'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. Look slippy!'

A few seconds after the men had left the house Dick scrambled to his feet, and stood for a moment in a confused condition of mind, rubbing his injured head. Then he took up his hat and lantern, and stumbled from the room. As yet he had only a vague idea of what had happened, and his head felt very large and full of fly-wheels, as he expressed it later; but a few moments in the open air served to revive him. Along by the big quarry he met his mates returning. After talking the matter over they had come to the conclusion that the schoolmaster had got a hint of their intention, and had lain in wait. They gathered about Dick, whose forehead was 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 head that 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 a bushranger, 'r a feller what's escaped from gaol, 'r someone. Did you coves see which way he went?'

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

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

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

CHAPTER VII.

The small, wooden Wesleyan chapel at Waddy was perched on an eminence at the 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 the Drovers' Arms the head centre of the powers of evil. For verbal convenience in prayer and praise the hotel was known as 'The Sink of Iniquity,' and the chapel as 'This Little Corner of the Vineyard,' and through the front windows of the latter, one sabbath morn after another for many years, lusty Cornishmen, moved by the spirit, had hurled down upon McMahon and his house strident and terrible denunciations.

Materially the chapel had nothing in common with a vineyard; it was built upon arid land as bare and barren as a rock; not even a blade of grass grew within a hundred yards of its doors. The grim plainness of the old drab building was relieved only by a rickety bell-tower so stuffed with sparrows' nests that the bell within gave forth only a dull and muffled note. The chapel was surrounded with the framework of a fence only, so the chapel ground was the chief rendezvous of all the goats of Waddy—and they were many and various. They gathered in its shade in the summer and sought its shelter from the biting blast in winter, not always content with an outside stand; for the goats of Waddy were conscious of their importance, and of a familiar and impudent breed. Sometimes a matronly nanny would climb the steps, and march soberly up the aisle in the midst of one of Brother Tregaskis's lengthy prayers; or a haughty billy, imposing as the he-goat of the Scriptures, would take his stand within the door and bay a deep, guttural response to Brother Spence; or two or three kids would come tumbling over the forms and jumping and bucking in the open space by the wheezy and venerable organ, spirits of thoughtless frivolity in the sacred place.

It was Sunday morning and the school was in. The classes were arranged in their 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, the superintendent, were the Sixth Class little boys and girls, the latter painfully starched and still, with hair tortured by many devices into damp links or wispy spirals that passed by courtesy for curls. Very silent and submissive were little girls of Class VI., impressed by the long, lank superintendent in his Sunday black, and believing in many wonders secreted above the dusty rafters or in the wide yellow cupboards. The first classes were nearest the door. The young ladies, if we make reasonable allowance for an occasional natural preoccupation induced by their consciousness of the proximity of the young men, were devoted students of the gospel a interpreted by Brother Tresize, and sufficiently saintly always, presuming that no disturbing element such as a new hat or an unfamiliar dress was introduced to awaken the critical spirit. The young men, looking in their Sunday clothes like awkward and tawdry imitations of their workaday selves, were instructed by Brother Spence; and Brother Bowden, being the kindliest, gentlest, most incapable man of the band of brothers, was given the charge of the boys' Second Class, a class of youthful heathen, rampageous, fightable, and flippant, who made the 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 Dick Haddon, and a few kindred spirits composed this class; and it was sheer lust of life, the wildness of bush-bred boys, that inspired them with their irreverent impishness, although the brethren professed to discover evidence of the direct influence of a personal devil.

The superintendent arose from his stool of office and shuffled to the edge of the small platform, rattling his hymn-book for order. Ephraim never raised his head even in chapel, but his cold, dull eyes, under their scrub of overhanging brow, missed nothing that was going on, as the younger boys often discovered to their cost.

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

Brother Shine stopped short. A powerful diversion had been created by the entrance 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 his right hand a coiled stockwhip. His face had the grey tinge of wrath, and his lips were set firm on a grim determination. He walked to a form well up 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 was every man, woman, and child in the congregation. Harry Hardy had not fulfilled expectations; he had been home five days, and had done nothing to avenge his brother. He moved about amongst the men, but was reserved and grew every day more sullen. He had heard much and had answered nothing; and now here he was at chapel and evidently bent on mischief, for the stockwhip was ominous. Ephraim Shine had noticed it and retreated a step or two, and stood for quite a minute, turning his boot this way and that, but with his eyes on Harry all the time. Now he cleared his throat, and called the number of the hymn. He read the first verse and the chorus with his customary unction, and, all having risen, started the singing in a raspy, high-pitched voice.

Harry Hardy stood with the rest, a solitary figure in the centre of the chapel, still holding the long whip firmly grasped in his right hand. Attention was riveted on him, and the singing of the hymn was a dismal failure. The young man stared straight before him, seeing only one figure, 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 the hand on the other side was white and shapely, the wrist softly rounded and 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 the congregation.

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? We were 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 will promise 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 do it—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 voice sounded 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 about saving souls he scatters his old-womanish scandals an' abuses his betters.'

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

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

Harry's whispering was almost shrill in the heat of his passion, and the singing of the hymn became faint and thin, so eager were the singers to catch a word of that most significant conversation. Dick had not taken his eyes off the pair, and already had woven a very pretty romance about Chris and the young man. Christina Shine had only recently been raised to the pedestal in his fond heart formerly occupied by an idol who had betrayed his youthful affections, disappointed his hopes, and outraged his 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 if to restrain him, and he felt the soft agitation of her gentle bosom with a new emotion that weakened his tense thews, and stirred the first doubt; but he fought it down. His revenge had become almost a necessity within the last three days. Nothing he had heard offered the faintest hope for his brother's cause; he was baffled and infuriated by the general unquestioning belief in Frank's guilt, and a dozen times had been compelled to sit biting on his bitterness, when every instinct impelled him to square up and teach the fools better with all the force of his pugilistic knowledge. Of late years he had been schooled in a class that accepted 'a ready left' as the most convincing argument, and, being beyond the immediate province of law and order, repaired immediately with all its grievances to a twenty-four-foot 'ring' and an experienced referee. But whilst there was a little diffidence amongst the men in expressing their opinions about Frank, there was no reserve when they came to tell of Ephraim Shine's method of improving the occasion with prayer and preachment; and for a considerable time Harry had collected bitterness till it threatened to choke him and bade him defy all his mother'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 the disgrace of it.'

