself. Out of a drive what I know into the Red Hand workin's, an' down the Red Hand ladders. '

'But why? Go ahead--why?'

'To--to drag Harry out o' the water. '

There were three distinct gasps at this, and even the detective's eyelidswent up a trifle. 

'Go on, Dick. '

Now having started, Dick told his story in full. The incidents were nottold consecutively, and he needed considerable cross-examining before thetale was properly fitted together and his audience of four had graspedthe full details. Then Mrs. Hardy arose from her seat and moved towardshim somewhat unsteadily; knelt by his side, took him in her arms softlyand quietly, kissed him, and said in a very low voice:

'God bless you, Richard; God bless you, my brave boy. '

This, for some reason quite incomprehensible to the boy, caused a lump toswell in his breast and gave him an altogether uncalled-for inclinationto blubber; but he swallowed it down with an effort, and then his motherhugged him in that billowy energetic way of hers. After which Harry tookhis hand and shook it for quite a long time without speaking a word. Thedetective alone was undemonstrative. 

'Now, ' said he, 'what about this gold? You hid it?'

'Yes. In our shaft. '

'Look here, Master Dick, why have you kept all this so quiet? Why did yougo down that mine in stead of running for help? Come, there is somethingat the back of all this; out with it!

Dick's lips closed in a familiar way, and their colourlessness indicateda stubborn defiance of all argument and persuasion. 

'Did you want to steal the gold yourself?'

'No, ' cried the boy angrily. 

'Then you were afraid of something. By heaven! I have it. You rip! 'twasyou gave warning to Ephraim Shine. You deserve six months. '

'Shame!' murmured Mrs. Hardy. 

''Tisn't fair!' expostulated Dick's mother. Dick's lips were closedagain, and he stared defiantly at the detective. 

'Well, well, ' groaned Downy, 'this is the most extraordinary thing inboys that I have ever encountered, but he's a mass of grit--for good orbad, all grit. Shake hands, Dick. '

Dick brightened up, and shook hands cheerfully. 

'You're quite sure about that gold? You hid it securely?' queried thedetective. 

'Yes, I buried it under the reef quite safe. '

'And nobody knows of this hole but yourself?'

'Yes, Jacker knows, an' Ted, an' Billy Peterson, an'--'

'Bless my soul, the whole township knows! We won't get an ounce of thatgold--not a colour. We'd better make the search at once, Mr. Hardy. You'll need a rope and tools, I suppose. Hunt up the men you spoke of asquickly as possible, will you?'

Harry and Dick started off together in quest of McKnight. He was on thenight shift, and they found him in bed. Harry explained. McKnight wasscornful and profane. 

'What--that boy Haddon again?' he cried. 'Now what's his little game?What devilment's he up to?

'But this looks all right, ' Harry expostulated. 

'All right, my grandmother's cat! You'll be findin' quartz reefs in agum-tree next. '

'You ask Jacker an' Ted, ' put in Dick resentfully, hurt to find hiswell-intentioned efforts so ungraciously received. 

'Ask Jacker, is it? If Jacker comes playin' any of your monkey trickswith me, my lad, I'll make him smell mischief, I tell you. '

'But hang it all, Mack! you might as well come an' see. I own the chanceso' finding a shallow reef in that locality look blue, but you know therewas talk o' something of the kind years ago. '

'Yes, talk by fellers that didn't know a quartz lode from a load o'bricks or a stone wall. Get out, I'm sleepy. '

'Show him the specimen, ' said Dick. 

Harry handed it over. 

'The boy says this is from his show. How's that?' he said. 

McKnight took the stone indifferently, cast his eye over it, and then satup with a jerk. He moistened the stone here and there, glared again in astrained silence, and one leg shot out of bed. He weighed the specimen inhis hand, and the second leg followed. Then McKnight fell to dressinghimself; he literally jumped into his clothes, and as he buttoned hisvest all askew, he gasped:

'Hold on there--I'll be with you in two twos!'

'Wouldn't break my neck about it, old man, ' said Harry sarcastically, 'p'raps the boy made that specimen out of a door knob an' a bit ofbrick. '

'Did he, but--That's just the same class o' stone as the specimenHenderson found in the back paddock twelve years ago, that sent everyonedaft after a reef there. Come on. '

McKnight was now much the most eager of the three, and led the way at agreat pace to Peterson's house. Peterson was more easily convinced, andin a few minutes the four joined Downy at Mrs. Hardy's. The detective hadborrowed a coil of rope, the necessary tools were provided, and the partyset off. The five no sooner appeared on the flat with their burdens thanthey were sighted by many of the people of Waddy, now eagerly on thelookout for adventure, and before they reached the bush they had quite amob at their heels, fed by a thin stream of men, women, and childrenhurrying to witness the newest development of Waddy's latest and greatestaffair. 

Dick led the men into the Gaol Quarry, and at the spring turned andpointed the way through the scrub growth under which he and his matesalways crawled to get at the opening leading into the Mount of Gold. 

'In there, ' he said, 'agin the wall. '

Harry and McKnight broke a passage through the saplings and ti-tree. 

''Tween them two rocks, ' said Dick; 'low down under the fern. '

'Yes, ' cried Harry, 'here we are! Let's have the hammer, Peterson. '

Harry broke away projecting pieces of stone, widening the aperture, andDick and the detective joined them at the opening. 

'I'll go first, ' said the boy. 'I can go down the ladder we made, but itmightn't bear a man. '

Dick went below and lit a couple of candles. Nothing had been touched inthe drive, and he peeped into the shaft and saw that the loose dirt therewas as he left it. Harry joined him in a few minutes and McKnightfollowed. The men came down on the boys' curious ladder, but with a ropeabout their waists, paid out from above. Downy was the last to go below, Peterson remaining on the surface to keep the crowd back from theentrance. 

McKnight seized a candle, crawled to the extremity of Dick's diminishingdrive, and examined the place curiously. 

'It's right, ' he cried, 'right as the bank. She's a dyke formation, Ishould say, an' rich. By the holy, we're made men--made men, Hardy!

Detective Downy was too deeply interested in his own quest to pay muchattention to the miners. 

'Now, my lad, ' he said, 'where are we?'

'The bag's there under them lumps. ' Dick held his candle low, throwingits light into the shaft. Downy dropped from the slabs placed across fromdrive to drive into the bottom, and going on his knees threw aside thelumps of mullock indicated by the boy. Dick followed him holding thecandle, and watching his movements, anxiously at first, and then withterror. He flung himself down beside the detective, and plunged his handamongst the rubble, then ceased and faced the detective, mute, despairing. 

'Well, well, ' cried Downy in alarm, 'what is it?

'Gone!' whispered Dick. 

'Gone? Are you sure? We have not searched yet. '

'It's gone!'

'You may have made a mistake. Hardy, Mc Knight, lend a hand here. '

'No good, ' said Dick, 'it's gone. --it's stolen. I put it right here, coverin' it with this flat junk an' a lot o' small stuff. I know--I knowquite well. '

Harry and McKnight went into the shaft with shovels, and turned over thedirt stowed there to the depth of two feet, but the bag was gone. 

'Show a light here, ' Downy said suddenly, looking up at Dick from theslab on which he was seated above the two workers. He took the candle andexamined the edge of the slab closely. 

'You said the bag containing the stolen gold was made of hide. '

'Yes, ' said the boy, 'green hide--just a calfskin bag, with the hair on. '

'Humph! Then here is proof that part of your story is true anyhow. ' Heheld up a little tuft of reddish hair. 

'Rogers had a skin bag, a red-an'-white one. Used to use it fer haulin'in the shallow alluvial at Eel Creek. I've seen it at his hut often, 'said McKnight. 'But, I say, mister, if you' take the advice of an oldminer you'll get out o' this just as quick as you can lick. See, thetimber's been taken out o' this shaft, an' it's a wonder to me it ain'tcome down in a lump an' buried them kids long since. It's damn dangerous, I tell you. '

'Very good, ' said Downy. 'First have a look into these drives and thenwe'll clear. Show me how you got through into the Red Hand workings, Dick. '

Dick led him along the drive and pointed out the little heap covering theopening where he had broken through. 

'Do you think that dirt's been touched by anyone since you piled itthere?' asked Downy. 

'No, ' said Dick, 'it seems jist the same. '

'Then the thief did not come that way. ' The detective scattered the heapand examined the rough edges of the opening carefully. 'No cow hairthere, ' he said. 'We must hunt for that skin bag somewhere up aloft, Dick. '

When Dick reached the surface he found Hardy, McKnight, and Petersonstanding apart from the crowd, with elate faces, talking earnestly. 

'She's a rich dyke, ' McKnight was saying, 'an' she'll go plumb down toany depth. We must get the pegs in at once, an' apply fer a lease. Shejust misses Silver Stream ground, an' the ole Red Hand is forfeit longago. Boys, it's a fortune fer us. '

'Remember Phil Doon's a shareholder, too; his father's got to be in it, 'said Dick. 

'To be sure, lad, to be sure; all honest an' fair to the boy pioneers. '

Dick felt little enthusiasm about the Mount of Gold just then, for theloss of the bag of stolen gold troubled him sorely. He feared thatDetective Downy regarded him as a liar and a cheat. 

CHAPTER XX. 

After coming up Downy examined the opening in the rock critically. 

'Do you think a man might have made his way through that hole before youbroke the edges down?' he asked Harry. 

'Well, yes, with some crowding I think he might've. '

'Yet the boy said he had to squeeze his way through. Did you notice ifthe opening had been enlarged recently? Were there indications of recentbreakages?'

'Yes, the stone had been broken in places. I s'posed the boys did that. '

'Perhaps. Here, Dick. '

Dick was quite sure neither he nor any of his mates had increased theopening. They kept it small because it was easier to hide; besides, hesaid, it was more fun having to squeeze through. 

'Which of your mates took that bag?' asked Downy sharply. 

'None of 'em. '

'Why are you so positive?'

''Cause I know they wouldn't be game. '

'Afraid of the darkness or the mine?'

'No, afraid o' me. ' Dick squared his shoulders manfully. 

'Get out--why should they be afraid of you?'

'Wasn't I legal an' minin' manager an' chairman o' the directors? If onedid what I told him not to he'd get the sack an' a lickin', too. '

'Oh, he would, eh? Well, you'd better give me their names anyhow. Andnow, ' he continued after jotting down the names of the shareholders ofthe Mount of Gold, 'show me the track you took when you dragged the hidebag through the quarry. '

Dick went back over his tracks, and Downy followed slowly on hands andknees, rescuing a hair or two from the edges of the rock or from abramble here and there. 

'Fortunately that bag of yours shed its hair freely, old man, ' he said. 'here's corroborative evidence anyhow. The bag went down all right--nowlet's see what proof there is that it came up again. '

He returned to the hole in the rock and commenced another search, withhis nose very close to the ground, moving slowly, and peering diligentlyinto every little cranny amongst the stones. At length, after travellingabout ten yards in the direction of the spring in this fashion, be calledsharply:

'Hi, Dick What were you doing with that bag here?'

