nspector Dering attached
himself very attentively to Verna. He was aware of her engagement, but
he was an Irishman, and therefore bound to attach himself to the
best-looking woman present. Harry Stride was rather silent, hardly
talking with the other prospectors, among whom he had chosen to keep
himself. But when the after-lunch pipes came out, Bray, with an escort
of a dozen men, started off to examine the drift for himself, and with
him went Denham.

It was barely two miles off. The river, not a wide one, swirled between
high, clayey banks fringed with dense bush. If attacked at the point of
crossing the matter might be serious.

He was relieved. The high-water mark of the flood had left a broad, wet
stripe between it and the surface. The stream was subsiding rapidly.

"In half-an-hour we shall be able to take it," he said. "Hallo! Don't
see anything, Denham?"

"Yes," said the latter, with his glasses to his eyes. "It looks like
cattle. Yes, it is; black and white ones. But they are not being
driven; they seem to be grazing."

Away on the hill, some seven hundred yards beyond the river, where the
bush thinned out into rocks and open ground, white specks were visible
to the naked eye.

"It's a signal, I believe," said Bray. "Well, we'll take the drift now,
at any rate. If we are to have a fight here, I prefer it by daylight."
And he ordered a trooper to gallop back to the camp with instructions to
saddle up and inspan immediately.

In a surprisingly short space of time the troop was ready to march. But
a delay occurred through Minton's rotten harness, which kept giving way
in all sorts of unexpected directions. Inspector Bray cursed hideously
to himself; but for the presence of the women he might have earned
heartfelt admiration from his troop at large by reason of his proficient
originality in that direction. Willing hands, and handy ones, there
were and plenty, but by the time the damage was repaired quite a
considerable portion of precious time had been wasted.

Again at the drift more delay. The storekeeper's wretched horses stuck.
All the flogging in the world was of no use; and there was the trap in
the middle of the stream, the water flowing through the bottom boards
soaking everything, and the woman and children howling dismally. Had an
attack been delivered then the result might have been disastrous. But
Ben Halse outspanned his pair and hitched them on, and by this aid, and
much