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

'It was wrong, Harry. I know it was wrong and cruel. I told him that, and he 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 had kept a lowering and anxious eye on the young couple, gave out the third verse again.

'Harry, you will not. Please say it!

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

Harry remembered Chris as a schoolgirl, tall and stag-like, always running, her rebellious knees tossing up scant petticoats, her long hair rarely leaving more than one eye visible through its smother of tangled silk. She was very brown then and very bony, and so ridiculously soft of heart that her tenderness was regarded by her schoolmates as an unfortunate infirmity. She was tall still, taller than himself, with large limbs and a sort of manly squareness of the shoulders and erectness of the figure, but neatly gowned, with little feminine touches of flower and ribbon that belied the savour of unwomanliness in her size and her bearing. Her complexion was clear and fair, her abundant hair the colour of new wheat, her features were large, the nose a trifle aquiline, the chin square and, finely chiselled; the feminine grace was due to her eyes, large, grey, and almost infantile in expression. The people of Waddy called her handsome, and no more tender term would suit; but they knew that this fair girl-woman, who seemed created to dominate and might have been expected to carry things with a high hand everywhere, was in reality the simplest, gentlest, and most emotional of her sex. She looked strong and was strong; her only weakness was of the heart, and that was a prey to the sorrows of every human being within whose influence she came in the rounds of her daily life.

Hardy was amazed; almost unconsciously he had pictured the grown-up Chris an 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 should have been commanding haughtily and receiving humble obedience, filled him with 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 words have done—I am sure of that.'

The hymn was finished, but Shine read out the last verse once more. His concern was now obvious, and the congregation was wrought to an unprecedented pitch. Never had a hymn been so badly sung in that chapel. It was taken up again without spirit, a few quavering voices carrying it on 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 do this 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, and as he passed out the chorus swelled into an imposing burst of song—a paean of triumph, Harry thought.

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

Christina, from her place amongst her girls, watched him till he disappeared in the quarries; and so did Ephraim Shine, but with very different feelings. Many of the congregation were disappointed. They had expected a sensational climax. Class II was inconsolable, and made not the slightest effort to conceal its disgust, which lasted throughout the remainder of the morning and was a source of great tribulation to poor Brother Bowden.

CHAPTER VIII.

HARRY HARDY sought the seclusion of the bush, and there spent a very miserable morning. He was forced to the conclusion that he had made a fool of himself, and the thought that possibly that girl of Shine's was now laughing with the rest rankled like a burn and impelled many of the strange oaths that slipped between his clenched teeth. The more he thought of his escapade the more ridiculous and theatrical it seemed. It was born of an impulse, and would have been well enough had he carried out his intention; but, oh the ignominy of that retreat from the side of the 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 swung his whip-lash against the log on which he sat, and quite convinced himself that he was hating Shine's handsome daughter with all the vehemence the occasion demanded.

In many respects Harry was a very ordinary young man; bush life is a wonderful leveller, and he had known no other. His father had been a man of education and talent, drawn from a profession in his earlier manhood to the goldfields, who remained a miner and a poor man to the day of his death. His wife was not able to induce their sons to aspire to anything above the occupations of the class with which they had always associated, so they were miners and stockmen with the rest. But the young men, even as boys, noticed in their mother a refinement and a clearness of intellect that were not characteristic of the women of Waddy; and out of the love and veneration they bore her grew a sort of family pride—a respect for their name that was quite a touch of old-worldly conceit in this new land of devil-may-care, and gave them a certain distinction. It was this that served largely to make the branding of Frank Hardy as a thief a consuming shame to his brother. Harry thought of it less as a wrong to Frank than as an outrage to his mother. It was this, too, that made the young man burn to take the Sunday School superintendent by the throat 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 afternoon to wrestle with his difficulties, and, with the gluttonous rosellas swinging on the gum-boughs above, set himself to reconsider all that he had heard of Frank's case and all the possibilities that had since occurred to him. Here Dick Haddon discovered him at about four o'clock. Dick was leading a select party at the time, with the intention of reconnoitring old Jock Summers's orchard in view of a possible invasion at an early date; but when he saw Harry in the distance he immediately abandoned the business in hand. An infamous act of desertion like this would have brought down contempt upon the head of another, and have earned him some measure of personal chastisement; but Dick was a law unto himself.

'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't want 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 'n important, 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 if you like, Jacker; 'n mind you don't give it away.'

Dick gained his point, as usual, and prepared for a quite casual descent upon Harry, who had not yet seen the boys. The plan brought Dicky, 'shanghai' in hand, under the tree where Hardy sat. The boy was apparently oblivious of everything but the parrots up aloft, and it was not till after he had had his shot that he returned the young man's salutation. Then he took a seat astride the log and offered some commonplace information about a nest of joeys in a neighboring tree and a tame magpie that had escaped, and was teaching all the other magpies in Wilson's paddocks to whistle a jig and curse like a drover. But he got down 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 get on to him when Miss Shine ain't about. She's terrible good an' all that—better 'n Miss Keeley, don't you think?'

Miss Keeley was a golden-haired, high-complexioned, and frivolous young lady who had enjoyed a brief but brilliant career as barmaid at the Drovers' Arms. Harry had never seen her, but expressed an opinion entirely 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 a superintendent t' lay into a chap at Sunday School for things what he done outside? S'pose I float Tinribs's puddlin' tub down the creek by accident, with Doon's baby in it when I ain't thinkin', is it square fer him to nab me in Sunday School, an' whack me fer it, pretendin' all the time it's 'cause I stuck a mouse in the harmonium?'