'Never had it nowhere near here, ' answered Dick. 

'Come, recollect; you put it down for a spell. ' 'Didn't, ' said Dick. 'Went straight along the side, an' dropped it into the shaft. '

'But look--there's hair on the top of this rock and a tuft on the corner. Mustn't tell me a cow would roost there, my lad. '

'Don't care--'twasn't me. '

Downy sat on the rock for a moment in a brown study, and the crowd, whichhad made itself comfort able in one end of the quarry and up one side, sat in awed silence, watching him closely, like a theatre audiencewaiting for some wonder-worker to perform his feats of magic. 

The detective did nothing astonishing. After collecting a portion of thehair he deposited it carefully in his pocket-book, deposited the bookjust as carefully in his breast-pocket, and then climbed out of thequarry and marched away towards the township; and the crowd, relievedfrom the restraint imposed by the law as personified in him, gatheredabout the stone and examined it wisely, discovering a much longer andmore significant sermon in it than Downy had ever suspected, and findingmarrow-freezing suggestiveness in the marks of rust upon the face of therock, which were declared by common consent to be bloodstains. Waddyconfidently expected the gold-stealing case to culminate in the discoveryof a particularly atrocious murder, and Ephraim Shine was selected as theprobable victim. It was held by many that so good a man as thesuperintendent had seemed to be could not reasonably be suspected ofconsorting with a sinner like Joe Rogers with criminal intentions, andthe idea that he had been murdered by the real thieves under peculiarlyshocking circumstances was held to be more feasible, and was, in additionto that, highly satisfactory from a dramatic point of view. 

The investigations of the people stopped short at the entrance to theshaft, where Peterson mounted guard and warned them off in the name ofthe law, and meanwhile Hardy and McKnight were pegging out the landpreparatory to applying for a lease. 

Downy went straight from the quarry to Shine's house, and, much to hissurprise, found the missing man's daughter there. Christina had alteredmuch during the last few hours: her face was now quite colourless, griefhad robbed it of its sweet simplicity, and the buoyant ingenuousness hadfled from her eyes. A new character was legible there, a strength of willmore in keeping with her fine presence. The almost childlike sympathy wasgone, and in its place was a trace of suffering and evidence of thedeeper forces of her nature. The detective eyed her keenly, with surpriseand interest, and saluted her in his most respectful manner. 

'You have had the--eh, misfortune to meet me before, Miss Shine, ' hesaid. 

Christina merely bowed her head. 

'I am Detective Downy. I have a warrant for the arrest of Ephraim Shine. I wish to search the house. '

'Yes, ' said the girl quietly, and stepped from the door to make way forhim. 

Downy entered and commenced his search at once. He examined the wholeplace minutely, foolishly it seemed to Christina, who stood by the doorapparently impassive but following all his movements with her eyes. Hewas particularly careful in overhauling a coat that her father had worn, and having gone through the three rooms he walked out and round thehouse. There was no place near where a man might hide but in the tank, and that was full of water, as he cautiously noted. He faced Christinafor a moment, as if with the intention of questioning her, but changedhis mind, wished her 'Good day, ' and moved off. 

Up to six o'clock next day nothing had been heard of Shine; he haddisappeared in a most astonishing manner. The police of the whole countrywere alert to capture him, and it was thought that escape for him wasimpossible, if only on account of his physical peculiarities, whichshould have made him a marked man anywhere in Victoria or in either ofthe neighbouring provinces. Sergeant Monk and several troopers werestationed at Waddy, and were kept busy hunting in the old mines and allthe nooks and corners of the district. Harry Hardy joined in the huntthroughout Tuesday. He had a feverish desire for employment--occupationfor his mind which, in spite of the efforts he made to dwell upon thevillainies of Ephraim Shine and the wrong he had done Frank, and the goodreasons he had to hate him, would revert again and again to Christina;and then a wish, a cowardly wish, traitorous to his brother, cruel to hismother, and false to himself, stole into his heart, and he felt for oneburning moment a hope that the searcher might escape for her sake, forthe sake of sweet Chris, whose victory over him he acknowledged andnursed in secret with a wealth of feeling that amazed him, with a passionhe had never dreamed himself capable of. He fought this wish furiously, as if it had been a tangible thing: grappling with it, choking it in hisheart, and stirring up in his soul a wilder hatred for his enemy. 

Harry saw Chris for a moment on the morning after the arrest of JoeRogers; the change in her startled him, his love flamed up, and pity toreat his heart strings. His triumph must mean suffering and shame for her. Had he stood alone he would ten thousand times rather have borne whatmisfortune might have fallen to his lot than see her shamed andsorrowing. It was thoughts like these that rose up to make him hisbrother's enemy, and they were conquered in sweat and agony; and sincehis loyalty to his own kin could only be maintained at a fever heat, hestood forth as the most bitter and implacable foe of Ephraim Shine. 

Coming from Mrs. Hardy's gate on that night at about nine o'clock, DickHaddon collided with a breathless boy running at top speed in thedirection of the Drovers' Arms, and the two went down together. When Dickhad quite recovered he recognised the other, whom he had gripped with'vengeful intentions, as Billy Peterson. 

'Lemme go, ' cried Billy. 'Quick, can't yer! I'm goin' fer the troopers. '

'Who for?' asked Dick, hanging to his friend. 

'Find out. '

'Oh, right you are; but you won't go, that's all. '

'Well, I'm goin' to tell 'em that Tinribs is up at his house. '

'How d'yer know?'

'I was sneakin' round to get a shot at a cat, an' I heard 'em. Lemme go'r he'll be gone, you fool. '

'Won't, ' said Dick, masterfully. 'You ain't goin'. '

'Who'll stop me?'

'I will. '

'Tain't in yer. '

A struggle commenced between the boys and rapidly merged into a stand-upfight. When Harry Hardy appeared on the scene, attracted by their cries, he found the combatants locked in a fierce embrace, each clingingdesperately to a handful of the other's hair and hammering vigorously athis opponent's ribs. Harry pulled them apart as if they had beenterriers. 

'Here, here, what's all this about?' he cried. 

'Dick stopped me goin' fer the troopers, ' said Billy indignantly. 

'The troopers?'

'Yes, fer Mr. Shine. He's up in his house. I heard him--he was talkin' toMiss Chris in the dark. '

'Stop!' said Harry; but Billy, who had broken away, picked up his heelsand ran. 

Harry did not linger, but turned and sped off to wards Shine's home, leaving Dick cowering against the fence. The young man had no definedintention--he did not know what he should do if he found Shine in thehouse. His divided interests left his mind confused at the crucialmoment, but he did not relax his speed until he was within a few yards ofthe searcher's door. Then, to his astonishment, he found lights burningin the house, and Christina confronted him in the doorway as he was aboutto enter. He drew back a step and his eyes sought the ground. He stoodpanting and speechless. 

'What do you want, Harry?' she asked. 

Had she been bitter or angry it might have been easier for him, but hervoice was low and kindly, and he was abashed. He was compelled to forcehimself to his purpose, as he might have pushed a backing horse at astiff fence. 

'I want your father. He is here. ' His voice was harsh and strained. 

'My father is not in here. '

'He has been seen. Let me pass. '

'No, Harry, you have no right. ' She barred the way, tall and calm andstrong. 

'No right? No right to take the man who has gaoled my brother--who wouldhave murdered me?' His blood had mounted to his head; he had put asidehis love as something that tempted him to evil, put it aside by an almostheroic effort of renunciation. 'I will have him, ' he cried; 'the would-bemurderer, the thief. '

'No, ' said Christina firmly facing him. 

'Then he's here--he is here?

'No. '

'You lie thinking to save him, but the troopers are coming. ' He pointedback into the night. From where he stood the back door was visible, andhe watched it intently. 

'The troopers are the officers of the law. I can not deny them, you Ican. Harry, you are fierce and cruel--fierce and unforgiving. ' Thereproach was not spoken fretfully; it was quite dispassionate, but itstruck him like a blow and he bent before it, conscious of its injusticebut not daring to deny it. They remained so in silence for a few minutes, and then heard the rush of the troopers' horses coming up the grass-grownback road at a gallop. 

'They're coming, ' said Harry in a low voice. 

Christina neither stirred nor spoke, and Monk at the head of fourhorsemen swept up to the house. 

'To the front, Donovan and Keel, ' cried Monk. 'He may make for cover inthose quarries if he bolts. 

Casey, stay here. Managan, follow me. '

He dropped from his horse and led the animal to Harry, to whom he threwthe rein. Christina did not attempt to bar his passage, and he andManagan passed into the house. Chris stood by the door jamb, facingHarry, erect and pale; Harry leant against the big galvanised-iron tank, absently fondling the head of the trooper's horse. Suddenly, a momentafter the troopers had entered the house, he heard right at his elbow thesound of something striking upon the iron of the tank inside. He startedforward with a low cry, and his eyes flew to the face of the girl. She, too, had heard the sound, and their eyes met. The terror in hers told himthat he had discovered the truth. 

'He's there, ' he whispered. 

Christina staggered back, supporting herself against the wall, and fellinto a seat under the window, the light from which streamed upon her fairhair and illumined her as she sat, crushed by her misery into an attitudeof profound despair, her head bowed upon her breast, her clasped handsthrust out rigidly be yond her knees. 

Harry stood silent and motionless, his eyes fixed upon the grief-strickenfigure of the girl, his brain in a tumult. His heart was driving him toforget everything but that he loved her, to take her in his arms andswear to shield her and cherish her, come what might. At this momentSergeant Monk came from the house. 

'Not a sign of him, ' he said. 'Did you see any thing of him, Hardy?

'Not a glimpse, ' answered Harry mechanically. 

'Did you go inside?'

'No; Miss Shine refused admittance. '

'Why are you here, miss?' asked Monk, turning sharply to Christina. 

'I am here because it is my home, ' she answered unsteadily. 

'But don't you live with the Summers family?'

'People may not care to shelter the daughter of--of one suspected ofrobbery and almost murder. ' The girl's head sank lower still and aconvulsive sob shook her frame; but she controlled herself with a braveeffort of will and sat immovable. 

Monk's horse was nosing in the bucket under the tap of the tank, andHarry stooped and turned the tap. The water ran swiftly, filling thebucket in a few seconds. While the horse drank the sergeant gavewhispered orders to Casey; and Christina, with steadfast eyes and lockedfingers, sat waiting for Harry to speak the dreaded words, wondering athis silence. Monk moved round the house, peering into all the corners, and came to the tank again. It stood on a small platform raised on fouruprights, and all was open underneath. The sergeant examined it. Heclimbed to the top, removed the lid and, striking a light, looked in. Thetank was full of water. 

