rs. Wilson laughed.

"No, I don't want to frighten him, George. I only want to make him
careful."

"I will be as careful as I can, Mrs. Wilson. That boy Jim is a
treasure. I will warrant, if there are any black fellows about, he
will sniff them out somehow. That fellow has a nose like a hound.
He has always been most useful to me, but he will be invaluable at
Goora."

Two days afterwards, Reuben left for his new command. It took him
eight days to reach it. His headquarters were at Goora, a
settlement of some twenty houses; besides the barracks in which the
constabulary force, consisting of a sergeant, eighteen constables,
and two native trackers, were quartered. The sergeant, a
north-country Irishman named O'Connor, was somewhat surprised when
Reuben rode up to the station; for the officers previously in
command had been much older men.

Reuben's own quarters were in a cottage, close to the main
building, and he asked the sergeant to come, in the evening.

"Now, sergeant," he said, after a little preliminary talk, "I have
been sent up by Captain Wilson, with instructions to root out these
bands of bush rangers."

The sergeant smiled grimly.

"We have been doing our best for the last three years, sir, but we
have not made much of a hand at it."

"No," Reuben agreed, "and I don't suppose, of course, that I am
going to succeed all at once. In the first place, tell me frankly,
what sort of men have we got?"

"The men are good enough, sir, but they have certainly got
disheartened, lately. One way and another, we have lost something
like ten men in the last two years; and of course, that last affair
with poor Mr. Thomas was a bad one."

"I understand," Reuben said quietly, "some of them are not quite so
eager to meet the bush rangers as they used to be."

"Well, that is perhaps about it, sir; but I must say the men have
been tremendously hardly worked--pretty nigh night and day in the
saddle, often called out by false news to one end of the district;
and then to find, when they return, that those scoundrels have been
down playing their games at some station at the other end. It's
enough to dishearten a man."

"So it is, sergeant. I was speaking to Captain Wilson about it, and
saying that if we are to succeed we ought to have some fresh hands,
who will take up the work with new spirit. We are seven below our
force, at present; and he has promised to send me up fifteen new
hands, so there will be eight to be r