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

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

Harry considered such conduct despicable, and thought the man who would take 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 the flat, 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 been violated 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 his whole attention to the antics of a blue grub. Dick approached still closer, 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 mate of 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 the inference. Then he gripped the latter's hand.

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

Dick did not doubt it; he had but a poor opinion of the resourcefulness of his elders when not figuring in the pages of romantic literature, but he was gratified by Harry's ready recognition of his talent, and proceeded 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 the chapel. He knew his mother would hear of it, and thought it best she should 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 on the 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; 'were you in the chapel, Henry?'

Harry nodded rather shamefacedly.

'Yes, mother,' he said, 'I went to chapel, an' took my whip with me. I meant 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 if I'd been licked myself. I couldn't have hammered the brute before her eyes, but—but—'

'But you meant to; is that it? Henry, you almost make me despair. Have you 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 whose faith, such as it is, is honest; but he is ignorant, coarse-fibred, and narrow-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 his preachings can do me no injury. They do not irritate me in the least—indeed, I am not sure that they do not amuse me.'

'Ah, mother, that's like you; you philosophise your way through a difficulty, 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 the most litigious man in the township? He runs to the law with every little trouble, 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 tight after this. An', look here, I've got an idea. I'm going to Pete Holden to-morrow to ask him to put me on at the Stream, same shift as poor Frank was on, if possible.'

'Put on the brother of the man who—'

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

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

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

'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 industriously for 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 taken red-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. Go straight to bed after you have finished your tea. How dare you disobey me, you wicked boy!'

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

This ludicrous incident had not served to draw Harry's thoughts from his project. All his life he had seen his Uncle Jonnie treated as a child, and there was nothing incongruous in the situation, even 'when the grey-haired boy was rated for neglecting to shave or sent supperless to bed for similar sins of omission or commission. To Mrs. Hardy also it was a simple serious business of domestic government. Ever since she was ten years old Uncle John, who was many years her senior, had been her baby brother and her charge, and although gifted with a good sense of humour, the necessity of admonishing him did not interfere with the gravity of mind 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'll remind him of that.'

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

'Couldn't do it, my lad,' said the old miner; 'but I'll put in a word for you 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 other affair. 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 Frank straight, an' he looked like an honest man; but that evidence would have damned 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 straight they wouldn't do it.'

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

'Send me below, then, an' by Heaven I'll spot the true thieves if they're not more cunning than the devil himself. You think Frank guilty, so do most people; it's what we ought to expect, I s'pose.' Harry's hands were clenched hard—it was a sore subject. 'We don't, Mr. Holden; we believe his story, every word of it. Give me half a chance to prove it. You were our father's mate; stand by us now. Put me on with the same shift as Frank 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, see he plays no tricks on you.'

'I've thought of that—trust me.'

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

The searcher rarely spoke to the men, never looked at them, and performed his duties as if unconscious of their presence. Custom had made him exceedingly cautious, for it was the delight of the men to play tricks upon him, usually of an exceedingly painful nature. The searcher is no man'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, but were raised no higher than the knees of the men, seemingly.

'Yes, search 'em carefully, Brother. I s'pose you'd like ter jug the whole 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't it—eh, what? Blast you fer a snivellin' hippercrit, Shine! If yer look sidelong at me I'll belt you over—'

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

CHAPTER IX.

JACKER MACK'S report having been entirely favourable, the invasion of Summers' orchard was under taken at dinner-time on the Tuesday following. The party, which consisted of Dick Haddon, Jacker McKnight, Ted, Billy Peterson, and Gable, started for the paddocks immediately school was out, intending to make Jock Summers compensate them for the loss of a meal. It was not thought desirable to take Gable, but he insisted, and Gable was exceedingly pig-headed and immovable when in a stubborn mood. Dick tried to drive him back, but failed; when the others attempted to run away from him the old man trotted after them, bellowing so lustily that the safety of 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 that mattered little, as it was long since known to be hopeless to attempt to extract evidence from him, and his complicity in matters of this kind was generously 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 mice and men, and one always runs a great risk in looting an orchard in broad daylight—although it will be admitted, by those readers who were once young enough and human enough to rob orchards, that stealing cherries in the dark is as aggravating and unsatisfactory an undertaking as eating soup 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-trees surrounding the squatter's house. Then he led his party over the fence and along thick lines of currant bushes, creeping under their cover to where the beautiful white-heart cherries hung ripening in the sun. Dick was very busy indeed in the finest of the trees when the note of warning came 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 was following Peterson, full of hope, when there came a rush of feet behind and he was sent sprawling by a heavy body striking him between the shoulders. When he was quite able to grasp the situation he found himself on the broad of his back, with a big mastiff lying on his chest, one paw on either side of his head, and a long, warm tongue lolling in his face with affectionate familiarity. The expression in the dog's eye, he noticed, was decidedly genial, but its attitude was firm. The amiable eye reassured him; he was not going to be eaten, but at the same time he was given to understand that that dog would do his duty though the heavens fell.

A minute later the mastiff was whistled off; Dick was taken by the ear and gently assisted to his feet, and stood defiantly under the stern eye of a rugged, spare-boned, iron-grey Scotchman, six feet high, and framed like 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, and in his one short struggle for freedom he felt as if he were grappling with the great poppet-legs at the Silver Stream. Summers paused for a moment.

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

The dog capered like a frivolous cow, flopped his ears, and exhibited himself 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 furiously under her gaze of mild surprise. Christina had been a member of the Summers household for over five years, ever since the death of her mother, and had won herself a position there, something like that of a beloved 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 a clever suggestion.

