ary feeling akin to awe--it was the
first time they had seen or heard of Barber wavering.

"No one _shall_ harm her," Slaughter cried. "If any man harms her by
word or deed, he'll have me to answer. Do you hear?" he shouted,
flinging round on Dickson, who started and cowered.

"The boy said nothing," Barber exclaimed. "Come, get out of it," he
added to Dickson, as he went up to him and, taking him by the arm,
roughly, pushed him out of the hut.

Slaughter stood where he was, and Tap slunk out after the others.

"You young fool," Barber said, as he pushed Dickson along towards the
paddock where his horse was, gripping his arm so fiercely that the boy
writhed with the pain of it, and yet was too frightened to cry out, "if
our game goes wrong through your tricks, we'll flay you. You keep out of
sight till I send for you; do you hear?"

Tap came up behind them as Barber was speaking.

"We had best meet somewhere else, and----"

Barber glanced round. If he had given way to Slaughter he was not going
to allow any one else to override him.

"Are you boss of this game or am I?" he said quickly; and Tap held back.
"You ride straight back to Barellan," he added to Dickson. "When I want
you I'll send for you, so you'll be on hand any time; and if you play up
any more tricks till my game's through, look out."

He pushed him away as he spoke, and Dickson hastily caught his horse and
rode off without a word. As he disappeared, Tap said in a cringing
voice--

"He's like his mother--only good for a sneak thief."

"He's the dead spit of his father, if you want to know," Barber answered
savagely; and Tap again slunk back.

CHAPTER XVII.

A BUSHMAN'S BANKER.

When Bobby Murray rode from Birralong with a couple of months' supply of
stores for the mining camp, he found that during his brief absence the
others had made great progress in their work. The boulder which had
first revealed the secrets of Peters's reef, had been entirely broken up
and crushed, with such crude appliances as the three were able to
construct, the result, a heap of coarse gold, testifying that, even if
crude, the appliances were effective. Other boulders had also been
disposed of and the free, coarse gold extracted; while the tailings, or
residue from the crushings, were carefully piled up by Palmer Billy, the
blowpipe of Peters, now almost a fetish with the former sceptic, having
shown that gold in considerable quantity still remained to be e