'I am going to hunt over the quarries, ' said the trooper in a low voice, as he mounted. 'Donovan and Keel are taking a run in the paddock, Caseywill try the houses about here. You might keep your eyes open, Hardy. Perhaps that boy was mistaken, but we mustn't miss a chance. '

Harry nodded, scarcely comprehending what the man said, and Monk rode offleaving the two alone. For a minute or more they continued in the sameposition; then Harry stole to Chris, and kneeling in the shadow by herside took her hand firmly in his. 

'He is there, ' he whispered. 

'What are you going to do?' she added in a strange voice. 

'Why don't you get him away?'

'Away?' she murmured vaguely. 

'Yes, yes; I will help you. ' His left arm clasped her closely, and hisbreath was on her cheek. 

She turned her face towards him, and there was a new hope in it, anotherspirit in her glorious eyes. 

'You are not going to give him up. '

'I can't--I can't do it!'

'Thank God!' she murmured, and there was some thing more than relief forher father's sake in her tone. He had made a revelation that filled herwith a passion of joy which for a moment drove out the fears andanxieties that had possessed her heart. 

'I love you--I love you, dear, ' he continued in a voice ardent, caressing; 'an' I can't bear to see you suffer. '

She let her face sink to his and kissed him on the mouth, and he claspedher to his breast and held her, repeating again and again expressions ofhis devotion that love made eloquent. Her pale face turned to him seemedluminous with the ecstacy of the moment. For a brief sweet minute sheabandoned herself to that ecstacy and forgot everything beside. 

'I have always loved you, my darling! my darling!' she whispered--'always. That night at the gate I thought you cared and I was happy, butafterwards I was afraid. I thought you might hate me for his sake, and Iwas wretched. '

'I did try to, Chris--I tried to hate you. I was a fool. I couldn't doanything but love in spite of myself, an' now I'll help you, dear. '

'No, no, no, Harry; no--you must not!' She put him from her with herstrong arms. 'It is wrong. I cannot let you. It is right that I shouldfight for him--he is my father. He has been a good father to me, and Ihave loved him and believed in him. It is my duty to fight for him, butyou must not, my dear love. In you it would be a wrong, a crime. '

'He is your father--I love you!

'Yes, yes, and oh, I am glad you love me; but you must leave me to dowhat I can alone. It is not your duty to help him. Think of your mother, your brother, your own honour. '

'We can save Frank now without this. '

'You cannot be sure of that, Harry--you only hope so. '

'Am I to tell the troopers, then?'

'No, no--oh, no; I am not brave enough to say that! I cannot bear tothink of you as his hunter, his bitterest foe. 'Twas that thought made myshame and my sorrow so terrible a burden; but I can carry it better now. '

'My poor girl! my poor girl!'

He bent his lips to the white hand upon his shoulder and kissed ittenderly. 

'God bless you, Harry!' she faltered, tears springing to her eyes. 'Iknow how generous you are. As a boy you had a big brave heart, and Iadmired you and loved you for it; but I can take no sacrifice that mightbring more sorrow upon your mother, that might wrong your brother andbring shame to you. '

'But Frank's innocence will be known. Dickie Haddon heard them as good asadmit it. '

'Yes, I know the story. I made Mrs. Haddon tell me all, and I know thatthey left you to drown; and now for my sake you would save him, run therisk of being discovered assisting him to escape from justice--and therisk is great, dear. Think what it would mean if that became known, howit would blacken poor Frank's case. People would say they had all been inleague to rob the mine; you would be despised, your mother's heart wouldbreak. Harry, that must not be. The shame is mine now; you and yours haveborne enough. I cannot drag you into it again. I cannot have yourprecious love for me made a source of danger and dishonour to you. No, no; I love you too well for that--much too well for that, dear. '

She spoke in little more than a whisper, but there was the intensity ofdeep feeling in every word. 

He drew her to her feet and into his arms again with tender reverence, and softly kissed her tired eyelids. She was only a girl, and the strifeof the last two days had told upon her strength. It was sweet to rest so, knowing and feeling his strength, confident of his devotion. 

'But I love you--I love you, Chris, ' he said. 

'Yes, you love me and I love you. ' Her hand stole to his neck. 'Ah, howhappy we might have been!

'Might have been? We must be happy--we must!' he said vehemently. 'I loveyou, an' your sorrow is mine, your trouble is mine. I won't let anythinginterfere. I must help you!

'No, Harry, I will not take your help. You do not stand alone. Before Iwould have you do that I would tell the truth myself. My father is ill;he may never get away. I think he will not. What would be left to me ifhe were taken after all, and you were known to have assisted him in hisendeavours to elude the police? I could not bear it. No, no, dear, youmust leave us alone to that. Promise. '

They were standing in the darkness by the wall. He drew her more closelyto him and his only answer was a kiss. 

'If he does escape, ' she said, 'I will go into court and tell what Iknow, if it will help your brother. Perhaps I ought to tell the truth nowin justice and honour, but I cannot desert my father. There is somethinghere will not let me do that, ' She pressed a hand to her bosom. 

'No, you can't do that. I'm sorry for you, Chris. It's a hard fight. Iwant to fight with you. By Heaven! you don't know how I could fight foryou. '

Her head had fallen upon his breast again; he felt her sob, and brokeinto vehement speech--passionate assurances of love half spoken, ejaculations, fierce endearments, tender words--then was as suddenlysilent again, and stood over her with his lips amongst her hair until hermood passed. 

'I will come to-night, ' he whispered, when at length she ceased weeping. 

'No, ' she said, and she was strong again. 'In asking you to be silent Imake you false to your people. I do ask that, but no more. Harry, youmust not come again. Promise me you will not. '

'You'll come to me--we'll see each other?'

'No, dear. Better not, till this terrible business is over. '

Chris, I can't part like that. '

'You must, you must. Would you make it harder for me? Would you give me anew burden of shame and grief?'

'I'd die for you! There's nothing I wouldn't do for you!

'Then do this, my true love. Promise me you will not come here again. '

'Will it be for long?'

'No, it cannot be for long. Promise me. Promise me. Promise!'

'You know if he's-taken an' tried I will have to give evidence againsthim. '

'I do, ' she answered, shuddering. 

'An' that'll make no difference to our love?'

'I will always love you, Harry. '

'This trouble's making a great change in you, Chris, ' he said yearningly. 'You're pale and ill. It'll wear you out. '

She felt herself weakening again, but summoned all her resolution andstood true to her purpose. 

'I can bear it, ' she said. 'I must! Promise me. Harry, the troopers arecoming--your promise!'

'I promise. ' He held her a moment caught to his heart, they exchanged along kiss, and she slipped from him and into the house. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

A MINUTE later, when Casey rode up out of the darkness, Harry was sittingalone by the window. 

'You've seen nothing?' he said. 

Divil a see, ' replied the trooper. 'It's sartin to me he ain't withinfifty moiles av us this blessed minute. '

'It doesn't seem likely he'd hang round here, does it?'

'The man ud be twin idyits what ud do it, knowin' we'd be sartin sure tonab him, Misther Hardy. '

Harry was not disposed to smile, indeed he scarcely heeded Casey's words;he thought he detected a faint sound of weeping within the house, and hisheart was filled with a passionate longing to stand by his dear love indefiance of everything. Casey, looking down upon him, noted theconvulsive movements of his clenched hands, and said with a laugh:

'Sure, 'twould be sorrer an' torinint fer that same Shine if you laidthim hands on him now, me boy. '

Harry started to his feet and commenced to fondle the trooper's horse, fearing to follow the train of thought that had possessed him lest heshould betray himself. Shortly after Sergeant Monk returned. 

 'No go, ' he said. 'Anything turned up here, Casey?'

'Niver a shmell av anythin', sor, ' answered the trooper. 

'Well, we can raise this siege, Hardy. That boy was mistaken, sureenough. '

'If he wasn't having a game with us, ' answered Harry. 

'Urn, yes; that's likely enough among these young heathens of Waddy. ButDowny will be here again in the morning; we'll see what he makes of it. '

Harry followed the police as they rode away, and returned slowly to hishome. His anxiety for Chris's sake, and his profound sympathy for her, did not serve to quell the wild elation dancing in his veins, thetriumphal spirit awakened by the knowledge of her love and fired by herkisses. 

Chris, sitting alone in the house, her face buried in her hands, felt, too, something of this exultation; but she nerved herself to look intothe future, and saw it grim and starless. She saw herself the daughter ofthe convicted thief, the thief who had only narrowly escaped having tostand his trial for murdering her lover; the thief who had shifted theburden of his guilt on to the shoulders of an innocent man, the brotherof her love. Could she ever consent to be Harry's wife after that? sheasked herself with sudden terror. Then she shut out the thought, and herheart sang: 'He loves me! He loves me! 'and there was joy in that nodanger could destroy. 

Detective Downy was in Waddy again on the following morning, his trip toYarraman having been taken with the idea of interviewing Joe Rogers inprison and endeavouring to worm out of him some intelligence that mightassist in the discovery of Ephraim Shine. But Rogers either knew nothingor could not be persuaded to tell what he knew, so the effort wasfruitless. 

After hearing the story of the previous night, Downy sent for BillyPeterson and questioned him closely; but the boy insisted that he hadtold the truth, and was quite positive it was the searcher's voice heheard. The detective was puzzled. 

'You made a close hunt about the house?' he said to Sergeant Monk. 

'In every nook and corner. '

'Yet there must be something in this boy's yarn. Shine is certainly inhiding somewhere near here. If he had made a run for it he must have beenseen, and we should have heard of him before this. There might be a dozenholes in those quarries into which a man could creep. We must go overthem. Don't leave a foot's space unsearched. '

The troopers spent several hours in the quarries, moving every stone thatmight hide the entrance to a small cave, and leaving no room for asuspicion that Shine could be lying in concealment there. For a Dick, who, in consideration of the seriousness of recent events with which hehad been directly concerned, enjoying a week's holiday, superintended thehunt from the banks; but he wearied of the work at length, and crossedthe paddocks to join the men busy in the new shaft. Harry Hardy, McKnight, Peterson, and Doon were sinking to cut the dyke discovered bythe Mount of Gold Quartz-mining Company. The mine had been christened theNative Youth; Dick, as the holder of a third interest, felt himself to bea person of some consequence about the claim, and discussed its prospectswith the elder miners like a person of vast experience and considerableexpert knowledge, using technical phrases liberally, and not forgettingto drop a word of advice here and there. It might have been thoughtpresumptuous in the small boy, but was nothing of the kind in theprospector and discoverer of the lode. 

The big shareholder did not disdain even to assist in the work, and itwas a proud and happy youth, clay-smirched and wearing 'bo-yangs' belowhis knees like a full-blown working miner, who marched through the bushwith the other owners of the Native Youth at crib-time. Being their ownbosses the men of the new mine went home to dinner, and dined at theirleisure like the aristocrats they expected to be. 