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

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

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 ye thought 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 words of pity on his behalf, and to feel her soft eyes bent upon him with gentle concern. Probably no young woman quite understands the deep devotion she has inspired in the bosom of a small boy even when she realises—which is rare indeed—that she is regarded with unusual affection by Tommy or Billy or Jim. Jim is probably very young; his hair as a rule appears to have been tousled in a whirlwind, his plain face is never without traces of black jam in which vagrant dust finds rest, and in the society of the adored one he is shy and awkward. The adored one may think him a good deal of a nuisance, but deep down in the dark secret chamber of his heart she is enshrined a goddess, and worshipped with zealous devotion. Men may call her an angel lightly enough; Jim knows her to be an angel, and says never a word. His romance is true, and pure, and beautiful while it lasts—the only true, pure, and beautiful romance many women ever inspire, and alas! they never know of it, and would not prize it if they did.

That was the feeling Dick had for Christina Shine. Thore had been others—Richard Haddon was not bigoted in his constancy—but now it was Miss Chris, and to him she was both angel and princess; a princess stolen from her royal cradle by the impostor Shine under moving and mysterious circumstances, and at the instigation of a disreputable uncle. It only remained for Dick to slaughter the latter in fair fight, under the eyes of an admiring multitude, in order to restore Chris to all her royal dignities and privileges.

Jock Summers had not relaxed his grip on the boy's ear. He led him to a small 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. I think I might just skin ye, an' I think maybe I might get ye ten years to Yarraman Goal, but I'm no sure.'

Dick had to go down several steps to the floor of the dairy, and when the door was shut his face was on a level with the grating that let air into the place. He passed the first few minutes of his imprisonment making offers of friendship to the dog that sprawled out side, opening its capacious mouth at him and curling its long tongue as if anxious to amuse. The boy had no fears as to his fate; he felt he could safely leave that to Miss Chris; and, meanwhile, the dog was entertaining. The animal was new to Dick: had he known of its existence, his descent upon the orchard would have been differently ordered. In time Maori came to be intimately known to every boy in Waddy as the most kindly and affable dog in the world, but afflicted with a singularly morbid devotion to duty. If sent 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 not called into service; he either knocked the youngster down and held him with soft but irresistible paws, or he gambolled with him, jumped on him, frisked over him, made escape impossible, and all the time seemed to imply: '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 no malice; there came a time when youngsters invaded Jock's garden for the pleasure of being captured by his wonderful dog.

Ere Dick had been in his prison ten minutes Chris came to him with tea and cake and scones, and when he had finished these she showered cherries in 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 be able 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 the vicinity of the dairy a few minutes later the cold had developed alarmingly. Summers heard, and a quizzical and suspicious eye followed Christina.

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

'Strong as a bullock,' said Summers.

'He looked very pale, I thought, and that place is damp—damp and dangerous.'

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 sending him away.

'My word, you are a brick,' murmured Dick, quite overcome, and then Chris, being hidden from the house by the shrubbery, did an astounding thing; she put her arm about the boy's neck and kissed him, and Dick's face flamed red, and a delicious confusion possessed him. If he were her worshipper before he was her slave now—her unquestioning, faithful slave.

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

Dick had recalled the incident several times lately, but always, it must be regretfully admitted, with a pang of angry compunction. There were occasions when he felt that it would have been wise to have left the superintendent to his fate. He wondered now, casually, why the daughter should entertain sentiments of gratitude that never seemed to find a place in the arid bosom of her sire.

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

'Dick, will you take a message from me to—to—' The young woman was toying with his sleeve, her cheeks were ruddy, and the girlish timidity she displayed was in quaint contrast with her fine face and commanding figure.

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

'Yes,' said Chris. 'However could you have guessed that? Tell him I am very thankful to him—'

'Fer clearin' out Sunday. Yes, I'll tell him. I say, Miss Chris, do you know 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 that photo of you in our albium. He looked at it more'n he looked at all the rest put together, an' kep' sneakin' peeps, an' that don't show hate, if you ask me.'

Dick was half an hour late for school that afternoon, but he never faced Joel ham with a lighter heart or more careless mien. The master pretended to be absorbed in a patch on the roof till Dick had almost reached his seat; then he beckoned the boy, took him on the point of his cane, like a piece of toast, and backed him against the wall, where he held him transfixed 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 you anything 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 fingers clawed his sparse whiskers.

'And you used to be quite a clever liar, Ginger,' he said with philosophical 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 very badly to-day, Ginger. You have the heart to do it, but not the art. Hold up!

Dick's hand went out unfalteringly.

'One,' said the master. 'Two! Hurt, eh? Well, be consoled with the reflection that all knowledge is simply pain codified. Three! Four—no, I will 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 to communicate with Dick when the latter took his seat, and Jacker, who sat next, 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 me a load o' cherries to bring away, an' strawberries—thumpin' ripe strawberries, hid somewhere what I know of. Oh, I think not. An' maybe I wasn't told to come up to The House Sundays an' help myself. Very likely not.' 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 you fought at the picnic ridin' your billy down to Cow Flat, an' Butts seemed to like it.'

This was serious. The idea of Butts becoming attached to another master gave Dick a real pang. Already he had suffered many twinges of conscience in 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 Peterson crawled back to his seat. Confidence was restored.

CHAPTER X.

