low the
blacks, but of course it was no use. They had pretty near two days'
start.

"The father never took to his farm again, but hung about the out
stations, doing a job here and there for his grub. Sometimes he
would be away for a bit, and when he came back, though he never
talked about it, everyone knew he had been out hunting the blacks.

"I do not know how many of them he killed, but I know he never
spared one, when he got him outside the settlement. After a time
the blacks never troubled that part. So many of them had been
killed that they got a superstitious fear of the man, and believed
he was possessed of an evil spirit; and I don't believe twenty of
them, together, would have dared to attack him.

"At last, from some of the half-tamed blacks in the settlement, he
got to hear some sort of rumour that there was a white girl, living
with one of the tribes far out in their country, and he set out. He
was away four months, and he never said what he had been doing all
the time. In fact, he started almost directly for the port, and
went home by the next ship.

"However, he brought his child back with him. It was four years
since she had been carried off, and she was a regular little
savage, when she arrived in the settlement with him. Of course she
could not speak a word of English, and was as fierce as a little
wildcat. I expect she got all right, after a bit.

"I didn't see the man, but I heard he was worn to a shadow, when he
got back. He must have had an awful time of it, in the bush. What
with hunger and thirst, and dodging the blacks, I don't know how he
lived through it; but he looked contented and happy, in spite of
his starvation, and they say it was wonderful to see how patient he
was with the child.

"They got up a subscription, at Sydney, to send them both home. I
heard that the captain of the ship he went in said, when he came
back the next voyage, that the child had taken to him, and had got
civilized and like other children before they got to England."

"Of course, such fellows as Cockeye and Fothergill are the
exceptions, and not the rule," Mr. Blount said. "Were there many of
such scoundrels about, we should have to abandon our settlements
and make war upon them; for there would be no living in the colony
till they were exterminated. Most of these fellows are the colonial
version of the highwaymen, at home. It is just 'Stand and deliver.'
They content themselves with taking what they can fi