Prouder still was Dick when he discovered brown haired, dark-eyed littleKitty Grey loitering amongst the trees, regarding him with evidentadmiration and awe. He felt at that moment that he needed only a blackpipe to make his triumph complete, and had a momentary resentment againstthe absurd prejudice that denied a boy of his years the right to smoke inpublic. Kitty had scarcely dared to lift her eyes to her hero for sometime past: the wonderful stories told of him seemed to exalt him to suchan altitude that she could hope for nothing better than to worship meeklyat a great distance. She was braver now, she actually approached him andspoke to him, yet timidly enough to have softened a heart of adamant; butDick, stung by a laughing comment from McKnight, would have passed her bywith an exaggerated indifference intended to convey an idea of hissublime superiority to little girls, no matter how large and dark andappealing their eyes might be. Then she actually seized his hand. 

'Don't go, Dickie, ' she said, 'I want to speak to you. Miss Christinasent me. '

Kitty was a member of Christina Shine's class at the chapel, and was oneof half a dozen to whom Miss Chris represented all that was beautiful andmost to be desired in an angel. The mention of Christina's name served todivest Dick of all pretentiousness. 

'What is it, Kitty?' he asked eagerly. 

'She wants you. She says you're her friend, an' you'll go to her, ' Kittyspoke in a whisper, although the men were now well beyond earshot. 

'Yes, ' said Dick; 'I'll go now. '

'No, not now, ' said Kitty clinging to his sleeve. 'She says have yourdinner an' then go. An' oh, Dickie, she's been crying, an' she's allwhite, an'--an'--' At this the little messenger began to cry too. 

'Is she?' said Dick, sadly. 'When my mine turns out rich I'm goin' togive her a fortune. '

'Oh, are you, Dickie?' said Kitty, beaming through her tears. 

'Yes, ' answered he gravely; 'and then she'll marry Harry Hardy an' behappy ever after. '

'My, that will be nice, ' murmured Kitty, much comforted. 

'You ain't a bad little girl. ' He felt called upon to reward her. 'Youcan walk as far as the fence with me if you like. '

Kitty was properly grateful, and they walked together to thefurze-covered fence. 

'Please don't tell anyone you're going to see her, Miss Christina says, 'whispered Kitty, at parting. 

'Right y'are, ' Dick said, delighted with the mystery. 'I say, Kitty, Ithink p'raps I'll give you a fortune too. '

'Oh, Dickie, no; not a whole fortune, I'm too little, ' cried Kitty, overwhelmed. 

'Yes, a whole fortune, ' he persisted grandly; 'an' maybe I'll marry you. '

'Will you, Dickie, will you? Oh, that is kind!'

'Here. ' He had turned over the treasures in his pocket and found a scrapof gilt filagree off a gorgeous valentine. 'Here's somethin'. '

Kitty thought the gift very beautiful, and accepted it thankfully for itsown sake and the sake of the giver, as an earnest of the fortune to come;and went her way happy but duly impressed with a sense of theresponsibilities those riches must impose. 

Harry Hardy had loitered behind his mates on the flat, and when the boycaught up to him again he turned to him with nervous anxiety. 

'What did that girl want with you, Dick?' he asked. I heard her mentionMiss Shine's name. '

He noted the set, stubborn look with which he was now familiar fall uponthe boy's face like a mask, and he questioned no more on that point. 

'Dick;' he said earnestly, 'you'll help her if you can. She's all alone, you know; not a soul to stand by her, not a soul. You might get a chancesometimes to make things easier for her. Would you?'

'My word! 'said Dick simply. 

Harry wrung his hand, and Dick, looking into his face, was puzzled by itsexpression; he looked, Dick thought, as he did on that Sunday morningwhen he wished to flog the superintendent before the whole congregation. 

'You're a brick--a perfect brick!' said Harry. 

'I'd do anythin' fer her, ' Dick replied. 

'Thanks, old man. I'll never forget it. '

It did not surprise the boy that Harry should thank him for services tobe rendered to Miss Chris; he thought he understood the situationperfectly, and it was all very sad and perfectly consistent with hisromantic ideas of such matters. 

'Look here, Dick, ' said Harry, before parting, 'I owe you an awful lot, my life, p'raps; but for every little thing you do for her I'll owe you athousand times more--a thousand thousand times more. '

Dick's wise sympathetic eyes looked into his, and the boy nodded gravely. 

'You can swear I'll stick up fer her, ' he said. 

Dick, whilst feeling quite a profound sorrow for Christina Shine, derivedno little satisfaction from the position in which he found himself as thechampion of oppressed virtue and the leal friend of a devoted youngcouple, the course of whose true love was running in devious ways. Thiswas a role he had frequently played in fancy; but it was ever so muchmore gratifying in serious fact, and he took it up with romanticearnestness, a youthful Don Quixote, heroic in the service of hisDulcinea. 

At dinner he favoured his mother with the latest news from the mine andglowing opinions on its prospects; and Mrs. Haddon, more than eversuggestive of roses and apples, beamed across the table upon herwonderful son, perfectly happy in the belief that Frank Hardy wouldpresently be released, that their fortunes were practically made, andthat she was the mother of the most astonishing, the cleverest, thebravest, and the handsomest lad that had ever lived. Dick's claims tobeauty were perhaps a little dubious, but it must be admitted that localopinion, as expressed in local gossip a thousand times a day, went far tojustify Mrs. Haddon's judgment on all the above points. 

Dick escaped immediately after dinner, and went straight to Shine'shouse. Fortunately the troopers, in response to information received, were searching a worked-out alluvial flat about a mile off, and Downy waspursuing a delusive clue as far as Cow Flat, so his visit excited noparticular attention. 

The appearance Chris presented when she admitted him shocked the boy, andstirred his heart with tenderest pity. Her eyes were deep-set in darkshadows, her cheeks sunken, and there was a peculiar drawn expressionabout her mouth. She who had always been a miracle of neatness wasnegligently dressed, and her beautiful hair hung in pathetic disorder. She seated herself and drew Dick to her side. 

'Dick, ' she said, 'I am in great trouble. '

'Yes, ' he answered, 'I know--I'm sorry. '

'And you are my only friend. '

'No fear, Harry Hardy'd do anythin' for you. '

'He cannot, Dick; it is impossible. He is generous and noble, but hecannot help me. Dick, ' she drew him closer to her side, and held his handin hers, 'tell me why you would not speak about the gold-stealers andthat crime below. Was it because of me--because you wanted to spare me?'

'Yes, ' he whispered. 

'God bless you! God bless you, Dickie!' she said catching him to herheart and kissing his cheek. 'I guessed it. I do not know if it wasright, but it was brave and true, and I love you for it. '

'Don't cry, ' Dick said consolingly; 'it'll all come out happy--it alwaysdoes you know. ' This was the philosophy of the Waddy Library, and Dickhad the most perfect faith in its teachings. 

'Thank you, dear. I am going to ask you to do something more for me. I amafraid this is not right either. I know it is not right, but we cannotalways do what is right--our hearts won't let us sometimes. Will you helpme?'

'Yes, ' he said valiantly, and would have liked nothing better at thatmoment than to have been called upon to face a fire-breathing dragon onher behalf. 

'I want you to go to Yarraman and buy these things for me. '

She gave him money and a list of articles with the help of which shehoped to effect a disguise for her father that would enable him to leavethe district. It was a very prosaic service, Dick thought, but heundertook it cheerfully. 

'I want you to tell no one what you are going for. Catch thethree-o'clock coach near the Bo Peep, and answer no questions. '

'I know a better way'n that, ' said the boy, after a thoughtful pause. 'Mother wants some things from Yarraman. I'll get her to let me go fer'em this afternoon. '

'Yes, yes; that is clever. But you won't tell. '

'Not a blessed soul. '

'And when you get back it will be late--bring the things to me assecretly as you can. The troopers would be suspicious if they saw you--becareful of them. '

Dick had no doubt of his ability to deceive the whole police force of theprovince, and undertook the mission without a misgiving, his only regretbeing that it was making no great demands upon his courage and ingenuity. 

'Dickie, ' said Chris, kissing him again at parting, 'I hope some day, when you are older, it will be a great happiness to you to think youhelped a poor heartbroken girl in a time of terrible trouble. '

The boy would have liked to have framed a fine speech in answer to that, but he could only say softly and earnestly:

'I'm fearful glad now, s'elp me!'

Mrs. Haddon was easily deceived, and Dick caught the three-o'clock coach. The Waddy coach took two hours to do the journey to Yarraman and did notstart back till after eight, but this was not the first time the boy hadmade the journey alone, and his mother had no misgivings. 

Downy returned to the Drovers' Arms late in the evening, havingdiscovered that his supposed clue led only to a half-demented sundownerliving in a hollow log near Cow Flat, and having nothing whatever incommon with the missing man. The search of the troopers had beenfruitless, too, and at this crisis the opinion of McKnight as a pioneerof Waddy was solicited. McKnight's belief was that Shine was hiding awaysomewhere in the old workings of one of the deep mines--the Silver Streamperhaps--and he recalled the case of a criminal who got into the oldstopes of a mine at Bendigo, and subsisted there for two weeks on thecribs of the miners, stolen while the latter were at work. The detectiveconsidered this a very probable supposition, and an invasion of theSilver Stream workings was planned for next morning. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

SHORTLY after eight o'clock on the night of Dick's journey to Yarramanthe figure of a woman approached the searcher's house and knocked softlyat the front door. There was a light burning within, but the knockprovoked no response. The visitor knocked again with more vigour;presently a bolt was withdrawn and the door opened a few inches, andChristina Shine, seeing her visitor, uttered a low cry and staggered backinto the centre of the room, throwing the door wide open. It was Mrs. Hardy who stood upon the threshold. 

'May I come in, my dear?' she asked in a kindly tone. 

Christina, standing with one hand pressed to her throat and her burningeyes fixed intently upon the face of the elder woman, nodded a slowaffirmative. Mrs. Hardy entered, closing the door behind her, and stoodfor a moment gazing pitifully at the distracted girl, for Chris had awild hunted look, and weariness and anxiety had almost exhausted her. Shefaced her visitor with terror, as if anticipating a blow. 

'My poor girl, ' Mrs. Hardy said gently; 'I suppose you wonder why I havecome?'

Again Chris moved her head in vague acquiescence. 

'I have heard how heavily this blow has fallen upon you, and my heartbled with pity. I felt I might be able to comfort you. 

Chris put her back with a weak fluttering hand. 

'My dear, I am an old woman; I have seen much trouble and have bornesome, and I know that hearts break most often in loneliness. '

'You know the truth?' asked the girl, through dry lips. 

'I know Richard Haddon's story. ' 'And you have not come to--to--'

'I have come to offer you all a woman's sympathy, my girl; to try to helpyou to be strong. '

Mrs. Hardy took the weary girl in her arms and kissed her pale cheek. 

'You are good! You are very good!' murmured Chris brokenly, clinging toher. But she suddenly thrust herself back from the sheltering arms anduttered a cry of despair. 