HARRY HARDY'S first few shifts below only served to convince him of the difficulties of the task he had set himself. The Silver Stream was a big alluvial mine working two levels, and there were close upon a hundred hands below on each shift. All these he could not watch; but he was working 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, whilst at the same time being careful not to set the thieves on their guard. He must watch closely without letting it be seen that he was watching at all. Keen as he was in the pursuit of his object, he found, with some self-resentment, that his mind frequently reverted to another subject altogether; and that subject was Miss Christina Shine. When he caught himself absorbed in a reverie in which Miss Chris was the centre of interest, he metaphorically took himself by the neck and shook himself up, and during the next few minutes reviewed with quite extravagant ferocity the excellent reasons he had for hating Chris for her father's sake. It was a melancholy pleasure to him to see the searcher pawing his clothes about, digging into his pockets and his billy, and examining his boots. His old instinct would have prompted him to attack Ephraim on the floor of the shed, but now, with lamentable unreason and injustice, he nursed the insult as good and sufficient cause for contemning the daughter. He had seen Chris once since Sunday, and then only from the recesses of a clump of scrub into which he had retreated on seeing her approach; 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 up within 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 spot where Frank had been working, with the idea of satisfying himself whether or not such gold as Frank had sold was obtainable there; and here the searcher's daughter came upon him one morning shortly after the incident of the Sunday School. Harry had his cradle pitched near the crossing, and to ignore the young woman would be an avowal of enmity. Here was his opportunity. Harry set his face over the hopper and cradled industriously. He thought he was displaying proper firmness, but his hand trembled, his heart beat like a plunger, and he was the victim of an ignoble bashfulness. Chris approached with some timidity; but Maori bounded up to the young man, making elephantine overtures of friendliness, which were resented by Harry's cattle-dog Cop, who walked round and round the mastiff in narrowing circles, bristling like a cat and snarling hoarsely. Maori treated the challenge with a lordly indulgence. Cop went further, he snapped and brought blood. There were some things Maori could not stand: this was one. Out of a small storm of pebbles, chips, leaves, and dust, the two dogs presently came into view again, Cop on his back, pawing wildly at the unresisting air, and Maori at his throat, pinning him with a vice-like grip.

Harry rushed to the rescue, tore his dog free, and held back the furious animal up-reared and exposing vicious fangs. Chris laid a trembling hand on the collar of the penitent Maori, and in this way the young people faced 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 his strength to hurt something sweet and tender as a flower; and yet the girl seemed to tower above him. Nature, in putting the fresh sympathetic soul of a child into the grand body of a Minerva, had set a problem that was too deep for Harry Hardy.

'Beg pardon,' he said, humbly; ''twas my dog started it. Down, Cop! To heel—!'

He checked himself suddenly on a 'stock term.' There were tones of his master's that Cop never dared to disobey; he went down at full length and lay panting, regarding Maori fixedly with a sidelong and malevolent eye. Harry returned to his cradle, and Chris approached the stepping-stones and 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 tattered and torn, from the midst of that mob of sportive cattle. She was a very little girl then, but the incident had remained fresh and vivid in her mind, and ever since Harry Hardy had been a hero in her eyes. He only remembered the affair casually and without interest.

'I am really very grateful to you for—for going away, because I know you had 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 trial and your mother's sorrow, and all the rest. It hurt me because it seemed to set me on the side that was against Mrs. Hardy, and I—I always admired her. I knew she was a good woman, and it was easy to see the trouble 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 the life of him he could do no better.

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

Day-dreams were not possible in the vicinity of Richard Haddon. The boy was an ardent fossicker, and loved to be burrowing amongst old tailings, or groping in the sludge of an auriferous creek after little patches. He was 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 bit round here.'

'Frank was tryin' that bank. 'Tain't no good. Say, I can lay you onter somethin' 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 yer dog 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 my goat, 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 be spiffin. Cop's all right. He'd work fer me.'

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

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

Go fer carrots an' cabbages, specially carrots,' whispered the commandant, whose experience of goats was large and varied, and taught him that the average nanny or billy would desert home and kindred and go through fire and water in pursuit of a succulent young carrot not larger than a clothes-peg.

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

For this night only Dick had assumed the role of Moonlighter Ryan, a notorious Queensland cattle duffer, recently hanged for his part in a disputation with a member of the mounted police. The dispute ended with the death of the policeman, who succumbed to injuries received. As Moonlighter Dick was characteristically remorseless, his courage and cunning were understood to verge upon the inhuman, and his band was composed of the most utterly abandoned ruffians the history of the country afforded; only two of them had not been hanged, and these two justified their inclusion by having richly deserved hanging several times over.

Across the flat and past the toll-bar, where the light sleep of Dan, the tollman, was not disturbed by the creeping band, Moonlighter led his outlaws warily, then struck the long bush road between two lines of straggling fence running with all sorts of lists and bends, going on and on endlessly, according to the belief of the boys of Waddy. The road was overhung by tall gums and nourished many clumps of fresh green saplings, about which the tortuous cart-track wound in deep yellow ruts, baked hard in summer, washed into treacherous bog in winter. Here caution was not necessary, and there were divers fierce hand-to-hand attacks on clumps of scrub representing a vindictive and merciless police, out of which Moonlighter and his men issued crowned with victory and covered with glory. A scarecrow in a wayside orchard was charged with desperate valour, and only saved from instant destruction as a particularly hateful police 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, and his bold bad men drew off and retired abashed.

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

It was after one o'clock in the morning when Cow Flat was reached. The little township slept, steeped in darkness, beside its sluggish strip of creeping 'slurry' miscalled a creek. Beyond, on the rise, a big mine clattered and groaned, and puffed its glowing clouds of steam against the sky; but Cow Flat had settled down into silence after the midnight change of shifts, and a mining township sleeps well. For all that it was a stealthy and cautious band Moonlighter led down to the old battered engine-house by the edge of the common, where the goats of Cow Flat were known to herd in large numbers. Sure enough here were goats of both sexes, and all sorts and sizes—sleeping huddled in the ruined engine-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 the animals were awakened; slyly they were drawn forth, with gentle whispered calls of 'Nan, nan, nan!' and insidious and soothing words, but more especially with the aid of scraps of carrot, sparingly but judiciously distributed. An occasional low, querulous bleat from a youthful nanny awakened from dreams of clover-fields, or a hoarse, imperious inquiry in a deep baritone 'baa' from a patriarchal he-goat, was the only noise that followed the invasion. Then, when the animals within the ruin were fully alive to the situation and awake to the knowledge that it all meant carrots, and that outside carrots innumerable awaited the gathering, they streamed forth: they fought in the doorways, they battered a passage through the broken wall; faint plaintive queries went up from scores of throats, answered by gluttonous mumblings from goats that had been fortunate enough to snatch a morsel of the delectable vegetable. Down from the tips and up from the bob-pit they came, singly and in sets, undemonstrative matrons with weak-kneed twins at their heels, skittish kids 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, fully provisioned, and commissioned to collect goats from all quarters.

