e up with
travelling. The poor fellow can hardly crawl, and was half starved;
so I set him to work eating, and came off to fetch you."

By this time they had arrived at the door of the shed. Jim was
sitting by a fire, eagerly devouring a hunch of cold meat. The men
were standing round, waiting till he had appeased his hunger before
they asked any question. He looked up and nodded, when Reuben
entered.

"Well, Jim, I am glad to see you back," Reuben said heartily. "I
was beginning to be afraid about you. I hope you are not
hurt?"--for the black had a handkerchief tied round his head.

Jim gave a grunt, but continued stuffing great lumps of meat into
his mouth. Reuben saw that he must wait till the black's hunger was
satisfied, and stood quietly looking on until, having devoured some
five pounds of meat, he gave a sigh of contentment, and then took a
long draught of rum and water, which Constable Jones handed to him.

"Jim better now," he said.

"That's right, Jim; now tell us all about it."

Jim's story was a long one, and it took more than an hour in the
telling; for his English was not always distinct, and it often
required much questioning, on Reuben's part, before he could quite
make out its meaning. The substance was as follows:

On leaving, some ten days before, on the mission of discovering the
haunt of the bush rangers, he knew that it was of no use to go
among the wild blacks, their allies; as the hostility against their
semi-civilized fellows was so great that he would, at once, have
been killed. He resolved to go back to the spot where the track had
been obliterated, by that of the flock of sheep; to make a wide
circuit, and pick it up beyond and, if possible, follow it until he
found them. The difficulties were great, for the bush rangers had
spared no pains in hiding their trail; keeping always upon hard,
high ground, and at one time getting into the bed of a running
stream, and following it for two miles before they again struck for
their rendezvous.

However, step by step Jim had tracked them; sometimes losing the
trail altogether, sometimes guided merely by a fresh-made scratch
on the surface of a stone, or by a broken twig or bruised blade of
grass. At last, he traced it far out into the bush, many miles
beyond the furthest range of settlements, and then he lost it
altogether. There had been a halt, for some time, at this spot.

Beyond this, Jim was entirely at fault. He made circle after cir