The door communicating with the next room had been opened and a grimfigure crept into the kitchen, the figure of Ephraim Shine. The man wasclad only in a tattered shirt and old moleskins; his face was as gaunt asthat of death, and his skin a ghastly yellow. He moved into the room onhis hands and knees, seeking something, and chummered insanely as hescratched at the hard flooring-boards with his claw-like fingers, andpeered eagerly into the cracks. He moved about the room in this way, searching in the corners, dragging his way about with his face close tothe floor. 

'I'll find it, I'll find it, ' he muttered; 'oh! I'll find it. Rogers iscunnin', but I'm more cunnin'. I know where it's hid, an' when I get itit'll be mine--all mine!

Mrs. Hardy stole close to the girl, and they clasped hands. 

'Is he mad?' asked the elder woman hoarsely. 

'He has taken a fever, I think, ' answered the girl, 'and I can hide himno longer. I cannot help him now. ' She sank back upon a chair andfollowed her father's movements with tearless, hopeless eyes. 

'Rogers is a liar!' muttered Shine. 'A liar he is, an' he'd rob me; butI'll beat him. It's hid down here, down among the rocks. The gold ismine, mine, mine!' His voice rose to a thin scream and he beat fiercelyupon the boards with his bony hand. 

'He has been ill ever since Rogers was taken, but he only took this turnthis evening. Oh! I tried hard to help him; I tried hard! He is myfather. Oh, my poor father! my poor, poor father!

'Hush, hush, dear, ' said Mrs. Hardy. 'We must help him on to his bed. Come!'

Each took an arm of the sick man and raised him to his feet. He offeredno resistance, but allowed them to lead him to the bunk in the other roomand place him upon it, although he continued to utter wild threatsagainst Joe Rogers and to chummer about the gold, and move his handsabout, scratching amongst the bedclothes. 

Mrs. Hardy brought the light from the kitchen, and busied herself overthe delirious man, making him as comfortable as possible upon his narrowbed. She gave directions to Chris and the girl obeyed them, bringingnecessary things and making a fire in the kitchen. She seemed inspiredwith a new hope, and presently she moved to Mrs. Hardy's side again. 

'Do you think he will die?' she asked. 

'I do not think so, dear. It is brain fever, I believe. '

'How good you are--you whom he has wronged so cruelly!

She ceased speaking and gripped her companion's arm. The latch of theback door clicked, a step sounded upon the kitchen floor, and the nextmoment Detective Downy appeared within the room. He glanced from thewomen to the bunk, and then strode forward and laid a hand upon EphraimShine. 

'This man is my prisoner, ' he said. 

Shine sat up again, moving his arms and muttering:

'Yes, yes, down the old mine; that's it! Let me go. It's hid in the oldmine--my gold, my beautiful gold!'

'You cannot take him in this state, ' said Mm. Hardy; 'it would bebrutal. '

The detective examined him closely, and, being satisfied that the man wasreally ill and unlikely to escape, went to the kitchen door and blew ashrill blast of his whistle in the direction of the quarries. When hereturned Chistina was on her knees by the bunk, as if praying, and Mrs. Hardy was bathing the patient's temples. After a few minutes SergeantMonk rode up and joined them in the room. 

'Here is our man, ' said Downy quietly. Send Donovan for the covered-inwaggon at the hotel. We will have to take him on a mattress. '

'Shot?' cried Monk. 

'No; off his head. Send a couple of your men in here. I think I'll get myhands on that gold presently. '

The sergeant withdrew, and Downy touched Chris on the shoulder. 

'It's a bad business, miss, ' he said. 'You made a plucky fight, but thiswas inevitable. Will you tell me where he was hidden?'

Chris arose and stood with her back to the wall and answered him in afirm voice. She understood the futility of further evasion. 

'He hid in the tank, ' she said. 'It has a false bottom, and you get infrom below. '

The detective expressed incredulity in a long breath. 

'Well, that fairly beats me, ' he said. 'When did he fix the tank?'

'I do not know. I had no idea it was done until the night of the arrestof Rogers. '

At this moment Casey and Keel entered. 

'Stand by the man, Casey, ' said the detective. 'Keel, follow me. '

Downy went straight to the tank and, creeping under it, struck a matchand examined the floor above on which it rested. Two of the boards hadbeen moved aside, and in the bottom of the tank there was an openingabout eighteen inches in diameter with a sheet of iron to cover it, insuch a way as to deceive any but the most careful seeker. The detectiveordered Keel to bring a candle, and when it was forth coming he drewhimself up into the tank and struck a light. An ejaculation of delightbroke from his lips, for there at his hand lay a skin bag covered withred-and-white hair, and by its side shone a magnificent nugget shapedlike a man's boot. This the detective recognised as the nugget describedby Dick Haddon. There were also a pickle bottle containing much roughgold, and two or three small parcels. 

The compartment in which Downy sat was just high enough to allow of a mansitting upright in it, and large enough to enable him to lie in acrescent position with out discomfort. A pipe from the roof was connectedwith the tap, so that water could be drawn from the tank as usual. Thejob had been carefully done, and had evidently cost Shine much labour. The searcher had designed the compartment as a hiding-place for histreasure, the quantity of which convinced Downy that his depredations atthe mine (in conjunction with Rogers, probably) had been of longstanding. The parcels contained sovereigns and there were small bags ofsilver and copper--a miser's hoard. The detective dropped the bag, thenugget, and all the other articles of value out of the tank, and with theassistance of Keel carried them into the kitchen. He examined thematerial in the hide bag, and found it to be washdirt showing coarse goldfreely. The nugget was a magnificent one, containing, as the detectiveguessed, about five hundred ounces of gold, and worth probably close upontwo thousand pounds. Nothing nearly so fine had ever before beendiscovered in the Silver Stream gutters, although they had always beenrich in nuggets. 

When Mrs. Hardy returned home an hour later, Harry had just come in fromwork. The shareholders in the Native Youth were so anxious to cut thestone that they were putting in long shifts. There were traces of tearsabout Mrs. Hardy's eyes, and her expression of deep sorrow alarmed herson. 

'Why, what's wrong, mother?' he asked quickly. 'Have you had bad news?'

'No, Henry. I have been with Christina Shine. '

'You. You, mother?' he cried, in surprise. 'Not--' He suddenlyrecollected himself and was silent. He knew his mother to be incapable ofa cruel or vindictive action. 

'Mrs. Haddon told me how the poor girl was suffering for her father'svillainy, and I was deeply sorry for her. I thought that under thecircumstances my sympathy might strengthen her. '

'God bless you for that, mother' said Harry fervently, and his motherlooked at him sharply, surprised by his tone. 

'Shine has been arrested, ' she said. 'The police have taken him in toYarraman. '

'Taken--Shine taken!'

'He was captured while I was there. ' Mrs. Hardy told her son the story ofShine's arrest, and Harry sat with set teeth and eyes intent for someminutes after she had finished. 

'My boy, ' his mother said, placing a hand upon his shoulder, 'this doesnot seem to please you. 

His head fell a little, and he opened and clenched again the strong handsgripped between his knees. 

'And yet, ' she continued, 'it confirms your suspicions. It may mean theassertion of Frank's innocence. '

'I love her!' he said with some passion. 

His mother was greatly startled, and stood for a moment regarding himwith an expression of deep feeling. 

'You love her--his daughter?'

'With all my heart, mother. '

'Since when?'

'I don't know. Since that Sunday in the chapel, I believe. '

'And she?'

'She loves me. '

Mrs. Hardy moved to a chair, sat down with her face turned from him, andstayed for many minutes apparently lost in thought. She started, hearingHarry at the door. 

'Where are you going?' she asked. 

'To see Chris. ' He answered in a tone hinting defiance, as if expectingantagonism; but his mother said nothing more, and He passed out. 

Harry found Chris sitting alone in her father's house. A candle burned onthe table by her side, her hands lay idly in her lap. He had expected tofind her weeping, surrounded by women, but her eyes were tearless and thenews of Shine's arrest was not yet known in the township. Harry fell onhis knees by her side and clasped her about the waist. There was a sortof dull apathy in her face that awed him. He did not kiss her. 

'I've heard, dear, ' he whispered. 'All's over. '

'Yes, ' she said, looking at him for the first time, without surprise. 

'Why are you sitting here?' he asked. 

'I'm waiting for Dickie Haddon, ' she said listlessly. 'He went toYarraman to buy some things to make a disguise. It is only fair to wait. '

He was touched with profound pity; but her mood chilled him, he dared notoffer a caress. 

'And then?'

'And then? Oh, then I will go to the homestead. I want rest--only rest, rest!

'Did Summers know the truth, Chris?'

She shook her head slowly. 

'No, ' she said. 'I deceived him--I deceived them all. I lied toeverybody. I used to pride myself once, a fortnight ago, when I was agirl, on not being a liar. 

'You mustn't talk in this despairing way, dear. Let me take you home. Iwill meet Dick an' tell him. '

'Tell him it is too late, but I am grateful all the same--very, verygrateful. '

'Yes, yes. Come. You are weary; you'll be stronger to-morrow an' braver. '

He led her away, and they walked across the flat and through the paddockin silence. It seemed to Harry that she had forgotten their avowals oflove. Her attitude frightened him, he dreaded lest she should be on theeve of a serious illness; he had sore misgivings and tortured himselfwith many doubts. Her words rang in his head with damnable iteration: 'Ideceived them all. I lied to every body. '

Maori welcomed them under the firs, capering heavily and putting himselfvery much in the way, but with the best intentions. Summers came to theverandah and greeted Chris with warmth. 

'Eli, but ye're pale, lassie, ' he said, having drawn her into the light. 

'Take her in, ' whispered Harry; 'she's quite worn out. '

'Will ye no come in yersel'?'

'No, no, thanks. Come back here, Mr. Summers; I want to speak to you. '

Summers led the girl into the house and returned after a few moments. 

'What's happened tae the girl? She's not herself at all, ' he said. 

'Her father's been taken. '

'Ay, have they got him? Weel, 'twas sure to be. '

''Twas she who hid him, but he went light-headed with some sickness, an'the police came down on him. She feels it awfully, poor girl, being alonein a way. '

'Not alone, not while Jock Summers moves an' has his bein'. '

Harry had been fishing for this. He knew the man, and that his simpleword meant as much as if it had been chiselled deep in marble. 

'Good night, ' he said, throwing out an impetuous hand. While he hastenedaway under the trees Summers stood upon the door-sill, gazing after him, ruefully shaking the tingling fingers of his right hand. 

Harry returned to the skillion and loitered about for ten minutes withoutdiscovering anything of Dick Haddon, but at the expiration of that timeDick stole out of the darkness and approached him with an affectation ofthe greatest unconcern. His greeting was very casual, and he followed itwith a fishing inquiry intended to discover if the young man knewanything of Christina's whereabouts. 

'Never mind, Dick, old man, ' said Harry kindly, 'it's all UP. '

 'All up?' cried Dick. 