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

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

Jacker Mack, Peterson, and Parrot Cann had recognised their billies in the heard, but Butts was still missing. On an open space near the road by which Moonlighter's gang had come, and at a safe distance from the township, a few of the raiders held the main body of the goats. Parrot Cann, with a bag of cabbages on his shoulder, was the centre of attraction, and the dropping of an occasional leaf kept the goats pushing about him, some uprearing and straining toward the tantalising bag, others baa-ing in his face a piteous appeal. Suddenly, however, an astute billy with a flowing beard came to the rescue. He drove at Cann from the rear 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 yells of poor Parrot clipped in a hundred places by the sharp hoofs of the hungry animals.

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

In about twenty minutes Jacker Mack and a couple of subordinates brought up a herd gathered from the hill on the left bank of the creek; Peterson came soon after with a good mob from the right, and Dolf Belman and another followed with a score or so from about the houses. But still Butts had not been captured.

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

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

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

'Go for it, Ted!' he yelled, and the two rushed over the flat ground, up the hill, and across the thinly-timbered bush to the road. A good run brought 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 blessed town. Heel 'em, Cop, heel 'em!

Peterson and Jacker went ahead dangling cabbages; the dog entered into the spirit of the thing with enthusiasm and worked the flock in his very best style; and so the boys of Waddy, hot, excited, very frightened of probable pursuers, but wondrously elated, swept the great drove of goats up the road in the light of the waning moon. The pace was warm for a mile, but then, the dread of pursuit having evaporated, the marauders slowed down, and for the rest of the journey they were experienced drovers bringing down the largest lot of stock that had ever been handled by man, full of technical phrases and big talk of runs, and plains, and flooded rivers, and long, waterless spells. It was Jacker Mack who sounded the first note of dismay.

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

Nobody had thought of the toll-bar, and there were the big, white gates already in sight, stretching across the road, threatening to bring dismal failure 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, and shortly after the goats were being driven across Wilson's paddock, cutting off a great corner, and heading for the farmer's gates that opened out on to the open country on which Waddy was built. Through these gates the flock was driven with a racket and hullaballoo that set Wilson's half-dozen dogs yapping insanely, and started every rooster on the farm crowing in shrill protestation. Then helter-skelter over the flat the goats were swept in on the township and left to their own devices, whilst a dozen weary, dusty, triumphant small boys stole back to bed through unlatched windows and doors carefully left open for a stealthy return.

CHAPTER XI.

THERE was great wonder in Waddy next morning, and much argument. Neighbours discussed the sensation with avidity. Mrs. Sloan, uncombed and in early morning deshabille, with an apron thrown over her head, carried the news to Mrs. Justin's back fence, and Mrs. Justin ran with it to the back fence of Mrs. McKnight, and Mrs. McKnight spread the tidings as far as the house of Steven; so the wonder grew, and families were called up at an unusually early hour, and sage opinions were thrown from side windows and handed over garden gates. An invasion of goats had happened at Waddy, a downpour of goats, an eruption of goats: goats were all over the place, and nobody knew whence they came or when they arrived. Waddy's own 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 incessant pleadings. They invaded gardens and broke their way into kitchens and larders; they assaulted children and in some cases offered fight to the mothers who went to eject them; and here and there the billies of Waddy fought with the bearded usurpers long unsatisfactory contests, rearing and butting for hours, and doing each other no morsel of injury that anybody could discover. A few of the women were out with buckets, making the 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 the pillage of his vegetable beds.

During all this the innocence of the boys of Waddy, particularly those boys who had composed Moonlighter's gang, was quite convincing. They had kept their secret well, and for some time no act of vandalism was suspected. In school during the morning they were most attentive, and particularly assiduous in the pursuit of knowledge; and when the echoes of a disturbance in the township penetrated the school walls, Richard Haddon and his friends may have exchanged significant winks, but nothing in their general demeanour would have betrayed them to the ordinary intelligence. However, Joel Ham's intelligence was not of the ordinary kind, and after looking up two or three times and catching the master's little 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 female from Cow Flat. She drove up in an old-fashioned waggon drawn by a lively and energetic but very ancient and haggard bay horse, with flattened hoofs and a mere stump of a tail. She was tall and stout, with great muscular arms bare to the shoulder, and her face was pink with righteous indignation. This woman drove slowly up the one road of Waddy, and standing erect in her vehicle roundly abused the township from end to end. Crying her cause in a big strident voice, she insulted the inhabitants individually and in the mass, and wherever several people were assembled she pulled up and poured out upon them the vials of her wrath in a fine flow of vituperation; and after every few sentences she interpolated an almost pathetic plea to somebody, she did not care whom, to step forward and resent her criticism that she might have an opportunity of hammering decency and religion into the benighted inhabitants of an unregenerate place.

'Who stole the goats?' she screamed, and, receiving no answer, screamed the 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, mean stealers an' robbers, ye! Who stole the goats? Who came by night an' robbed a decent widdy woman of her beautiful goats? Who? Who? Who? Say you 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 and regret, and the visitor grew shriller and fiercer as her search progressed. At length she discovered what she declared to be one of her goats in the possession of Mrs. Hogan, and she left her waggon and charged the latter, who fled in terror, bolting all her doors and throwing up a barricade in the passage. But the stranger was not to be foiled: she sat down on the doorstep and proclaimed the house under siege, announcing her intention to remain until she had wreaked her vengeance on Mrs. Hogan, and offering meanwhile to fight any four women of Waddy for mere diversion.

