,
leading the remnants of his tribe to wreak a deadly vengeance on the
white usurper. A short conference was held in the garden.

'We'll go into one o' the old rooms, an' fix the joey up there. Then we
can wait till Hamlet comes, if yonse fellows 're game,' said Dick softly.

'I'm on,' whispered Peterson.

'He won't be long, I bet. McKnight, 'r Belman, 'r some o' the others is
sure to roust him out when he's properly tight. Foller me.'

Dick led the way up to the door, pushed it open, and entered. The others
were about to follow, but to their horror they saw a large figure start
forward from the pitch darkness beyond, heard an oath and the sound of a
blow, and saw Dick fall face downwards upon the floor. Then the door was
slammed from within, and the three terrorstricken boys turned and fled as
fast as their legs would carry them.

Dick lay upon the floor with outthrown arms, and the figure stood over
him in a listening attitude.

'Good God! 'ye you killed him?' cried someone in the far corner of the
room.

'Sh-h, you cursed fool!' hissed the big man.

'Who is it?' asked the other tremulously.

The big man seized Dick, and dragged him to where the grey moonlight
shone through a shattered window.

'Young Haddon,' he said. 'Blast the boy! a man never knows where he will
poke his nose next.'

'The others 'ye gone?'

'Yes. They were on'y boys.'

'Didn't I tell you it wouldn't do to be meetin' in places like this? No
more of it for me. They've been listenin', an' we're done men. We'll be
nabbed!'

'Shut up your infernal cackle! The boys hadn't any notion we was here.
They had some lark on. They couldn't have seen us--we're all right.'

'If they saw us together it'd be enough.'

'But they couldn't, I tell you. Here, clear out, the boy's comin' round.
Go the front way, an' make for the paddocks. I'll go up the gully. Look
slippy!'

A few seconds after the men had left the house Dick scrambled to his
feet, and stood for a moment in a confused condition of mind, rubbing his
injured head. Then he took up his hat and lantern, and stumbled from the
room. As yet he had only a vague idea of what had happened, and his head
felt very large and full of fly-wheels, as he expressed it later; but a
few moments in the open air served to revive him. Along by the big quarry
he met his mates returning. After talking the matter over they had come
to the conclusion that the schoolmaster had got a hint of their
intention, a