'Yes, I know why you went to Yarraman; but it's been a wasted journey, Dick. Shine was arrested a couple of hours ago, an' she's brokenhearted. '

Dick received the news in silence, and they walked homewards together. 

'What'll I do with this?' asked Dick at Hardy's gate, producing a parcelfrom under his vest. 

'Hide it away, an' keep it dark. Not a word must be said to hurt her. '

'Good, ' answered the boy. 'I know a cunnin' holler tree. So long, Harry. '

'So long, mate. '

Dick liked the word mate; it touched him nearly with its fine hint ofequality and community of interests; it seemed to suit their romanticconspiracy, too, and sent him away with a little glow of pride in hisheart. 

When Harry re-entered his own home he found his mother seated as he hadleft her. She arose and approached him, placing a hand on eithershoulder. 

'Well, my boy?'

'Well, mother?

'You have seen her?'

'Yes. I've taken her to the homestead. She is dazed. It seems as if sheno longer cared. '

'It will pass, Henry. '

'You think my love will pass?'

'All this seeming great trouble. '

 'It'll pass, mother, if she comes back to me; never unless. '

'The sins of the fathers, ' sighed Mrs. Hardy as he turned from her to hisown room, like a wounded animal seeking darkness. 'The sins of thefathers. '

CHAPTER XXIII. 

NEXT morning all Waddy knew of the arrest, and it was felt that the gamewas nearly played out. Dick's confession was published in the same issueof the Yarraman Mercury and public opinion in the township had decidedagainst the searcher in spite of his long and faithful service as teacherand superintendent. The murder theory was reluctantly abandoned. 

Harry Hardy called at the homestead to inquire after Chris before goingto work, and was told that she was much rested but not yet up. Atdinner-time he heard that she had been driven into Yarraman by JockSummers to be near her father; the fact that she had left him without aword or a line seemed to confirm his worst suspicion, and again herwords, 'I deceived them all. I lied to everybody, ' returned to mock him. Harry had no quality of patience: he was impetuous, a fighter, not awaiter on fortune; but here was nothing to fight, and in his desperationhe did battle on the hard ground. 

They had cut the dyke in the new shaft at a shallower depth than Dick'sMount of Gold drive, and here Harry expended those turbulent emotionsthat welled within him, working furiously. Whether handling pick orshovel, toiling at the windlass, or ringing the heavy hammer on thedrill, he wrought with a feverish energy that amazed his mates, whoascribed it all to an excusable but rather insane anxiety to test thevalue of their mine in the mill. For their part they were very wellsatisfied with the golden prospects, and quite content to 'go slow' inthe certain hope of early affluence. 

The next important piece of news the Mercury had to offer referred toEphraim Shine, who had recovered consciousness in the gaol hospital butwas declared to be dying from an old ailment. Steps were to be taken tosecure his dying deposition. On the Saturday morning came the informationthat Shine was dead, and with this came the full text of hisdeposition--a complete confession, setting forth his crimes and those ofJoe Rogers without reservation, and completely exonerating Frank Hardy. Rogers and Shine had been working together to rob the mine for two years. Their apparent hostility was a blind to deceive the people. They hadconspired to fix the crime upon Frank at Rogers' suggestion, for thereason that his vigilance was making it unsafe for the faceman tocontinue his thefts, and because they hoped his conviction would arrestthe growing suspicions. Shine agreed, for these reasons, and because hecherished a desire to marry Mrs. Haddon and found Hardy in the way. For along time the pair had been content with such gold as Rogers could hideabout his clothes, but his discovery of the big nugget, which he hid inthe drive, gave them the idea of attempting robbery on a large scale, andfor weeks Rogers had hidden such gold as he could lay his hands on inholes in the muddy floor of the workings, to be carried away whenopportunity offered via the Red Hand laddershaft. That was to have beentheir last venture together, and Shine had intended to induce Mrs. Haddonto marry him, and then to take her away somewhere where he was unknown, and where it would have been possible to sell the gold in small parcelswithout exciting suspicion. Rogers had hidden the gold in Frank Hardy'sboot, and Shine salted his washdirt on the creek with Silver Stream gold, and the slug he pretended to take from Frank's crib bag was hidden in thepalm of his hand when he took up the faceman's billy from the floor ofthe searching shed. 

Joe Rogers appeared before the bench of magistrates at Yarraman on thefollowing Monday. Harry and Dick were in attendance as witnesses; Chriswas also present in court, and there Harry saw her for the first timesince the night of Shine's arrest. She sat beside Mrs. Summers, a stout, grey, motherly woman, and was dressed in deep mourning. Harry thought shehad never looked so beautiful. But how changed she was from the simplegentle girl of a few days back! She sat as she did when he found her inthe skillion after her father had been taken, with intent eyes bent uponthe floor. When called upon to give her evidence she gave it clearly andfully, in a firm distinct voice, like a person without interest orfeeling. She seemed to have no desire to shield the character of herfather, but told the whole truth respecting him, and left the Court withher companion immediately on being informed that her services were nolonger required, so that Harry was unable to speak with her. This was abitter blow to him; he believed that she was taking precautions to avoidhim, and saw in that action further reason for his suspicion that herdeclaration of affection had been a mistake or perhaps a deliberatedeception. 'I deceived them all. I lied to everybody, ' she said. Theyoung man stiffened himself with chill comfortless pride, and made noeffort to seek her out. He loved her, he told himself, but was nowhimpering fool to abase himself at the feet of a woman who was careless, or might be even worse--pitiful. 

Joe Rogers reserved his defence and was committed to stand his trial atthe forthcoming sessions in about a fortnight's time, charged withgold-stealing, wounding Harry Hardy, and shooting at Trooper Casey. 

Harry returned to his work. He made no further calls at the homestead toinquire after Christina, but heard from Dick that she had not returned toWaddy, but was staying in Yarraman till after the trial. Mrs. Haddonexpressed an opinion that the poor girl felt the disgrace of her positionkeenly, and dreaded to face the people of the township where her fatherhad been accepted as a shining light for so many years, and where she hadalways commanded respect and affection. 

As the time for the trial approached Harry found himself hungering for asight of her face again. Pride and common-sense were no weapons withwhich to fight love. At best they afforded only a poor disguise behindwhich a man might hide his sufferings from the scoffers. 

The trial occupied two days. The prisoner was defended by a clever younglawyer from Melbourne, who fought every point pertinaciously and strovewith all his energy and knowledge and cunning to represent Joe Rogers asthe victim of circumstances and Ephraim Shine--especially EphraimShine--who was a monster of blackened iniquity, capable of a diabolicalastuteness in the pursuit of his criminal intentions. The story of theboy Haddon was absolutely false in representing Rogers as having assistedin the theft of the gold produced. The boy was a creature of Shine's;that was obvious on the face of his evidence and the evidence of MissShine and Detective Downy. Shine had had the lad in his toils, otherwisewhy had he taken such precautions to shield the man, and why had he givenhim warning of the approach of the troopers? Rogers' story was entirelycredible, he said. It was to the effect that Shine had confessed to himthat he had robbed the mine of a quantity of gold and had been robbed inturn by the boy Haddon, who was his real accomplice. He solicited the aidof the unfortunate prisoner to recover the treasure, and offered him halfthe gold as a reward. The prisoner was tempted and he fell. His actiontowards the boy at the Piper Mine was taken merely to induce him todisclose the whereabouts of the lost booty, and the shooting at TrooperCasey was an accident. Rogers had acted on blind and unreasoning impulsein snatching up the gun on the approach of the police, believing hiscomplicity with Shine in the effort to recover the hidden loot had cometo light, and the discharge of the weapon was purely involuntary. 

To give an air of plausibility to this plea it was necessary to representEphraim Shine in the worst possible light, and that conscientious andhard-working young lawyer spared no pains on his own part or the part ofthe dead man's daughter to make every point that would tell for hisclient; but Chris was not more moved than at the preliminaryinvestigation. She told the truth simply, and no effort on the part ofthe barrister could shake her evidence or break through the unnaturalcalm in which she appeared to have enveloped herself. Harry saw herseveral times during the course of the trial, and found a desolateanguish in her white immobile face, that stirred up in his heart again afury against fate, the law, and every force and condition that added thesmallest pang to her sorrow. If he could have only interposed his bodybetween her and all this trouble it would have been keen joy to him tohave felt raining upon his flesh, with heavy material blows, the shaftsdirected against her tender heart; but his strength was of no avail, hecould think of nothing that he might do but take that insolent lawyer bythe throat and choke him on the floor of the Court. He was helpless to doany thing but love her, and every sight of her, every thought of her, added fuel to his passion. 

She went to him once outside the Court with out stretched hands andswimming eyes, murmuring inarticulate words, and he understood that, shemeant to thank him for the efforts he had made to spare her in hisevidence on the previous day. In truth she bad been touched by the changein him, and she, too, was fighting with her love a harder battle thanhis. 

'I'm sorry for you, Chris, ' he said, 'but time will heal all this, neverfear. '

She gazed at him and slowly shook her head. 

'Never, Harry, ' she said. 

'It will, it will!' he persisted. 'Chris, you're coming back after it'sall over?'

'Yes, ' she said, 'I must. '

'An' you've not forgotten?'

'No, Harry, I have not forgotten anything. ' There was a strain offirmness in her voice that jarred him, and he looked at her sharply; buther face gave him no comfort. A moment later she was joined by Mrs. Summers and another friend, and he left her, his heart unsatisfied, hismind shaken with doubts and perplexities. 

Joe Rogers was found guilty and sentenced to twelve years' hard labour. Close upon eight hundred ounces of gold were handed over to the SilverStream Company, and the Company, 'in recognition of the valuable servicesof Master Richard Haddon, ' presented him with a gold watch andchain--which for many months after was a source of ceaseless worry to hislittle mother, who firmly believed that its fame must have inspired everyburglar and miscellaneous thief in Victoria with an unholy longing topossess it, was continually devising new hiding-places for the treasure, and arose three or four times a night to at tack hypothetical marauders. 

Returning from school at dinner-time on the day following, Dick foundFrank Hardy sitting in the parlour holding his mother's hand. Mrs. Hardyand Harry were also there, and a few people were loitering about thefront, having called to congratulate Frank Hardy on his release; forFrank had been given a free pardon in the Queen's name for the crimes itwas now known he had never committed. 

Dick found Frank looking older and graver, much more like his mother, whom he resembled in disposition too. He greeted the boy quietly but withevident feeling. 

'It seems I owe my liberty to your devilment, old boy, ' he said later. 

Dick was beginning to find the role of hero rather wearisome, and wouldgladly have returned to his old footing with the people of Waddy, butthere was nevertheless a good deal of satisfaction in appearing as aperson of importance in the eyes of the Hardies, and he accepted theimplied gratitude without any excess of uneasiness. 