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

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

The first few skirmishing parties from Cow Flat were composed of women and boys, and an undisciplined and rash pursuit of goats followed each visit. The nannies and billies, under stress of the new excitement, ran suddenly wild and developed a fleetness of foot, an expertness in climbing, and powers of endurance hitherto all unsuspected by their owners; so very few animals were recovered by the visitors.

The hunt was continued throughout the next day. Goats were rushing wildly about the place from morning till midnight pursued by their wrathful owners, to the detriment of the peace of Waddy and the undoing of the tractable local milkers; and at last a great resentment took possession of the matrons of the township—there were counter-attacks among the houses, rescue parties beset the women carrying off prizes, and a few skirmishes 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 aggressive brown goats which he had marked out as the vandals that had wrought ruin amongst his well-kept beds, Devoy bearded the stranger and spoke of damages and broken heads, and his small son, Danny, a young Australian with a piquant brogue and a born love of ructions, moved round and incited him to bloodshed.

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

'Yer dir-rty goats have ate me gar-rden, sor. D'ye moind me now? It's ruined 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 Cow Flat was very willing, and they fought a long, destructive battle; and through it all Danny danced about the ring, bristling with excitement and crying 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!' These phrases, and shrill inarticulate cries of applause and astonishment and joy, Danny reiterated breathlessly until his father was pronounced the victor; then he took the battered hero fondly by the hand and led him away to be bathed and plastered and bandaged by a devoted wife and mother.

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

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

On the side of approach from Cow Flat Waddy was protected for the greater part of the distance by the string of quarries; under the command of Big Peterson, who as an ex-soldier had some military reputation, logs were dragged from the bush, and the space between the end of the quarries and the fence of Summers' south paddock was smartly barricaded. The defenders were armed with light sticks, and it was understood that these were to be used 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 of the Great Goat Riot; the men, under the command of Captain Peterson, were sitting in bands, hidden from view in the quarries, smoking, discussing the situation, and patiently awaiting the attack. They did not wait in vain. At about eleven o'clock a scout came in with the intelligence that a 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 the bush and over the fence and charged Waddy at a trot.

'Toe the scratch, men!' yelled Peterson; and the defenders of Waddy climbed 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 the other edge of the quarries; and invaders and besieged faced each other across the broken ground while the Cow Flat leaders held a council of war. On the level behind the entrenched army the women of Waddy and their families were picknicking gaily on the grass, for it was accepted as a great 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 a streamer could be fastened.

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

'Won't ye stip over, ye mud-gropers?' cried Devoy. 'It's a nice little riciption 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 ye won't be stayin' all day there dishcussin' polemics.' Devoy was understood 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. 'Yez contimplated playin' the divil wid a big shtick among the weemin an' the childther. Tom Moran, ye thunderin' great ilephant av a man, d'ye think ye cud fight a sick hen on a fince?'

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

'Moran, ye scut! don't be skirmishin' an' in thriguin' t' get forninat a shmall 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 goaded bullock, the two parties clashed over the logs, and in an instant comparative silence fell upon the men. The yelling, the derisive voices, and scoffing laughter ceased, and nothing was heard but the sharp rattle of the strokes. The fight was fierce, earnest, and bloody; all thoughts of the absurdity of the cause of contention had long since been forgotten, and the battle was as remorseless as if it were waged for an empire.

The women had never expected anything serious to happen, and now they were dreadfully afraid. A valiant few took arms and joined in the fray by the sides of their husbands; but the rest, finding after a few minutes that the fight raged furiously, gave way to bitter tears, and wailed protests from a safe distance, while the children followed their example with all the vigour of young lungs.

In time Peterson and Devoy and Rogers found voice and yelled encouragement to their men, and sticks and fists worked grievous mischief. The Cow Flat men were at an enormous disadvantage in having to scale the logs to make headway; whenever a hero did succeed in gaining the top, Big Peterson, who moved swiftly and tirelessly up and down the line, was there to cope with him, and he was hurled down, bruised and broken. The besiegers struggled valiantly, but it dawned on them in the course of ten minutes that they were waging a vain and foolish fight. A rally and a rescue of Moran, who was on the point of being captured by the enemy, gave them an excuse to draw off, dragging their defeated leader beyond harm's reach. A few moments later, in the midst of excited cheering and jeering, a number of the men became aware of a small, bare-headed, red-haired, white-faced boy standing on the logs between the foes, where he had stood whilst the fight was still waging, whirling his hat, and crying something at the top of his voice:

'The troopers! The troopers! The troopers!

It was Dick Haddon, very frightened apparently, and ablaze with excitement.

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

Sure enough, far off across the level country leading down to Yarraman, a small body of mounted police could be seen riding at a canter towards Waddy, their swords and cap-peaks glittering in the sun. The men stared in the direction pointed by Dick in silence, wondering what this development might mean. Devoy was the first to move. Gripping Dick, he lifted 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 the barricade.

'Hear me, all of yez,' he cried. 'Down wid yer sticks, every divil of yez! You Cow Flat min, too, down wid 'em! Look it here—the troopers is comin'. Shine have infor-rmed on us in Yarraman. Moind, now, this is jist a 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 be hangin' 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 a clattering of scabbard and chain. The sergeant drew his foaming bay up sharp and confronted Devoy.

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

'Meanin' which, sor?' Devoy cocked a black and swollen eye at the officer, 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. The officer 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 always get 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 of this pile of logs?'

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

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

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

Devoy pinched hi chin tenderly and grimaced. It was hard to abandon the glory 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' a few goats.'

