ly confident that any pursuers
must now be thrown off the scent. Jim followed it till sundown,
when he had made some thirty miles; and then, withdrawing some
little distance from the tracks, he made his fire and camped for
the night.

He was now inside the line of the outlying stations, and had
approached to the edge of a bit of wild and broken country, which
offered so few inducements to settlers that it had been passed by
for the better land beyond; although occasionally, when herbage was
scarce, the settlers in the neighbourhood drove the animals up to
feed among its hills. The black had no doubt that the gang, of
which he was in pursuit, had their haunt somewhere in the heart of
this wild and little-known tract.

In the morning he again started and, after travelling several
miles, entered a narrow valley with very steep sides, with trees
and brushwood growing wherever they could get a foothold. He now
adopted a careless and indifferent carriage and, although he kept a
sharp lookout, no one who saw him would have supposed that he had
any particular object in view.

Presently he noticed that the tracks turned sharply off from the
line he had followed, in the centre of the valley; and entered the
trees, which grew thickly here at the foot of the hills. He made no
halt, even for an instant, but walked straight on. Half a mile
further he sat down and lit his fire, and began to cook some food.
He had no doubt that he was watched for, just after he passed the
point where the track turned off, he heard a very low whistle among
the trees.

As he sat by the fire, he kept his back towards the direction from
which he had come; and when he presently heard footsteps, no change
in his attitude betrayed that he was conscious of the fact that
persons were approaching him, until two men stopped beside him.
Then, with a cry as of sudden alarm, he leapt to his feet.

"Lor' a mussy!" he exclaimed, "de white man frighten me bery much.
What for dey no say dey come?"

"Who are you, nigger, and where do you come from, and what are you
doing here?"

"My name Jim," he said; "me going tro' the country looking for
place to tend hosses. Me bery good at hosses. Me look arter de
hosses ob Mr. Hudson."

"What did you leave him for?" one of the men asked, sternly.

"Someting lost from de house," Jim said quietly. "Massa Hudson tink
me took it. He make bobbery, so Jim ran away and look for nodder
place."

"Um," the man said; "I wonder