'Well, I've got to pay you out, my lad, ' Frank continued. 'Your motherhas been foolish enough to promise to be my wife, and that will place mein the responsible position of father to the most ungovernable youngscamp in Christendom; and one of the conditions your mother makes is thatI am to prevent you from saving any more lives and reputations. What doyou think of that?'

'Oh, you'll make a rippin' father, ' said Dick. That'll be all right. '

'Good. Then it's settled. We have your consent?'

Dick nodded gravely. 

'Thanks for your confidence, ' said Frank laughing. 'I think you'll findme a fairly good sort as step-fathers go. '

Dick had no fears whatever on that point; he and Frank had been excellentfriends for as long as he could remember, and Frank had been his championin many semi-public disagreements about billy-goats; and besides, he wasa reader whose judgment the boy held in the highest respect, and thatcounted for a great deal. 

The boy had a message for Harry, and delivered it with great secrecy atthe earliest opportunity. 

'She's back at Summers's, Harry, ' he whispered. 'She gave Kitty a letterto give to me to give you. '

Harry tore the envelope with trembling impatient hands. It contained onlya short note: 'Will you come to me at the gate under the firs to-night ateight?' and was coldly signed, 'Your true friend, C. S. '

CHAPTER XXIV

HARRY awaited the approach of evening with burning impatience, and hisheart was lighter than it had been for weeks. He thought that now thedistraction induced by her father's danger, his arrest and his death, andthe subsequent trials had departed, he would find her with a clear mindand responsive to his love, and it would be his pride and joy to teachher to forget her troubles and to make her happy. Harry, who up to thetime of meeting Chris after his return to Waddy, had been even moreunromantic and lacking in poetry than the average bush native, had, underthe influence of his passion, evolved a strong vein of both romance andpoesy; and the sudden development of this unknown side of his natureinduced novel sensations. He thought of his previous self almost as astranger, for whom he felt some sentiment of pity not untouched withcontempt, and even when hope was feeblest he hugged his love and broodedover it secretly with the devotion of a tender girl. 

He was at the trysting-place a quarter of an hour before the timeappointed, but Christina was already there. Her greeting chilled andsubdued him. He went towards her, smiling, elate, with eager arms, calling her name; she put him back with extended hands. 

'No, no, Harry; not that, ' she said, and he noticed in her voice thestrength of some resolution, the firmness that had jarred upon him whenlast they met. 

'Not that!' he repeated. Chris, you love me. For God's sake say it! Youhave said it. You told me so, an' it was true--oh, my darling, it wastrue!

He could see her distinctly: she stood in a shaft of moonlight fallingbetween the sombre firs, and her face was marble-like; her whole pose wasstatuesque, all the girlish gentleness of the other days seemed to havefled from her, and her hour of tribulation had invested her with adignity and force of will that sat well upon her stately figure. Harrybeheld her with something like terror. This was not the woman he loved. His cause had never seemed so utterly hopeless as now, and yet he feltthat it was not the true Chris with whom he was dealing; that the trueChris was the soft-eyed clinging girl safely enshrined in his heart. 

'Chris, ' he said, 'you have changed--but you'll come to me again?'

Her face was turned towards him; she shook her head with passionlessdecision. 

'No, Harry, ' she answered, 'that is all past. I sent for you to tell youthat we must forget. '

'Forget!' he cried, springing forward and seizing her hand, 'how can Iforget? Can a man forget that he loves?'

 'You will forget. It is better, and you will live to be glad that youdid. '

'Never, never! Chris, what do you mean? Why're you talking to me offorgetting--why, why?'

'Because I know in my heart that it must be. I came here to tell you so, to ask you to waste no more thought on me. '

'You do not care for me, then. Is that what you mean?'

She gave him no answer, but her steadfast eyes looked into his and theirlight was cold, there was no glimmer of affection in them. 

'You never loved me, Chris?'

She continued silent; she had wrought herself to a certain point, to whatshe believed to be a duty, and she could only maintain the tension byexerting all her energies. 

'What have I done to be treated like this?' he continued. 'I did all Icould to spare you. I would have spared him, too, if it'd been in mypower. '

'You were generous. Yes, you did all you could; for that I will begrateful to you all my life. '

'And I love you--I love you! I want love, not gratitude, Chris--yourlove. '

'You must forget me!

He approached her more closely, and his voice had lost its pleading tone. 

'On the night of the arrest, ' he said, 'you told me you had deceivedall--lied to all; did you lie to me?'

He paused for a reply, but she did not speak, and he continued fiercely:

'Did you lie to me when you said you loved me? Was that a lie? Was it atrap?'

'It does not matter now, Harry; all is over, all. '

'An' you did lie to me. You lied because you thought I'd give your fatherup if my love was not returned. My God! you thought I took advantageof--'

'No, no, no!' she cried, 'not that. I thought no ill of you, I thinknone. Think what you will of me. '

'But I was fooled--cruelly, bitterly fooled. You needn't have done it, Chris. I'd rather have died than have added to your sufferings. Yourtrick wasn't necessary. I cared more for you than you'll ever know. '

Her hands trembled at her sides and her lips moved, but her eyes remainedsteadfast. 

'I know your good heart, Harry, ' she said in a voice almost harsh fromthe restraint put upon her. 'I will bless you and pray for you while Ilive, but I can never be your wife. You are mad to think of me. Some dayyou will be glad I refused to listen to you, and grateful to me for whatI have done. '

'Grateful!' he cried. 'To be grateful I must learn to hate you. I'll goan' learn that lesson. '

He turned from her and strode towards the gate, but there he paused withhis arm upon the bar, and presently he moved back to her side. 

'I can't go like that, dear, ' he said, seizing her hand again, 'nothingon earth can ever make me anything but your lover, an' nothing can makeme believe you lied when you said you loved me. Your kisses were notlies. Speak to me--say that you did love me a little!'

'Good-bye, Harry, ' she said in the same constrained tone. 

'For God's sake be fair to me, Chris. '

'I am fair to you. Go; learn to love someone who will bring youhappiness. Good-bye. '

'There is one woman who could bring me happiness, an' she stabs me to theheart. I won't give you up, I won't forget, I won't say good-bye. Whenthis misery's gone from you, you will be your old self again, an' we'llbe happy together. '

'Do not think that, Harry; you must put me out of your heart. '

'Never--never while I live!'

He looked into her strong pale face for a moment, and lifting heryielding hand to his lips kissed it. 

'Good-night, ' he said gently. 'I'll come again. '

'Good-bye, Harry, ' she whispered. 

He hastened away, carrying his trouble into the sleeping bush. She stoodfor a few moments after he had gone, erect, with her hands pressed overher eyes, then walked towards the house with firm steps; but at theverandah uncontrollable sobs were breaking in her throat; she turned andfled into the plantation, and lying amongst the long grass weptunreservedly. 

Harry's mind was in a tumult; he tried in vain to compose his faculties, to discover some reason for Miss Chris's action apart from the dreadfulpossibility that she had really never cared for him. Now that he had itfrom her own lips that she could be nothing to him, he refused to acceptthe situation. There were barriers raised between them, he would beatthem down; there were mistakes, illusions, he would overcome them; he wasstrong, he would conquer. Anything was possible but that she had lied tohim, but that her warm loving kisses were false and scheming. His heartscouted that idea with a blind rage that impelled him to hit out in thedarkness. This spiritual fight tore the man of action, racked him limbfrom limb. Oh! to have been able to settle it, bare-armed and abreast ofa living antagonist in the child's play of merely physical strife. Hefound tears on his cheek and this weakness amazed him, but his thoughtsfollowed each other quickly, disconnectedly, like those of a drunken man;he went home baffled, but clinging to hope with the tenacity of one whofeels that despair means death. 

Next morning Harry found himself utterly miserable, but still trustingthat time would serve to restore Chris her natural cheerful temperament, and bring home to her again the conviction that she really loved him, andthen all would be well. 

At about half-past two that afternoon Dick Haddon, in his capacity offaithful squire to the two lovers, visited the mine hot-foot, with newsfor his friend. Harry was below, but he hastened to answer the boy'smessage. He had dreamed of a sudden repentance on his sweetheart's part, and his heart beat fast as Dick beckoned him away from McKnight, who wasat the windlass. 

'She's gone away, ' said the boy eagerly. 

'Chris away? Where's she gone?'

'She's goin' to Melbourne--going fer years an' years. Mr. Summers isdrivin' her into Yarraman now. She left a letter for you with mother. Thought I'd come an' tell you, 'case you might want to go after her. '

'Gone for good!' This possibility had not occurred to the young man. 'Sheleft a letter for me? Are you sure it's for me?'

'Yes, yes; mother's got it. If I was you I'd get it at once; an'I'd--I'd--' Dick was much more excited than Harry; he was eager to spurhis friend to action. 

'How long have they been gone?' asked Harry, as he hastened towards thetownship. He felt that this was a crisis, that action was called for, butthe news had confused him. He was fighting with the fear that she wastaking this course to avoid him for the reason that his connection withher misfortunes had made him hateful to her. He burned to read herletter, but he had no mind for heroic schemes or projects. 

'On'y about a quarter of an hour, ' said Dick in answer to his question. 'They can't've gone far. '

'You're sure she was going to. Melbourne--going for good?'

'Certain sure--heard her tell mum. '

Mrs. Haddon was standing at the door when they reached the house, andHarry followed her into the kitchen. 

'Give it to me, Alice, ' he said. 'Quick! Can't you see I'm half mad?'

Mrs. Haddon handed him the letter, and he tore the envelope with awkwardimpatient fingers. The note was brief:

'DEAR HARRY, --I write this to bid you good-bye again, and thank you againfor all your kindness and goodness. I am going away because I can nolonger bear to live amongst people who know me as the daughter of one whowas a thief and almost a murderer. Don't think bitterly of me. All that Ihave done I did for the best, according to my poor light. We may nevermeet again, but it would make me happier some day to know that you hadforgiven me, and that you remembered me without anger in your ownhappiness. 

--Your very true friend, 'CHRISTINA SHINE. '

Harry sank into a chair and sat for a minute staring blankly at theletter, and Mrs. Haddon stood by his side staring curiously at him. Suddenly she slapped firmly on the table with her plump hand and askedsharply:

'Well, Harry, well?'

He turned his blank eyes upon her. 

'Do you care a button for that girl?'

'Care?' he said. 'I care my whole life an' soul for her!'

'Well, then, what're you goin' to do? ''Re you goin' to lose her?'

'In the name o' God, Alice, what can I do? She doesn't want me; she isgoing away to be rid of me. '

'Not want you? You great, blind, blunderin' man you; she loves you wellenough to break her heart for you. Can't you see why she's going away? Ofcourse you can't. She's goin' because she thinks she's an object of shamean' disgrace; because she feels on her own dear head an' weighin' on herown great, soft, simple heart all the weight of the shame that belongedto that bad devil of a father of hers; because all that the papers, an'the lawyers, an' the judge said about the sins o' Ephraim Shine she feelsburnin' in red letters on her own sweet face. That's why she's goin'; an'if she is leavin' you it's because she feels this whole villainousbusiness makes her unfit to be your wife. Now what're you goin' to do, Harry Hardy?'