'Goats, eh? Now look here, my fine fellow, we were told there was to be riot and fighting here over those goats. I don't believe a word of your cock-and-bull story about football, and for two pins I'd clap a few of you where you wouldn't play again for some time to come. Now you'd all better settle this goat business while my men are here, and take my advice and drop football if you want to keep on the comfort able and airy side of a gaol. Now then, you fellows from the Flat, round up your goats and 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 the characther of dacent, paceable, lovin' min. 'Twas a tinder an' frindly game we was playin', sergeant, but if ye will break it up, sure I'm a law-abidin' man. We did intund t' axe the min av Cow Flat t' have the bite 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' a game of football, we—'

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

So the Great Goat Riot was settled, and under the eye of the sergeant and his troopers the goats of Cow Flat were drafted from those of Waddy. It was a difficult task, and was not accomplished without trouble and argument and minor hostilities: but the judgment of the sergeant, who seemed to be aware of the whole merits of the case, was final, so that in due 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 recent rash actions and calculating laboriously. At the Drovers' Arms that evening several members of the School Committee compared conclusions and resolved that something must be done. It was evident that the youth of the township, under the leadership of 'the boy Haddon,' had dragged Waddy into a nasty squabble, some of the results of which were unpleasantly conspicuous on the faces and heads of prominent committeemen. Then the ravaged gardens had to be taken into consideration. Calmer judgment had convinced the residents that the destruction wrought was not all due to goats, and there was a general desire to visit the responsibility on the true culprits, whose identity was shrewdly suspected.

Friday was rather an eventful day at the school. The boys had heard of the meeting and expected serious developments. Mrs. Ben Steven called in the morning. She was a tall heavily-framed woman, short-tempered, and astonishingly voluble in her wrath. She had selected Richard Haddon as the vandal who had despoiled her cabbage-patch, and was seeking a just revenge. Already she had called upon Mrs. Haddon and delivered a long, loud, and fierce public lecture to the startled little widow on the moral responsibilities of parents, and the need they have of faithfully and regularly thrashing their sons as a duty they owe to their neighbors. Now it was her intention to incite Joel Ham to administer an adequate caning to the boy, or to do herself the bare justice of soundly spanking the culprit. She bounced into the school, angry, bare-armed, and eager for the 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, in peaceful 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 that boy.'

'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 at Mrs. 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 rose again.

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

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

'Do you hear me, Joel Ham?' Mrs. Ben Steven beat heavily on the desk with the 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 as Mrs. Steven rushed his place. The chase was obviously useless from the first; the woman had not a possible chance of catching Dick amongst the forms, but she tried while her breath lasted, rushing in and out amongst the classes, knocking a child over here and there, boxing the ears of others when they got in her way, and creating confusion and unbounded delight everywhere. The children were overjoyed, but Gable was much concerned for Dick, and stood up in his place ejaculating 'Crickey!'in a loud voice and following the hunt with frightened eyes.

Meanwhile Joel Ham, B.A., sat at his desk, contemplating the roof with profound interest, and taking a casual mechanical pull at his bottle. Joel was in a peculiar position: he was selected by the people of Waddy and 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 a small, slim man.

Mrs. Steven stood in front of the classes until she had recovered sufficient breath to start a fierce tirade; then, one hand on her hip and the other out-thrown, she thundered abuse at Richard Haddon and all his belongings. The master bore this for two or three minutes; then he slid from his stool, seized his longest cane, and thrashing the desk—his usual 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 was not a bit like the everyday Joel Ham, but quite imperious and fierce.

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

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

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

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

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

Peterson and Cann called late in the afternoon, as representatives of the School 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 in consideration of his position and scholarship.

Dick was called out and faced the men, firm-lipped and with unconquerable resolution 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 goats come 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 honour amongst all schoolboys never to 'split' on mates. The boy who tells is everywhere regarded as a sneak—at Waddy he speedily became a pariah—and Dick was a stickler for points of honour. To be caned was bad, but nothing to the gnawing shame of long weeks following upon a cowardly breach of faith. To all the questions Cann or Peterson could put with the object of eliciting the names of the participators in the big raid, Dick returned only a distressing and wofully stupid 'Dunno!

Peterson scratched his head helplessly, and turned an eye of appeal upon the 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's been the ring leader ain't got no father, an' it don't seem fair to the others to leave his punishment to a weak woman, does it?'

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

Joel Ham shook his head.

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

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

'Might you be able to spare us this boy fer the rest o' the afternoon, in the name o' the committee?' asked Cann. 'We'll go an' argue with his mother 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 in custody.

'Good day, Mrs. Haddon,' said the big man gingerly. 'O' course you know all '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 the goats 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 of suspects, an' the fathers of the boys named will lambaste 'em all thorough. Now it occurred to the committee that your boy, bein' the worst o' the pack, an' havin' confessed, oughter get a fair share o' the hammerin'.'

'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 appreciation of the extent of Dick's wickedness, and a full knowledge of her own inefficiency as a scourger. She looked down and debated anxiously with herself, carefully avoiding Dick's eye, and Dick watched her all the time, 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' it don't seem altogether square dealin' fer the others to get a proper hidin' an' him not. 'Sides, 'twould satisfy public feelin' better if one of us was to lam him. Sound, ma'am, but judicious,' said Cairn.

'Au' 'twould save you further trouble,' added Peterson. ''Twould ease the mind 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 him roughly?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

She led the boy into his room, and there addressed a diffident and halting speech to him. There were times when Mrs. Haddon had a sense of being younger and weaker than her son, and this was one of them. She felt it her duty to tell Dick of the sinfulness of his conduct, and to try to justify the punishment, but her words fell ineptly from her lips,—she knew them to be vain against the power that held Dick silent and tearless, and yet without a trace of boyish stubbornness. She was not a very wise little woman, or her son's force of character might have been turned early to good works and profitable courses.