ir danger.

'They're after us!' exclaimed Dick. 'Scatter an' run for the scrub. Meet
at the mine!'

The pursuers dashed up on their horses just as the boys swarmed over the
fence into Wilson's paddock. It was the party of young men who first
passed the bushrangers, and the man on the grey horse. They were armed
with bottles, three parts drunk, and bent on making an heroic capture.
Some of them sprang from their horses and pursued the flying bushrangers
through the trees.

Dick and Peterson reached the Gaol Quarry safely, and sat in doleful
silence waiting for their mates, and wondering if any had been taken. Ted
and Jacker joined them a few minutes later, and Phil Doon came limping up
in the course of a quarter of an hour. He had bad news.

'They've got Gable!' he cried from a distance.

'No. Go on!'

'S'help me. I fell gettin' over the fence an' sneaked into a hollow tree,
an' saw 'em snavel him. 'Here's one of 'em' said one, an' they put him on
a horse an' tied his legs under its belly, an' they've gone into Yarraman
with him.'

'Gee-rusalem! An' what'd he say?' gasped Dick.

'Nothin' 'sept 'Oh, crickey!''

'Well, he won't split on us. He won't know a word about it in the
mornin'. We're all right if none of us blabs. You fellers goin' to stay?'

'I ain't. I'm sick o' bein' a bushranger,' said Jacker, with a reflective
and remorseful rub at his hurt place.

'So'm I,' said Ted.

Phil Doon, it appeared, had pressing reasons for returning home, but
Peterson remembered that he had still an account to settle with his
father, and resolved to share Dick's fortune.

'Right you are,' said Dick. 'You fellers bring some crib to-morrer, an'
if you see Parrot Cann tell him to fetch some too--an', mind, no
blabbin'.'

Reverses of this kind did not depress him; he had experienced many
failures, but the wreck of one enterprise only implied the necessity of
starting another.

'Say,' he said mysteriously, 'there's a big reason why we should keep
things darker'n ever. Listen. We've struck the reef!

The others stared incredulously.

'You're havin' us,' said Jacker.

'Am I? Tell 'em, Billy.'

'No, he ain't,' said Peterson. 'It's true, strike me breath. We got a
specimen this mornin' wif three colours in it.'

'So if anyone's told where we're hidin' they'll see the stone an' go an'
jump the mine,' said Dick artfully.

CHAPTER XIV.

NEITHER of the McKnights nor Parrot came to the boys on the Sunday
morning,