Harry had risen to his feet; his face was flushed, he trembled in everylimb. 

'Do?' he gasped. 'Do?'

'Do!' Repeated the widow in a voice that had grown almost shrill. 'There's a horse an' saddle an' bridle in McMahon's stable. '

Harry turned and ran from the house; and the little widow, standing atthe door flushed and tearful, looking after him, murmured to herself:

'An' if you lose her, Harry Hardy, you're not the man I took you for, an'I'll never forgive you--never. '

She looked down and encountered Dick's eyes--seeming very much larger andgraver than usual--regarding her with solemn admiration. The boy hadconceived a new respect for his mother within the last two minutes, andhad discovered in her a kindred spirit hitherto unsuspected. 

'My colonial! that was rippin', mum!' he said. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

HARRY took French leave in McMahon's stable. He saddled Click, Mac'sfavourite hack, mounted him, and started down the dusty Yarraman road ata gallop. To Harry that ride was ever afterwards a complete blank. Hestarted out with his mind full of one thought, an overpoweringresolution. He would seek Chris, he would take her in his arms and defyevery fear or scheme or power that might be directed against their loveand happiness to part them again. That was his determination, and, havingmade it, he rode on blindly, pushing the horse to his best pace. 

After passing the Bo Peep the road ran out into treeless open country, slightly undulating. There were a few trickling rock-strewn creeks tocross, and Harry rushed Click through them like a man riding for hislife. Half an hour's gallop brought the vehicle in sight, and ten minuteslater he came abreast of the buggy and brought his foaming horse to atrot. 'Stop!' he cried; and Summers, much amazed, pulled up his pair. 

Harry threw himself from the saddle, leaving the horse his freedom, and, going to the buggy, seized Chris by the hand and drew her down towardshim. 

'Chris, I want to speak to you. You must, you must!'

He helped her from the vehicle. His attitude was stern and masterful, andChris yielded with a sense of awe. Summers regarded the pair for a momentwith pursed lips and bent brows; then a grim smile dawned about hismouth, and he touched his horses with the whip and drove slowly away downthe road. 

Harry and Chris stood upon the plain facing each other, the girl's handsclasped firmly in those of the man. Harry was dressed just as he had comefrom the mine; her neat black frock was marked with the grey dust fromhis clothes. He was flushed; his eyes had more of power than of love inthem. She still strove, but felt his strength greater than hers, and herheart beat painfully. She whispered a pitiful protest when he drew her tohis breast and clasped her closely in his irresistible arms. 

'I won't let you go, my dear love--I swear I won't!' he whisperedvehemently. 

'You must. Oh, why do you make my task so hard?'

'I won't let you go from me, Chris. '

She looked into his glowing eyes, and struggled a little, murmuringincoherently. 

'Never, Chris, never!' he continued. 'You love me! Look into my face an'deny it if you can. You can't!' he cried, with a flush of triumph. 

'I have never denied it, Harry; but I must go. 'Tis because I love you--'

He laughed suddenly with the elation of a conqueror, and stopped hermouth with kisses. 

'You love me, an' you'd leave me. Why? Tell me why, my darling, my dearlove!'

She threw back her head and gazed into his eyes. 'I will tell you, ' shesaid. 'I would leave you because I am the daughter of Ephraim Shine, theman whose memory is hated everywhere; the man whose crimes you and yourscan never forget; the man who sent your innocent brother to prison, whowhitened your mother's hair with grief, who left you to die in the watersof the mine--who was a triple thief and a hypocrite. He was my father andI loved him. I cannot do anything else but love him now, but you musthate and loathe him. Think of me as your wife--me, the thief's daughter, whispered about, pointed at. Think, as I have done, of that possible timewhen you might love me less because of him and the wrong he did you, whenyou might be ashamed to be seen with me. People don't forget crimes likehis, Harry; they talk of them to their children. Think of your mother andyour brother. Think, think--oh, Harry, think, for my strength is gone. '

He only clasped her closely and kissed her cheek. 

'Think of your mother, ' she continued. 'Harry, I would die to serve her. I would rather die than bring shame or grief into her life. '

'I love you! I love you!' he said. 

'Think, think of the people pointing at us, whispering about mydisgrace. '

'No, dear, you think. Think of me without you--cursed, ruined, without acare for anything on earth. Chris, there's not for me one ray ofsunlight, not one smile in the world without you. '

Her forehead was bent upon his shoulder. He felt her strength leavingher, and continued with low vehement words:

'Dear, you love me, an' you think it's your duty to leave me. I tell youthere's no man on God's earth here'd be so desolate. I'd rather be deadthan lose you. To lose you is the only sorrow I can imagine. I care morefor one smile of yours, one touch of your dear fingers, than for anythingelse in all the world. If you hate me an' want to ruin my life, you'llgo. Chris, if you love me, can't you see what the loss of you would mean?I tried to think of it last night an' couldn't, it was too terrible. Iwas like a child facing a great black cavern peopled with devils. '

His words, his earnestness, brought her new light; she had not realisedthe depth of his love, she had thought that the blow might be heavy atfirst, but that he would soon learn to forget. She understood him betternow; his love was like her own, and she knew that to be imperishable. Sheno longer struggled, but clung to him with trembling fingers. 

'I did not think you loved me like that, dear, ' she said softly. 

'I worship you! And you, my wife, my sweet wife?'

She slid her arms about his neck and drew his face to hers. 

They stood in the centre of an open plain above which the yellow sun hunggleaming like a ball of gold; there was silence everywhere: Harry's horsestood still with his nose to the ground, at a distance Summers' buggydipped slowly down into the bend of an old watercourse, and far off inthe dim simmering background there was a hazy suggestion of trees. Thesolitude was complete. 

'Then you won't go, Chris?' he said. 

'Yes, ' she answered, smiling into his face, 'but not for ever. '

He drew her closer at the suggestion. 

'But why must you go? Why should we part?'

'Please, please, dear, for a time. I--I want to be away for a littlewhile, till I can bear it better--you know what I mean. Ah!' she criedwith sudden warmth, 'I thought was going to be strong and brave and bearit all alone; but I was only a girl, not a heroine--my heart was cryingout against it by day and night. '

'We'll be very happy, Chris, in spite of those silly terrors. 'Twas Mrs. Haddon sent me after you. '

'I'm glad. Oh, I'm glad!'

He gathered her to his heart, and kissed her again and again. 

'Chris, ' he said, 'you're not quite fair to the people of Waddy; not aman or woman of them thinks a mean thought of you. '

'But I cannot bear to face them. Let me go for a time, and I will comeback. '

'An' be my wife?'

'Yes, if you still want me. '

'If! You'll write often. '

'Every day if you wish it, dear. '

'Every day then. Good-bye, my darling. I'll let you go, but not for long. If you don't come to me soon, I will come to you. '

The parting was long and loving, and then Harry recalled Jock Summerswith a loud cooey. After Chris had been helped into the buggy the old manglanced sharply at Harry. 

'Well, Maister Highwayman?' he said. 

'She has promised to be my wife, sir, ' said Harry. 

Summers looked into the girl's brimming eyes, and his face softened. 

'I'm right glad, ' he said simply. 

Harry rode by the trap as far as the town; then there was anotherparting, and he returned to Waddy like a man in a dream. That evening hetold his mother that Christina Shine had promised to be his wife. Heranswer surprised him. 

'She is a brave, beautiful, genuine woman, and I would not have itdifferent. '

'She said you were the best woman in the world, mother, and I believe shewas right. '

'No, no, Henry; I will be content now to have you think me the secondbest, ' said his mother, smiling. 

Chris, who was staying with a relation of Summers' in Melbourne, wrote tosay their parting should be for six months; but it did not last more thanhalf that time, and meanwhile two or three matters of interest hadhappened in Waddy. There had been several crushings from the NativeYouth, and the yields justified the highest expectations; Frank Hardy andMrs. Haddon had been married, and Joel Ham had departed from Waddy underinteresting circumstances. One evening when reading the Mercury in thebar at the Drovers' Arms, Ham looked up from his paper and addressedseveral members of the School Committee who were present:

'Gentlemen, ' he said, 'I'll have to get you to fill my position within afortnight. '

'What, ' cried Peterson, 'throwin' up your billet?'

'I'm wanted in England, ' said the master, tapping the paper. 

There was a roar at this, which Joel treated with sublime indifference, but curiosity prompted Peterson to examine the paper closely when theteacher had set it aside, and he found the following advertisement:

'If this should meet the eye of Joel Hamlyn, second brother of Sir JustHamlyn, of Darnstable, he is hereby informed of the death of his brotherand of his succession to the title and estates. Any informationrespecting the above Joel Hamlyn will be thankfully received. ' Thenfollowed a description of Joel Hamlyn that was decidedly applicable toJoel Ham, and the address of a firm of Melbourne solicitors. 

The schoolmaster said nothing to satisfy the curiosity of his committee, but was more communicative in the presence of Frank Hardy. 

'I am Sir Joel Hamlyn now, ' he said, grinning down at his white moleskinsand broken boots. 'Just and I hated each other like brothers. He waseminently respectable, I was eminently otherwise. We parted with mutualsatisfaction, but he had two boys when I left England, both of whom havesince died, or there would have been no anxious and respectful inquiriesfor my disreputable self. '

'Well, I congratulate you, ' said Frank. 'It will be an agreeable change. '

'I do not know, ' said Sir Joel; 'I have got drunk on beer here, I shallget drunk on champagne there That's all the difference. '

Later, when parting with Frank for good, he said:

'I have a long journey before me, and I have got to make up my mind inthat time in what useful capacity I shall figure in Darnstable teetotalcircles, whether as a shining light or a shocking example--whether, inshort, it is better to live respectable or die drunk. '

The people of Waddy never heard what Sir Joel's conclusion was, but theyhad an emphatic opinion about his end; which conclusion, howeverreasonable it may have been in the light of past events, let us hope wasthe wrong one. 

Harry wrote to Chris before twelve weeks had passed: 'I can stand thisparting no longer. I am coming to you. ' Chris answering him said, 'Come, 'and he went; and when he returned to Waddy Chris accompanied him. Theywere married very quietly at Yarraman a few months later, and Dick Haddonwas the only absentee amongst their immediate friends who have figured inthis story. When Harry and Chris were restored to happiness, his interestin them lost its keen edge, but he was considerate enough to send anapology to the bridegroom. 

'Dear Harry, ' he wrote, 'I'm sorry I can't come and be best man at yourwedding, but there is to be a great race to-day--my grey billy, Butts, against Jacker Mack's black billy, Boxer, for two pocket-knives and ajoey 'possum, owners up--and of course I couldn't get away. --Your mate, Dick. '

THE END