ays more,
and then, considering that the soldiers had ceased their pursuit long
ago, they encamped for ten days, enjoying to the utmost their recovered
freedom and their immunity from work of any kind. Then they returned
to the neighborhood of the settlements, and broke up, as their leader
proposed, into pairs.

They had been there but a short time before the depredations committed
roused the settlers to band themselves together. Every horse that could
be spared was lent to the military, who formed a mounted patrol of
forty men, while parties of infantry, guided by native trackers, were
constantly on the scent for the convicts.

"This is just what I expected," Captain Wild said to his lieutenant. "It
was the choice of two evils, and I am not sure that the plan we chose
was not the worst. We might have been quite sure that these fellows
would not be able, even for a time, to give up their old ways. If they
had confined themselves, as we have done, to taking a sheep when they
wanted it, and behaving civilly when they went to one of the houses and
begged for a few pounds of flour or tea, the settlers would have made no
great complaint of us; they know what a hard time we have had, and you
can see that some of the women were really sorry for us, and gave us
more than we actually asked for. But it has not been so with the others.
They had been breaking into houses, stealing every thing they could lay
their hands upon, and in three or four cases shooting down men on the
slightest provocation.

"The money and watches were no good to them, but the brutes could not
help stealing them; so here we are, and the settlement is like a swarm
of angry bees, and this plan of handing over most of their horses to the
military will end in all of us being hunted down if we stay here. Two
were shot yesterday, and in another week we shall all either be killed
or caught. There is nothing for it but to clear out. I am against
violence, not on principle, but because in this case it sets people's
backs up; but it cannot be helped now. We must get a couple of horses
to ride, and a spare one to carry our swag. We must have half a sack of
flour and a sheep--it is no use taking more than one, because the meat
won't keep--and a good stock of tea and sugar. We must get a good supply
of powder, if we can, some bullets and shot. We shall have to get our
meat by shooting.

"There is no time to be lost, and tonight we had better go to that
settler's pl